Classical Composer Reacts to CREAM: White Room | The Daily Doug (Episode 593) 

I heard this song on the radio when it first came out. I was 7. I thought It was the greatest song I'd ever heard!! Magnificent. Cream was Eric Clapton's finest hour...

One of the greatest songs ever by one of the greatest bands ever. Jack Bruce had the voice of an angel and was a great bassist, Eric Clapton of course was one of the very best guitarists at that time, and Ginger Baker was an absolute beast on drums. Amazing band.

Greatest wah pedal song ever, I will die on that hill.

Jack could really wail! He could sing delicately, and he could really growl and belt it out too. And he played bass pretty good!

When I heard Tales of Brave Ulysses the first time, it changed my life.

Jack Bruce singing: "Song from an imaginary western" is brilliant

RIP Pete Brown, 19th May 2023. Fabulous song.

Jacks vocal heavenly, soulful , Petes Lyrics...poetry. Gingers Drumming, sublime,, Apparently Clapton was in this band too🤫

Thank you Doug, I just came across your site and this reaction, and have been in a band singing this song many times on and off in various local pub bands, even recently, despite the song's age. It still goes over well. In my early teens when I first heard the track when it came out, I thought it was a druggy dream/nightmare (like most of the 60s I was in at the time, ha ha), but as I got older and wiser, I realised it was just bloody good poetry, and a tale of a relationship ending, and the sadness that can bring. I am 71 today, and in a similar position (but making positive progress thanks to my music & art), but all this time did not know the lyricist, and it gave me a totally new view of it what you said about it, and about life and things that happen in all our lives. Anyway, have never felt like this ever with this song before, but what you said triggered quite a weeping moment in me, & of not feeling quite so alone, going through such a situation, as everyone does at times. Nothing like a bloody good weep, especially for men, who bottle everything up, much to their detriment. So thank you for this new incite of one of the best songs ever written in my view, and so relevant to my youth, and my time now. Thank you !! Cheers, Dennis (Australia).

Was pleased to be introduced to Pete Brown some years ago. Did this tune in my school band 50 year reunion, playing bass, last December.

With a couple tokes, this some was mesmerizing! One of the best ever!!!

Jack Bruce is not just a fantastic singer and bassist, but as a musician overall. His first solo album is amazing. I would highly recommend that you listen to Theme for An Imaginary Western. Jack and Pete Brown wrote the lyrics, and Jack plays piano on it(pretty decent piano player and plays some guitar too).

Goodevening from the netherlands . Lets enjoy this epic trio Baker, Bruce and Clapton

I grew up in the 70's listening to mostly Top 40 radio. But around 1980, when I was 13, we dinner with a neighbor. They had great collection of vinyl, including Cream, Jimi Hendrix, Iron Butterfly and Led Zeppelin. After spending a couples of hours listens to some of the tracks from those bands, it changed my musical direction from pop to psychedelic/hard rock. I bought all 4 Cream albums on cassette. I bought a dozen different Hendrix albums, original and live performances. I pick up early Zeppelin music too. Less than a year later I was also listening to AC/DC, Van Halen, and other hard rock bands not played on the Top 40 Atlanta stations back then. I picked up my first Black Sabbath cassette a few years later, moving into more Metal. By the end of the 80's I was listening to Thrash (Anthrax, Megadeth) and over Heavy Metal bands like early Celtic Frost... But I still love to go back to those songs which moved me into heavier music, like Cream, Hendrix and Zeppelin. 'White Room' is among my top favorites from Cream. 'Politician', 'Strange Brew', 'Badge', 'Tales of Brave Ulysses' and 'SWLABR'... And 'Toad', just to name a few more....

Can't go wrong with a bit of Cream with yer coffee. I know you've covered Queen a good few times, but I'd love to see what you have to say about 'You Take My Breath Away' from the '76 album 'A Day at the Races'. The live recording from Hyde Park is great, but the studio recording is absolutely phenomenal. The vocal arrangement is perfect. I mean just listen to how in tune he is with the harmonies. Genius. By god, does it warmly break your heart.

Another beautiful sound from Cream!

the Jack Bruce/Pete Brown working relationship continued into Jack's solo career, which is worth hearing as well the Cream song We're Going Wrong is one to hear just for how great a vocalist Jack was...

