Cream

Cream was three musicians from already successful bands who joined forces in London in 1966, and they are widely held to be rock's first supergroup. Jack Bruce played bass and did most of the singing and songwriting, Eric Clapton played guitar, and Ginger Baker played drums, and all three could play circles around most of the competition. The idea was simple: take the blues, crank the volume and let the musicians stretch out.

Fresh Cream, with "I'm So Glad", came first. Disraeli Gears, in 1967, is where they turned psychedelic, with producer and multi-instrumentalist Felix Pappalardi joining them in the studio from here on: "Sunshine of Your Love" rides a riff as thick as a brick wall, and "Tales of Brave Ulysses" and "Strange Brew" drip with woozy color. Wheels of Fire, in 1968, brought the brooding "White Room" and a scorching "Crossroads", and it became the first double album to go platinum.

It burned out fast. Friction between Bruce and Baker led them to call it quits in May 1968, but they made one more album, Goodbye, with "Badge", and played their farewell at the Royal Albert Hall on 25 and 26 November 1968. They sold more than 15 million records, came back together for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993 and for concerts in 2005, and with Bruce gone in 2014 and Baker in 2019, Clapton is the last one standing.

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