Jack Bruno
Sidemen rarely record and tour with a major solo artist for decades – usually they spend no more time than it takes to cut an album and/or hit the road for a while – but there are exceptions, including Boston-born bassists Tony Levin and James “Hutch” Hutchinson, the former with Peter Gabriel and the latter with Bonnie Raitt. And drummer Jack Bruno is another rare bird, because his 60-year career has included extended runs recording and globetrotting with two rock/soul icons, Tina Turner (for 28 years) and Joe Cocker (for 21).
He’s also toured with other household names, among them Elton John, Peter Frampton, Richard Marx and Taj Mahal, and he cites growing up in a musically vibrant household and city as keys to his later success. “I was fortunate to be around a lot of professional, working musicians in my family since they let me sit in on gigs when I was around 11 or 12 and I got my feet wet that way,” he told Modern Drummer magazine in 2009. “Also, when I was 14 or 15, growing up in the Boston area in the ’60s, I got to hear a lot of live music. The club scene and coffeehouse circuit were full on. There was so much great music in town, from slick lounge acts doing old-school R&B to great blues, folk and bluegrass groups.”
MUSICAL BEGINNINGS
Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on February 16, 1951, Bruno was raised in nearby Belmont. His father played the accordion, vibes and the organ and his brother and sister, both of whom took piano lessons from their aunt at home on the family’s piano, frequently played records and listened to music on the radio, so he was surrounded by ‘50s and ‘60s pop from an early age, mixed in with some jazz in later years. He finished his junior year at Belmont High School before enrolling at Quintano’s School for Young Professionals in New York City, graduating in 1968.
There were a number of musicians in Bruno’s extended family – four uncles, one aunt and several cousins played professionally – and Bruno began taking drum lessons at around at eight from one of his cousins, a professional player who gigged around Boston. At age 13, he got his first set (a Rogers five piece), and he cites his earliest influences as Max Roach, Buddy Rich, Earl Palmer and Hal Blaine; later influences include Ringo Starr, Motown cats Benny Benjamin and Pistol Allen, Elga Edmonds of Muddy Waters’ band, Billy Davenport of Paul Butterfield’s, Nigel Olsson of Elton John’s, Mitch Mitchell of The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Buddy Miles of Jimi Hendrix’s Band of Gypsys and session great Russ Kunkel.
EARLY BANDS, C.C. & THE CHASERS, THE APPLE PIE MOTHERHOOD BAND
Bruno joined his first band at age 12, The Citations, which played instrumentals only and covered songs by The Ventures, Santo & Johnny and other major acts of the day at church dances and frat parties. After that, he played in The Royal Teens, which covered tunes by The Beatles, Chuck Berry and others at dances, and at age 14 he became part of C.C. & The Chasers, a group of rockers in their late teens with whom he spent the next several years.
The band gigged in and around Boston frequently in 1965 and ‘66, often opening for national acts at the Unicorn Coffee House, the owner of which, George Papadopoulos, became C.C. & The Chasers’ unofficial manager/advisor. He suggested that the group add a female lead singer he knew, Ann Tansey, and that they change their name to something more hip; as a result C.C. & The Chasers became The Sacred Mushroom in the spring of 1967. Tansey, who was living in New York City at the time, had contacts at The Bitter End so the band relocated to the Big Apple in the summer of ’67, becoming a regular presence at the world-famous venue. “I don’t think we were the official ‘house band’ but we played there often,” Bruno recalls. “The bass player and I even slept in the club a few times.”
The high-profile appearances helped The Sacred Mushroom get a deal with Atlantic Records, though the label insisted on a less “druggy” name. Guitarist Ted Demos suggested that they call themselves The Apple Pie Motherhood Band “in a sarcastic, not serious kind of way,” Bruno says, but label execs liked the nonsensical moniker and it stuck. After recording two albums for Atlantic, TAPMB broke up in mid-1969, with Bruno, Demos and vocalist Michael Sorafin returning to New York City from Vermont, where they’d lived on a communal farm since early ’69.
SHAKY LEGS, MOVE TO LOS ANGELES
The trio teamed up with three others to form the band Shaky Legs, recording one album for Paramount Records before relocating to San Francisco in late 1969; the band split after finding limited success on the West Coast, but Bruno remained in San Fransisco until 1971, when he returned to New York City and Shakey Legs reformed without Sorafine (who’d landed a part in the musical “Hair”). The group gigged at small venues around the Northeast for roughly a year before Bruno moved to Albany, New York in 1972, living on a horse farm and playing with blues bands on weekends while working what he calls “shitty day jobs.”
In the summer of 1976, Bruno moved to Los Angeles, where he spent the next several years doing “any and all gigs I could get, which included some studio sessions, and a couple more shitty day jobs to make money,” he says. It was difficult at times due to his limited sight-reading skills, but he found enough work to get by and – most importantly – made invaluable contacts. “I started reading music when I started taking lessons at age eight and I continued to read until I joined my first band at 12,” he says, “but that’s when reading stopped! When I moved to LA, I began reading simple charts, like road maps really, but I read very little notation. If you want to be a real studio musician, then you have to be a great reader and that just wasn’t me. Fortunately, you don’t need the kind of reading skills it takes to be a studio musician when you’re playing pop music.”
