White Room

For other uses, see White Room (disambiguation).
"White Room"

Italian single picture sleeve
Single by Cream
from the album Wheels of Fire
B-side "Those Were the Days"
Released September 1968 (1968-09) (US)
Format 7-inch 45 rpm
Recorded Atlantic Studios, New York City, July 1967 – April 1968
Genre Psychedelic rock
Length 3:04
Label Atco
Writer(s) Jack Bruce, Pete Brown
Producer(s) Felix Pappalardi
ISWC T-010.434.193-6
Cream American singles chronology
"Anyone for Tennis"
(1968)[1]		 "White Room"
(1968)		 "Crossroads"
(1969)[1]
Music sample
"White Room"

"White Room" is a song by British rock band Cream, composed by bassist Jack Bruce with lyrics by poet Pete Brown.[2] They recorded it for the studio half of the 1968 double album Wheels of Fire. In September, a shorter single edit was released for AM radio stations,[3] although album-oriented FM radio stations played the full album version.

Recording and composition

Recording for "White Room" reportedly began in July 1967 in London at the initial session for Cream’s as-yet-unnamed third album. Work continued at Atlantic Studios in New York City in December and was completed during three sessions in February, April and June 1968, also at Atlantic.[4][5]

Jack Bruce sang and played bass on the song, Eric Clapton overdubbed guitar parts, Ginger Baker played drums and timpani, and Felix Pappalardi – the group's producer – contributed violas.[6] Clapton played his guitar through a wah-wah pedal to achieve a "talking-effect".[7] Baker claims to have added the distinctive 5
4 or quintuple metre opening to what had been a 4
4 or common time composition.[8]

Charts

Charts (1968–1969) Peak
position
Australian Go-Set Chart 1[9]
Austrian Singles Chart 19[10]
Canadian RPM Top Singles 2[11]
UK Singles Chart 26
U.S. Billboard Hot 100 6[12]
US Cashbox Top Singles[13] 5

Recognition and other recordings

Rolling Stone magazine ranked "White Room" at number 376 on the 2004 (and its 2010 update) "List of Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time". In 1990, Clapton performed the song at his Royal Albert Hall concert series and in 1999 with Sheryl Crow at Crow's Sheryl Crow and Friends: Live from Central Park concert.

"White Room" has been covered by a variety of artists: Jeff Healey, Waylon Jennings, Joel Grey, Ace Frehley, Frank Gambale (in a jazz fusion style), Iron Butterfly, jazz guitarist Jimmy Ponder, Flower Travellin' Band on the album Challenge, Ringo Starr and His All-Starr Band (with Jack Bruce, Peter Frampton on guitar, Gary Brooker on keyboard, Mark Rivera on saxophone and tambourine and two drummers (Ringo and Simon Kirke) doing the triplets in unison), Helloween, Demons and Wizards (Iced Earth/Blind Guardian), Ring of Fire, Jimmy Barnes, The Bobs, The Guess Who, The Vines, The Stranglers, Hugh Cornwell and Robert Williams on the album Nosferatu, Vassar Clements, BBM, Mostly Harmless and Lana Lane on the album Gemini.

References

  1. 1 2 Welch, Chris (2000). Cream: The Legendary Sixties Supergroup. Backbeat Books. p. eBook. ISBN 978-1476851501.
  2. ↑ Gilliland, John (1969). "Show 53 - String Man. : UNT Digital Library" (audio). Pop Chronicles. Digital.library.unt.edu.
  3. ↑ "Spotlight Singles". Billboard. Cincinnati, Ohio: Billboard Publications, Inc. 21 September 1968. p. 72.
  4. ↑ Hjort, Christopher (2007). Strange Brew: Eric Clapton & the British Blues Boom, 1965-1970. London, UK: Jawbone Press. pp. g. 126, 148, 159, 181. ISBN 978-1-906002-00-8.
  5. ↑ Felix Pappalardi interview, Hit Parader # 55, February 1969
  6. ↑ Wheels of Fire (CD liner). Cream. Polydor Records. 1997. 531 812-2.
  7. ↑ Bacon, Tony (1990). "Guitar Madness". The Marshall Cavendish Illustrated History of Popular Music. 11 (Reference ed.). Marshall Cavendish. p. 1079. ISBN 978-1-8543-5015-2.
  8. ↑ "Classic Rock Magazine, March 2010". Archived from the original on 13 November 2013.
  9. ↑ "Go-Set Australian charts - 1 January 1969". poparchives.com.
  10. ↑ Austrian Charts
  11. ↑ "The RPM 100" (PHP). RPM Weekly. 10 (12): 5. 18 November 1968. Retrieved 9 May 2011.
  12. ↑ "Cream – Billboard Singles". AllMusic. Retrieved 11 December 2010.
  13. ↑ Hoffmann, Frank (1983). The Cash Box Singles Charts, 1950-1981. Metuchen, NJ & London: The Scarecrow Press, Inc. p. 135.
This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 11/14/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.