Yes, Clapton, Bruce and Baker have gotten older. Face it, they’ve gotten old as have those of us who’ve been Cream fans since they were called “The Cream” on the first album jacket. And face it, youth be served, they haven’t the raw power they once had.



While those attending the May 2005 reunion at The Royal Albert Hall, in their excitement to see their heroes, ran on adrenalin overdrive, listening at home makes it obvious that tempi are slower and more plodding, aggression is in retreat and creative juices have dried somewhat since the band’s heyday.

Well, is the uber-buzz justified? Fastest-selling debut album; Greatest band since the Beatles, number 287 in a series (collect ‘em all)?

Not quite. But this is a terrific album, especially considering that the Monkeys are like 17 years old or something. Holy Mozart, Batman!

One can imagine Chan Marshall sitting herself down in a darkened, candle-lit Ardent Studios in Memphis, singing these melancholic songs in late night sessions stretching until dawn.

Perhaps that’s not the way it happened, but it’s the misty mood set by Marshall and engineer Stuart Sikes, who lets the room speak as no engineer has since Steve Albini let a generation of slackers know what recording music was originally about: capturing a live, living, breathing event.

The Who recorded their “sell out” concept album in the fall of 1967 at around the same time Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention were in the studio creating We’re Only In It For The Money. Coincidence? Collusion? A general feeling among like-minded rock cognoscenti that rock musicians were getting self-righteous, self-absorbed and that after all it’s only rock’n’roll?



I don’t know. However, Zappa’s concept was fulfilled musically, while Townshend’s was mere window dressing—not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Compilations are an ugly concept on vinyl. Either analog copy tapes have been strung together to create a cutting master or digital copies of masters are electronically assembled to produce the same cutting master. Once in a black and blue moon, original masters are removed from their reels and strung together to produce cutting masters made from original master tapes, but those are few and few between and almost impossible to make.

Only in retrospect do you realize how much The Guess Who’s sound drew from Creedence Clearwater Revival. That’s fine, because only in retrospect do you realize how much of what sounded new and unique when you were immersed in it, was really formulaic and sometimes trite.



For instance, I went to see the Broadway show “Jersey Boys” the other week. It’s the Four Seasons story and boy is it well told! For once the music’s performed in the play as well as it originally was by the group being covered. I’m a big Four Seasons fan and these guys pull it off!

This five song 45rpm EP compiled for Mobile Fidelity by Thompson from his archive of live recordings includes “From Galway to Graceland” and “1952 Vincent Black Lightning,” recorded in 1994, “Oops! I Did It Again” and “It Won’t Be Long” from 2003, and a 1985 edition of “Shoot Out The Lights.”