Ginger Baker

Jack Bruce was the original bass guitarist for Blues Incorporated, which was founded by Cyril Davies and Alexis Korner as the first amplified R&B band in Britain; other bandmembers in the early line-up include Charlie Watts, the drummer for the Rolling Stones, and vocalist Long John Baldry.  The band was never intended to have a fixed line-up and included numerous fine musicians over its life, among them the future drummer for Cream, Ginger Baker.  Jack Bruce was also briefly a member of Manfred Mann. 

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Writing for Allmusic,  Bruce Eder noted that early on, most drummers were famous only because the bands they were in were famous:  “Ginger Baker was rock’s first superstar drummer and the most influential percussionist of the 1960s. . . .  Baker made his name entirely on his playing, initially as showcased in Cream, but far transcending even that trio’s relatively brief existence.  Though he only cut top-selling records for a period of about three years at the end of the 1960s, virtually every drummer of every heavy metal band that has followed since that time has sought to emulate some aspect of Baker’s playing.” 

During the 1950’s, Ginger Baker was a member of several of what were known in England as “trad jazz” bands, i.e., Dixieland jazz.  Charlie Watts recommended Baker as the drummer for Blues Incorporated after he left the band.  Ginger Baker crossed paths with lead vocalist, saxophonist and organist Graham Bond and bassist Jack Bruce; together with another alumnus of the band, saxophone player Dick Heckstall-Smith, the four began jamming together before enthusiastic crowds while performing with a band called the Johnny Burch Octet.  Bond initially formed the Graham Bond Quartet with Bruce, Baker and guitarist John McLaughlin (an important figure in jazz fusion who performed on Miles Davis’s first gold record, Bitches Brew); when Heckstall-Smith joined up, the group was renamed the Graham Bond Organisation.  It was in this period that Ginger Baker developed his signature drum solo, “Toad”.   

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To some extent at least, the formation of Cream grew out of an English all-star band called the Powerhouse that was assembled solely to provide music for a 1966 compilation album called What’s Shakin’ that announced the arrival of Elektra Records in Great Britain.  Bandmembers included Eric Clapton (guitar); Jack Bruce (bass guitar) and Paul Jones (harmonica) from Manfred Mann; Stevie Winwood (lead vocals) and Pete York (drums) from the Spencer Davis Group; and Ben Palmer (piano), who had briefly been in a band with Clapton in 1965.  Ginger Baker was originally slated to be the drummer for the group but was unavailable.  This remarkable line-up included two members of Cream (and almost all three), plus two future members of Blind Faith (Clapton and Winwood).  What’s more, Cream later recorded two of the only three songs ever made by this assemblage, Robert Johnson’s “Crossroads” and an instrumental called “Steppin’ Out” that Eric Clapton had previously performed while in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers.  The artist on these two songs was listed as Eric Clapton & the Powerhouse.  The third song, “I Want to Know” was credited to MacLeod, an evident reference to Paul Jones’ wife Sheila MacLeod; Ten Years After included “I Want to Know” on their first album, Ten Years After that was released in late 1967.   

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In 1966, Eric Clapton met Ginger Baker; both men felt a little stifled in their band environment – John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers and the Graham Bond Organisation, respectively – and Baker asked Clapton to join a band that he was putting together.  Clapton agreed, but only if Jack Bruce was also included as the lead vocalist and bass guitarist; Clapton later said that Baker almost wrecked his car when he heard that.  Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker were notorious for their volatility while in the Graham Bond Organisation together, including on-stage fights and sabotage of the other’s instruments.  The two put aside their differences for the sake of the new band, but this probably sowed the seeds for Cream’s dissolution in barely two years’ time. 

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Blind Faith formed shortly after the break-up of Cream.  Eric Clapton had been trying to bring Stevie Winwood into Cream to act as a sort of buffer between Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker – actually that probably wouldn’t have worked out, since I heard that Baker and Winwood didn’t get along in Blind Faith.  As with the formation of Cream itself, Eric Clapton and Stevie Winwood were frustrated with their present bands.  Cream had better amplifiers toward the end, and Jack Bruce was pushing the volume up during concerts, so Ginger Baker was having difficulty getting his drums heard above the roar.  Eric Clapton said that he stopped playing during a Cream concert once, and neither Jack Bruce nor Ginger Baker even noticed; he also characterized later Cream performances as the bandmembers showing off. 

When Traffic broke up temporarily in 1969, Stevie Winwood began jamming with Eric Clapton; they had played together previously in the Powerhouse.  Ginger Baker sat in one time in 1969, and he was a natural as the band’s drummer.  Clapton was reluctant to team up with Baker again so soon after Cream broke up, but Winwood convinced him that they would never find a more talented drummer than Baker.  The three invited Rick Grech (also known as Ric Grech) to join the group; he was the bass guitarist in Family and left that band mid-tour to join Blind Faith.  

Despite the fact that one-half of Blind Faith was previously two-thirds of Cream, their album seemed dominated instead by Stevie Winwood; besides handling lead vocalist duties, Winwood wrote half of the songs, with Eric Clapton and Ginger Baker each contributing one. 

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Meanwhile, Ginger Baker was putting together a supergroup and a double album of his own.  Ginger Baker’s Air Force – described in Wikipedia as a rock-jazz fusion band – was organized from the ashes of Blind Faith and featured the other three musicians in the band besides Eric Clapton:  Ginger Baker (drums, percussion and vocals), Stevie Winwood (organ and vocals), and Rick Grech (violin and bass guitar).  Others on hand in the 10-piece band include Baker’s former bandmate Graham Bond, Denny Laine (one of the original members of the Moody Blues – he sang lead on their early hit “Go Now” – and later a key member of Paul McCartney and Wings), Chris Wood (another founding member of Traffic), and Wood’s wife Jeanette Jacobs (previously in the New York band the Cake). 

(May 2014)