DECEMBER 2011 ISSUE MMUSICMAG.COM

78

BEHIND THE CLASSICS

On Jan. 29, 1967, a relatively new act called the Jimi Hendrix Experience took the stage at London’s Saville Theatre. In the audience were guitarist Eric Clapton and bass player Jack Bruce of rock supergroup Cream. Clapton had been a zealous Hendrix fan for months, but Bruce was more skeptical. “Jack took a little longer to realize what was happening,” Clapton recalled. “And when he did see it that night, after the gig he went home and came up with the riff. It was strictly a dedication to Jimi.” “The riff” in question was a telegraphic 10-note monster intended to invoke the heaviness of Hendrix’s early material.

The following May, Cream was booked to squeeze in three days of recording at Manhattan’s Atlantic Studios with an eye toward completing its second album, Disraeli Gears. In the weeks leading up to the American visit, the group scrambled to come up with new material. One evening Bruce and lyricist Pete Brown spent around 10 hours trying in vain to piece together something suitable. “In desperation,” Brown said, “Jack grabbed his double bass and said, ‘What about this?’” Bruce plucked out his Hendrix-inspired riff, just as Brown observed the impending sunrise and began penning a

lyric to match. “It’s getting near dawn,” Brown wrote, “as lights close their tired eyes …”

Bruce brought the result with him to Cream’s next rehearsal. Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker were enthusiastic about the number, but noted its lack of a chorus—which Clapton promptly provided, in the process adding a snatch of lyric that would give the song its title. “I’ve been waiting so long to be where I’m going,” he sang, “in the sunshine of your love.” The new tune was one of a handful the group brought to New York, where “Sunshine of Your Love” met with a chilly reception from Atlantic co-founder Ahmet Ertegun. He called the song “psychedelic hogwash” and wanted the group to focus on straight blues—but “Sunshine” would find valuable in-house boosters in Atlantic regulars Booker T. Jones and Otis Redding, both of whom were certain it was a hit. The song’s place secured, Felix Pappalardi and engineer Tom Dowd were tasked with capturing Cream on tape in all its glory. “They recorded at ear-shattering levels,” said Dowd, who pegged the volume in the studio at about 125 dBs. “I never saw anything so powerful in my life, and it was just frightening.”

Ownership of one of the track’s most

basic features has been disputed for decades. Baker claims that it was he who invented the distinctive tribal drumbeat of “Sunshine,” influenced by the African music with which he was entranced at the time. Dowd (who passed away in 2002) always insisted that he had suggested Baker emulate the stereotypical Native American drumbeat from American movie Westerns. In any event, it was Baker who elected to emphasize the one and three beats rather than the two and four—as Baker noted, “Totally upside down from a normal rock ’n’ roll approach.” Clapton, playing a 1964 Gibson SG Standard through Marshall amps, added a cheeky touch by quoting the ’30s Rodgers and Hart standard “Blue Moon” in his solo. When Dowd asked why, Clapton replied, “I want to show people that things in music haven’t changed.”

“Sunshine of Your Love” became Cream’s first major American hit in early 1968, but just a few months later the fractious trio announced its breakup. Cream fan Jimi Hendrix saluted the just-dissolved act onstage by playing his own rendition of a song that, by all accounts, he never knew he had inspired: “Sunshine of Your Love.”

–Chris Neal

“Sunshine of Your Love” CREAM

WRITTEN BY: PETE BROWN, JACK BRUCE,

ERIC CLAPTON

RECORDED: ATLANTIC STUDIOS,

NEW YORK CITY, MAY 1967

PRODUCED BY: FELIX PAPPALARDI

BASS, VOCALS: JACK BRUCE

GUITARS, VOCALS: ERIC CLAPTON

DRUMS: GINGER BAKER

FROM THE ALBUM: DISRAELI GEARS (1967)

Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton onstage during Cream’s brief 2005 London reunion

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