Welcome to A Breath of Fresh Air with Sandy Kaye. Cause it’s a beautiful day.
[00:23–00:38] A Breath of Fresh Air. Beautiful day, oh baby, any day that you’re gone away. It’s a beautiful day. Hi, welcome to the show. How are you today?
[00:38–00:50] I hope you’re feeling great and really ready to relax as together we travel back to the 60s to revisit the work of one of Britain’s first rock supergroups. Can you guess who I’m talking about?
[00:51–01:03] Well, if you’re thinking the likes of Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce and Eric Clapton, you’re right on the money. The subject of today’s episode is indeed the group Cream, and we’re hearing from Jack Bruce’s
[01:03–01:15] son Malcolm, who recently released his own tribute to his famous father’s band. Coming up, Malcolm paints us a picture of what it was like growing up as the son of a rock superstar.
[01:15–01:28] He shares all he knows about Cream’s music and the influences on it, as well as filling us in on the reasons why he felt compelled to produce an acoustic album that’s made up purely of cream songs.
[01:28–01:41] It’s getting to dawn When lights close their tired eyes I’ll soon be with you, my love
[01:41–02:05] To give you my dawn surprise I’ll be with you darling soon Be with you when the stars start falling
[02:10–02:27] I’ve been waiting so long To be where I’m going In the sunshine of your love Malcolm Bruce is no stranger to the music of Cream.
[02:27–02:46] He’s been touring it constantly with his band for several years all over the globe. I started out by asking Malcolm what he remembers about growing up as the son of the famous Scottish lead vocalist and bassist Jack Bruce. I remember so many different things. I had a family home life
[02:46–02:59] just like anybody else, but I guess my father was famous. He was highly strung. He was an artiste with an E on the end, a creative person. There were addiction problems, his personal stuff that
[03:00–03:33] he was working through, just like so many people. That doesn’t make him unique, but I think it was a unique situation growing up around that kind of level of creativity and lots of different people coming in and out of the house and staying with us, incredible musicians. I got into music very early on. I was having piano lessons by the age of five and started to play the bass guitar a little after that and then the electric guitar. And I was writing music and just having music around me all the time. So I think those formative early, early memories are just of, oh, look, there’s a piano. I wonder if I can put my hand on top of it or
[03:34–03:52] whatever. Defining what was it like growing up with Jack Bruce as my dad? I don’t know. It’s more how other people might perceive it as being something unique and special, which I suppose it was. He was a really amazing person just to spend time with. And he was well-read and intelligent
[03:52–04:07] and well-travelled, obviously, and very kind when he was at his best. Did he encourage you and your brother towards music? Yes, he did, but not in a sort of structured way. I think when he saw that we wanted to do music,
[04:08–04:23] then he encouraged it by playing with us. And then a little later on, we got into music. So we actually ended up recording things together at home. So you definitely related to each other over music? Oh, absolutely. I think our bonding was actually that.
[04:24–04:39] As I was growing up, that was really a lot of what we would do at home. We just, he’d play the Hammond organ, I’d play the piano or whatever. I find it quite interesting that he married your mum in 1964, and she’d been the secretary of the Graham Bond organisation,
[04:39–04:53] Fan Club, of course, of which he was a founding member. I don’t think he married her because she was the secretary of the Fan Club. I’ll have to ask her tomorrow, but I think she became the secretary because she was going out with my dad.
[04:57–05:08] This fan club, there are no such thing anymore.
[05:11–05:23] a letter and a stamp and you’d write someone’s address and you’d send them a little membership card that they’d spent i don’t know how much it was it was old money then wasn’t it so absolutely
[05:23–05:35] what they were was a way of relating with the artist that you totally adored you could actually interact with them i suppose the internet feels that today i remember writing a letter when i was
[05:35–05:49] seven years old to sydney portia in hollywood and i was so shocked some weeks later to get a signed photo back. So, I mean, that certainly doesn’t happen. That’s really, no, but that’s really amazing that he was doing that for his,
[05:49–06:04] for people of photo and it’s incredible. Those schoolgirl days Of telling tales and biting nails are gone
[06:05–06:19] But in my mind I know they will Still live on and on
[06:20–06:33] But how do you thank someone Who has taken you from crayons to perfume It isn’t easy
[06:37–06:51] But I’ll try If you wanted the sky I would ride across the sky in letters That would soar a thousand feet high
[06:51–07:08] To serve with love Malcolm, were you familiar with all of Dad’s work? I think I was hearing things being played around the house, for sure.
