10 Best British Classic Rock Bands Of All Time

By the mid 60's, the pop world of the British Invasion slowly dissipated, leaving room for the more experienced musicians to get much heavier. Instead of writing songs in the vein of Chuck Berry and Little Richard, this next wave of bands brought with them more earthy sounds inspired by the likes of John Lee Hooker and Robert Johnson.

In the middle of this blues revival was Cream, whose extraordinary musicianship was the first of its kind to break on a massive scale. Though guitarist Eric Clapton had been making waves in the Yardbirds and with John Mayall, it wasn't until the arrival of Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce that things really started to take off.

While the results were still bluesy hard rock, the songs also had an extremely soulful sound along with one of the most vicious backbeats ever to come from the Love Generation. The way that the band would lock in on these heavy riffs over the relentless tempo also foreshadowed the later years of hard rock by almost half a decade.

Cream had worked best as a whole, but Clapton always seemed to have a bigger vision than just being in one band. By the time they had call it quits, the band became legendary and Clapton had become God in the eyes of guitarists.