Jack Bruce Quotes & Sayings

I played upright bass. I wanted to write great tunes, play the bass, be a band leader, and smoke a big funny pipe like Charlie Mingus. So I went out and bought the pipe when I was around 18 or 19 years old. You know even women smoke a pipe in Glasgow. I worked with Carla Bley and she smoked a pipe, which I find fascinating. — Jack Bruce

Bach is really the ultimate in bass players you know — Jack Bruce

Between now and then and I just felt it was ready and it was a long enough period gone by. I obviously didn't want to hurt anybody, you know. It was done out of a genuine memorial or tribute whatever you want to call it. — Jack Bruce

What I'm trying to do, in my own small way, is trying to bring African and Afro-Cuban rhythms into rock. — Jack Bruce

I'm no politician but I do feel that a lot of damage was done because of misguided principals and America is still suffering from it. — Jack Bruce

I had a lot of vocal problems when I was younger. I don't know if it's down to leading a healthier lifestyle or what but my range has increased. — Jack Bruce

Well I like everything but my first love has always been piano because when I started out there was a piano in my house and it was there so I just started tinkling on it really so it's always been my first love. — Jack Bruce

Thankfully I'm not endlessly ambitious, but I have done some crazy ambitious things like buying an island off the west coast of Scotland in the late Sixties. — Jack Bruce

I've always had money because of my early success with Cream, so I tell young musicians to aim to write their own material, because owning the composition rights makes a very big difference. — Jack Bruce

I know he played on the last record but I don't wake up in the middle of the night thinking of Eric Clapton. — Jack Bruce

I was a big fan of Gary Moore, he was my buddy and I miss him a lot. I loved his playing because you've got that passion; it was sort of a Celtic thing. The Irish and Scots they just go for it and not too worried about looking good. When I was in the states touring, I landed in Seattle to do a gig and one of the fans came to me and told me about Gary's death. It was very hard for me to carry on, it was awful. — Jack Bruce

I think I'm an okay parent, but I'd put myself in the category of a musician-who-happened-to-become-a-father. I'm definitely not a father-who-happened-to-be-a-musician. — Jack Bruce

Some musicians I know are incredible fathers. Like Keith Richards. A fantastic dad. — Jack Bruce

Growing up in inner-city Glasgow, it sometimes seemed to me money hadn't been invented. — Jack Bruce

I've always been interested in any kind of great music, and African music is, I think, the source of it all. — Jack Bruce

Since I got my new liver, some of my tastes have changed. There are certain things I don't like anymore. I loved Indian food before but not now. — Jack Bruce

I was 16 when I got a scholarship to study classical composition at a conservatory. By that time I had already listened to Scottish folksong with my mother, sung in church choirs, and had sung solo with Benjamin Britten conducting. — Jack Bruce

If you haven't got a sense of humor you're making your life a hundred times harder. It doesn't matter what happens to you, if you can have a laugh about it, and don't take yourself so serious, you have the battles halfway won. — Jack Bruce

The paradox of anti-Semitism is that it is invariably up to the Jews to explain away the charges. The anti-Semite simply has to make them. — Jack Bruce

I think people who basically do one thing like Eric Clapton is great. But I've always enjoyed playing different kinds of music and playing with different kinds of musicians because I find that really interesting, like learning and working with Kip Hanrahan. There's a great conga player called Milton Cardona and he taught me a lot of the nuances, he's a Santeria Priest and so he knows his onions as it were. — Jack Bruce

Well all the big companies are really panicked by the internet thing and all that, and sales went down, although sales have gone up again in this country a bit and also the big companies, because they're so big, they need big sales really so they're not really interested. — Jack Bruce

At the age of 16 I started performing with a dance band in the evenings and began earning more money than my father, but he was pleased for me. — Jack Bruce

We all have roles in life. I'm a dad, a husband, this and that, but basically I only feel justified in being alive when I'm on the stage. — Jack Bruce