![PLOTTED CREAM]( "PLOTTED CREAM")
PLOTTED CREAM
[MM]: How did you first come across Jack Bruce?
[GB]: "I was doing a jazz gig at the Cambridge University May Ball in
1962, and there was another group on the bill called Jim HcHarg's
Scotsville Jazzband, and Jack was the bass player. He was standing
beside the stage going: 'Man, I want to sit in.' We were getting a bit
pissed off with him, so in the end, we let him sit in and we played a
ballad with an incredible chord sequence, just to fuck him up. And he
played it."
[MM]: What happened next?
[GB]: "Johnny Parker, the piano player, had a house in Grovesnor
Avenue, and Jack moved into this little room there. He got into the
Johnny Burch Octet with me and Dick, and then Dick and Jack joined
Alexis Korner, and Charlie Watts was the drummer. Charlie heard that I
wasn't doing a lot of work, so he left the band so that I could join. We
used to often go home on the tube together. He used to say: 'Oh man, I
don't want to get involved in music - there's no security in it.' So I
paid him back and got him the gig with The Rolling Stones."
[MM]: You got Charlie Watts the gig with the Stones?
[GB]: "Well, there was this effeminate kid who used to come to all the
Alexis Korner Band gigs. His name was Michael Jagger, and he used to
play a regular gig at the Ealing Club with Brian Jones, who was the
showman at that point. Alexis persuaded us to forego our interval and
play with Mick and Brian. I was pissed off not getting an interval, so I
said to Brian Jones - for fuck's sake, why don't you get a rhythm
section? Next week they turned up with a band, and Brian Jones came up
to me and said: 'What do you think, Ginge?' And I said: 'the fucking
drummer's awful. Why don't you get Charlie Watts?' That's how Charlie
got the gig."
[MM]: How did you meet up meeting Clapton?
[GB]: "Oh, OK, that was during the Graham Bond Organisation, which came
out of the Alexis Korner Band... With Graham Bond, Dick Heckstall-Smith,
me and Jack. And we had to lose Jack for really bad behaviour on stage,
and I got the job of firing him. He still thinks it was my idea... It
wasn't. It was after a discussion between Graham, Dick and I that we
decided he had to go."
[MM]: Why did you have to fire Jack?
[GB]: "He was shouting at people on stage - particularly me. So Graham
asked me if I'd do it, and I was a junkie at the time, and firing people
wasn't difficult at all. We were playing a gig with The Yardbirds. We
were outside having a spliff, and this young bloke came up to me and
said: 'I know you, Baker... You're not a fucking hard-nut at all.'
"I had a reputation for doffing people. It was Eric, and I got on with
him immediately. He was a really cool bloke, and he used to come and sit
in with the Graham Bond organisation."
[MM]: Were you aware of Clapton's reputation when you first met him?
[GB]: "I was totally unaware that he'd got a reputation of any
description at all, but I really liked his guitar playing. I'd been
running Graham's band for about three years, because Graham was a
lunatic. I handled all the money and ran the band, and Graham was going
in the opposite direction to me. I was trying to get straight and Graham
was trying to get fucked up, drug-wise. So I thought - What the fuck am
I doing running this band when I could get my own? So I decided to do
that."
[MM]: How fast did things progress from there?
[GB]: "John Mayall's manager told me they were playing in Oxford, so I
drove down there. I saw them in the interval, and Eric said: 'Man, come
and sit in.' And it was total. Eric and I just took off. The gig wasn't
really happening at all, but when I sat in, Eric sort of exploded. After
the gig, I said to Eric - I'm getting a band together, would you be
interested? And he said yes straight away. Well, then Eric suggested
Jack, and I thought - 'oh no'."
