Ginger Baker critically ill

[Alanko]

I've earned myself a temporary holiday from another bass forum for sharing my thoughts on the departed Mr. Baker.

If nothing else, given the flavour of eulogising repeated commonly online this week, you would think that Ginger played drums from 1966 to 1970, and then packed up his drums thereafter. Lots of love for Cream. Too much really. I find them plodding, most of their studio work is horribly badly mixed unless you like lopsided stereo mixes, and people are too quick to forgive them for crap like Wrapping Paper. Pete Brown's lyrics are a special kind of terrible as well. Blind Faith gets a wee mention as well but, lets be honest here, a lot of their stuff was a bit hesitant, undercooked and deathly dull.

What about the face-punching, heroin-jagging Ginger of the '70s who rode around Africa in a Range Rover pissing off Afrobeat musicians and Top Brass elite in equal measure? The guy who favoured Polo horses to his own flesh and blood? The guy who turned up in Hawkwind in the early '80s (appearing on their one good album of the era) armed only with a small, snapping dog?

A committedly unpleasant man from all reports. A guy who seems to have sought out new and creative ways of being as unpleasant as possible. A guy with serious, deep issues. Or maybe it was all an act.

[westen44]

Ginger Baker himself said that he thought "Wrapping Paper" was shit.  I hardly think he can be blamed for it.  Whatever Eric Clapton's and Jack Bruce's reasons were for wanting to do that song, I don't know.  I suspect they wanted to just do something that would totally throw everyone off guard or something like that.  But I don't like that song, "Mother's Lament," or "Anyone for Tennis."  I like most other Cream songs, though.  As for solo work, I kept up way more with Jack Bruce's solo career than that of Ginger Baker and Eric Clapton.  What I did hear from Ginger Baker  I liked, although I can't say the same for Eric Clapton. 

[Pilgrim]

There are many great musicians who were unpleasant people to be around. As long as I don't have to put up with them personally, I don't mind. I wouldn't join a band with a difficult person in it, but that's my choice.

When you make the kind of mark that Cream did, I don't care whether all three were sweethearts. I care about their music.

[uwe]

As a person who appreciates Ritchie Blackmore, Lou Reed, Gene Simmons, Don Henley, Miles Davis, Johnny Lydon/Rotten, Andy Powell, Chuck Berry, Roger Waters, John Fogerty, Bob Dylan, Ike Turner, Ted Nugent, David Bowie and, hey, even the Beach Boys (Mike Love!), "unpleasant to crappy character" cannot possibly register on my meter. Relatively few professional musicians are saints or even just nice people.

Ginger spoke his mind, was undiplomatic, had a bad temper, was a lousy father and a pain in the body part closest to his drum stool for his band mates - all true. And if he had drowned baby kittens in his pastime as well [he actually liked animals, but then so did the Führer / : - = ( ], that still wouldn't take a chip off his cymbals. He was a drummer with an absolutely idiosyncratic style - as a joke and inspired by Ilan's post we jammed Sunshine of your Love at the last rehearsal and I explicitly asked our lead guitarist (who played drums at the jam - he'a good drummer as well) to switch between the 1 and 4 tribal offbeat emphasis and the 2 and 4 standard beat - the difference was all the world and everyone in the room agreed that Ginger's original drum approach opened up the song.

Without Ginger there would be (by their own admission) no (or not as we know them) Ian Paice, Stewart Copeland, Simon Phillips and Neil Peart (right there four of the best drummers in the world).

And I'll never forgive you that you didn't mention the Baker Gurvitz Army!!! The three albums he did with them are among his finest work (and better produced than the Cream stuff too).

Not everything Cream did was brilliant - they had their fillers and the trio concept its limitations. (Clapton being among the first to realize this and leave, legend has it that an album by The Band made him feel that Cream's music had become  irrelevant to him.) 20 minute improvisations are not for everyone, but I believe it is common sentiment that Clapton, Bruce and Baker (together with Jimi Hendrix) shaped - for better or worse - the rock music of the 70ies and beyond. Did anyone say "stadium rock"?! Das ist verboten.

