A rather short-lived label, in business from 1976-77. 'Music Week' of the 6th of March 1976 described Cream as a Manchester-based independent label and said that it was an offshoot of a firm called Global Record Sales, which for the past five years had been dealing in deletions, overstocks and imports. According to the article Cream had been trying to reach an agreement with several majors, including CBS and Pye, but had failed. As a consequence its records were to be made available through its parent company's distribution facility. Rick Cooper was named as label manager. Global in the USA had purchased the catalogue of the Swan label, of Philadelphia, in 1975, and the plan was to use that as the basis of Cream's output, in addition to material licensed from other companies. In addition to the ones which were issued on Cream, Global put out a couple of Swan's singles on the actual Swan label; see 'Swan - S prefix'. Both Cream and the UK version of Swan dealt in Soul of the Northern variety. Cream managed just six issues, and ran into trouble with the fourth of them, a cover of Jimi Hendrix's 'Purple Haze', by Johnny Jones & The King Casuals dating from 1968. 'MW' of the 21st of August 1976 revealed that Cream and Brunswick / Decca were involved in a legal battle for the rights to that record, and that legal clarification from America was being sought. It seems that Cream won their case, as American Brunswick's rights to the original Peachtree Records recording had expired, and so the Brunswick version had to be withdrawn. That was Cream's final mention in the Trade press, though it survived into 1977. Reportedly Jimi Hendrix was once part of Johnny Jones's group, which probably means they were more entitled than most to cover 'Purple Haze'.
Copyright 2006 Robert Lyons.