Art of the Jam: Spoonful
In 1968, the flower children and would-be and wannabe hippies were turning on to some amazing music. We were just hearing about the music coming from the West Coast, especially San Francisco, and we were electrified by the second British invasion led by Cream and Jimi Hendrix (yes, he was from Seattle, but the Experience was a British import).
And most of us were not yet familiar with the concept of the jam, a device perfected by jazz men and blues men decades before. Most of the songs we heard were short, although Spirit’s “Mechanical World” seemed really long (only 5:15, as it turned out).
In my case, living in the Baltimore area, we were discovering new music on AM radio, because that’s all we had, and all the stations broadcast on AM. Our real avenue to the sounds was on WCAO’s late-night program Kirby Scott’s Underground. Every night, he played amazing album cuts. It’s where we first heard Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida.”
But the song that lit the real fire for many of us was a live version of “Spoonful” by Cream from album two of Wheels of Fire, the sides cut at The Fillmore. The trio had covered Willie Dixon’s composition on their first album, Fresh Cream. We had all digested that album and its smash follow-up, Disraeli Gears, but we had never heard anything like this. Their first version was 6:30, a fairly straight-up reading. This was… mind-blowing. [Actually, “Spoonful” did not appear on the U.S. version of Fresh Cream, just the U.K. edition; we heard it first on the first Best of Cream album.]
Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker introduced the song as a straight-up blues, Bruce’s voice screaming with emotion. Just after the 3-minute mark, there is a shift, and by 3:30 the blues figure has been left behind, and the jam emerges. And the jam becomes titanic. It requires multiple listenings for you to absorb and appreciate what each of the musicians is doing, independently and yet so together. A cursory listen first reveals Clapton’s guitar, of course, but further exploration lays bare Bruce’s stunning bass work, and Baker is simply brilliant.
Eventually, we would hear the same magical work when the trio expanded songs such as “N.S.U.” and “Sweet Wine.” But “Spoonful” was our first look into the art of the jam, and for that we will be forever thankful.
On a side note, we discovered that the inside of the Wheels of Fire cover, just like the cover of Disraeli Gears, was done in black-light paint and blew our teenage minds.