[07:08–07:20] Yeah, I mean, I’m not sure if I knew every single song that they ever recorded, but certainly my mum and my dad were playing records and playing Cream songs and all that stuff. And I would go to his shows sometimes when I was very young.
[07:21–07:35] My dad was making so many different kinds of music as well. I mean, he’s best known for Cream,Korean, but he collaborated with all kinds of musicians in different genres, Tony Williams and John McLaughlin and all kinds of people. So, you know, although
[07:35–07:56] he’s known for that sort of rock and blues thing that he was so great at, he did so many other things as well. They said you’re out walking with Mr. So-and-so
[07:57–08:12] Think of me when you get lonely Remember that I’m not of only you No matter what you tell me I found out what a cheating heart can do And I’m a little more blue
[08:12–08:25] He was born and raised in Glasgow in Scotland and I think he just gravitated towards it very early on. I know that my grandfather played the mandolin. So I think music was around,
[08:25–08:36] I think my grandmother was a singer. I think he just very early on got into it. He studied classical music, was a boy soprano in a choir, and then started playing the cello and played
[08:37–08:50] the double bass, studied the piano as well, and went for a short time to the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama and studied within that classical tradition. And I think it’s what made my father so unique
[08:50–09:02] in the context of rock music, that he had this background, this comprehensive understanding of what music is. And so that just gave him an incredibly wide ability to bring disparate
[09:02–09:19] influences into what he did in terms of his writing and his performance. And I think that becomes really evident. I mean, it’s not that there aren’t a ton of amazing other artists in the rock tradition. But there’s something that my dad brought that had a certain understanding of that deeper knowledge,
[09:19–09:36] that tradition of classical music. You know, he loved Messiaen, he loved Stravinsky, he loved Bach. And you can hear those things in the structure. Can you give us an example of a song where you can hear that? Maybe more on the jazz side is an obvious one without me having to kind of delve in and find something.
[09:37–09:54] But at the end of Cream, and before he released his official first solo record, which is called Songs for a Tailor, he made a jazz record called Things We Like with John Heisman on drums, Dick Hexel-Smith on saxophone. Dick was one of the members of the Graham Bond organization, all kinds of things that my dad had worked with him for many years.
[09:55–10:10] And also John McLaughlin guested on that record as well. And there’s a piece called Statues, and I think that that’s a good example of that, where some of Messiaen’s organ music had these kind of monolithic objects as chords that would move in a particular fashion.
[10:10–10:46] And I think you can see a direct correlation on that particular piece of music. I had no idea that he was so highly trained. I’m quite shocked to hear that. Yes, trained in one sense, but not really trained. I think for all of us that appreciate all kinds of music, there is a training.
[10:47–11:00] You know, I spend three, four hours a day sometimes when I’ve got the time practicing piano repertoire, going through Chopin and everything, because it’s such a rich tradition. And you just it’s just infinite what one can learn from that.
