Cream - Wheels Of Fire - Very Rare 1968 UK First Pressing Double LP - EX/NM

	£		73
	$		97

Artist & Title: Cream – Wheels Of Fire

Wheels Of Fire: Original 1968 UK 1st pressing 13-track stereo double vinyl LP set including White Room, Politician and Born Under A Bad Sign, plus four tracks recorded live at the Fillmore West and Winterland Ballroom, San Francisco in March 1968. Housed in the Martin Sharp designed gatefold picture sleeve, which is in Near Mint condition, the vinyl is in Excellent condition – a great example of this classic album.
Highly desirable for its first press matrices, and hard enough to find in good condition, this copy is in Excellent/Near Mint condition. And as these first pressings come up so infrequently in this condition this could be a once in a lifetime opportunity to add this extreme rarity to your collection at an extremely advantageous price.

Catalogue Number: Polydor ?– 2612-001 (583-031/2)

Release date: August 1968 (UK)

Overall Grade: EX/NM (LP/Cover)

Matrix/Runout: Side 1: 583031 A//2?420  Side 2: 583031 B//1?420  Side 3: 583032 A//1 420  Side 4: 583032 B//3 420

"Made in England"
?1968
Silver foil with black print outer cover with colour centre spread.

This is the original form of the release.

This rare, stereo FIRST PRESSING, Cream double LP from the creative peak of the band’s career is hardly ever offered for sale in this condition.

This is the extremely rare real thing: a GENUINE first UK pressing in Excellent/Near Mint condition. The records, cover and inner sleeves are all in superb condition, without any obvious signs of use (they genuinely look like they could have been bought new today). See pics. All items are the genuine originals bought together by me in 1968 not reprints. The LPs are the original first press stereo LPs, which were only played occasionally on top-end audiophile equipment and lovingly cared for.

THIS HAS TO BE ONE OF THE BEST EXAMPLES OF THIS ALBUM EVER OFFERED FOR SALE IN RECENT TIMES

Wheels of Fire is a 1968 double album by the rock group Cream, consisting of a studio and a live record. It reached #3 in the United Kingdom and #1 in the United States, becoming the first platinum-selling double album. In 2003 it was ranked number 203 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time.
It was also released as two single long-players, Wheels of Fire (In the Studio) and Wheels of Fire (Live at the Fillmore), released together with similar cover art. In the UK the studio album was black print on aluminium foil while the live album was a negative image of the studio cover. In Japan the studio album was black on gold foil while the live album was black on aluminium foil. In Australia both covers were laminated copies of the Japanese releases (the double album was never released in Australia).

This may be your only ONCE IN A LIFETIME chance to own this piece of rock history in this condition.

If Disraeli Gears was the album where Cream came into their own, its successor, Wheels of Fire, finds the trio in full fight, capturing every side of their multi-faceted personality, even hinting at the internal pressures that soon would tear the band asunder. A dense, unwieldy double album split into an LP of new studio material and an LP of live material, it's sprawling and scattered, at once awesome in its achievement and maddening in how it falls just short of greatness. It misses its goal not because one LP works and the other doesn't, but because both the live and studio sets suffer from strikingly similar flaws, deriving from the constant power struggle between the trio. Of the three, Ginger Baker comes up short, contributing the passable "Passing the Time" and "Those Were the Days," which are overshadowed by how he extends his solo drum showcase "Toad" to a numbing quarter of an hour and trips upon the Wind & the Willows whimsy of "Pressed Rat and Warthog," whose studied eccentricity pales next to Eric Clapton's nimble, eerily cheerful "Anyone for Tennis." In almost every regard, Wheels of Fire is a terrific showcase for Clapton as a guitarist, especially on the first side of the live album with "Crossroads," a mighty encapsulation of all of his strengths. Some of that is studio trickery, as producer Felix Pappalardi cut together the best bits of a winding improvisation to a tight four minutes, giving this track a relentless momentum that's exceptionally exciting, but there's no denying that Clapton is at a peak here, whether he's tearing off solos on a 17-minute "Spoonful" or goosing "White Room" toward the heights of madness. But it's the architect of "White Room," bassist Jack Bruce, who, along with his collaborator Peter Brown, reaches a peak as a songwriter. Aside from the monumental "White Room," he has the lovely, wistful "As You Said," the cinematic "Deserted Cities of the Heart," and the slow, cynical blues "Politician," all among Cream's very best work. And in many ways Wheels of Fire is indeed filled with Cream's very best work, since it also captures the fury and invention (and indulgence) of the band at its peak on the stage and in the studio, but as it tries to find a delicate balance between these three titanic egos, it doesn't quite add up to something greater than the sum of its parts. But taken alone, those individual parts are often quite tremendous.

A fantastic time warp example of this rarity in amazing condition, a true investment grade item - get it while you can!

AND IT MUST SELL IN THIS ONCE ONLY AUCTION

You can read more about the album and Cream all over the web.

I pack my records professionally in stiff corrugated cruciform record mailers leaving the Vinyl (housed in anti-static bags) outside the Sleeve.

“Mint means MINT for this seller!! trade with confidence!!!! AAAAAAAAA”

“Very fine item. Well packed. Quick shipment. Thanks.”

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