Ginger Baker

Yes he is a good drummer. That's all I have to say...

  I'm confused.  I mean I understand people like who they like, no problem but IMO Genger Baker is regular at best.  I went to a concert in NYC in the mid 70s where Ginger Baker's Air Force was headlining (I went for the opening act) and it's the only concert I ever stood up and walk out on.  It was that brutal.  I wonder what Baker fans say about real drummers like Billy Cobham or Lenny White?

He was good on Blind faith.

salmacis wrote: Baker is a 'real' drummer, IMHO. Unfortunately him and Jack Bruce are still at loggerheads, after the Cream reunion soured! I recently read a particularly savage quote from Jack Bruce about his feelings towards Ginger, here's the article: http://www.undercover.com.au/News-Story.aspx?id=2093   I have heard some of his earlier solo work but not his later stuff. I have the first Airforce album and it has lots of very long drum solos all over the place. One has to be in mood for it, really. Definitely has its moments, though.   Baker Gurvitz Army were depressingly average, IMHO. Very run-of-the-mill rock without much to elevate them above others in the field.   I also had Ginger's 1977 album 'Two Sides Of Ginger Baker'. Another poor effort, really, despite the guest list on it.

Along with Keith Moon, Baker was one of  the two drummers in the late 60's that sounded different , immediately identifiable and special from the rest of the run of the mill drummers. There are only a handful of drum solos I can take nowadays, the Wheels Of Fire's Toad being one of three.  Baker is most certainly a jazz drummer, often citing Phil Seamen as his mentor.  BGA was similar to Bruce's cashing in (i.e with West Bruce & Laing) and not letting go of something that had effectively died in the late 60's. However, in between breeding polo ponies, running a cement transport company across the Sahara and encourage African drummers, Baker has remained a major player to my ear. The 80's and 90's recordings,which seemed to have passed too many people by, are well worth checking out,. For example Unseen Rain with Jonas Hellborg (and Baker recipocated on at least one Hellborg album) and Jens Johansson, and the three Ginger Baker straight jazzalbums, Falling Off The Roof, Going Back Home, Coward Of The County - and you don't get Bill Frisell and Charlie Haden playing with you for two of those albums, is you're a shabby drummer.

Novalis wrote: I remember seeing some "behind the music" show on Cream, and Ginger appeared absolutely, for lack of a better term, "out of it". Incoherent, hazy memory and vacant expression on his face while Eric and Jack were completely normal in comparison. Maybe there's something going on with him and that's why they can't patch things up.   Great drummer though...Great band infact.

Edited by Sean Trane - September 03 2007 at 11:06

Baker fitted into Hawkwind as well as Vai fitted into Whitesnake

I have to join the 'unconvinced' camp on this one - I'm well aware of his solo on 'Toad' from 'Wheels Of Fire' & whilst it's definitely a good solo, I don't find it special at all.

There's also no doubt that he played a large part in getting African music heard in the West during the 1970s & thus (as Hughes stated) predated WOMAD/Gabriel by about 10 years....

.... but (and this is shallow, I know) I cannot get over the man's high opinion of himself...

...or the fact he looks like Albert Steptoe:

Didn't Baker try to draft Jack Bruce into Hawkwind, and after that suggestion didn't exactly go down well, even go on the road with the keyboard player and call that Hawkwind??

Philéas wrote: I think he was the first drummer to use double kick drums actually.

salmacis wrote: Didn't Baker try to draft Jack Bruce into Hawkwind, and after that suggestion didn't exactly go down well, even go on the road with the keyboard player and call that Hawkwind??

There is a tremendous love-hate relationship between Bruce and Baker - love of each other's musical abilities and a gradual growing dislike of each other when working together. TIme after time you find them coming back together, having started in Graham Bond's Organisation (essentially a group of young jazz musicians playing R'n'B - with Dick Heckstall-Smith and John McLaughlin passing through their ranks), in the mid 60's, you have Cream (but that experience seemed to sour their relationship until Bruce invited Baker onto his album A Question Of Time (my favourite Holdsworth solo sits on that album -  in fact Holdsworth backed by the Cream rhythm section on Obsession), then Baker was invited to appear in Bruce 50th birthday bash, which subsequently appeared on the double CD set Cities Of The Heart , sharing drum duties with Simon Phillips and Gary Husband. Then of course the Cream reunion - the DVD does indicate the three 'protagonists' quite at ease with one another and in fact appearing to enjoy each other's company and music. However, Baker is in print suggesting the sourness returned when Bruce started bossing things around later in the States. So perhaps it is less surprising Baker and Bruce, attempted to set up other projects together between Cream 1 and Cream 2.

A old friend who played bass for a Middlebrough band Penetration, reckoned he saw   Cream the first time round in the late 60's  and claims Bruce actually hit Baker with his bass guitar during an argument..............................