Wifey has Call Of The Midwife on, so listening to music with headphones on is the modality of the evening (If I wanna stay in the living room). One of my very favorite guitar solo tunes is Crossroads by The Cream on the Wheels Of Fire album. This was Clapton, Bruce, and Baker at their very best.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qogsVUEnjw

My Wife is watching the Call of the Midwife too right now DBM! I can't thank you enough for the Clapton video escape LOL! I really enjoyed a ton of their stuff. The Best of Cream was one of my favorite albums!

Quite often, when some newer member of this forum would start a "favorite solo" thread, Clapton's "Crossroads" solo would be at the top of most lists. Or make every list regardless.

But, in trying to do the math based on both your timeline and my time zone, both my wife and I were watching the British movie of the Titanic disaster, "A Night To Remember" on TCM last night. Never did see that "Midwife" show. Like the whole "Wheels Of Fire" LP, and too, like the side with "Train Time" and "Toad", Baker's big drum solo.
Whitefang

The Midwife show was on PBS last night (not TCM). I don't know the time zones for sure but on my computer it shows the time of 7:02am for my Happy Birthday post this morning which is real time here. Your post on this thread shows 4:28am. I think you are 2 hours ahead of my time so were you up and posting around 4:30 or 6:30 this morning? I think DBM's Arizona time is the same as California time right now...

Speaking of time and Clapton's The Best of Cream album...the whole album was filled with great songs so I would have to post 10 YT videos to cover them all. It did include Crossroads along with:

Sunshine of Your Love, Badge, White Room, SWLABR, Born Under a Bad Sign, Spoonful, Tales of Brave Ulysees, Strange Brew and I Feel Free...

This was a 1969 release album when I was just out of High School and just as I was getting drafted. I think Clapton's time with Cream was the most important time for me...One of the All-time best power trios with powerful originals that have stood the test of time!

Actually, there's 2 solos in that song, the second being the barn burner. Another one of my favorite Clapton solos is in the live version of Sitting On Top the World on the Goodbye album.

Yeah, this and the other forum show PST time zone timestamp. So, 6:30am is about right. That IS about the time I do most of my "online time". At least here in MI, as we're in the EST zone.

And I never claimed that the midwife show was on TCM, just that it was the channel we were watching that night.

I never had the "Best Of Cream" LP, as I usually don't bother with "Best Of" or "Greatest Hits" LPs. They usually leave something out or put in something I don't really care for. Or something else---On the "Greatest Hits" LP of AEROSMITH is a version of "Sweet Emotion" not heard either ever on the radio or found on the "Toys In The Attic" LP.

And the "Best Of Cream" LP is missing : "Take It Back", "We're Going Wrong". " Sitting On Top Of The World", "Passing The Time", "As You Said", and "Deserted Cities Of The Heart", some of my favorite Cream tunes.
Whitefang

@ Fang, DBM and I were talking about the Midwife show on PBS that our wives were watching. You probably missed a lot of other shows besides the one we were talking about, that were not on TCM. My wife got a kick out of both DBM and I having to tune them out at the same time, on the same show, while I was responding to DBM's post.

I really did have a limited income back in those High School days having bought a car, having to pay my own insurance, pay for my Karate lessons, pay for dancing and movie dates, beer, cigarettes, etc. I had a few bucks now and then to buy albums with and I did buy Greatest Hits albums as there was less filler on them and every song was a hit. I'm sure I heard most of the songs that were played on the radio that the artists (to include Cream) did. I couldn't afford to buy every Cream, Elvis, Donovan, Orbison, Ventures, CCR, Beatles, Beach Boys, etc., album. I did have quite a few by some artists/groups...I didn't care for 45 singles. We also had our own custom 4 track tapes made from our albums and borrowed some from each other to play in our cars.

I thought I had "copy and pasted" my reply from the other forum in response to this post here too, but I guess not. anyway....

Sure. I gave up buying 45s by the time I was 15 or so, and never really bought much beer before I was 21, so what money didn't go to 25 cent packs of cigarettes and 10 cent cups of coffee went towards saving for LPs and occasional movie tickets. Then later, the admission price for the Grande Ballroom.

And yeah, sure. I got the bit about you both having the same "tune out" situation.
Whitefang

And, don't forget that gallon of gas costing the same as a 25 cent pack of cigarettes. We could cruise to the beach and back on a dollars worth in my surfing days!