[11:00–11:15] And whether one is actually a concert pianist or not is a different thing. But to take those influences, you know, a lot of people don’t understand what jazz is. Jazz is not just a black form of music in that sense it does take from the black tradition and
[11:15–11:29] the blues but it also takes from this especially french impressionism late 19th early 20th century classical tradition the bussy revel particular kind of sonorousness and harmonic approach to
[11:29–11:42] music and that’s what makes jazz so incredible because it’s almost like white culture meets black culture. The traditions of, I’m completely generalizing here, but the white Western classical traditions
[11:42–11:56] meet the African traditions. And that’s the weird thing about that whole thing of slavery and all the awful things that happened over centuries. Actually, there is something to be said for how that created a synthesis
[11:56–12:11] of these disparate cultures. Something actually was born out of that that was beautiful. My dad really understood. I think that’s something I really understood from him. The blues, the simplest ghetto blues, the simplest self-taught musician
[12:11–12:29] where the spirit shines through in a way that’s not possible with somebody that’s got a tie on and it’s, yes, I’m going to play it or I’m going to think in a certain way that’s very stiff. Dad was certainly, he wasn’t, there was never that snobbishness about a hierarchy of what forms of music were
[12:30–13:10] high art and what forms of music weren’t high art and all of that nonsense. There was just this simple, innocent joy of experiencing and exploring what music could be. Feel when I dance with you
[13:15–13:36] We move like the sea You to know you’ll be I feel free
[13:36–13:50] I feel free Certainly made some fantastic music, didn’t he? Jack Bruce met drummer Ginger Baker in the Graham Bond organisation. They were a rather underrated British R&B combo,
[13:51–14:07] but one that drew extensively on the jazz backgrounds of both Ginger and Jack. And then they went on to form Cream, who I was amazed to realize again, that for all the impact they had and still have
[14:07–14:21] on the world, were really only together for a couple of years. Yeah, I think it was about two and a half years to three years, maybe. There is a bit of a, you know during the grand bond days i think ginger fired
[14:22–14:33] my dad from the band at knife point as far as i remember the story goes you know it’s like all right jack you’re at the band mate you know that sort of thing and so when cream were formed a
[14:34–14:48] little while later it was actually ginger’s idea and ginger went to eric clapton and said and my dad had played with eric in the johnles Blues Breakers, I believe, previously. And Ginger loved Eric, too, because, I mean, everybody loved Eric.
[14:48–15:00] Eric Clapton was God at that point. It was plastered on, you know, it was graffitied on in London that he was God as a guitarist, you know, and he was. He was seen as the great, and rightly so, he was phenomenal.
[15:07–15:21] For your love For your love For your love I’d give you everything and more and that’s for sure
[15:21–15:35] For your love I’d bring you diamond rings and things right to your door For your love To thrill you with delight I’d give you diamonds bright There’ll be days that will excite
[15:35–15:49] And make you dream of me at night For your love For your love For your love
[15:49–16:01] For your love, for your love
[16:01–16:37] I would give the stars above For your love, for your love I would give you all I could Ginger went to Eric and said, look, I want to put a band together.
[16:37–16:50] I really want to do it with you. And apparently Eric said, I’ll do it, but you have to have Jack Bruce on bass. And so Ginger had to kind of go to my dad and sort of apologise, sort of. Eat humble pie.
[16:50–17:04] Listen, Harry wants you in the band, man, you know. So I believe something like that happened. But they were friends, weren’t they? They were friends. Well, yes, they were friends and they loved each other, but it was like a sibling rivalry or something.
[17:06–17:28] I don’t really understand. I don’t think anyone understands it. And I think Ginger kind of was one of the people, along with Dick Hacksmith and a few others, that sort of introduced my father to the London scene. They recognized his value when they met him and they sort of helped him get established on the London gigging touring circuit around the UK and introduced him into these bands.
[17:28–17:40] And Ginger was maybe a few years older than my dad. So I think maybe there was that kind of elder brother attitude towards my dad, but my dad was not somebody that was going to accept being less than anybody or do as he’s told or anything like that.
[17:40–17:52] So I don’t know what it was. They were butt heads. But when they played together, it was incredible. Despite their volatile relationship, Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce did reunite in 1966
[17:52–18:00] when they formed Cream with guitarist Eric Clapton. The trio released four albums in a little over two years
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. Cream disbanded in 1968, a decision that was largely a consequence of the animosity between Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker.
But as Malcolm Bruce tells us, other factors did come into play. As the story goes, you know, they were working so hard during the, towards the end of the Cream days, and they had a lot of success. And they were touring all the time in America.
And I think maybe it just got too much for them to all collectively handle. There were a few things that happened. There was a Rolling Stone magazine interview with Eric that had triggered something.
Sometimes things implode because of the pressures, fame, drugs, rock and roll. Well, that’s right. They were in fact, the first rock super group to become superstars.
And as you said, unprecedented, they wouldn’t have had any idea how to handle it. No, they were just working class kids from London. You know, my dad was from Scotland, but the other two were from London.
They were all working class. They had working class backgrounds. They wanted to be musicians, but I don’t think any of them would have thought we’re going to be world famous and people are going to be offering us their wives.
Take my wife for, and have some drugs as well. And like night after night, I’m kidding, but you know. Now we’re all jaded and cynical and everything’s global and we know everything.