This song and this band are what led me down the rabbit hole from psychedelic rock to progressive rock and into the arms of Rush and yes. Definitely has a special place in my heart

Every time I just love listening to what a great rhythm section Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker are.

Sometimes the mundanity of everyday life is the absolute deepest vibe. Every line starts out hard and then just drifts off somewhere.

I really like that the music supports the story being told. the song is about someone trying to ignore something he's uncomfortable with, and the guitar represents the thing he wants to ignore. The more the guitar intrudes, the less he's able to ignore it.: First there is no guitar, then the guitar only plays in between the vocals, then it plays over top of the vocals, then the vocals drop out completly

Jack is a totally underrated composer/singer/bassist. His first two solo albums are genius.

I’ve always loved this song for all these years! Thanks for reviewing it again.

So, back in 1970 I was social secretary of a college in England and we had contracted Pete Brown- with his group Piblokto. I was, at 18, charged with taking them pre-show to a local pub. I couldn’t resist asking him about his collaborations with Cream asking him about the White Room lyrics . He told me that the verse lyrics were written out as phrases, cut up and randomly organised. From the horse’s mouth

Goodbye, Pete! Those were the days!

One of rock's greatest vocals.

My older brother brought this album home and I was enthralled when it was released.

Excellent. Great Band. Great Song. Great Discussion. BTW, the drums really sounded like that at their concerts.

Bro, you MUST do In Memory of Elizabeth Reed from the Allman Brothers Live at Filmore East. Trust me, you want to hear this masterpiece.

Being trivial, the album cover shown is the Live album from the Wheels of Fire double set. White Room was on the gold coloured covered album which was recorded in the studio.

At 8:24 Doug mentions the drums sounding forward in the mix and suggests the guitar should be more prominent. Noooo it’s the syncopation and Ginger contrasting to the funky guitar that makes this such a gem! Thankfully the vocals sit back a bit.

Cream is recognized as being the first rock "supergroup."

Beautiful !!! Wheels of Fire is a Masterpiece !!!✌️

Cream, first super group🍻

My friends and I wore this album out when we were freshmen in high school when it came out. Such a magic time.

No one seems to notice the brilliance of Bruce's bass ascending every couple of repetitions while the main riff is descending. Maybe that's too simple a thing, but it still makes the hair on my arms stand on end.

I remember an announcer introducing this as "The guitarist is eaten by a Wah Wah peddle". I was 20 something when this was popular, sigh.

I was 15 years old when this song came out , and I liked it right from the start . It has always been my favourite song by Cream , and it would reside in my favourite 30 songs of all time . Thank you for the review !

Ginger Baker told in an interview that he was inspired by Ravel's Bolero to make these transitions before the chorus.

Joker burning the city. I love the end of the song, the final note suspended in the air

My brother was huge clapton fan. We went to see him and elton John at shea stadium in new York. Clapton opened with this and my brother lost his mind. He had thought since it was cream he couldn't play it. A great moment

In addition to drums, Ginger Baker actually does play tympani on this track, and Felix Pappalardi is added on viola.

Jack Bruce is a very underrated artist. His early solo work is magnificent. You should do a reaction/analysis of some of it. Thanks!

Wow every band I play with we play Sunshine of your love and After midnight (slow version).

I always loved how rigidly this song was constructed. Every line in all the verses, is four syllables. (Excluding the chorus.)

Ginger Baker’s drumming had more power due to the double bass drums he used as well as his fiery character - tensions between him and Bruce were well known. A very difficult man to get on with. When I was in my teens I saw a documentary on BBC tv about “Progressive Music” and there was a clip of Cream playing “We’re Going Wrong” so the next day I went out and bought Wheels Of Fire. I can recall exactly where I bought it in West London. Cream along with Hendrix and the original Fleetwood Mac with the virtuoso blues guitarist Peter Green were my favourites. I will look to see whether you have reviewed any Fleetwood Mac who were a huge group at that time.

Good review. I read Jack Bruce's bio recently. He won some singing awards growing up, in Scotland. Great singer

Cream is best served Live!

