Early demo sessions for the album were held on March 15, 1967 at London's Ryemuse Studios which yielded rough renditions of "SWLABR", "Blue Condition" and "We're Going Wrong" as well as three other Bruce/Brown compositions: "Hey Now Princess", "The Weird Of Hermiston" and "The Clearout", the latter two of which would be re-recorded for Bruce's 1969 solo effort Songs for a Tailor.

[1] On April 3, following the band's nine shows as part of Murray the K's "Music in the 5th Dimension" concert series which comprised their first tour of America, Cream checked into Atlantic Studios in New York City with label owner Ahmet Ertegun to record a cover of "Lawdy Mama".

[4] The sessions were produced by Ertegun protege and future Mountain bassist Felix Pappalardi and engineered by Tom Dowd, who would later work with Clapton on projects such as Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs and 461 Ocean Boulevard.

[1] The recording atmosphere was also somewhat relaxed, with visitors often encouraged to drop by including Linda Eastman, Al Kooper, Janis Joplin and local groupie Jenny Dean (who provided many of the party sounds on "Take It Back").

[1] Some friction ensued when Ertegun, who had expected the band to play blues, balked at what he called the "psychedelic hogwash" of tracks like "Sunshine of Your Love" and "Tales of Brave Ulysses".

Disraeli Gears features the group veering away, quite heavily, from their blues roots and indulging in more psychedelic sounds, in particular on tracks such as "Tales of Brave Ulysses", "SWLABR", "World of Pain" and "Dance the Night Away".

[7] The most blues-like tunes on the album are Clapton's arrangement of "Outside Woman Blues", the Bruce-Brown composition "Take It Back" which had been inspired by the contemporary media images of American students burning their draft cards and featured harmonica work by Jack Bruce,[8] plus the opening track "Strange Brew", which was based on the 12-bar blues "Lawdy Mama" and featured a guitar solo copied from Albert King's solo on "Oh Pretty Woman".

Clapton sings lead on "Strange Brew" and "Outside Woman Blues", plus co-lead on "World of Pain", "Dance the Night Away" and "Sunshine of Your Love".

Sharp would go on to create the artwork to Cream's next album Wheels of Fire and co-wrote the songs "Tales of Brave Ulysses" and The Savage Seven movie theme "Anyone for Tennis" with Clapton.

The Disraeli Gears Deluxe Edition includes the complete album in both mono and stereo, demos, alternative takes and tracks taken from the band's live sessions on BBC radio.

Clapton's guitar menacing almost like a machine gun, sometimes eerily and overpoweringly persuasive as it reaches serpent-like deep into the Cream's varied and hypnotic musical journeys.

"[23] Disc & Music Echo raved it "shows the completely individual way the group is developing from their early blues days", pointing out that all the songs are "more or less perfect and it's merely a matter of personal bias which you think is best.

"[24] In the United States, Rolling Stone gave a largely positive review, noting it displayed a more original direction than the debut album with "miles of listening pleasure" in tracks like "Strange Brew", "Sunshine Of Your Love", "SWLABR" and "Take It Back" but also critiquing that the album "does not totally hang together" where "in some tracks the material is too pale to support the heavy instrumental work which makes Cream such an overwhelming trio".

[25] Retrospectively, writing for the BBC, Chris Jones described the album as "a perfect encapsulation of the point where the blues got psychedelic and in turn got heavy".

[26] Classic Rock's Louder notes "it captured epic studio performances by Jack Bruce, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker at the peak of their powers as a group" and "became a touchstone recording of the '60s counterculture.