Description
SLEEVE: NM MEDIA: NM YEAR: Unknown ORIGIN: Japan EXTRAS: Insert, no obi
An oft-overlooked curio, Live Cream, Vol. 2 appeared at a very odd time, with very little warning, almost two years after its predecessor -- and at virtually the same time as the related (though not overlapping) History of Eric Clapton.
And both showed up, not coincidentally, at a point when Clapton, unbeknownst to most of the public, was sidelined with a crippling heroin addiction -- this album helped keep him in the public eye, as a singer as well as a guitarist.
On its face, Live Cream, Vol. 2 is a more ambitious album that its predecessor, offering more songs and including concert versions of two of the group's AM radio hits (as opposed to the album tracks that comprised the repertory on Live Cream, Vol. 1). And it is just about essential listening for anyone who wants to understand what Cream was about, which was live performance. Utilising -- for the time -- state-of-the-art mobile recording equipment, it was a significant achievement at the time in capturing the genuine sound of a high-wattage power trio on-stage, playing away at full volume, and the overall sonic excellence here must surely be credited to engineers Tom Dowd and Bill Halverson.