John Symon Asher Bruce was born on the 14th May 1943, in Glasgow, Scotland, UK and was a musician, singer as well as songwriter who was most famous as a member of British supergroup Cream, alongside Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton. Jack is still considered as one of the greatest bass guitarists of all time as well as one of the most powerful jazz vocalists. Apart from bass, Jack also played harmonica, double bass, piano, guitar and cello. Jack passed away in October 2014.
Have you ever wondered how much wealth this multi-instrumental music legend accumulated during his life? How rich Jack Bruce was? According to sources, it is estimated that the total size of Jack Bruce’s net worth, as of early 2017, would be over $20 million, acquired through his 52 year-long music career which was active from 1962 until his death in 2014.
Jack Bruce Net Worth $20 million
Jack was born into a family of musicians Betty and Charlie Bruce. During his childhood, and due to the nature of his parent’s profession, he changed schools14 times before finally matriculating from Bellahouston Academy in his hometown. Although he enrolled at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama, from which he was even rewarded with a scholarship for cello and musical composition studies, Jack left the Academy at the age of 16 due to disagreements with his professors – Jack performed with Jim McHarg’s Scotsville Jazzband while his professors disapproved of playing jazz. Immediately after, Jack began touring Italy with the Murray Campbell Big Band, but in 1962 he became a member of Alexis Korner’s London-based blues band – Blues Incorporated. These engagements provided the basis for Bruce’s net worth.
In 1963, Jack – alongside Graham Bond, Ginger Baker and John McLaughlin – formed the Graham Bond Organization which released two studio albums, however, due to open hostility between Bruce and Baker, Jack left the band in 1965, and soon after released his debut single “I’m Gettin’ Tired” before joining John Mayall and his Bluesbreakers band, where he met Eric Clapton. After several performances, in 1966 Jack Bruce joined Manfred Mann with whom he scored more notable commercial success, but then in July of the same year, Bruce teamed up with Clapton and Baker to form the super-group trio Cream, which later gained significant commercial success and marked a more lucrative period of Jack Bruce’s music career. It is certain that all these ventures helped Jack Bruce to add considerable sums to his net worth.
Before Cream broke-up in 1968, with Jack Bruce as their lead singer they released four studio albums which sold over 35 million copies. Apart from singing, Jack also co-wrote several of their hit singles, including “White Room”, “I Feel Free” and “Sunshine of Your Love”. In 1969, Jack Bruce officially began his solo music career with the release of his single “Songs for a Tailor”, and later an eponymous solo album which was quite commercially successful.
Despite a bright music career, in 1979 Bruce’s drug habit reached its peak causing him to lose almost all of his money. However, by the late 1980s he had managed to recover, and with his career back on track, he formed the band Jack Bruce & Friends. From then on, Bruce founded and fronted several of his own bands, making special and unique music, mixing genres such as jazz, rock, blues and even Latin music, and releasing several hit albums including “Out of the Storm”, “I’ve Always Wanted To Do This” as well as “A Question of Time” and “More Jack than God”. Apart from these, Bruce also collaborated with numerous big names of the music industry, which doubtlessly, helped him to increase his revenues and so increase his net worth.
When it comes to his personal life, Jack Bruce was married to Janet Godfrey between 1964 and 1980, with whom he had two sons. In 1982, Jack married Margit Seyffer with whom he had, two daughters and a son. Jack passed away on the 25th October 2014, in Suffolk, England at the age of 71, due to liver disease. To this day, Jack Bruce is still considered as one of the greatest bass players of all time, as well as the man who changed the way that instrument is played.
Would I do another [Cream] reunion? Sure, I'd be there like a shot. Ah, but... you know how these things are.
2
There are some of my peers - and I'm not going to name names - who have been awful fathers. You could argue that it's the nature of the business, but I wouldn't agree with that. Some musicians I know are incredible fathers. Like Keith Richards. A fantastic dad. You wouldn't think it, but, if times were tough, you could be sure Keith would be there. If you needed somebody to do the school run, Keith was your man.
3
Unfortunately, I also had to spend long periods away from home. Because of some problems I'd had with managers and record contracts, touring was the only way I could make any money, so I was always on the road. My first family suffered even more from this, because of the madness that surrounded Cream and the aftermath of Cream, but I was doing my best - with Margrit's constant vigilance and assistance - to have a proper relationship with my family.
4
If there is such a thing as an addictive gene, then I had it. I had been getting through vast quantities of heroin for several years. Not sniffing, snorting or smoking it - I was mainlining. When the doctors saw me, they said I was one of the worst cases they'd ever seen. Obviously I tried to get off the stuff - I'd done acupuncture, cold turkey, rehab, sleep therapy, you name it - but heroin gets you like that. It steals your soul and takes its place. And let me tell you, it's not a particularly good substitute.
5
I'd already been through marriage and had two kids by the time I met Natascha's mum, Margrit. We met in '79 and suddenly I had this whole new life. I moved to Margrit's house in Germany, we got married and Natascha came along 13 days after the wedding. We just got down the aisle in time. Because I'd already been a dad and my boys were quite grown-up, I foolishly thought that I knew all there was to know about being a parent. Well, I didn't. No parent does. You make all the same mistakes. And you make some new mistakes, too. But, let's be honest here, I've never claimed to be a "great" parent. 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.
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Most rock stars are very good at one thing, and no disrespect to that. But I would have been bored in five minutes if that was all it had been about.
7
Asked whom he regards as the best bass players in pop and rock history: "If you're talking electric bass, it's very, very simple: James Jamerson, Paul McCartney, Jaco Pastorius, me."
8
Even Eric Clapton, with his tremendous solo success - it's still Cream that people want to talk about. He complains about it too.
9
I was working in Italy on an American air base, and I got very friendly with a lot of the black guys there. And that was when I first heard Charles Mingus. I immediately realised that that was what I wanted to be: a bass player who composed. I knew that I wanted to write, but I hadn't put the two things together. As soon as I heard him, that was it.
10
When he joined Blues Incorporated they played a lot of "society gigs: Lady Londonderry's ball, stuff like that - because Alexis Korner was a hooray. We'd do things like Lord Rothschild's party: that was quite a gig. Ginger Baker, who was using a lot of dope at the time, ended up asleep in Lord Rothschild's bed, and I remember flouncing off down the drive and his lordship running after me going, 'Please don't go.' And the Duke of Edinburgh [Prince Philip] coming up and saying: 'Could you play a waltz?' 'No we fucking can't.' "
11
I honestly think that if it hadn't been for that band [Cream], I would have had a perfectly respectable career in perhaps a more esoteric way.
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Fact
1
His parents traveled extensively in Canada and the USA, and Jack attended 14 different schools. He attended the Royal Scottish Academy of Music, to which he won a scholarship for cello and composition.
2
He left Scotland at age 16, and eventually went to London where he became a member of the influential Alexis Korner's Blues Inc, where Charlie Watts, later to join the Rolling Stones, was the drummer.
3
Recovers from liver transplant he underwent 19 September 2003. [March 2004]
Cream were voted the 66th Greatest Rock 'n' Roll Artists of all time by Rolling Stone.
9
He was in a super-group in the seventies: West, Bruce & Lange with Mountain members (drummer and guitarist) Corky Laing and Leslie West
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He was an influence on acclaimed Level 42 bassist Mark King, who paid tribute to Bruce by covering Cream's "I Feel Free", on his solo album, "Influences" (released 1984).
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Also a successful solo artist since the 1960s.
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Elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a member of Cream) in 1993.