He was a member of one of the most famous supergroups of the late 60s. But this forgotten great died in poverty aged just 43 — Louder
The tragic story of one of rock’s lost greats
Like many, when news of BF emerged, I wondered, “who’s this guy?”, but I can understand why he was chosen, to just be quiet, stand in the back(unfortunately), and play.
Clapton and Winwood had previous history of jamming and recording together, and by all reports had been rehearsing in secret in early ‘69 to avoid any scrutiny, but somehow Ginger Baker caught wind, and invited himself to the party. Then, of course, manager Robert Stigwood found out, smelled the money of a potential Cream 2.0, and the pressure was on. To avoid the kind of drama and fierce arguments that Baker had had with Jack Bruce, I supose Grech represented a low-key, junior member sort of figure who would keep his head down, plus he brought the violin into the mix for potential variety.
Unfortunately, he was not prepared for the mania that ensued, hence the self-medication(and being around Baker in that regard probably didn’t help…I’m not sure when Clapton started using). Later on, it probably didn’t help Ric’s situation to be in the company of Jim Gordon or Gram Parsons, either.
Family was a bit of an odd, under the radar band, with Roger Chapman’s vocals being even more odd. I don’t know why that article chose that particular song to showcase them(just a run-of-the-mill “British band playing an old blues song” kind of thing), but they had their own material that was, well, interesting…
(Gretch singing on that one)
The last video featured Grech’s replacement, John Weider, formerly of Eric Burdon and the Animals, and he was later replaced by John Wetton.
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