Cream’s Jack Bruce, One of Rock & Roll’s Modern Architects, 1943-2014
Eric Clapton never forgot the very first time he played with Jack Bruce. It was early 1966 and the 22-year-old bassist had just taken over for John McVie in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers. “My life was never the same again,” Clapton wrote in the intro to the 2010 book Jack Bruce Composing Himself. “It was not volume, or technique, or virtuosity that defined Jack’s presence onstage. It was his obvious desire to make the most out of every musical opportunity…. The music, and the experience of playing it, took me to another dimension.”
By the time that he joined the Bluesbreakers, Bruce – who died of liver disease in Suffolk, England on October 25th, at age 71 – was already an extremely accomplished musician. A childhood prodigy who won a scholarship to study cello at Bellahouston Academy in Glasgow, Scotland, Bruce had been a part of the burgeoning London R&B scene since 1962 when he joined Alexis Korner’s group Blues Incorporated. He found an immediate musical connection with their drummer, a brash jazz-inspired played named Ginger Baker, but their relationship quickly soured when Bruce switched from upright to electric bass. “That wasn’t what Ginger wanted,” Bruce said in the 2012 documentary Beware Mr. Baker. “I think that’s when the problems [between us] started.”
Tensions aside, Baker and Bruce teamed up again not long afterwards in the Graham Bond Organisation. During one show, they got into a vicious fight onstage because Baker felt that Bruce was playing during his drum solo. “He pulled a knife on me,” said Bruce. “And said, ‘You’re fired.’ I said, ‘You can’t fire me. It’s the Graham Bond Organisaiton and I’m the founding member.’ Poor old Graham, he was well into smack by that point and he didn’t care. It was very stupid of Ginger because the band was doing well and I was an important part.”
The incident was actually somewhat of a blessing because Bruce soon found himself playing alongside Clapton in the Bluesbreakers, and not long after that he joined Manfred Mann just in time to play on their breakthrough single “Pretty Flamingo.” But Bruce soon realized very little money was actually coming his way and life in a pop group rapidly grew stale, so when Eric Clapton called him up about starting a blues rock trio he jumped at the chance – even though it meant once again playing with his old drummer. “He came around and ate humble pie,” said Bruce. “Ginger approached Eric about forming a band and Eric said, ‘Yeah, but if we do, Jack’s gotta be the singer.'”
One of rock’s first supergroups, Cream were an instant success. Their debut LP Fresh Cream was a huge hit, and their concerts were absolutely explosive. “The blues was the glue that held them together,” says Living Colour’s Vernon Reid, who toured widely with Bruce in recent years. “But they’re the roots of prog rock and parts of the roots of jazz rock and even metal. They’re a band that kind of turned everything sideways for the couple of years they were around.”
Bruce was not only Cream’s lead singer, but he co-wrote many of their most beloved songs – including “White Room,” “I Feel Free” and “Politician” – with English poet Pete Brown. (Eric Clapton wrote “Sunshine of Your Love” with the two of them.) This didn’t sit well with Ginger Baker. “Ginger would have been happy if everything had been written by ‘The Cream,'” said Bruce. “But I’m glad I didn’t do that. It’s not right, and it’s not truthful.”