But then there was a naivety. Did they have good management? They had very good management, except they were being ripped off financially. They were being managed by Robert Stigwood and Robert managed the Bee Gees.
He launched Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice’s careers, all of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals and the films. He produced Saturday Night Fever. He produced Grease.
I think they all got on with him. He was a real character. You know, that’s what you need as a manager in the same way that Zeppelin had Peter Grant and the stories that go along with all of that, the kind of hard man, the tough attitude, getting things done.
But I guess the payoff is that back in those days, certainly managers would be a little bit dodgy around the side and you know, the money might say, Oh, sorry, I don’t know what happened to that hundred thousand. And it still goes on. And there is a Hunter S. Thompson quote in there somewhere about what the music business is like, maybe because musicians, we have to remain open, you know, as human beings, we have to, if we’re going to be creative, we have to be childlike to some degree, otherwise it’s not going to sound very childlike.
And that creativity doesn’t kind of go hand in hand with a very savvy business sense, does it? Well, you can be very trusting. You can’t imagine. That guy seems so nice.
And he says he’s going to look after me. It’s just impossible that he’s ripped me off. But I mean, not even not even simply in the sense of ripping you off financially.
But it doesn’t sound like Robert Stigwood actually looked after the members of Cream collectively and individually in terms of their mental health. Otherwise, they probably wouldn’t have gone off the deep end with addiction and all the temptation that was coming his way. Well, we’re talking about almost 60 years ago, so that we have to take that into account the awareness of mental health, of human potential, of spirituality.
That was a completely different time. Maybe there were amazing things that were more open then because it was a different time, more naivety, more freshness in the ways we’ve already talked about. But yeah, I think now if you’re lucky, you’ll get people that really understand mental health, really understand about transparency and understand about communication and kindness and compassion and humility.
But unfortunately, it’s still not always the case that people behave like that. A lot of people are out for themselves in all walks of life. So, you know, it’s important for all of us to work on ourselves, not blame other people.
And if we get ourselves into trouble, I think ultimately we have to take responsibility for our own karma. So there you go. Collect those spoons full of gold Just a little spoon of your precious love Satisfy my soul Many lies about it Some of them cries about it Some of them dies about it Everything’s a fightin’ about Did Dad have a favourite Cream song? I think Sunshine of Your Love was probably enforced on him as the favourite one.
Well, he wrote it, didn’t he? He wrote, well, yes, he wrote the music and the melody and Pete Brown wrote the lyrics. And Eric Clapton contributed, I believe, the bridge chords or something like that. But yes, they did kind of collectively write it.
But, you know, ultimately it’s my dad’s song, I believe, in that sense. But that became the best known song. But I think he liked We’re Going Wrong because it was something he wrote about an argument he had with my mum.
Also, some of the songs that they covered themselves, that weren’t songs that they wrote, songs like Spoonful by Willie Dixon. I watched my dad play that song throughout his career in all kinds of bands with different people. And I’ve played it myself as well.
It’s such an amazing piece of music. So my dad had no problem with honouring parts of the tradition, even if he hadn’t have written those particular songs. I think Spoonful is just, again, going back to the notion of what classical music is.
Although we think of it as a blues song, actually, it’s a kind of motivic, improvised piece of classical music in the sense that you’ve got these little cells that can be twisted and turned and expanded and pulled all over the place and can be stretched out and creamed themselves, did 25, 30 minute live recorded versions of them. Just a little spoon of your precious love Is all that’s left for me There’s lies about it There’s nothing that cries about it There’s nothing that dies about it Everything’s a fight about the spoon He was he was really responsible for shaping Cream Sound, wasn’t he? And he sung most of the material himself. Yeah, as I say, that musical openness, you know, there was perhaps what made that band unique was the tension.
I mean, obviously, this tension between we could talk about Lennon and McCartney and George Harrison wanting to be taken more seriously as a writer. And so he’s like, you can see he’s like a bit pissed off in the background, you know, and then eventually that probably contributed to their breakup to some degree. Obviously, Paul took control and blah, blah, blah.
Yeah. And John’s addiction and Yoko pulling him and all of that stuff with Cream. Eric came from a pure blues background.
