“Sunshine of Your Love”
This song by Cream (Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker) was an important part of the soundtrack of my late teens, and the album, Disraeli Gears, which was released a couple of weeks before my seventeenth birthday, was played so often the grooves wore out. Yeah, I really loved that song and the album. Although the group was short-lived (three years), their four albums, Fresh Cream (1966), Disraeli Gears (1967), Wheels of Fire (1968) – which, by the way, was the first platinum selling double album – and Goodbye (2969), their music still resonates for me almost 60 years later!
“Sunshine of Your Love” has elements of hard rock and psychedelia and is most likely one of their most popular and best known songs. Bassist/vocalist Jack Bruce based the song on a distinctive bass riff he developed after attending a Jimi Hendrix concert. The song is sung as a duet with Bruce and Clapton trading the lead from line to line. Cream’s American record label, Atco, was initially unsure of the song’s potential, but after some recommendations, it released an edited single version in December of 1967. The song went on to become Cream’s first and highest charting American single and one of the most popular singles of 1968.
I feel it necessary to qualify my cover choice. Some of you may remember that I used another cover song by Robyn Adele Anderson (“Blue (Da Ba Dee)” in March of this year, and it might appear that I am picking on her. Well, maybe I am, but when I heard this cover of a song that means a great deal to me…I had no choice. To set the record straight, I think very highly of Anderson. I think she has an amazing voice and stage presence, and I have featured her several times as part of Postmodern Jukebox on my DUTC posts. PMJ have racked up over 250 million views on their YouTube channel, with Anderson being credited with the band’s breakthrough covers of “Thrift Store,” and “We Can’t Stop” in 2013. She began recording and producing her own covers, releasing them on YouTube and other platforms. By August of 2021 her YouTube channel had over 653,000 subscribers. While most of her self-produced covers I have listened to are on par with her contributions to PMJ, for myself, there have been some unwise choices of songs to cover, “Sunshine of Your Love” definitely being one of them. Taking a “classic” rock/psychedelic song and reinterpreting it in a “Latin” style just does not work for me. But, as always, I will let you be the judge!
Cream. “Sunshine of Your Love” 1967.
byn Adele Anderson. “Sunshine of Your Love” cover 2024
Los Angeles 2025
Robyn rarely falls short but on this one I am with you. For all the reasons you mentioned, if you’re attempting a dynamic and iconic song like this one, just don’t.
Yup, you are right about that, it is rare. Thanks.
You’re getting rather fine at this song curation thing 👍
Why thank you!
Taking a dark, almost menacing original to a salsifying poppishness cover seems sacrilege that would only be topped only by turning it into muzak. I agree with you.
Thank you!
You’re welcome, Quadzilla 🙂
I love the original, of course…part of my senior year (HS!) sound track. The cover isn’t as completely awful as I’d thought it might be. They’re such good musicians and Robyn’s voice is fantastic. But sometimes you just shouldn’t mess with the original.
Exactly!
Cream a la Cocktail Lounge? Nope, this one just fly, but it sure do fall spectacularly flat. That is how it goes with covers though… can’t win ’em all.
Very true!
Have to agree with you on this one, North. While not terrible were it a stand-alone song, Anderson’s cover of this iconic classic seems sacrilegious.
No, it’s not terrible as you said, but it is sacreligious, as you also said!
There’s always a certain risk to cover an iconic song like Cream’s “Sunshine of Your Love.” While I definitely prefer the original, the version by Adele Anderson doesn’t bother me much. I think she deserves some credit to re-interpret that song in a Latin Jazz version.
She does have a good voice…but just NOT for this song. She really miss read this song…it just doesn’t compute.
I like the heavy, loping rock pace of the original, but the cover is horrid. A number of bands like Postmodern Jukebox from New York do pretty good swing band covers, but this one truly misses the mark and I couldn’t get through it.