Almost as soon as Cream were formed in July 1966, they entered Rayrik Studios at Chalk Farm, London, to begin work on their debut single and album with Robert Stigwood producing and John Timperley as engineer.

Clapton later noted that the budget was minuscule, working with four track machines and basically running each song a few times through until they got a satisfactory take, with minimal overdubbing afterward.

[3] The first sessions at Rayrik on August 3 produced the outtakes "Coffee Song", "You Make Me Feel" and "Beauty Queen", followed later in the month by the group's debut single "Wrapping Paper", a music hall influenced piece designed to showcase the group's stylistic versatility, but which was received with puzzlement upon its October release by fans expecting a blues-oriented sound.

After the band moved to Ryemuse Studios (now known as Mayfair), the bulk of the album was recorded between September and November, neatly divided between old blues covers ("Spoonful", "Cat's Squirrel", "Rollin' And Tumblin'", "I'm So Glad", "Four Until Late") and original material penned by bassist Jack Bruce, with two contributions by Ginger Baker ("Sweet Wine" and his groundbreaking extended drum solo "Toad") and two by Bruce's first wife Janet Godfrey, who co-wrote "Sleepy Time Time" with Jack and "Sweet Wine" with Ginger.

"[5] The mellow pop of "Dreaming" showcased Bruce's ghostly falsetto vocal style, which was also used on "I Feel Free" and would become more prominent on later releases.

Fresh Cream was released in the UK on 9 December 1966, as the first LP on the Reaction Records label, owned by producer Robert Stigwood.

Clapton, Baker and Bruce, working like trojans to construct exciting, free, wild music of life, love and soul", concluding sensational things to come from the group.

[4] Retrospectively, Uncut describes the songs as "all about playing in a band and relaxing, the joy of being young, and they walk it like they talk it, being jumping-off points for wonderful spur-of-the moment improvisations".

[18] Writing for the BBC, Sid Smith notes that "blues, pop and rock magically starts to coalesce to create something brand new".

"[2] Similarly, Stephen Thomas Erlewine of AllMusic opined that the album was "instrumental in the birth of heavy metal and jam rock".

This was made during the sessions in early August 1966 for instructive purpose – the whole track as basic mono is mixed far right and a solo guitar overdub far left.