This article has really no stones content but I found it a nice read with nice news about a new compilation by Jack Bruce which of course include some tracks with Mick Taylor and Charlie Watts playing, a Jagger-Richards cover and Stu producing a track
Relative Values: Jack Bruce and his daughter Natascha
From Times Online
October 19, 2008
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article4956547....Jack Bruce is regarded as one of the world’s greatest bass players. Along with Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton, Bruce was a founder member of the 1960s supergroup Cream. He has just released a six-CD retrospective boxed set, Can You Follow? He lives in Suffolk with his wife, Margrit, with whom he has two daughters, Natascha, 26, and Kyla, 23, and a son, Corin, 15. He also has a son, Malcolm, 38, from his first marriage. Natascha’s band, Aruba Red, has just released its eponymous debut album. Natascha lives in north London
Danny Scott
JACK: 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.
When we had Natascha, I was quite relieved because for a while I’d been worried that I wouldn’t be able to have any more kids. I’d abused my body so badly during the 1970s… God knows what had happened to my sperm count! Being blessed with Natascha really felt like I was being given a second chance, and I took fatherhood very seriously.
That’s not easy when you’re a junkie. 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.
I’m clean now, thank God, and it was Margrit who helped me get my soul back. She gave me an ultimatum: her or the heroin. I’m not saying I immediately became Mr No Drugs, but I think I at least began to grasp the gravity of the situation. I tried very hard when Natascha and Kyla were little and we all became very close. We had a cottage in the west of Scotland and every May and September we’d spend a few weeks up there. Hiking, playing games and just messing around. Being a family.
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.
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.
Looking at how my kids have turned out, I suppose I’ve not done too bad. I sadly lost one of my sons from my first marriage a few years ago. I’ve never really spoken about this and don’t really want to say too much, but Jonas had an asthma attack and died at 28. Any parent who’s been in that situation will tell you that nothing comes close to losing a child.
All my kids got on so well. They are all great people. Kind and gentle and wise and all that kind of stuff. All the stuff I don’t do very well. I’m not looking for sympathy here. It’s not, “Oh, woe is me.” If you knew me, you’d realise that I am a bit screwed up, a bit of a mental case. But, luckily, my kids seem to have learnt from my mistakes.
I never got high in front of Natascha.
I never had needles lying around or anything like that. Obviously she does know what I got up to. It’s all been in the papers. That’s probably why she doesn’t do any of that stuff. Doesn’t smoke, doesn’t even drink. She hasn’t touched a beer since her 21st birthday. She’s definitely got her head screwed on the right way, and I guess that she must get that from her mum. Margrit’s the brainy one.
Natascha hasn’t got into music because of the wild parties and the rock’n’roll lifestyle. For her, it’s all about “the music”. About making something very pure and very real. I know that because I saw her discovering music.
I watched her when she first heard the Beatles. I never said: “Right, today, we’re going to learn about the Beatles and the Stones.” She got it on her own. I certainly never sat her down and said: “Let’s listen to some of Daddy’s music.” That would be terribly arrogant of me. She knows she can come and see me play live any time she wants to, but I’d never force her. She did come to the Cream shows and I think she enjoyed that. Would I do another reunion? Sure, I’d be there like a shot. Ah, but… you know how these things are.
Maybe there’s a musical gene as well as an addictive gene. Luckily Natascha got the musical one. In fact, all my kids seem to have got it. Both sons from my first marriage were very musical — Jonas was one of the guys that started Afro-Celt Sound System; Natascha’s sister, Kyla, is a fantastic singer, and their brother, Corin, is a brilliant drummer. He had his first drum lesson from Ringo Starr and fell in love with
the drums from that day.
For a while, Margrit and I thought: “Wouldn’t it be great if one of them wanted to be a vet?” That would sound very impressive. “Here’s our daughter the vet.” Instead, they all seem to be heading for the arts, and Natascha’s just released her own album. Am I complaining? God, no! I’m the proudest dad in the world.
