Jack Bruce Forever

I had an epiphany when I listened to “Sunshine Of Your Love” by Cream last night. Ginger Baker’s drumming was amazing, his brilliantly tuned drums accentuating the bizarre staccato melody and Eric Clapton’s lyrical blues guitar with its perfect setting of sustain making the song sound beautiful. But none of it would have amounted to anything without Jack Bruce’s eccentric blues melody and understated yet perfectly rhythmic vocals.

To call Jack Bruce the pulse, the spine and the real heart and soul of Cream would be an understatement. The band simply never would have existed without him. Many bands before Cream played the blues in a reverential manner. What made Cream stand out from the pack was the way Bruce never oversang the blues like too many have before and after him, and his blues melodies were perfect in their respect for tradition while still adding something new and intriguing with each listen.

Bruce was a tireless collaborator who shined no matter who he worked with, a partial list would make any music lover drool: Leslie West, Manfred Mann, John McLaughlin, Public Image Ltd., Carla Bley, John Mayall, Lou Reed (“Berlin”!), Chris Spedding, Graham Bond, and Frank Zappa, to name a few.

Most of Jack Bruce’s lyrics were written by poet Pete Brown and they worked brilliantly with Bruce’s dramatic songs, White Room being a good example. Brown’s lyrics were wild enough to keep up with Cream’s unbridled acid blues, my favorites being like SWLABR, Tales of Brave Ulysses, World of Pain, Deserted Cities of the Heart, and Passing the Time. The genius of his music was the way he balanced traditional blues with surprisingly sensitive flourishes, some viola playing here or some cello added to add a fuller dimension to Cream's sound.

Even after Cream’s demise Bruce still managed to keep the jazz/blues sound exploding on his first solo album, “Songs for a Tailor”. Tracks like Ministry of Bag, Rope Ladder To The Moon and Never Tell Your Mother She’s Out of Tune employed horns and keyboards, significantly expanding his musical palette after performing in a trio format for the past several years.

Occasionally he was driven to playing in Cream-style bands in the years to come because the fans demanded it: there was West, Bruce & Laing (aka Mountain pt. 2) and BLT and probably a few more I left out, so he was never remiss in keeping his fans happy. A true showman til the end.

I wish anyone seriously making a go of being a blues singer would study Jack Bruce because he embodies the best of blues in that he never hollered and always managed to sound Scottish even when tackling classics like Born Under A Bad Sign. Bruce never failed to steal the show, as witnessed by his grungy fuzz bass playing on Frank Zappa's raging instrumental "Apostrophe". And nothing was more shocking than hearing him sing lead on the chorus to Public Image Ltd’s song “Ease”. Jack Bruce was a timeless talent whose influence will be felt for a long, long time.

Also RIP to Clive Palmer of The Incredible String Band, Alvin Stardust, Rosetta Hightower, and the incredibly awesome Ian McLagan of The Small Faces and The Rod Stewart-fronted Faces. Music's getting better in heaven that it is down here!

Happy Birthday Jim Steranko

This year’s annual Scorpio birthday tribute goes out to comics legend Jim Steranko. Along with Neal Adams, Steranko brought a maturity to comics in the late Sixties that completely changed the way people saw comic books, Adams with DC’s Deadman in Strange Adventures comics and Steranko in Marvel’s Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Jim Steranko brought graphic style in a medium that was still mostly stuck in exaggerated, cartoony caricatures. Steranko’s art style brought comics into the Swinging Sixties, incorporating elements of Pop Art, colorful psychedelia, and cinematic images mostly influenced by Mario Bava films (ref. Black Sabbath, Danger: Diabolik, Blood and Black Lace, etc.).

A Jim Steranko comic book cover leapt off the stands every month; no other comic on the newsstand even looked like his or even came close. Steranko’s first work for Marvel was Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., a poor cash-in on the James Bond spy movie craze featuring a post-war Sgt. Fury with a few of his Howling Commandos on board (Dum Dum Dugan and Gabe Jones). The series was barely breathing oxygen providing support to the superior Doctor Strange in Strange Tales Comics. Steranko originally drew layouts for Jack Kirby in the series but eventually took over the art reins, then taking over the writing reins from Stan Lee and Roy Thomas, gaining complete control over the series and taking it places not seen in comics at the time.

One of the best examples of Steranko’s graphic genius is the legendary cover to Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #4, often imitated to the point of even The Simpsons comics doing a tribute to the cover. In addition to Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., Steranko blew minds with his work on Captain America, X-Men, and a cover for The Incredible Hulk that has to be seen to be believed!

A new Steranko comic release in 1967-68 was as eagerly anticipated as a new Beatles single, in that it heralded an exciting new way of seeing things. A lot of other kids must have agreed with me because they were some of the fastest selling comics to fly off the stands. It took me years to score Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. #1 because it instantly sold out on release.