You know, he was a master of the blues from a very young age. He’d studied all the greats and emulated them and then found his own voice within that. I’m sure if you sat with Eric and say, could you play like Albert King, he’d be able to play that.
Or can you play like Bebe? I mean, he played with those guys, but he was a master of that tradition. And Ginger was a jazz drummer that also discovered the blues and then was discovering African music and all kinds of things. And my dad had this whole classical jazz, blues, Scottish folk music that he grew up listening to.
So there’s all these disparate elements. But I think, yes, my dad’s voice, the sound of his voice and his openness as a bass player, the movement within his bass playing. Most bass players at the time were kind of, I mean, McCartney, incredible.
I mean, what he did as a bass player is incredible. But it’s a slightly different thing to my dad. My dad was like more driving, more gritty, an absolutely equal voice with the other two guys musically.
Forget even the vocal thing for a minute. But just the equality of those three people within the sonic space. You’ve got the bass, you’ve got the guitar and you’ve got the drums and they’re all riffing.
They’re all playing melodies and they’re all interacting with each other or ignoring each other or whatever they’re doing in each moment. So I think they all contributed to the sound. But yes, I think at the heart of that is my dad’s vocal delivery and his driving bass lines that sound like him.
You know, it’s not even really the instrument. It’s just the way he, the choices he made in each moment. I’ve been waiting so long to be where I’m going, in the sunshine of your love.
There is a famous quote from my dad saying me and Ginger were a jazz rhythm section, but we just didn’t tell Eric, because Eric was sort of, I don’t want to speak for him, but, you know, I believe that he was just, you know, an avid lover and believer in the blues tradition at that, certainly at that time. And then you can see what did Eric do kind of after Cream. He kind of started moving back to the more conventional Americana forms of expression, the more, the purer forms with, you know, whether it was with Bobby Whitlock or whoever, he wanted to kind of gravitate more to that sound world was something that perhaps Eric at that time felt a lot more comfortable within.
And I think the things that my dad was bringing were more diverse than that, for sure. And then you have you throw a Ginger Baker on top of that. And I don’t even know what to say about that because Ginger is an absolute genius.
That’s probably why the band split up in 68, wasn’t it? Eric wanted to move off on his own. And there were tensions between Ginger and Jack. And the last massive hit, of course, that was became a huge number one everywhere in the world was White Room.
Yeah. No. You said.
Just. What a shame they didn’t make more music, they were so awesome. It’s funny how that works, isn’t it? I mean, I love Jeff Buckley.
I know with you, I’m sure you guys know who that is. But but Jeff, again, you know, he died very young. I relate to him because his dad is also famous.
So, you know, he had that kind of thing. And Jimi Hendrix is another like, what would it be? What would Jimi Hendrix be doing if he was still around? Would he be a sort of messed up junkie playing in bars or would he have changed the face of the planet with a kind of transcendent cosmic form of music? Because music can at its best have the power to change humanity. It could if it was allowed to.
Hendrix did touch on that. He did touch on a transcendent level of expression. I think my dad and Cream did at moments did too.
Malcolm Bruce, after Cream split, Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker went and formed Blind Faith for a short time. What did dad do? He released his first solo record, which is called Songs for a Tailor. And that did quite well.
I think it charted. I think it got some great reviews. It’s got some wonderful songs on it.
Never Tell Your Mother She’s Out of Tune, a theme from Marjorie Weston that became a hit for Mountain, Felix Papalardi and Leslie Weston, Corky Lang a little later on in America. Their versions better known over there, I believe, than my dad’s version. And that’s a beautiful song.
So he continued co-writing songs with Pete Brown, the lyricist that wrote with Cream himself. In the weather of the mornin’ Does being alone well yet have warmth? Sometimes traveling through the darkness Meant the summer coming home Fallen faces by the wayside Wrote the thing that my heart had begun Oh, the sun was in your eyes And the days of that dry town Well, the love did sound He then joined Tony Williams’ Lifetime. And Tony Williams was the drummer in Miles Davis’s second great quintet with Herbie Hancock.
It was probably one of the most interesting, very early fusion bands. But suddenly you have this incredibly adventurous music that nobody understood, including agents, promoters, managers and the rest of humanity. It didn’t seem to matter if his music was fully understood or not.
Jack Bruce continued etching out both an enduring solo career and a host of collaborations.