But no one is ousting you here for not appreciating Ginger Baker or thinking Cream are crap! These days when you mention Cream outside of musician circles, most people think that you are talking about Queen. That always drives me mad.  Wimmin', it has to be said, are especially guilty of this. Sunshine of your Bohemian Rhapsody alright: Bam-bam-bam-booreppa, I want to break free ...

[amptech]

Pete Brown's lyrics are a special kind of terrible as well.

What's the point of saying things like this?
Cream overrated?

I don't like Harry Potter, but what would I gain from saying the writer is a terrible writer and the books are 'too much loved'?
Don't get me wrong, I'm no Cream buff - but they made such a mark it's impossible to ignore.
Good band, really good musicians, good songs, good words, lots of energy...

[uwe]

Alan is allowed to play with fire a little - no band is sacrosanct here. Only Deep Purple - not that you guys ever give a crap about that! 

I think that Cream's mix of an overly busy drummer and an overly busy bassist coupled with a conventional, but very good guitarist (yes, I still think that Clapton is a very good white blues guitarist, but he never took the guitar anywhere it hadn't been before, he's also never claimed to be that person) was really something. Where I agree with Alan is that their music was ill-served by the production of their albums, those Cream records pale in comparison with Jimi Hendrix stuff from the same era and let's not even get into how much better George Martin handled his protegées - the 50th anniv. ed. of Abbey Road shows that the man and his engineers were sonic Merlins - the sound of Cream albums is lightyears removed from that though you would think that it can't be that difficult to decently record a drum set, a bass, one guitar and some singing.

[uwe]

Hey, Ilan!!!

Little Ian pays his respects the way you should - with the offbeat!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=37&v=ciFFqlrzpvs

[ilan]

LOL yeah Uwe, it's a tribute to Ginger Baker, not the song, Paicey didn't really have a choice there.

[ilan]

BTW love your new signature line

[amptech]

Alan is allowed to play with fire a little - no band is sacrosanct here. Only Deep Purple - not that you guys ever give a crap about that! 

I think I've been a good boy and not spoken out against Ricky Blackmore

Even though the only time I saw him play, he played with his back to the audience the whole show! I believe it was the last show he did with DP, but still.

[uwe]

BTW love your new signature line

I only quote things I hear and that make good sense to me.

[ajkula66]

I think I've been a good boy and not spoken out against Ricky Blackmore

Even though the only time I saw him play, he played with his back to the audience the whole show! I believe it was the last show he did with DP, but still.

Heh. I've seen him walk out in the middle of "Smoke On The Water". Encore, no less.... ...back in '87.

[lowend1]

(yes, I still think that Clapton is a very good white blues guitarist, but he never took the guitar anywhere it hadn't been before

Actually, he did. The "Beano" album with the Bluesbreakers pretty much created the blueprint for "classic" rock guitar tone - i.e. Les Paul (with pickup covers removed), Marshall, volume, repeat.

[uwe]

Was he that much ahead of the Peter Greens of his time? I was too young to know and stand corrected. I even bought the Beano album only a few years back because I felt obliged to! Some records you just got to have in a proper collection, jawohl!

I had thought the whole Marshall thing only came with Cream. You live and learn.

I'm no Clapton-basher at all, none of his major moves were really commercially motivated. Leaving the Yardbirds for John Mayall, hardly a smart thing to do in the beat boom. Leaving Cream to become a solo singer/songwriter, a daft move in the beginning era of stadium rock where a continuing Cream would have been a money printing machine. He really always - sometimes stubbornly - followed his art, it's just that prevailing tastes changed and aligned with what he was doing: His "bluesy singer/songwriter with a wonderful lead guitar"-concept became a favorite as baby boomers aged.

[Basvarken]

I'm no big fan of Clapton. But his influence on the music scene was huge. The entire blues rock genre owes a great deal to him.

watch this series of you're interested: