The guitarist Jack Bruce called “more exciting” than Eric Clapton
There’s no way to replace good band chemistry. Even if someone were to take their favourite artists and stick them in a room together, it’s anyone’s guess whether they will actually create great music or not gel properly when they turn their amplifiers on. Although the internal dynamic of Cream made for some of the greatest musical moments of the 1960s, Jack Bruce thought that one guitarist overshadowed the sounds of Eric Clapton.
Before the band started, Clapton had been a disciple of the English blues scene. Taking his cues from the sounds he heard from both Delta blues and Chicago blues in the US, Clapton would lay the groundwork for his first bands when he was hired as a member of The Yardbirds, playing an electrified version of songs by Muddy Waters and BB King.
While Clapton had always returned to the usual blues tricks, he felt stagnated when working with his first band, eventually quitting the group to form Cream. Even though Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker had been fixtures of the English music scene, their backgrounds in jazz music drove the guitarist to work with them, thinking that he could expand his musical horizons.
As much as the magic gelled on the band’s first albums, like Fresh Cream and Disraeli Gears, their classics were only matched by their animosity towards each other. After only a handful of years together, the band disbanded, leading to Clapton working in various outfits, from the supergroup Blind Faith to creating a love letter to Patti Boyd with Derek and the Dominoes on Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs.
As for Bruce, he felt that he was best suited to life as a solo artist. Playing the same kind of jazz-soaked rock and roll that he could, the bassist got a shot in the arm when he got the call to work with guitar legend Gary Moore. Already known as one of the best blues guitarists in England, Moore was asked to sign on for several shows with Bruce and Baker, christening themselves BBM.
Even though many press junkets saw fans wondering where Clapton had gone, Bruce felt that the music he was playing with Moore suited the style they wanted to play. Despite Clapton already going on to a stellar solo career, Bruce thought that there were some aspects of Moore’s sound that Clapton couldn’t touch.
When asked about Moore’s playing, Bruce thought that the comparisons were inevitable, saying, “Gary Moore was just being compared with Eric, with phrases like ‘He’s no Eric Clapton’ – which is fairly obvious, really. He’s himself, and for my money, he’s a more exciting player. I mean, Eric’s a great player, but I think Gary’s got this passion about his playing”.
Although Moore would eventually move on to his own solo career after jamming with Bruce and Baker, he would remain a fixture of the many guitar legends, eventually working on the song ‘She’s My Baby’ with The Traveling Wilburys. Moore and Clapton may have had two separate playing styles, but each of them knew that their job was always about improving the song in whatever way they knew how.