Pete also co-wrote Sunshine of Your Love, SWALBR and I Feel Free for Cream. After the BluesBreaker album and the Cream albums was when "Clapton is God' mania hit it's peak. Apparently Jack and Ginger couldn't stomach each other. I read a story about them that said that Ginger would fire his sticks off the cymbals and hit Jack in the head with them. Jack would then drop his bass, launch himself over the drum kit and kick the shit of Ginger mid show. Don't know if that ever happened but it's a great story. Three supreme musicians at their best, what a band.

Love this song.

When I got my first paycheck in high school, I bought a wahwah pedal so I could finally play this song in it's full glory. I played a lot of voodoo Chile (slight return) too. Guitar was my 3rd instrument, but the first one I couldn't put down.

Pete Brown had his own band for a while called Piblokto. Incidentally, I once copied some of the lyrics of White Room (Silver horses ran down moonbeams. . .) onto a birthday card to my first girlfriend back in the day, in an attempt to appear romantic!

Three of the best of the best player all gathered into one of the best groups ever. Interesting comments on the origin of the song lyrics. It fits in nicely with the story of the lyrics for White Bird by It's a Beautiful Day and Sittin' on the Dock by the Bay by Otis Redding.

Yellow tigers crouched in jungles in her dark eyes,.How does a lyric like that come to be?

As good as Clapton was here in Cream, he was only scratch the surface of his talent in the years (and decades) to come - Blind Faith, Delaney and Bonnie, Derek and the Dominoes, and a stellar solo and collab career that continues to this day. Not generally known for covers, he really hits a peak with his joint effort on Hendrix's classic "All Along The Watchtower" with Lenny Kravitz: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-THyZUv_vvss.html or his noodling with golden-voiced Paul Carrack on his masterpiece "How Long": ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gahUbXoUhEc.html

SWLABR…”She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow” in case you’re wondering (lyrics…”but the rainbow has a beard”)

"I wait in this place, Where the sun never shines, Wait in this place, Where the shadows run .... from themselves"

Just read this about Pete Brown "Brown then suffered the ignominy of being thrown out of his own band, the day before they were due to support the Rolling Stones at Hyde Park". That would really suck .

Escalator Over the Hill by Carla Bley has some of Jack Bruce's best vocal performances by far imo, great album

Listen to that BASS!! unreal!!

My Pop's bought The 45 for my Brother and I we were like 8, he was 49😮😅😊 and a Bebop jazz Cat. However he was eclectic and dug all good music.

Good memories!

I watched Old Love! Adore it! I first heard WR when I when I maybe 6-7? My bros are 9&12 years older than me. What a phenomenal introduction to music as a little girl. I heard Days of Future Passed at SIX!!!! One of my bros gave me Tommy when I was 12. Who does that? I mean really. 🥰

It's amazing how much tympanies sound just like tympanies!

I still play this song in my bands.

Jack Bruce was definitely a great singer, check out his solo albums like “Songs For a Tailor” and “Harmony Row”, great albums.

I lot of digital versions of records from back in the day have drums too loud and guitars too low today. Other examples of this effect are Mick Ronson's famous solo on the end of Bowie's Moonage Daydream and Ronnie Wood's acoustic guitars on Rod Stewart's Every Picture Tells a Story. At the time of release on vinyl they didn't, the guitars absolutely jumped out at you. The thing about vinyl is that it rolls off the top and bottom ends like a low pass and high pass filter. The original records were mixed for vinyl with this in mind, meaning they had to turn up the drums, bass and hats etc to make them heard against the mid range stuff often using the "Pultec EQ" trick to massively boost them (this EQ enabled you to both boost and attenuate a given frequency range at the same time creating a famous and very pleasing effect, especially on vinyl playback). These boosts are printed on the master tapes from which the original LPs were cut. WAV and MP3 digital files however do not "roll off" anything so if you just rip the original vinyl mix from the final master tape for your "digital remaster" the effect is to pump the top and bottom ends relative to the mids. This is the cheapest and simplest way to do it, that's why it's done and why many modern CDs of old records sound crap. The one thing they do do is boost the lead vocals but this is relatively easy since the lead vocals are almost always straight down the middle of the stereo field whereas guitars etc are mostly not and it's hard to disentangle them and process individually without a full remix from the original studio 2" tapes. This is yet another reason for the imbalance in the guitars since normally (although not always back in the day) the kick, snare and bass were also "straight down the middle", therefore boosting the lead vocal has the unfortunate side effect of also cranking the bass, kick and snare (not always at frequencies you would ideally like as well) which further pushes the guitars back. Even modern mid-side EQs can't fix that. There are some exceptions, for example Jimmy Page uses his original 2" studio tapes to remix Led Zep stuff for CD and MP3, and puts a lot of loving care into it as well, which is why Led Zep CDs sound pretty good even against an original first pressing vinyl LP. Bottom line is mixing for vinyl and CD is different 'cos different playback frequency responses but remixing old records is expensive: you have to go back to the original studio tapes, assuming you still have them of course, and remix them ground up to truly fix the problem for digital reproduction.

