Almost 60 years after its release, Cream’s Wheels of Fire is set to be reissued via UMR/Polydor. The deluxe package, which includes the original mono tapes (thought lost for decades), outtakes, alternate mixes, live tracks, and a newly restored stereo version, will arrive on June 12.
The album has a remarkable history. It arrived in the United States on June 14, 1968, and featured a stirring studio recording and an electrifying live set. Not even a month after the album was released, though, the trio of Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Ginger Baker announced they would be going their separate ways. All of this unfolded before the album was even released in the UK.
This new edition of Wheels of Fire features the aforementioned newly restored stereo version, one that removes the Haeco-CSG process applied to the album in 1968, which blurred the original stereo image.
The new super deluxe edition—available as either a 5CD or 3 LP set—also includes producer and multi-instrumentalist Felix Pappalardi’s reference tapes for the project. These treasures, previously thought to be lost, offer tantalizing insight into the making of the album.
When Felix Pappalardi and his wife moved out of their NYC carriage house in the early 1970s, they left behind hundreds of tapes which were salvaged but sold to a collector. The collector eventually contacted Larry Yelen, who recruited Bill Levenson and Johnny Chandler to help acquire the tapes now included on this new edition of Wheels of Fire.
Recording sessions with Pappalardi began in July and August of 1967 at IBC Studios in London. These initial tracking spurts occurred a number of months before the band released Disraeli Gears.
The group continued recording Wheels of Fire in quick US-based sessions in September, October, and December of 1967. They concluded recording in 1968, and eventually decided to include three live recordings from the Winterland Ballroom and one from the Fillmore on the album’s second disc.
Buy Cream’s Wheels of Fire: In The Studio here.
