The 500 - #102 - Fresh Cream - Cream

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

---

Album: #102

Album Title: Fresh Cream

Artist: Cream

Genre: Blues Rock, Psychedelic Rock

Recorded: Rayrik and Ryemuse Studios, London, England

Released: December, 1966

My age at release: 1

How familiar was I with it before this week: Several songs

Is it on the 2020 list? No

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: I'm So Glad

Like any profession, members in a rock band arrive preloaded with their own set of stereotypes and jokes. They are usually a mix of funny, unfair, exaggerated...and, sometimes, painfully accurate.

The lead singer is the egotistical prima-donna, primping before a show.

Q: How many lead singers does it take to screw in a lightbulb? 

A: One -- he just holds it up and expects the world to revolve around him. 

The lead guitarist? Talented, brilliant, and a seemingly effortless player; but not built for much else. 

Q: What do you call a guitarist without a girlfriend? 

A: Homeless. 

The bassist? Steady, dependable, but terribly dull. He is stereotyped as the human equivalent of beige wallpaper.

Q: What do bass players use for birth control?

A: Their personalities.

And the drummer? Legendarily depicted as the wild man in the band. They are loud, unpredictable and, much like their Muppet counterpart "Animal", possibly feral. 

Animal, the drummer, from The Muppet Show band, 
Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem.

In fact, Animal, the drummer in the fictional band Dr. Teeth and the Electric Mayhem on The Muppet Show (1976-1981), was conceived as a mash-up of three of Rock music's most notorious madmen, musicians as famous for their chaos as their percussive chops. Animal was a creation of Jim Henson’s Muppet team. He was designed by Michael K. Frith and brought to unhinged life by Frank Oz. Henson's team have confirmed that he was a composite character based on drummers Keith Moon (The Who), John Bonham (Led Zeppelin) and Ginger Baker (Cream) -- perhaps leading to the decision to give him red hair. Collectively, this trio of musicians have 15 records on The 500 list, but their off-stage mayhem is equally legendary.  I touched on Moon's antics when I wrote about The Who's My Generation, (#237) in November, 2023, and there will be plenty of time to discuss Bonham in future posts -- four Zeppelin albums are in the top 100.

This week, let's focus on Peter Edward Baker, who embraced the sobriquet "Ginger" because his fiery red hair matched his equally combustible temperament. Born in South London in 1939, Ginger’s life was shaped early by loss. His father, a lance corporal in the British Army, was killed in World War II when Ginger was just four. School never quite held him. He was restless, often in trouble and drawn more to rhythm than routine. A brief start on the trumpet gave way to drums, and by his mid-teens he was sitting in with bands around London, soaking up the influence of jazz greats.

A young Baker pounding the skins with London Jazz bands.

By the early 1960s, Baker had carved out a reputation on the British jazz and R&B circuit, where he met bassist Jack Bruce when the two of them played in the Graham Bond Organisation in 1963. Their partnership was electric and volatile, marked by arguments, onstage clashes, and at least one story involving a smashed instrument. It was a relationship that seemed destined to implode, yet in 1966 Baker insisted on bringing Bruce into a new band he was forming with Eric Clapton. That band was Cream.

Cream were (l-r) Bruce, Baker and Clapton. 

The group's debut record, Fresh Cream, lands at #102 on The 500, and I have already written about their psychedelic breakthrough -- Disraeli Gears (#114) and their final full studio release, Wheels of Fire (#205). Three albums in just over two years, all canonized. Not bad for a band that could barely stand to be in the same room together.

Cream, performing.

Cream channeled musical chemistry, but it was a volatile concoction. Baker's explosive drumming style and combustible temperament spilled into every corner of the band’s existence. Fights were frequent, especially with Jack Bruce. Arguments boiled over into physical confrontations that went well beyond artistic disagreement. This was open warfare and Bruce even reported keeping a knife in his pocket in preparation for Baker's drumstick assaults.

Baker in studio.

And then there were the excesses, especially the drug use. Cream burned bright and fast because it almost had to. Sustaining their level of intensity, musically and personally, was never a possibility. All three continued their music futures, with Clapton and Baker reuniting briefly in the group Blind Faith. Bruce and Clapton ultimately continued on more conventional paths, working with a variety of collaborative and solo projects over the next 50 years. Baker, however, marched to a different beat, a continent away. For him, the next move wasn’t to form another band or clean up his act. It was to leave. At the start of the 1970s, restless, strung out on heroin, and still chasing something he couldn’t quite name, he walked into a dealership, bought a Range Rover, and decided to drive to Africa. That's right, the lunatic didn't want to fly...he wanted to drive.

