Cream bassist Jack Bruce dies aged 71 after a lifetime in blues

Jack Bruce, the bassist and singer for the seminal 60s rock group Cream, has died aged 71. He had been suffering from liver disease.

His death was announced on his official website on Saturday and confirmed by his publicist Claire Singers. “Jack died today at his home in Suffolk surrounded by his family,” she said.

Trained as a classical musician, Glasgow-born Bruce had a powerful melodic voice and was also a talented, jazz-influenced bass guitarist. He formed Cream with guitarist Eric Clapton and drummer Ginger Baker and was responsible, with co-writer Peter Brown, for penning the majority of the band’s songs. Their most famous hits include I Feel Free, White Room, Politician and (with Clapton) Sunshine Of Your Love, which features one of the world’s most frequently played guitar riffs.

The group were distinctive for the high quality of their musicianship andplayed a key role in establishing rock as a serious art form in the late 60s. Cream sold 35 million albums between 1966 and 1968 and were awarded the world’sfirst platinum disc for their album Wheels of Fire. A host of artists covered Bruce’s songs including Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, and Ella Fitzgerald. Tributes to the singer poured in from the world of rock, including one from his former Cream bandmate Ginger Baker. “I am very sad to learn of the loss of a fine man, Jack Bruce,” he said via Facebook.

Bruce was born in Glasgow on 14 May 1943 and was educated at Bellahouston Academy and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, to which he won a scholarship for cello and composition. Bruce left the academy prematurelyto pursue a career as a jazz and blues musician in London and in 1962 joined Alexis Korner’s Blues Inc with whom Charlie Watts, later to join the Rolling Stones, was the drummer. Later Bruce joined Ginger Baker in the Graham Bond Organisation but left after three years after Baker complained that his playing was “too busy”.

Bruce then played for John Mayall’s Blues Breakers, where he first met Clapton, before joining Manfred Mann for a brief, unhappy stint which Bruce found unacceptably over-commercial. In the end it was Baker who initially asked Bruce to form Cream with Clapton, who insisted that Bruce would be the singer. The band’s driving pace and technical proficiency made them an extraordinarily exciting act, though their tendency to add 15-minute drum or bass solos to live performances also left rock with one of its less attractive legacies. By contrast many of their songs, including Tales of Brave Ulysses and We’re Going Wrong, have become classics.

Cream split in November 1968 at the height of their popularity in part because Bruce felt they had strayed too far from the music he wanted to play. He recorded several solo albums, including Songs For A Tailor and Harmony Row, which were a synthesis of rock, jazz and classical formats and which featured leading UK musicians such as guitarist John McLaughlin, blues saxophonist Dick Heckstall-Smith and drummer Jon Hiseman. Bruce also worked as session man on carefully chosen dates with such rock musicians as Lou Reed and Frank Zappa. With the latter, Jack co-wrote Apostrophe, which became Zappa’s biggest selling album.

For many years Bruce fought addictions, in particular witha long-term heroin problem. In the end he quit the habit though not without a considerable fight. “I went to the clinics, I wasn’t proud, but I’m proof it can be done,” he said in an interview three years ago.

In 2003, Bruce developed liver cancer. He was given a transplant which his body initially rejected and he was left gravely ill. However, he recovered andin 2005 he went on to re-form Cream who played a series of concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. Both Bruce and Baker looked painfully thin and fragile during their performances. By contrast, Clapton seemed the epitome of health.

Later Bruce toured the world with other projects. In June 2011, he played a special concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London, which was celebrating its 60th anniversary in an evening that marked the 50th anniversary of the blues in Britain. Bruce played with his Big Blues Band. The next year he played at the Gerry Rafferty tribute concert in Glasgow when BBC Scotland recorded a one-hour documentary on Bruce.

He leaves a remarkable musical legacy, a point stressed by his family on Saturday: “The world of music will be a poorer place without him but he lives on in his music and for ever in our hearts.”