Jack Bruce: Something Els

Cream man’s cruelly overlooked 1993 album with bonus tracks.

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Something Els is Jack Bruce’s period-of-transition album.

Its prolonged gestation period and content marks his recovery from addiction and financial disarray. It is also a shining gem in the Cream bassist’s considerable canon, his multi-instrumental musicality and frankly ravishing vocals given full expression.

Synthesised explorations of the album’s predecessor, Automatic, are felt and old associates brass man Dick Heckstall-Smith and Clem Clempson gild the jazzy beauty of Bruce’s compositional mastery (in tandem with long-time lyricist Pete Brown). Ships In The Night frames a Clapton solo of expressive tenderness, reflected by Bruce’s choral majesty on the yearning Close Enough For Love. The closing solo piano-tinkler FM is wonderful, while a stunning recreation of The Wind Cries Mary makes for a worthy bonus track. It’s healing music from a true great. Something Els, indeed.

Via Cherry Red

Gavin Martin
Gavin Martin

Late NME, Daily Mirror and Classic Rock writer Gavin Martin started writing about music in 1977 when he published his hand-written fanzine Alternative Ulster in Belfast. He moved to London in 1980 to become the NME’s Media Editor and features writer, where he interviewed the Sex Pistols, Joe Strummer, Pete Townshend, U2, Bruce Springsteen, Ian Dury, Killing Joke, Neil Young, REM, Sting, Marvin Gaye, Leonard Cohen, Nina Simone, James Brown, Willie Nelson, Willie Dixon, Madonna and a host of others. He was also published in The Times, Guardian, Independent, Loaded, GQ and Uncut, he had pieces on Michael Jackson, Van Morrison and Frank Sinatra featured in The Faber Book Of Pop and Rock ’N’ Roll Is Here To Stay, and was the Daily Mirror’s regular music critic from 2001. He died in 2022.