When looking at the history of rock guitar, it’s easy to see Eric Clapton as ground zero for almost everything happening today. Regardless of what kind of rock and roll you have played in the past, chances are that Clapton has covered some piece of it, whether it’s trying to lay down a blues jam or turning the guitar into another voice in the band whenever you play. For all of the great tunes that Clapton eventually stockpiled with his bands and solo catalogue, he initially thought that ‘Strange Brew’ wasn’t all that special.
Then again, not being on the radio suited Clapton fine. He may have wanted to be successful, but that didn’t necessarily mean popular, and when he left The Yardbirds, ‘Slowhand’ wanted to put together a trio that could each hold their own as a musical outfit. Whereas The Yardbirds were straight-ahead blues, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce turned Cream into a musical stew that no one could have predicted.
Bruce had already played with Clapton and John Mayall fresh out of The Yardbirds, but Baker’s experience in jazz gave them a lot more sophistication than other blues acts. There had been countless groups trying to mine the same kind of thrashing open chords that Chuck Berry started, but it wasn’t out of the question for Cream to break down into long exercises that took fans on a journey just through their solos.
If they wanted to get signed, though, that meant having to scrape together something that at least sounded like a hit. The blues was still the order of the day, but when Clapton started playing a straight version of the blues shuffle ‘Lawdy Mama’, their collaborators like Felix Pappalardi thought they could do something with it.
After slowing it down and writing different words centred around psychedelic imagery, ‘Strange Brew’ was born. But if Clapton had had his way, he probably would have rather worked on the song that could give them a chance to jam than get everything wrapped up in just a few minutes.
When talking to Classic Albums, Clapton remembered not caring for the song much but eventually comprised when told that he could put one of his solos on the track, saying, “I wasn’t that mad about it. I’m still not that mad about it as a form, but I respected the fact that it could be done, and they knew how to do it. And, of course, they let me play a guitar solo, which was an unspoken deal. If I gave in and played on this kind of pop song, then I could play an Albert King guitar solo.”
But that rigid structure that Clapton wasn’t enamoured with was why the album worked. No matter how many times he got tired of playing the same riff one after another, no fans would be won over if the central riff of ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ only happened once in the song. Rock and roll was built on not having any rules, but in the case of ‘Strange Brew’, the ‘don’t bore us get to the chorus’ mentality works just as well.
