The music scene as I look at it today is a little different from when I was growing up. The percentages are roughly the same - 95 percent rubbish, 5 … - Eric Clapton

When you are playing night after night on a punishing schedule, often not because you want to but because you are contractually obligated to, it is only too easy to forget the ideals that once brought you together. There were times, too, when, playing to audiences who were only too happy to worship us, complacency set in. I began to be quite ashamed of being in Cream, because I thought it was a con. It wasn’t really developing from where we were. As we made our voyage across America, we were being exposed to extremely strong and powerful influences, with jazz and rock ’n’ roll that was growing up around us, and it seemed that we weren’t learning from it.

Delaney turned me on to so many things. He played me the music of J. J. Cale, which was to become an enormous influence.

To this day I would say that the bass player Carl Radle and the drummer Jimmy Gordon are the most powerful rhythm section I have ever played with. They were absolutely brilliant. When people say that Jim Gordon is the greatest rock ’n’ roll drummer who ever lived, I think it’s true, beyond anybody.