Baker and his Range Rover, en route to Nigeria.

What followed was less a road trip and more an act of obsession, chalking up thousands of miles from London, across Europe, through the Mediterranean, and then deep into North Africa, navigating the Sahara with fuel cans strapped to the vehicle and wrecked cars littering the roadside like warnings. He was arrested along the way, nearly stranded more than once, and kept going.

Baker fixing his Range Rover in the Sahara.

It was a pilgrimage. Baker was chasing rhythm at its source, drawn by the music of Fela Kuti, whose Afrobeat fused jazz, funk and West African traditions into something new. When Baker finally arrived in Lagos, he didn’t just visit. He stayed, built a studio, and immersed himself in the music, proving once again that for him, chaos wasn’t a detour. It was the path. I recommend highly, their collaborative record from 1970. Recorded in Abbey Road Studios in July, 1971, Live!, is an intoxicating blend of afrobeat, fused with American funk and jazz. Baker only appears on two tracks, but both are funky, 13 minute jams.

To appreciate more fully the madness, the genius, and the fury of Ginger Baker, it’s also worth spending 90 minutes with the 2012 documentary Beware of Mr. Baker. Directed by Jay Bulger, the film is a clear‑eyed portrait of a musician whose brilliance is inseparable from his volatility.

Poster for documentary, Beware Of Mr. Baker.

The documentary traces Baker’s life from his early days in London jazz clubs through Cream, Africa, and into his later years living in semi‑isolation on a fortified compound in South Africa. The title is taken from a rusting sign near the compound’s front gate.

Rusted sign outside Baker's compound in South Africa.

The sign reveals much about the unorthodox Mr. Baker: the innovation, the influence, the addiction, the broken relationships, the financial ruin, and the stubborn refusal to soften with age.

Interviews with Clapton, Bruce and others circle around the same conclusion. Baker may have been one of the most important drummers in rock history, but he was also a most difficult man to be around. The film doesn’t just tell you that. It shows you in the first few minutes when Baker attacks Bulger, the film-maker, striking him with a cane hard enough to leave his victim bloodied after taking issue over how the film was being made. See the clip here.

Baker, in a screen capture from Beware Of Mr. Baker,
striking the documentarian, Bulger.

Which brings us back to where we started. Those stereotypes exist for a reason: The guitarist, lost in his own world. The bassist holding it all together in the background. And the drummer...the animal at the back of the stage.

Because in the end, Ginger Baker didn’t just play like the wild man behind the kit. He lived like him, too.

The 500 - #116 - Out Of Our Heads - The Rolling Stones

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

---

Album #:116
Album Title: Out Of Our Heads
Artist: The Rolling Stones
Genre: Blues Rock, British R&B, Blue Eyed Soul, Rock and Roll
Recorded: Multiple Studios in London, Chicago, Los Angeles

Released: U.S. Version released July, 1965
My age at release: 19 days
How familiar was I with it before this week: Somewhat
Is it on the 2020 list? No

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: I Can't Get No (Satisfaction)

Many years ago, I received a birthday card styled as the front page of a newspaper. It featured the major events of 1965, my birth year,  along with pop‑culture trivia and a roster of celebrities born on the same day. It looked something like this version I found on the internet:

The #1 hit on U.S. radio charts on the day I was born was (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction by The Rolling Stones, which was released as a single a month before their third studio record, Out Of Our Heads, hit shelves. It was the first of eight #1 singles for the English rockers and one of 23 to hit the Top 10. Initially, it was only played on underground, pirate radio stations because the lyrics, which reference sexual frustration and commercialism, were deemed too provocative for public airways.

Album jacked for the single release of (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction.

The song begins with one of the most recognizable guitar riffs in modern music and it was one that would influence rock and roll bands for years. Before 1965, riffs were cleanly toned, blues-based and served the vocal melody.

Guitarist Keith Richard's fuzz-soaked repetitive hook flipped that script. The riff became the focus of the song, and everything else hung off it. That approach to song writing became the blueprint for future superstar bands, including Led Zeppelin, The Who, Aerosmith, AC/DC and every hopeful garage band rocker since.

