Jack Bruce Reveals His Favorite Cream Song

Jack Bruce recently named his favorite Cream song.

Bruce played originally in the Graham Bond Organization, where he met Ginger Baker. He then met Erick Clapton whilst playing in John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers band. In 1966, Bruce, together with Clapton and Baker, formed one of the most significant rock supergroups of the 21st Century, the Cream.

Bruce said in a statement that “White Room” is his favorite Cream song. “White Room” was included in Cream’s 1968 double album Wheels of Fire. The song was composed by Bruce together with the poet, Pete Brown, who wrote the lyrics. When asked why, he said:

“The inspiration for the music came from meeting Jimi Hendrix and his approach to playing. In fact, he came to the recording session of that in New York and said to me, ‘I wish I could write something like that.’ I said, ‘But it comes from you!’ It’s a synthesis of things and not a completely original chord sequence. It’s the way we placed certain things in time that makes it original.”

Aside from that, Bruce also shared that the song’s unconventional time signature caused their label company some problems. Bruce elaborated it by saying:

“I had problems with the record company because of the introduction being 5/4 and those suspended second inversion chords. They didn’t think it would make it.”

When Bruce was asked about how he felt for the record labels and public who actually buy their records, he said:

“I always thought that record companies, in particular, look down on their audiences much too much. In a way, it is a commercial thing.

“They think, ‘well, if the audience gets too intelligent and likes really good musical things, we’re going to have to keep finding those things.’”

He also added that it is the music industry that is the most unsteady, explaining:

“If you can reduce it to a fairly low common denominator as far as the music goes, there’s always a bunch of other guys or girls coming along who can do that. But I don’t want to overstate the importance – it’s only rock and roll, you know.”