Right from the begining Clapton made amazing use of that wa wa pedal.

Would be interesting to hear your analysis of Badge.

Gingers drumming. Great song!

Spoonful off that album the best jam there is

Maybe one of Pete's best lyrics but that's just my opinion. Jack had such a long career and Cream was a short part of it. If anyone hasn't seen Tony Palmer's film about him "Rope Ladder to the Moon" should check it out for a fuller picture of the earlier part of his musical journey.

Now you need to hear, "Do What You Like" by Blind Faith.

My favourite Cream song.

Don’t forget Felix Pappalardi played on this album

"I've never paid attention to the lyrics here at all." Same. I think most just focus on the wah-wah.

"SWLABR" is an acronym for, "She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow".

I remember when this came out. We all said " how many drums is he playing " ? Clapton excelled at psychedelic blues.

Still waiting for some Alan Parsons. I Robot is an amazing album that would fit well with your channel.

When I was a kid in home town was East Kilbride, Scotland. Someone told me that one of the women who serve in our local baker's, Greggs, was Jack Bruce's mum; this was true. I had no idea who he was at the time. If only I had known.

A queue in England means "line" essentially, thus he waits in the queue when the trains come back means he waits in the line.

I love these videos. Doug, I hope you will do a bit more classical. A piece by Delius would be good. Failing that, more early ELP would be great.

Pete once described it as essentially an add for a rental apartment, with an extended guitar solo

The 5/4 bits are like a bolero. And, those are not toms, they are kettle drums. You can hear the pitch change between parts.

🙏❤🌹Jack, Ginger, Pete🌹❤🙏

I think the mix is right, Doug. The "fight" between the drums and the guitar for supremacy is great.

Doug, you should really give a listen to Jacoby Shaddix and Apocalyptica version of White Room, they really did it justice

I suggest reacting to "I'm so Glad" from the Goodbye album, unbelievable live version!

Keith Reid of Procol Harem Was A Member of The Band but Didn’t play an Instrument He Wrote all The Lyrics to their Original Songs Enjoy The Channel

I seem to recall Ginger Baker saying he got the 5/4 drum riff from Ravel's "Bolero". I can't remember if it was an inspirational response to "Beck's Bolero" coming out around the same time. Great song.

Ginger played timpani, not tom-toms, on the 5/4 sections of "White Room.." Listen carefully to the *definite change in pitch* in the 5/4 measures. Also, read the inside of the album's jacket, and you'll see that Ginger was credited for using timpani. 😮

If you want to hear Jack Bruce absolutely destroy bass lines, check out Sweet Wine from their live album “Live Cream”

doug, you need to hear some live Cream... I'm So Glad off Goodbye Cream is a belter.

Ginger Baker is often over looked. He later had a band called Masters of Reality. Their album Sunrise on the Sufferbus is great.

Bell Bottom Blues my favorite Clapton song. He was with Derrick and the Dominos at the time.

Nice Hair cut!

The Cream of the crop!

His best song still

Try a review of the whole wheels of fire album,been one of my favourites since 1969,still got my vinyl copy and cd and listen to it regularly, all the best from Bonnie Scotland

_"...where the shadows run from themselves..."_ Sounds like the sweeping effect from the headlights of passing cars, in a room were that's a welcome distraction from the nothingness.