Richard's legendary riff as a music score and guitar tab.

Legend has it the riff came to Richards in his sleep. He later said he didn’t even realize he’d written it until the next morning when he found his Phillips cassette recorder beside his acoustic guitar. On the tape were about two minutes of guitar playing, including the now‑famous riff, followed by the sound of his pick dropping to the floor and roughly 40 minutes of snoring.

Keith Richards in 1965.

A popular ice‑breaker I've encountered at staff meetings and education conferences borrows from the world of boxing and pro wrestling, where fighters enter the arena to loud, high‑energy “entrance music.”

Whenever the question about my “entrance music” comes up, I usually default to something heavy and brash from Rage Against the Machine or Soundgarden. However, I think that needs to change. Satisfaction was literally the song filling the air on the day I entered the world, so it feels right to honour that coincidence and make it my choice the next time I’m asked. The riff certainly works, even if the lyrics cast me as a bit of a pessimist.

Granted, there are some other, ironic and funny Top 10 choices for entrance music that also turned 60 last summer.

I Can't Help Myself - The Four Tops
What The World Needs Now Is Love - Del Shannon

What's New Pussycat? - Tom Jones

Yes I'm Ready - Barbara Mason

Mr. Tambourine Man - The Byrds

How about you? What songs were in the Top 10 the month you were born?

Would any make a powerful, or comedic, impact as your "entrance music"?

The 500 - #117 - Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs - Derek and the Dominos

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

---

Album #:117
Album Title: Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs
Artist: Derek and the Dominos
Genre: Blues Rock
Recorded: Criteria Studios (Miami, Florida)

Released: November, 1970
My age at release: 5
How familiar was I with it before this week: Quite well
Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #226, dropping 109 spots

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Layla

In a way, the story of this record, the only release from British blues rock sextet Derek and The Dominos, begins in the west Arabian Peninsula during the 7th Century.

Bedouin poet Qays ibn al-Moullawwah was just a boy tending flocks of sheep with his cousin, Layla. The pair belonged to the Banu Amir tribe, and their early bonding blossomed into a deep, but forbidden love as they became adults. Their relationship gave rise to a legend and then a poem titled majnūn laylā, sometimes anglicized to Layla and Majnun, but better translated to Layla's Mad Lover.

A modern sketch of al-Moullawwah by
Lebanese-American poet Khalil Gibran.

As the story goes, when al-Moullawwah and Layla fell in love as adolescents, he began composing poems about his feelings for her – feelings which became obsessive. Some locals began calling him "Majnun" -- which translates to "mentally unhinged".

Undaunted, al-Moullawwah asked for her hand in marriage. Her father refused and, shortly after, forcibly married her off to a noble and rich merchant of the Thaqif tribe in the city of Ta'if -- a city that still exists in Saudi Arabia.

When word of her marriage reached Majnun, he fled the tribal camp and vanished into the desert. His family, despairing of his return, left food for him among the rocks and scrub. Those who passed through the wilderness claimed they saw him wandering alone, reciting poetry aloud or carving verses in the sand with a slender stick.

Majnun in the Wilderness -- unknown artist.

Layla moved to a place in Northern Arabia with her husband, where she became ill and died. In some versions, she dies of heartbreak from not being able to see her beloved. Majnun was later found dead in the wilderness in 688 AD, near Layla's grave. He had, reportedly, carved three verses of poetry on a rock nearby They are the last three verses attributed to him.

Part of a poem composed after Layla's
marriage and before Majnun's descent
into madness.

The story of Layla and Majnun has inspired more than a thousand years of artistic creation across cultures, languages and art forms. Originating in 7th‑century Arabic poetry, it was transformed into one of the great masterpieces of Persian literature by Nizami Ganjavi and went on to influence poets from India to the Ottoman world.

The legend has been adapted into operas, ballets, plays, films, miniature paintings and modern dance works, and it continues to shape contemporary storytelling. In Western culture, its theme echoes in works such as Romeo and Juliet and in other stories, including the ill-fated Abelard and Heloise.

In particular, the theme is incorporated in modern popular music, most famously by Eric Clapton and Jim Gordon, whose composition, Layla, appears on this week's record by Derek and the Dominos. Across time and geography, the story endures as a powerful symbol of forbidden love, artistic obsession, and the idea that love itself can become a form of mad devotion.

