Legendary Cream Drummer, Ginger Baker, Dies Aged 80

Ginger Baker, perhaps the most influential and innovative drummers in rock history has died aged 80. A co founder of Cream, he also played with Hawkwind, Blind Faith and Public Image Ltd.

He was a somewhat temperamental character with his behaviour quite often leading to onstage punch ups! He was a true force to be reckoned with. Growing up in post war Britain, he gravitated towards the drums. Calling it a ‘gift from God’. On his ability to play the drums, almost instantaneously, he stated ‘You’ve either got it or you haven’t. And I’ve got it’.

Ginger gravitated towards the thriving blues scene in London in and 1962, repolaced Charlie Watts in Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated. Charlie Watts left the band to join the Rolling Stones.

He soon moved on to join the Graham Bond Organisation alongside bassist Jack Bruce – but it was their partnership with Eric Clapton in Cream that made him a superstar.

One of rock’s first “supergroups”, they had a string of hits including songs like Strange Brew, Sunshine of Your Love, Badge and I Feel Free. Selling over 35 million albums, Cream were awarded the world’s first ever platinum disc for their LP Wheels of Fire.

Ginger Baker once describe playing with Cream “…as if something else had taken over. You’re not conscious of playing. You’re listening to this fantastic sound that you’re a part of. And your part is just… happening. It was a gift, and we three had it in abundance.”

Known for their extended plays and improvisational style, Cream really made its mark on heavy rock, however hostility ran hot within the band and after one instance of Ginger trying to cut short one of Jack Bruce’s bass solo’s by throwing a drumstick at him, Jack Bruce picked his double bass up “and demolished him and his kit.”

This couldn’t last forever and Cream inevitably split up after just four albums with a final concert at the Royal Albert Hall in 1968

After Cream, he teamed up with Eric Clapton again to form Blind Faith and then the ambitious 10-piece Air Force, which combined his interests in jazz and Afro-fusion. However, after just one album and live concert at the Royal Albert Hall, Air Force disbanded.

After the death of his close friend Jimi Hendrix in 1969, Ginger left the UK all together and moved to Africa. He was involved in a number of musical projects, he helped Paul McCartney with the recording of ‘Band on the Run’ and he also recorded with John Lydon’s Public Image Ltd.

In 2005 Cream were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and played three songs together. Following their induction, they played a run of concerts in London and New York. Inevitably, Ginger and Jack Bruce once again ended up fighting onstage…

“It’s a knife-edge thing for me and Ginger,” Bruce said afterward. “Nowadays, we’re happily co-existing in different continents… although I was thinking of asking him to move. He’s still a bit too close.”

In 2012, he became the subject of a documentary entitled ‘Beware of Mr Baker’ which gave an insight into his incredible life. The opening scene see’s him attacking the director Jay Bulger with his cane declaring: “I’m going to put you in hospital.” He later settled down to reflect on his career, his whole host of broken bands and his ex wives and children that he has left. Contributors marvelled at his drumming ability but little else, with Free’s Simon Kirke saying “He influenced me as a drummer, but not as a person” 

In later years he has suffered with his health and he announced his retirement in 2014. His death will see him heralded as one of the best drummers of all time. This is an accolade he certainly wouldn’t have risen to stating numerous times in interviews “Drummers are really nothing more than time-keepers.”

He told Rhythm magazine: “It’s the drummer’s job to make the other guys sound good.”

Ginger Baker – 19th August 1939 – 6th October 2019