“Jack loved that a kid like me, with a blue mohawk and plaid guitar, was making the songs my own – playing Cream and doing divebombs in the corner”: Blues Saraceno toured with Clapton’s Cream bandmates, recorded for Cher and had a bumpy ride with Poison

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While C.C. DeVille – and, briefly, Matt Smith – set their fretboards alight for Poison in the ‘80s, and Richie Kotzen held things down in the early ‘90s, it was supremely talented shredder Blues Saraceno who ruled the roost from 1993 through 1996.

Saraceno was made for the gig in many ways, with his big hair, wide smile and cache of hod-rodded six-strings quivering under his nimble fingers. He’d broken into the biz as a teen in the late ‘80s before hopping on tour with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker, taking the place of Eric Clapton in a quasi-Cream off-shoot, and recording with Cher and Taylor Dayne.