This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye. It’s a beautiful day. Jack’s next band saw him come together with Leslie West and Corky Lang, but it wasn’t long before that one also spiralled out of control.
It was a band where they all descended into drug addiction, so in the early 70s, so it was a band with huge potential, it was a trio in the sense that it was like cream, it was a power trio as they call it, but it was a particular time and, you know, hey, we’ve got all this money, let’s charter a private jet and fly lots of drugs to the next gig. We need some drugs in the hotel. Hi, I need some drugs.
Women, money, what else do we need? That sort of era, it’s a bit like that movie with Johnny Depp called Blow. It’s sort of that time when all that crazy stuff was going on in the music and film industries and everything. That kind of imploded, and then my dad just carried on.
He made many incredible, he cleaned up his act, you know, but he made many incredible solo records and collaborations with all kinds of people. Carla Bley, a celebrated jazz musician, composer in America, just all kinds of things and made like 15 solo records over the years, toured, was in Ringo Starr’s all-star band for a while. So many different things that he did.
Amazing. And, unfortunately, we lost him. Well, you lost him.
The world lost him in 2014. He was only 71 years of age. Yes.
Well, there you go. I mean, this whole kind of birth-death thing is a funny old game, isn’t it? Unsurprisingly, Jack Bruce passed away from liver disease. I told you not to offer swans that they live in the park I told you about our kid, now he’s married to metal Malcolm, how was it for you? Once you established your own career in music, and I imagine for anybody with a famous parent or parents in the same game, stepping out on your own and not being always in the shadow of that famous one? Well, I think I’m still finding my way out of that.
And I think about that a lot, especially at this point in my career and my life. And I think it’s very challenging. I mean, even Sean Lennon or Julian Lennon, Danny Harrison, there’s all kinds of examples of that.
Obviously, they’re from The Beatles’ kids, and that’s a whole next level up, top, top tier of that sort of experience. But I think even they have struggled with that. And they’re all incredibly talented, creative people, but there’s always going to be that association.
And so we embrace it, like I’m doing with this record, Heavenly Cream. I’m embracing it. But it’s a lovely, lovely thing to have been involved with.
But yes, I think the next phase of my career is really to get, I’m working on a new record, and it just takes time. For me, it’s taken time to get it, to position myself emotionally, spiritually, physically, financially in the position, and just like, OK, now I’m ready. I’m going to really go out and make my own statement, and I think it’s going to be good.
MUSIC I can imagine the experience of putting this out would be completely cathartic, as would the shows that you were touring around with the music of Cream. This album’s called Heavenly Cream, and it’s 15 Cream classics, including ones that we’ve already talked about, Sunshine of Your Love, White Room, Crossroads, that you have brought out with a whole lot of special guests. Tell us about the genesis of it.
Well, it really is down to Pete Brown, the guy that wrote with my dad all those Cream hits. He came to me, came up with this idea to make this record and shoot a documentary alongside it, and then we started talking to artists. We got Bernie Marsden very early on from Whitesnake to agree to do it, Joe Bonamassa, and then we asked Ginger himself, and he agreed to do it.
And then everybody else that’s on the record, Deborah Bonham, Bobby Rush, which was a really amazing experience to have him in the studio, Frankie Tonto, who played with my dad, but was also with Amy Winehouse and George Michael and all kinds of people. Many of the people on the record actually played with my dad back in the 60s and the 70s. It all just was an organic process.
It’s all acoustic. Why did you go for that sound? I think just because it’s a fresh way of looking at the material. There are many cover versions of these songs done in that more, you know, conventional blues rock way with electric guitars and wah-wah pedals and whatever.
So I think it’s quite an interesting way of doing it. It’s not an acoustic record, like a sort of quiet acoustic record. You know, it’s a funky, driving acoustic record with real drum.
I went down to the crossroads Fell down on my knees I went down to the crossroads Asked the Lord above for mercy Save me please Down to the crossroads Down to the crossroads Passes me by How did you select the 15 tracks on it? That was ultimately down to Pete initially. We knew that we would want some of the big songs that everyone more or less knows, like Sunshine of Your Love and White Room and Crossroads. Deserted Cities of the Heart is another great one.