Jim Steranko, born November 5, 1938 in Reading, Pennsylvania, grew up working in carnivals as a fire-eater, magician, and later resorted to burglary. He also got heavily into playing guitar in various local bands. After a period of commercial art, Steranko moved over to illustrating several short-lived superhero series for Harvey Comics.

Steranko’s legendary work for Marvel gave him artistic control that included splash pages in the middle and end of the comic, sometimes even taking up two pages, unheard of at the time. He also colored his own comics, a first at the time. All this artistic freedom eventually came to a head when Marvel big kahuna Stan Lee began heavily editing Steranko’s previously untampered work,creating major friction between the two men.

Steranko’s next move was to start his own publishing company Supergraphics, which produced the Steranko History of Comics in 1972, one of the earliest academic studies on the history of comics. By the 1980’s he published Prevue Magazine, an aggressively heterosexual movie magazine that always managed to plug in a few photos of Sybil Danning and Steranko clutching some hot, new young blonde action movie starlet.

Jim Steranko was inducted to the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2006, and continues to this day to be a major influence in comics art. Like a Sam Fuller film, Henry Moore sculpture, or Captain Beefheart album, once you’ve seen a Jim Steranko comic you know you’ve seen something incomparable and unforgettable.

Stuff I Burned From TCM, Part 8

It’s funny and crazy and even wonderful that two films I originally planned for this blog, Jacques Demy’s “Model Shop” and William Castle’s “Zotz!” have been released within the past few weeks. I recommend you rent them both, they’re just great. Nevertheless there are still a few classics that need to be released just as quickly as those two, and here they are:

Dangerous Mission (1954): Horace McCoy and W.R. Burnett co-wrote this Technicolor noir about a woman (Piper Laurie) running off to Glacier National Park in Montana after witnessing a gangland murder in Manhattan . Vincent Price plays a hit man hired to murder her while he’s dating her, only Victor Mature throws the monkey wrench into the works by barging in on them with his greasy charm. The breathtaking location photography is reminiscent of “ Niagara ” making the action secondary to the beautiful location. Irwin Allen produced this film in the early Fifties and already had an eye for disaster, throwing a forest fire and not one, but two avalanches into the movie.

Hysteria (1965): After being discharged from the psychiatric ward Robert Webber moves into an apartment where he hears a woman next door being knifed to death every night. The only problem is he's the only tenant on his floor. After doing a bit of research on the murder of his former neighbor he discovers she's a fashion model who's disappeared. His psychosis returns when he keeps seeing her appear on the street, and even has cocktails with her. The dead fashion model is played by Lelia Gordoni, who achieved movie infamy as the half-cast girl in John Cassavetes' film "Shadows". Another nutty Freddie Francis thriller, and one you shouldn't miss.

The Good Humor Man (1950): Jack Carson was always swell at comedy relief in movies like "Million Dollar Mermaid" and "Blues In The Night", but here he's taking center stage in a Jerry Lewis-styled slapstick romp that's very funny, playing your friendly neighborhood ice cream truck salesman. He finds himself implicated in dead blondes (Lola Albright) and shady crooks, and his rival for his love interest is none other than George "Superman" Reeves. Carson's very funny in this, and it's a shame he didn't do more silly comedies like this.

The Mind Reader (1933): Warren William plays a carnival mind reader who tries to go straight to win over Constance Cummings' affections, only he's at his coolest when he does the whole fake swami bit. Lots of creepy camera angles in this, and William is excellent, easily the best actor Warner's had before Cagney, Bogart and Robinson moved in. If you like creepy carnival movies this one will thrill you. Bogart's first wife Mayo Methot turns in an amazing three-minute suicide scene that'll chill your blood.

The Love-Ins (1967): Laughable psychedelic corn about a Timothy Leary type who becomes a sort of psych Mussolini, a little more convincing than Max Frost in "Wild In The Streets", but not by too much. There's a great scene where the Big Guru appears on "The Joe Pyne Show", a sort of Wally George of the Sixties. There's also a freak-out Alice In Wonderland naked go-go dance scene from Susan Oliver that she'd probably like to forget. Also starring James McArthur (Hawaii Five-O) who attempts to assassinate the Guru and Mark Goddard (Lost In Space) as a misguided follower.

Well, that's it for now. I think I'll have some more gems planned for the next TCM jamboree blog. There's no shortage of unreleased classics waiting to be discovered. By the way, Turner Classic Movies is still the greatest station around and always find new stuff to screen all the time. They're finally showing "Performance" on TV, forty years after its release. Can "A Clockwork Orange" be far behind?