NATASCHA: Obviously, Dad’s music has always been a part of our lives — seeing him on TV or in the papers. But I don’t think I really understood how important his music has been until Cream got back together for the Royal Albert Hall shows in 2005. The scale and size of the reaction was just amazing. It was all over the news; people I hadn’t seen for years were suddenly ringing up and saying:
“Hi, Natascha. Any chance of a ticket?”
I’d seen him play live loads of times before, but watching him on stage that night was very weird. I couldn’t believe the power that the songs still had. The way they were touching the audience. At times I’d just burst into tears because I was so happy. You’ve got to remember it had only been a few months since he’d properly recovered from a liver transplant. It was touch and go for while. One time the doctors told us that he might only have 24 hours to live. To see him up on that stage felt like a miracle.
Dad hasn’t really talked much about the illness, just the same as he hasn’t really talked about all the drug problems he had in the past. I knew they were there, but he did his best to protect me, my sister and brother. I don’t like to bring it up with him, because it feels like I’m having a go. I don’t want to make him feel guilty. He’s had a hell of a lot of problems — and I’m not just talking about drugs here. He lost a son, too. I could see Dad was in pain, but he dealt with his pain and his problems in his own way, and it has never ever stopped him being an amazing, wonderful father.
Dad has definitely had an effect on my attitude to drugs. I remember when I was about 15, I was smoking quite a bit of weed and he sat down with me one day and explained what drugs had done to some of the people he knew. He told me stories about friends of his who’d taken LSD once and that was it, their mind was out there somewhere and it never came back. It scared the hell out of me. If there’s one job that Dad is very qualified to do, it’s talking about the perils of addiction!
Children of addicts can go two ways — it can make or break you. You become an addict yourself or you become completely paranoid and never touch anything. I totally went down that second path. It was almost as if Dad had made all my mistakes for me, so I didn’t have to make them. I haven’t touched a beer for years. I never got into ecstasy or anything like that. Reality is scary enough. Why would you want to change reality? Why would you want to alter that perception? It’s like letting someone into your head to poke around in there. That really scares me. I like to be in control.
I like to know what I’m doing.
I’m not having a go at people who want to take drugs — that’s up to them — but I have had a full-on experience of what drugs can do to you and I don’t want to go there. I’ve got friends who are taking pills every weekend and you can already see what it’s doing to them. They’re only my age, but it’s affecting the way they speak and the way they act. They’re overdoing it.
Maybe the reason I’ve listened to Dad — why the whole family listens to what he has to say — is because he never preaches to you. All he’s ever done is offer information. People probably look at the music Dad’s made and think that he’s not really a political thinker, but if you sit down and talk to him, you’ll see what he’s really like. I suppose he’s what you’d call an old-fashioned socialist. He would tell us about what was happening in South Africa during the days of apartheid, and which foods it was okay to buy. Thatcher was always the evil monster. He helped me make my own placard to carry on a Gulf war march. And we’d always sit in front of the TV to watch things like the Berlin wall coming down or Nelson Mandela walking free.
As a child, he made me aware of things that no other kid at my school was aware of. I’m really grateful for that. He taught me how to look beyond your own life — to look at what’s out there. To be open. To try and understand other people’s problems. To see that the world is a huge, amazing place. I’ve tried to put that in my songs. They’re all quite political. I actually find it hard to write about love. It doesn’t feel right. When Dad first heard the album, I was worried because I wanted him to like it. I think he does. I can usually tell when he doesn’t like something. He’s a really bad liar.
Even though I’m doing music, I’ve never compared myself to my Dad.
I couldn’t! What he did with his music is way beyond anything I could ever achieve. But that’s another one of those things he finds it difficult to talk about — just how good he is. He’s so down on himself. He hates compliments. He’ll always turn them around so they’re not about him. It’s almost as if he can’t deal with the emotion of it all. I wish he would feel happier about stuff like that. C’mon, Dad, isn’t it about time that you accepted you’re a genius?
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Keith a fantastic dad! (Jack Bruce) (Read 902 times)
