I can still remember the one-line review of Wrapping Paper by Cream in Australia’s only weekly pop paper (Go Set) which stated simply We’re rapt... Of course, the people who were making the judgements about what was cool were probably more familiar with the sources of the stuff we were listening to than we were.
So Jim had spent up big one pay-day, buying Fresh Cream and the first Butterfield album, headed off home, wasn’t overly impressed by either, and wanted a second opinion on two albums that hadn’t lived up to their advance publicity.
When I heard the first notes of N.S.U. that was enough for me - I was sold on Cream, but when Born In Chicago headed off the Butterfield album, what we were hearing was Chicago blues and while it wasn’t quite coming from another universe it wasn’t quite from our section of the galaxy either so I wasn’t that impressed.
Jim wasn’t sure what he was going to do with the two albums, and sort-of offered both of them to me at half price. I must have bought something recently, because my meagre finances didn’t run to both. I said I’d definitely take Cream, but didn’t want the other one, and Jim thought that in that case, since he couldn’t move both of them he’d give Cream another chance, and cut his losses with the Butterfield.
By now, of course, the Butterfield is probably one of Jim’s all-time favourite albums, but back then....
Anyway, Jim was the first serious music buyer I’d run across, and listening to the collection he'd built up was a major pastime for an impoverished student. Around the time Jim headed out of school and into accountancy, another collector turned up at school.
Eric was from Innisfail and had taken some time off school to work in a pub kitchen before his parents had persuaded him that he should finish his education and conned him into going back to school. As well as whatever he’d saved from working, he also had the chance to pick up holiday jobs because his father was the local harbour master, and was able to find his son casual work on the dredge that kept the shipping channel open.