Oh, sure. We can sit around here all day sounding like old farts chasing kids off the lawn and waxing nostalgic about the "old days" when not only did gas cost a quarter a gallon, but for that quarter a kid would RUN out to your car, pump the gas FOR you, and also clean the windsheild and check the oil and tire air pressure.

But, ENOUGH of that "rocking chair" talk! We could go off in other directions......

Like bringing up which LPs from then, to any of us, STILL hold up after all those years. Some might agree with what others bring up, and some might feel like, "no, it doesn't", so that could get interesting.
Whitefang

I don't know, I kind of like the good old days talk. Gas went up 5 times to $1.25 a gallon and LP's stayed at $3.95. You still had to wash the windshield, check the oil and tire pressure. Funny, those jobs just went away a decade later and kids were out of a job. Oregon just changed their archaic laws just this last year which allows people to pump their own gas...I would try and stay on topic and bring up The Best of Cream again, guess I'm stuck in a loop...and now that pot is legal, and would go great with Cream, I'm not even interested in getting high and listening to it LOL!

Sure. It's been quite a while since I've listened to that or many another LP while "under the influence", at least any OTHER influence other than nostalgia and a long love for the music.

Heh....the last vinyl LP I bought new was back in '86, Steve Winwood's "Back In The High Life" which at the time was released in both vinyl AND compact disc, and the vinyl was priced lower( and money was tight) so vinyl it was! Still have that LP somewhere 'round here....

And while cheaper WAS more than $3.95.
Whitefang

Speaking of Steve Winwood and the good old days, it's hard to believe Eric Clapton is turning 73 this morning! The last vinyl albums I bought were 3 or 4 by the Stray Cats. We had a used record store almost next door to my buds mom and pop guitar shop. Two of my favorite haunts on the weekends. The Stray Cats were young dudes full of tattoos with very cool new album covers! Their music was like a 50's revival in the style of Elvis. Sparse drums, Stand Up Bass and Brian Setzer. Great music and great albums that gave me faith in music again. That record store had anything you could ask for and the guy running it could walk you up to any album you could name in boxes holding thousands upon thousands of LP's!

The Stray Cats always struck me as a "novelty" act that actually DID put out some good music. I too, thought them a great respite from the manufactured "cool" of most of what was presented on Mtv at the time, and too, was always impressed by Setzer's playing and tight grip on the true Rock-a-Billy vibe.

But remember, they came out when vinyl WAS the only practical medium available. And 'round here too, was a good used record shop, but eventually, all used vinyl had to be searched for in thrift shops and yard sales. Hell, even the used CD places dried up quickly.
Whitefang

And then there is Blockbuster and all the VHS and DVD movie rentals that went out of business...Before that, we had custom 4 track 8 track and cassette stores that would make custom tapes for our cars that all went out of business. The Stray Cats came out on Vinyl but CD's were also coming out at the time. I had both of their albums so I could play it on the plane with my Sony Walkman and earphones! I remember that conversion period as everyone was having to buy into the new technology. Now we have MP3's, ear buds, streaming, etc...what's next?

Don't forget.....

'bout the same time that CDs were gaining widespread use( and before the advent of CD-R) was the attempted DAT( digital audio tape) that despite being able to program play and player "read-out" display, came and went quickly. It was a much more expensive format than CD. When I was doing wedding photography, there was one DJ that used it, but he used a mix of DAT and CD as available material was severely limited in the format.
Whitefang

I really didn't know much about DAT. As you say it came and went quickly. Betamax video came and went too and lost out to VHS recorders. Now VHS is a thing of the past...

I still kind of laugh about how home video went from, in the case of movies like "The Godfather" and "Ben Hur", using TWO cassettes to hold those entire movies, to being able to put ALL of either movie on ONE DVD disc. And that who knows, someday(if not already) people might be able to get either put entirely on something the size of a digital camera's MEMORY CARD! And music too, stored on such a medium. Imagine, the Beatles' "White Album" entirely on something the size of your THUMBNAIL! For those of us not into storing MP3 info on an iPod device, such a thing IS revolutionary. That a record "album" has gone from something requiring multiple acetate platters to a 12" vinyl disc, to a 3" plastic compact disc to then something that comes with a "choking hazard" warning is much for a mind to process.
Whitefang

DAT was intended to be to cassette what CD was to the LP, i.e. a better sounding consumer format. For a variety of reasons, including restraining orders brought about by the RIAA, it never took off as a consumer format. BUT it became the de facto studio mixdown format for over a decade. A complete failure as intended, a huge success in the pro industry.

