◄ Cream's song Sunshine of Your Life is ranked 75 on VH1's 100 Greatest Songs of Rock & Roll.
◄ Cream is 16 on VH1's 100 Greatest Artist of Hard Rock.
◄ Clapton's red Gibson ES-335 guitar, which became known as the "Cream" guitar due to it's extensive use during the last days of the band's touring, sold in a 1999 auction to the U.S. music retailer, Guitar Center for $847,500.
◄ Cream's final album Goodbye reached 2 on the charts in 1969
◄ Where most reunion bands lower song keys to make high notes easier to reach, Cream performed all the songs during the 2005 reunion concerts in their original keys.
◄ The set list for the 2005 reunion concerts consisted of 19 songs agreed upon by all three members. Cream rehearsed 5 days a week for three weeks prior to the first concert.
◄ It wasn't until a young Jack Bruce saw bassist Percy Heath perform with the Modern Jazz Quartet that he fell in love with the instrument. Jack's playing with Cream inspired many now famous bassists in the same way.
◄ Jack Bruce was the principal songwriter of and lead singer on most of Cream's songs.
◄ Cream was honored for their contributions to music with a Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2006 Grammy Awards.
◄ The album title Disraeli Gears came about while the band and crew were in the midst of playing a word game where you made phrases out of words or names. Someone in the crew changed the words "derauiller gears" (found on racing bicycles) to "Disraeli Gears", Disraeli being a former British Prime Minister. The original title of Cream was dropped and Disraeli Gears became the title for Cream's second studio album.
◄ Baker and Bruce were in the British group The Graham Bond Organization before joining with Clapton to form Cream. While in GBO, the open friction between the two would sometimes lead to equipment sabotage and onstage fighting. After joining Cream, the onstage antics calmed but the animosity remained throughout their time together.
◄ Cream is considered one of the earliest heavy rock bands, even though Bruce and Baker were jazz players and Clapton played blues prior to their joining together.
◄ Cream performed more than 300 live concerts in the 30 months they were together.
◄ Cream produced only seven original studio and live albums, plus three compilations. Total sales from all albums exceeds 35-million units worldwide.
◄ In order to provide a thicker sound, and to help with what he called his "lead bass" playing, Jack Bruce would many times use the Fender VI six string bass on many of Cream's recordings and in concert.
◄ Cream reunited in May of 2005 for four concerts at the famed Royal Albert Hall in London, the site of their final concert in 1968.
◄ After their breakup in 1968, the members of Cream did not play together again until their induction ceremony in 1993 at the Rock and Roll Hame Of Fame.
◄ Cream broke up in November of 1968 due mostly to personality conflicts and disputes.
◄ In rock music circles, Cream is considered the first Jam Band.
◄ Cream was formed in mid 1966 after Eric Clapton left John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.
◄ The song Badge, from Cream's Goodbye album, was written by George Harrison with help from Eric Clapton. The song's title came from an event that happened when Clapton entered a room Harrison was in writing the song. Clapton approached the desk and looked down at the upside down sheet of paper, which had a word at the top. Clapton asked if the song was called Badge. The word Harrison had written was actually "bridge", which is a middle break in the song, usually for an instrumental solo. The name stuck.
◄ Beatle George Harrison played guitar on the song Badge under the pseudonym 'L'Angelo Misterioso' because of contractual reasons.
◄ Guitarist Joe Walsh (James Gang, Eagles) called Clapton's guitar solo in the live version of the song Crossroads the perfect rock guitar solo.
◄ Cream is considered to be the first power trio of the rock world.