Cream are arguably the world’s first super-group . Consisting of Ginger Baker on the drums, who bought a Jazz training and a new way of playing, Eric Clapton on the guitar, and Jack Bruce on the bass, the group was a big part of the wave of psychedelia that rocked the West in the 60s.
The band was formed because Baker and Clapton thought they were wasted in their own bands; Bruce and Baker had been in the same band and had fallen out, but Clapton was impressed with Bruce.
“Strange Brew” is typically psychedelic in content. The song uses a few obscure metaphors and references, but centres around love, magic and drugs.
The song itself is very bluesy, but has the ambling feeling typical of the psychedelic rock genre.
It has been noted that the song is very much like Albert King’s “Oh, Pretty Woman”, a sign of the heavy influence Clapton was drawing from the blues.
It is based on an older song by the band called “Lawdy Mama”, and was released in 1967 on the album Disraeli Gears.
Definitely a trippy one!