TINA TURNER, JOE COCKER
In 1981, the contacts Bruno had made on the local scene paid off in a big way when he was invited to audition for Tina Turner’s band, though he wasn’t hired immediately. “I got a call to audition for Tina, but the guy never called me back to set up a time,” he told Modern Drummer in 2009. “Two weeks later, I called to see what was happening. The gig was gone, but I was asked if I knew any guitar players. I gave him a couple of names of guys I had been working with and left it at that. Maybe a month later I got a call from the same guy saying Tina wasn’t happy with her new drummer. The guitar player I’d recommended got the gig and returned the favor by recommending me. So I went to the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco, where they were working, and I met Tina and played a few tunes for her and the guitar player. And I got the gig!”
Bruno toured with Turner for nearly three decades and played on her studio album Break Every Rule (1986). He’s behind the kit on the CD/DVDs Tina Live in Europe (1988), What’s Love Live (1993), Live in Amsterdam (1996), Tina…Celebrate! (1999), One Last Time Live in Concert (2000), The Live Collection (2004) and Tina Live (2009), the last of which was recorded during her 90-date 50th Anniversary Tour of North America, the UK and Europe.
In 1992, when he was touring internationally with Richard Max, Bruno joined Joe Cocker’s band after some of his Turner bandmates recommended him. “A couple of guys that I’d been playing with on the Tina gig were also working with Joe – Tina and Joe had the same manager – so when they decided to make a drummer change, I got the call,” he told Modern Drummer in 2009. “As long as Joe was comfortable, the gig was mine.” Bruno plays on Cocker’s studio album Have a Little Faith (1994) and on three of his live CD/DVDs, Across from Midnight Tour (1997), Live in Cologne (2002) and Fire it Up – Live (2013).
Asked in the 2009 interview how his relationships with Turner and Cocker had “stood the test of time,” Bruno said that it hadn’t been as complicated as some people might imagine. “I don’t think there are any secrets to having these gigs for so long,” he told Modern Drummer. “Obviously, they like my style of playing; it’s good for singers. They don’t have to think about where the time is and I stay out of the way, just trying to groove hard and pick my spots, playing the song, playing with the band. It’s also about knowing that it’s their show. You’ve got to be willing to play what they like if they need it. And when you’re on the road for weeks and months, you’ve got to be able to get along. That’s as important as anything else.”
MOVE TO NASHVILLE, OTHER COLLABORATIONS
Bruno moved to Nashville in 1995, his decision to leave LA resulting from the January ’94 Northridge earthquake in the city that killed 57 and injured over 9,000. “I was touring heavily at the time and had two tours booked in a row,” he says. “My kids were four and six and my wife was very uncomfortable with the quakes and me not being around for long stretches.” Between his travels with Turner and Cocker, Bruno did one-off road stretches with Peter Frampton, Taj Mahal and singer-songwriter-guitarist Tony Joe White.
From 1998 to 2000, he was part of Elton John’s touring band, playing to sold-out crowds in arenas and stadiums across North America, the UK and Europe. In 2009, he backed Bonnie Raitt and Taj Mahal on their BonTaj Roulet tour as part of The Phantom Blues Band, in 2011 he played with Peter Frampton on a summer tour with Journey and in 2014, after Cocker’s death the previous year, he joined blues-rock vocalist-multi-instrumentalist Delbert McClinton’s band full time. He appears on several of McClinton’s most recent LPs along with albums by Tony Joe White, Bobby King and Terry Evans, Curtis Salgado and Danny Flowers. During Covid shutdowns in 2020/21, he did remote sessions for various artists from home and since 2023 he’s been appearing about eight time a month in and around Nashville with Jim Messina (of ‘70s rock/pop duo Loggins & Messina).
MOST MEMORABLE MOMENTS
Asked in October 2024 about the most unforgettable moments of his six-decade career, Bruno said many have nothing to do with backing superstars. “Some of the most memorable experiences for me have been the places I lived and played and the people I met and became friends with, some lifelong, while I was still scuffling and not making much or any money, playing in dive bars, strip joints, lounges, etcetera,” he said.
As for touring with Turner, he points to concerts in Eastern Europe in the ‘80s (before the Berlin Wall fell in November 1989), playing a show at the Kremlin in Moscow, doing a private gig in Brunei for the Sultan’s niece and appearing at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro in front of “180,000 crazy and passionate Brazilians.” Other memories include backing Cocker at the 25th anniversary Woodstock concert in 1994 and being part of both Turner and Elton John’s bands at the same event in Las Vegas in 2000, the night before New Year’s Eve. “There are many, many more memories,” he says,” but these the ones stand out for me.”
(by D.S. Monahan)
