BURIED TREASURE
Golden Ratio
Rescued from rock’s vault of oblivion, Cream’s ex-bassist brings it all back home.
After the Cream’ing stops: Jack Bruce considers his next move, 1971.
Pierre Manevy/Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Jack Bruce Harmony Row
POLYDOR, 1971
A FTER CREAM’S dissolution in November 1968, speculation was rife regarding which of the group’s exceptional, combustible talents would prove themselves first. Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker started strong with supergroup Blind Faith, hitting UK and US Number 1 with their sole album in September 1969. A month later, bassist Jack Bruce hit the UK Top 10 with his debut solo LP Songs For A Tailor. By 1971, though, Clapton’s subsequent solo success had been derailed by heroin, and jazz rockers Ginger Baker’s Air Force had crashed and burned. With Harmony Row, a song-suite composed in 1969 and anchored in his young life in Glasgow, Bruce was in surer charge of his muse.