Jack
Bruce, who became famous in the 1960s as the bassist and lead vocalist
for the hugely successful rock group Cream, and whose adventurous
approach to his instrument influenced two generations of rock bassists,
died on Saturday at his home in Suffolk, England. He was 71.
His family announced the death on his website. A spokesman said the cause was liver disease; Mr. Bruce had received a liver transplant several years ago.
Mr.
Bruce was well known in British rock and blues circles but virtually
unknown in the United States when he teamed with the guitarist Eric Clapton and the drummer Ginger Baker to form Cream in 1966.
One
of the first of the so-called power trios — the Jimi Hendrix Experience
soon followed in its wake — Cream had its roots in the blues and became
known for Mr. Clapton’s long, virtuosic solos on reworked versions of
blues standards like “Crossroads” and “Spoonful.”
“Those
original blues records had been done so well, which meant you could
only ever be second best,” Mr. Bruce was quoted in the booklet for a
1997 Cream compilation CD. “But if you treated those songs with a great
deal of love and respect, you could remake them into your own.”
There
were also many original compositions in Cream’s repertoire, most of
them — including the hits “Sunshine of Your Love,” “I Feel Free” and
“White Room” — written by Mr. Bruce, usually with lyrics by the poet
Pete Brown. (“Sunshine,” the group’s biggest hit, was a rare
Bruce-Brown-Clapton collaboration.)
Mr.
Bruce did most of the singing, in a polished tenor that could be both
powerful and plaintive, and his fluid playing provided a solid
counterpoint to Mr. Baker’s explosive drumming and Mr. Clapton’s guitar
pyrotechnics. His inventive introductions to songs like “Badge” were an
essential part of Cream’s sound. Roger Waters of Pink Floyd recently
called Mr. Bruce “probably the most musically gifted bass player who’s
ever been.”
Cream
enjoyed almost immediate success but did not last long. Friction
between Mr. Bruce and Mr. Baker is the reason most often cited for the
group’s breakup in 1968, after touring extensively and releasing four
albums whose total sales have been estimated at 35 million.
Mr.
Clapton and Mr. Baker soon reunited and joined with the keyboardist and
guitarist Steve Winwood and the bassist Ric Grech to form the group
Blind Faith. Despite high expectations, Blind Faith proved to be even
more short-lived than Cream, disbanding after one album and one tour.
Mr. Bruce, meanwhile, was charting a more ambitious if less commercial
musical course.
He
recorded a jazz album, “Things We Like,” shortly before Cream
disbanded, although it was not released until after an album in a more
conventional rock vein, “Songs for a Tailor,” which he recorded after
the breakup. He briefly toured with the guitarist Larry Coryell and the
drummer and former Hendrix sideman Mitch Mitchell, and then joined the
drummer Tony Williams’s pioneering jazz-rock band, Lifetime, alongside
the guitarist John McLaughlin and the organist Larry Young.
Mr.
Bruce later led several groups of his own and co-led bands with the
guitarist Robin Trower and with the guitarist Leslie West and the
drummer Corky Laing. He was also an occasional member of Ringo Starr’s
All-Starr Band.
Among
the albums on which Mr. Bruce played were the experimental Carla
Bley-Paul Haines jazz-rock opera “Escalator Over the Hill” (on which he
also sang), Lou Reed’s “Berlin” and Frank Zappa’s “Apostrophe,” whose
title track was a Zappa-Bruce co-composition. He recorded more than a
dozen albums as a leader; the most recent, “Silver Rails,” was released
this year.
John
Symon Asher Bruce was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on May 14, 1943. He
studied cello and composition at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music.
“Growing
up, I had envisioned being some kind of a Mozart,” he once said. “I
studied classical music early on, and composed a string quartet at age
11.”
But
he became disenchanted with the formal study of music and left the
academy after a few months. He moved first to Italy and then to England,
where he joined the band Blues Incorporated in 1962. The next year he
joined the organist Graham Bond’s band, the Graham Bond Organisation,
whose members also included Mr. McLaughlin and Mr. Baker. He later had
brief stints in John Mayall’s Blues Breakers — where he first worked
with Mr. Clapton — and the pop group Manfred Mann.
Cream was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, and received a lifetime achievement Grammy in 2006. In 2005, the band reunited for concerts in London and New York.
Mr. Bruce’s survivors include his wife, Margrit, as well as four children and a granddaughter.
A version of this article appears in print on October 26, 2014, on page A25 of the New York edition with the headline: Jack Bruce, Cream’s Adventurous Bassist, Dies at 71.
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