'Sons of Cream' Carry A Legendary Sound Forward—On Their Own Terms

NAPA VALLEY, CA — Sons of Cream, a power trio rooted in rock legend, brings Cream’s music and spirit to new audiences without treating it as a museum piece.

The band features Malcolm Bruce, son of Cream bassist and vocalist Jack Bruce, and Kofi Baker, son of drummer Ginger Baker, alongside guitarist Rob Johnson, Ginger Baker’s grandnephew. All three sing and are blood relatives of the original band, channeling Cream’s iconic blues-rock sound while pushing it in new directions. “We’re all blood related to Cream,” Johnson said. “It just worked out that way.”

As the name suggests, lineage is central to Sons of Cream—but the group is quick to establish its own identity. Their live shows are packed with classic Cream material, complemented by two Blind Faith songs, and marked by extended improvisation that defined Cream’s short but explosive career. Between songs, the band shares personal and often illuminating stories about the music and the musicians who created it, giving audiences both blistering performances and rare insight.

Audiences should not expect the same show twice—or a note-for-note recreation of the past. “The jams are completely different every night,” drummer Kofi Baker said. “This is not a tribute band.”

While Sons of Cream plays squarely in the psychedelic blues-rock tradition Cream helped pioneer during the 1960s, the band approaches the material with a contemporary edge. Baker describes the sound as “modern with a ’60s twist”—faithful to the original spirit, but not frozen in time.

Cream, Baker noted, was fundamentally a blues band, but one that pushed boundaries. “They were probably the most out-there band of that time,” he said. “The closest comparison might have been the Grateful Dead, though they were folkier. Cream sharpened their playing through jazz—it gave the music a different level of risk and sophistication.”

That sense of musical risk-taking is deeply personal for Baker, who has been playing since childhood. Named after a Ghanaian drummer—a reflection of his father’s time in Africa and immersion in African rhythms—Baker grew up surrounded by music. His first live performance came at age six, when he appeared alongside his father on the influential UK television program "The Old Grey Whistle Test."

In the early 1980s, father and son toured Europe performing drum duets built on complex African polyrhythms, astonishing audiences with their intensity and precision.

Baker’s upbringing unfolded amid his father’s gold records and the chaos of a life steeped in celebrity, creativity, and, ultimately, addiction. Music was constant—his sister played bass—but for years, he had little interest in Cream’s catalog. “That was my parents’ music,” he said. That changed when someone asked him to play a Cream song. Hearing it through the lens of his own musicianship, Baker said he realized just how powerful and innovative the work was. After Ginger Baker’s death, the desire to keep that legacy alive settled in. The legacy shifted from confrontation to a sort of inspiration.

He went on to tour and perform with artists including John Etheridge of Soft Machine, Steve Waller of Manfred Mann, Randy California of Spirit, and Steve Marriott’s Humble Pie. From 2017 to 2022, Baker became an integral part of The Music of Cream 50th Anniversary Tour, playing hundreds of shows across Australasia, the United States, and the United Kingdom.

Malcolm Bruce, a composer, singer-songwriter, and multi-instrumentalist, has likewise built a formidable career of his own. He has toured, recorded, and performed with an array of music legends, including Little Richard, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Dr. John, Steve Cropper, Joe Satriani, Joe Bonamassa, Ozzy Osbourne, Bill Ward, and his father, Jack Bruce. In 2016, he curated a major tribute to his father at London’s O2 Shepherd’s Bush Empire alongside Cream lyricist Pete Brown, performing with artists such as Lulu, Mick Taylor of the Rolling Stones, Dennis Chambers, and Ginger Baker.

Bruce released his solo album Salvation in 2017 and toured internationally in support of it. He later served as co-executive producer, arranger, and performer on Heavenly Cream, a project spearheaded by Pete Brown and recorded at Abbey Road Studios. The album and accompanying documentary, The Cream Acoustic Sessions, were released to critical acclaim in November 2023. He is working on a new album titled "Fake Humans and Real Dolls."

Audiences can hear for themselves during the band's tour, including in Napa at the Uptown Theatre on Friday.

The members of Cream—born just before or after 1940, many of them shaped by the absence of fathers lost to World War II—were unruly boys who grew into equally unruly men steeped in blues and jazz.

They laid the foundations for electric blues, British blues-rock, psychedelic rock, and heavy metal. Cream played its first U.S. gig in 1967, recorded its debut album Disraeli Gears in just three days before visas expired, and delivered era-defining songs such as Sunshine of Your Love—famously performed at San Francisco’s Fillmore—and White Room, which captured a darkening mood in America. Despite internal tensions, particularly between Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, the band left an outsized legacy, playing its final U.S. show in 1968, earning induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, and reuniting briefly in 2005.

Sons of Cream is now extending that legacy. The band will release its debut album, "Half and Half," this spring on Marshall Records. The 12-track record will include six original songs—described by the band as “experimental, modern rock”—and six Cream covers, including I Feel Free, N.S.U., Sweet Wine, We’re Going Wrong, and Tales of Brave Ulysses. It marks the trio's first release under the Sons of Cream name.

Offstage, the band’s ethos is as stripped-down as its approach to the music. For the current run of shows, Baker and a roadie are hauling the group’s equipment themselves, driving from Chicago in a 2024 Dodge Ram ProMaster. It’s a hands-on, road-tested approach that mirrors their philosophy onstage.

For Sons of Cream, the journey—musical and literal—is as important as the destination. Every performance is an act of exploration, Baker said, and every night a reminder that the music they inherited was never meant to stand still.

The Uptown Theatre is 1350 Third St. in Napa. Tickets are available online.
The show starts at 8 p.m.