JACK BRUCE
Jack Bruce (14 May 1943 – 25 October 2014) was a Scottish musician, composer and vocalist, known primarily for his multi-faceted contributions to the legendary British supergroup Cream, which included guitarist-singer Eric Clapton and drummer-founder Ginger Baker. In March, 2011, Rolling Stone readers selected him as the eighth greatest bass guitarist of all time. Bruce maintained a solo career that spanned several decades and also played in several musical groups. He was trained as a classical cellist and considered himself a jazz musician, although much of his catalogue of compositions and recordings tended toward blues and rock and roll. (More from Wikipedia)
Chris Spedding went on to play with Cream bassist Jack Bruce (including his first solo album in 1969, Songs for a Tailor) and former Manfred Mann singer Mike D’Abo, plus a host of others, from Elton John to John Cale to Brian Eno to Harry Nilsson (including one of his best known albums, Nilsson Schmilsson). In 1973, Andy Fraser, the former bass player for Free (“All Right Now”) brought Spedding in as the lead guitarist for his short-lived band Sharks.
(November 2011)
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Manfred Mann always had a chameleon quality and, unlike the top-flight British Invasion bands like the Beatles, the Who and the Rolling Stones, had frequent changes in their line-up. As I noted last month, Jack Bruce, later of Cream was a member in the mid-1960’s.
(June 2014)
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I have never seen any of these local CD’s anywhere except at the place where I bought them. But lesser known and unknown albums accumulate with the hit albums, and record stores offering both new and used albums try to sell them also.
I guess I first learned of this when I would go into a record store and start flipping through the stacks. Many stores have separate sections set up for major artists like the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Pat Benatar, the Band, Black Sabbath, David Bowie, the B-52’s, etc. Then at the end would be a section simply marked “B”; here would be found albums by other artists whose names start with B. Some would be well known – a stray Boston or Blind Faith or Jack Bruce album might be found there, say – but most were utterly unknown to me. I would kind of flip through them, but I rarely bought anything.
Now when I go into a record store that has major artists in their own marked sections, I usually pass those by and go straight to the plain “B”!
(December 2015)