And then Spoonful, Sitting on Top of the World, Border and Rabazza, and they’re all really, really famous blues standards that are also associated with Cream, associated with other more straight-ahead blues artists. Again, it was organic and natural selection. Because we knew that Ginger Baker would be doing the session with Joe Bonamassa, we wanted them to do one of the bigger numbers because it was Ginger and also Joe.
You know, Joe is at the top of the food chain. It’s so beautiful what he did. It was lovely, you know, and he came in like a trooper.
I think everybody came in with the right attitude, the right spirit, just to do what was required. You know, with Ginger, we did Sweet Wine with him. He co-wrote that with my mum, Janet.
She wrote the lyrics for that song. So that was nice of my mum. But, you know, again, it makes sense to ask Ginger to do the song that he wrote.
Who wants the warrior city life Money, nothing funny Wasting the best of our lives Sweet wine, hay, meeting sunshine Day breaking, we can’t wait till tomorrow Car speed, road calling Bird feed, leaf falling We can buy time Ba-ba, ba-ba-ba-ba Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba Did you all come together and do it in the one place or did you just send each other files digitally? Well, we did the first couple of sessions at a studio called Sensible Music and then everything else was done at Abbey Road Studios with everybody in the room together. The only thing that wasn’t done with the rest of us was Paul Rogers’ vocal because he wasn’t available at the time and he’s US-based anyway so that was done remotely but everything else was done as a band which I think is the best way to do it really, isn’t it? I think so. The old-fashioned way.
Yeah, absolutely. Malcolm, how did it feel for you? I feel like it’s your final homage to your dad. What was going on inside you? Again, going back to the beginning of our conversation I don’t know what it’s like not to have had this experience and there’s been a lot of trauma involved in it.
It’s been a crazy ride, you know having a rock star as a dad and all the stuff that went along with that and the craziness but there’s also been some balance as well and some normality thrown in but I’m still kind of weaving through it and I think so much of my creative expression is tied in with the unfolding and healing process that I’m experiencing subjectively and maybe part of that is also kind of paying tribute to my dad’s music. The world has moved on. There’s still a huge desire for this music but the world has moved on so in a way it’s like, yes will this be the last time I play Cream or my dad’s music? Probably not.
I mean, I think there’s still a lot that I could contribute in terms of performing my dad’s music because Cream was a two, three year period of a 55 year career where he wrote so many different things and there’s a lot there to explore and to pay tribute to but I think in this next period of my life the more I can establish myself and my own composition or I’m writing opera, I’m doing all kinds of things but the more I can establish that and come out of my shell and really have the confidence to bring those things together and get them out into the world the more balanced my perspective will be on like, what is appropriate to do here? It happened to my dad himself I saw him at shows where he’d written completely new music and people were shouting play Sunshine of Your Love and he’d shout about stop telling me to play Sunshine of Your Love because that’s the problem in popular music it’s like, well, you’re not listening to the other things we don’t care about the other things we just like Sunshine of Your Love we only like Let It Be or whatever it is or Yellow Submarine just put that on a loop The stars start falling I’ve been waiting so long To be where I’m going In the sunshine of your love I’m with you my love The light shining through on you Yes I’m with you my love It’s the morning just for we two I’ll stay with you darling now I’ll stay with you Till my seas are dried up I’ve been waiting so long To be where I’m going In the sunshine of your love I think my dad eventually did come to terms with it because he just found it wonderful that people loved something that he’d written and that they honoured him for it nothing else really matters just that feeling of like wow I did have an impact That’s right, he sure did and now Malcolm Bruce you’re having an amazing impact providing this in his honour he would have been pretty proud of you wouldn’t he? Oh I hope so, yeah I mean I’m proud of him and I’m really proud of being part of this project as I say I think everybody brought a really nice energy to it everyone put their egos aside for a moment and it’s all about the music this is a record that’s all about the songs Yeah, well done Congratulations to you and all the very best to you Malcolm Thank you so much Lovely, lovely chatting with you thank you for your time and for sharing your life, your stories and your dad’s legacy with us Thank you, thank you for having me Thanks for your company too If you’d like to check out the album it’s called Heavenly Cream and the documentary that Malcolm mentioned is the Cream Acoustic Sessions See you back same place next week I’m looking forward to it Bye now