Beta became the format for television stations however for at least 10 years.

Because it was visibly superior. Sony developed an Alpha product, didn't like it much & went back to the drawing board & came up with the much better Beta video process. Their competitors wanted to license the technology, but Sony wanted to keep it to themselves. So they sold the Alpha video format to Sansui, Samsung, Toshiba, Panasonic, et al. That group renamed it VHS & made it the video standard, even though it was clearly a vastly inferior product. But broadcasters picked up Beta & used that for years as the pro portable format.

Sounds like DAT and Beta both had some pro usage demand...

I wouldn't say that in regard to DAT, but BETA did get used a lot, especially in news reporting and other television applications. But unlike BETA was to VHS video recording, DAT was NOT superior to the compact disc, but hugely superior to Cassette TAPE, even the chromium stuff, but for less money per player and pre-recorded unit in DAT, and not much more expensive than cassette tape at the time, the compact disc made marketing DAT difficult as far as market share.
Whitefang

I have always been a Clapton fan. The first time I ever heard his "woman tone" I practically jumped out of my chair. What a beautiful guitar tone!

I can recall buying a copy of the first Cream LP in 1968. I think the title of the album was Fresh Cream, but I'm not certain of that and it's too early in the morning to do a Google search to find out. There was a song on the album entitled "I Feel Free". I think it was on the guitar solo of that tune that I first heard EC's "woman tone". The tone knocked me out!

+1 Brother Fred!

DAT & CD are 16bit, so noise figures are identical for both. However, DAT was a recordable format at a time when a CD recorder, when they initially came into being a half dozen years after DAT, cost upwards of $20,000 & a CD blank was $30. Also, DAT could record at 48k, which theoretically gives it a bit more high frequency extension, in a range which I've never been able to detect, but some people swore they could hear. It was a transitional technology, between analog tape & computer based DAW recording, and every studio, from garage project studios up to the highest end mega-budget complexes, had DAT machines.

Yup. It changed what a lot of us guitar fans thought was possible on the guitar. Clapton's reputation preceded him, (the "Clapton is God" graffiti in London was legendary), & when this album came out it confirmed the rumors that this guy was at the top of his (or anybody's) game. It was also a time when British recording engineers really began to redefine how a record sounded. American recordings were cleaner, but the Brits, using much more arcane circuitry, came up with a very desirable, sensuous kind of distortion. I wore out the grooves on Fresh Cream, as well as the followup Disraeli Gears.

For me back in the late 60's it was; The Beatles, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, and The Cream, those were my 3 favorite bands from those years, and to be truthful, those three groups are still at the top of my all time favorites list.

I bought all of the Cream's studio and live albums up until Goodbye Cream. I wore out several copies each, of the 4 albums; Fresh Cream, Disraeli Gears, Wheels Of Fire, and Goodbye Cream.

As I recall, "Fresh Cream", their 1st, came out in late '67 but not many of us here heard of anybody in the band before, but such a fuss about the band was made on "underground" FM rock stations and the promotions in record stores(remember them?) that many guys bought it to see what the fuss WAS about and came away forever changed. THEN Clapton's U.S. fame grew, and THEN Derahm records re-released the John Mayall bluesbreakers LP with Eric Clapton (since his U.S. fame got big) and he's been legend ever since.

But at that time, and since many of us ( who could afford to) would buy albums based on the cover "art", by the time "Fresh Cream" came out several of us in a particular "circle" in late '67 were already big into The Mothers Of Invention and their "Freak Out" LP (which we also discovered was more than a year old at the time! ) So, in answer to DBM, at the time the Mothers, Beatles and Hendrix were the "big three" for some of us, with Cream pushing it's way in easily.
Whitefang

I still have the double Heavy Cream album that I bought in 72 that was released for the North American market by Atco. It was available from 72 to 76 and re-released for a short time in 83. It has about 2/3rds of all the studio recordings from Fresh to Goodbye and all of the classic ones.