Between the Lines: Cream: Clapton, Bruce, and Baker - Sitting on Top of the World - By: Edoardo Genzolini

A recent and worthy addition to the lexicon of rock and roll composition is archivist and writer Edoardo Genzolini's new book on British supergroup Cream. His text, Cream: Clapton, Bruce, and Baker - Sitting on Top of the World, San Fransisco, February - March 1968 places the spotlight on a specific era in the group's short history when they were the best improvisational rock band in the world. The book captures the top of the arch for a group that would explode on stages in fits of multifarious improv, before flaming out only two years from their inception.

The book is built for rock geeks and those interested in the minute details of legendary rock musicians. Genzolini provides a strata of information regarding Cream's west coast assimilation including instruments played, songs featured, and the group's towering influence on other San Francisco bands. Genzolini, who composed a wonderfully crafted and detailed look at The Who's concert history, in this piece has created the same focused view of a fertile and critical musical moment for Cream and it's principal members.

Released by Schiffer Publishing, Genzolini's text places Cream's visit to San Francisco,1968 in a wider musical context. The book provides the background on Cream's first meetings and traces their development and how their performances in California took the group to a new level of popularity and musical freedom.

Genzolini reconstructs Cream's legendary San Fransisco performances at both Fillmore Auditorium and Winterland through deft research and new interviews from attendees. Both Tony Palmer and Bill Halverson, who worked with the group previously on both music and film projects contribute to the book.

The text is a culmination of flavorful writing, new insight, unreleased photographs and a plethora of impressive research. Genzolini traces the band moving through a critical era in rock history when every element of rock performance was designed to entice and excite. The venues were psychedelic playgrounds, the band's fearless, and the audience attentive, forgiving and longing for shared experimentation.

Genzolini has illustrated a knack for indelible research, a finite attention to detail and a deep immersion in his subjects. His telling of Cream's story traces their explosive growth on the stages of the left coast. Using reconstructed setlists, tape logs, and unreleased photographs a newly developed look at the performances that shaped the group come to life through his written word. 

Get the book here