Layla single album jacket,

Derek and the Dominos were a short‑lived but hugely influential blues‑rock band formed in spring,1970, by Eric Clapton, alongside Bobby Whitlock (keyboards, vocals), Carl Radle (bass), and Jim Gordon (drums). All four musicians had previously played together in Delaney & Bonnie and Friends, a touring soul‑rock ensemble that Clapton joined after the breakup of his high‑profile supergroup Blind Faith.

Delaney & Bonnie Bramlett were an American husband
and wife duo who performed soul, rock, blues and country music.

Wanting to escape the pressure and celebrity attached to his name, Clapton adopted the alias “Derek” so the group could function as a more anonymous, collaborative band rather than a star‑led project. The group solidified while backing George Harrison on sessions for All Things Must Pass (#433 on The 500) and soon began recording their own music in Miami with guest guitarists Duane Allman and Dave Mason.

Clapton (left) with Allman in 1970.

The band released just one studio album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, which is now regarded as one of the greatest albums in rock history. Despite the creative success, Derek and the Dominos fell apart in 1971, less than a year after forming. The breakup was driven by a combination of factors: severe drug addiction (especially Clapton’s heroin use), internal tensions, exhaustion from touring, and emotional strain following Duane Allman’s death, which happened within a year of this release. Attempts to record a second album collapsed, and the group quietly dissolved without a formal announcement. Although brief, Derek and the Dominos left a lasting legacy, defined by raw emotional intensity and a single monumental recording.

Allman died following a motorcycle crash, he was 24.

In tracing the arc from the ancient Arabic poem to Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs, the connection becomes more than a clever literary reference: it becomes a shared emotional architecture. The legend of Layla and Majnun is not simply a story about romance, but about love that cannot be acted upon, love that survives only through expression. Majnun’s devotion is rendered through poetry whispered to himself, traced in desert sand and finally, painfully, carved into stone. Centuries later, Eric Clapton encountered this same emotional aching in his own life when he fell in love with model Pattie Boyd who was married to his best mate and Beatle, George Harrison.

Boyd in a photo shoot - 1968.

The song Layla functions as a direct emotional translation of the poem rather than a retelling of its plot. Its urgent opening riff captures obsession and desperation, while its famous coda slows into resignation and longing, perhaps mirroring the two emotional states of Majnun’s journey from pursuit to acceptance. Across the album, Clapton and the Dominos repeatedly circle the same themes found in the Arabic tradition. Love is represented as fixation, suffering and, ultimately, something that can reshape identity rather than resolve itself.

George Harrison and Pattie Boyd wedding (1966).

In both stories, the beloved Layla is not fully possessed, yet becomes immortal through art. Ultimately, the recording of Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs demonstrates how ancient stories persist not only because they have been preserved, but because they are perpetually re‑felt.

Clapton did not borrow the name Layla to decorate a song. Instead, he recognized himself in Majnun’s condition. In a way, the album stands as proof that across cultures, centuries and languages, the same truth about love unfulfilled. If it cannot be lived, it can be preserved in poetry, visual art and music. It can become something that outlasts the emotions that inspired it. In that sense, the poetry scratched into shifting desert sands and a 1970 rock album are doing the same work. Both are bearing witness to a love that could not be resolved.

CODA

Boyd divorced Harrison in 1977 and married Clapton in 1979. However, that marriage lasted only a decade. In 1991, she met property developer Ron Weston, whom she married in 2015. They are still together.

There are seven Harrison and Clapton songs specifically written about Boyd (Listed below). Every one of them is on an album that is on The 500 list. I wonder if Weston has any on his playlists?

I Need You - The Beatles (1965)

If I Needed Someone - The Beatles (1965)

Something - The Beatles (1969)

For You Blue - The Beatles (1970)

Layla - Derek and the Dominos (1970)

Bell Bottom Blues - Derek and the Dominos (1970)

Wonderful Tonight - Eric Clapton (1977)

The 500 - #125 - Pearl - Janis Joplin

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by New York-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

---

Album: #125
Album Title: Pearl
Artist: Janis Joplin
Genre: Blues Rock, Soul Blues
Recorded: Sunset Sound, Hollywood, California

Released: January, 1971

My age at release: 5
How familiar was I with it before this week: Several tracks
Is it on the 2020 list? Yes, at #259, dropping 134 spots
Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Me and Bobby McGee

There are certain lyrics and fragments of poetry that have stayed with me from the moment I encountered them. They drift through my mind at unexpected times and, like familiar memories, return again and again. When they do I turn them over in my brain, pondering new layers of possible meaning. Somehow the words always offer more. Sometimes it is a nuance I missed, or an idea I hadn’t picked up on…perhaps because of my youth.

