Jack Bruce on Led Zeppelin

Jack Bruce, the vocalist and bass player for Cream, in a recent interview:

“Everybody talks about Led Zeppelin, and they played one fucking gig – one fucking lame gig – while Cream did weeks of gigs. Proper gigs, not just a lame gig like Zeppelin did, with all the [vocal] keys lowered and everything.

“We played everything in the original keys. [Becoming animated]: Fuck off, Zeppelin, you’re crap. You’ve always been crap and you’ll never be anything else. The worst thing is that people believe the crap that they’re sold. Cream is 10 times the band that Led Zeppelin is.”

Interviewer: That’s a bold opinion.
Bruce: “What? You’re gonna compare Eric Clapton with that fucking Jimmy Page? Would you really compare that?”

Interviewer: To be fair, they’re different kinds of player, aren’t they?
Bruce: “No! Eric’s good and Jimmy’s crap. And with that I rest my case.”

Ouch! I think I agree that Eric Clapton did more with a Guitar than Page and Cream was a much more innovative group that built a groundswell for “heavy” rock out of nothing. I don’t think Page is “crap,” he’s just not in the same league as the big three rock guitar expressionists, who used their instruments to craft unique and powerful sounds with real feeling and combined that with technical prowess. Those three are of course in no particular order…

Eric Clapton

Jimi Hendrix

Jeff Beck

(Yeah, I know Page plays on this too.)

Page is great, but he wasn’t as innovative as those three. He was technically skilled and expressive, but he built most of his style off of Beck, and to a lesser extent Clapton. I’d put him in a short list with Keith Richards, Mick Ronson, David Gilmour, and Eddie Hazel as those guitarists who changed rock music forever, influenced thousands of players, and made absolutely amazing music.

But Page just doesn’t compare to Clapton, Hendrix, and Beck. Call me conservative, but those three define what rock guitar at its best can sound like.

—Mark Elliot Cullen