R.I.P., Jack Bruce! (George Clinton on patching up things with Cream)

Jack Bruce (Photo: Christian Sahm / licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license)

John Symon Asher „Jack“ Bruce passed away yesterday (Saturday, October 25, 2014) at age 71. In his just-released autobiography „Brothas Be, Yo, Like George, Ain’t That Funkin‘ Kinda Hard on You?“ Parliament/Funkadelic’s George Clinton (73) remembers running into Cream’s founder member in the spring of 1993 – before and during the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame:

(…) Cream was inducted, which was a kind of brain twist: I got to watch two of my most important influences [Sly Stone was there as well – PJ] and think about the way that I had built Funkadelic on the intersection between their two bands. Jimi Hendrix had it right when he said that Cream was quitting just as everybody else was getting started. I also got to watch how a band acted when they put old rivalries and infighting behind them.

George Clinton (Photo: Peter Jebsen / all rights reserved)

A few weeks before the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony, I was on my way up to the Apollo Theater to give an award to Lisa Lisa, and I saw Bernie Worrell walking with Jack Bruce. I came up right behind them and heard Jack bitching about the induction, and how hard it was going to be to see Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker again, and how they didn’t have any goodwill left. I stepped into their conversation and told Jack that it wouldn’t take them any more than twenty-five minutes to patch things up. The night of the induction, Jack was sitting right near me, and he leaned back and told me that it had only taken fifteen. I’m sure that after that they went right back to being at each other’s throats, but for that one moment, you have to let bands be family again.

BBM (Bruce, Baker, Moore) with P.Funk’s Bernie Worrell in Cologne/Germany (1993)

Jack and the Cuicoland Express (Bernie Worrell, Vernon Reid, Richie Flores, Robbie Ameen, Horacio El Negro Hernandez, Jack Bruce) on Jools Holland (2001)

Jack Bruce had additional P.Funk connections as well: E.g., he was a Special Guest Professor at Bootsy Collins‚ Funk U.

And Bootsy’s Rubber Band co-founder Gary „Mudbone“ Cooper also performed with Jack Bruce:

Peter Jebsen