A handful have come from the lyrical mind of Neil Peart, whose lines were etched in my consciousness as a teen. Other examples have arrived courtesy of Bruce Springsteen, The Beatles, Leonard Cohen, and the sharp insights of poets T.S. Eliot and Robert Frost. Of course, Ol' Billy Shakespeare has a few nuggets cloggin' my noggin'. After all, who else writes words that can shadow you for a lifetime and still feel startlingly alive each time they surface?

One of several Peart quotes I have evaluated
differently over the past 38 years.

Another lyric that sporadically runs laps through my head comes from Kris Kristofferson's pen. I was first introduced to his writing through the scorching vocals of Janis Joplin on Pearl, her second and last solo record. Her 1971 hit, Me and Bobby McGee, is a compact narrative. It follows two drifters, the narrator and the free-spirited Bobby McGee, as they sing their way across the American South. Hitching a ride from a truck driver, they wind their way west to California. Somewhere near the Monterey County town of Salina, the pair part ways, and the narrator is left alone, with the aching melancholy and regret that only a powerful song can instill.

Record label for the single of Me and Bobby McGee by Janis Joplin.

Because the name “Bobby” sits comfortably in the gender‑neutral middle ground, the tune has been recorded by an impressive cast of artists over the years, including Gordon Lightfoot, Roger Miller, Jerry Lee Lewis, Charley Pride, Olivia Newton‑John, The Grateful Dead, Dolly Parton, Johnny Cash and Pink. Each performer shifts the emotional centre of gravity just a little, proof that a memorable story can find new interpretations with different tellings.

Gordon Lightfoot had a #1 hit in Canada in 1970 with
Me and Bobby McGee.

 Kristofferson’s penetrating refrain,  "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose" occurs at the end of the first verse and repeats throughout Me and Bobby McGee.

Typically associated with celebration and liberation, freedom can also result from the loss of everything -- possessions, relationships, obligations and expectations. It is a paradoxical form of liberation. It is a double-edged sword of liberty, cleaving you from all things, but leaving you alone.

Existentialist philosophers, such as Jean Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, wrote extensively about freedom, loss and what remains of self when all things are stripped away.

Kristofferson may have been cribbing from their works when he penned Me and Bobby McGee and wrote that powerful thought-provoking lyric that I still work to fully understand.

Sartre wrote; “Man is condemned to be free; because once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.” The narrator, like us, is responsible for every choice he makes. He can not blame gods, fate, society or circumstance for his life and his (and, by proxy, our) freedom is inescapable and terrifying.

By contrast, Camus reflected on freedom through the lens of absurd nihilism in his play Caligula. To him, a man becomes completely free when he recognizes that "life has no higher purpose, the universe is indifferent and any longing for meaning will not be resolved". The titular 'Bobby' is free because he/she carries nothing -- no money, no obligations and, most importantly, no expectations. The narrator, after losing Bobby, inherits that absurd freedom; however, it is a freedom soaked in grief – a "terrifying burden" of true liberation for the first time.

Like I said earlier, Me and Bobby McGee is one of many songs that contain a lyrical gem that has taken up residence in my brain...and refuses to pay rent. It'll probably be there until those synapses stop firing and, as Camus postulates, its meaning, like my many questions about life, will never be resolved.

On a cheerier note, my research into this incredible Joplin record revealed that the backing musicians who support her, The Full Tilt Boogie Band, hail from my neck of the woods. Five of the band's six members are from Stratford and Woodstock, Ontario -- both fewer than 60 kilometers (40 miles) from my hometown of London. The band comprises John Till (guitar); Richard Bell (piano); Brad Campbell (bass); Ken Pearson (organ); and Clark Pierson (drums). Only Pierson is not from Southern Ontario, being a Californian.

Back cover of Pearl, featuring The Full Tilt Boogie Band.