Wheels of Fire by Cream

Wheels of Fire, Cream's third album, landed in America on 14 June 1968 and in Britain on August 9: a two-record set, one disc cut in the studio and the other captured live. Felix Pappalardi, who had come aboard with Disraeli Gears, produced, and by the time the thing was in the shops Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker had already decided in May to call it quits, worn down by the friction between Bruce and Baker.

The split is right there in the grooves: the studio side reaches for strange colors, while the live side lets three virtuosos off the leash to push the blues as far and as loud as it will go. "Crossroads" is the one that endures, Clapton's guitar tearing through it like a man with somewhere to be. It went on to become the first double album ever to sell platinum.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.