Ginger Baker dead...

One of the great rock drummers, classically trained.

I'm partial to Blind Faith - they produced only 1 album, but it is an all time great: Ginger Baker, Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood.
May he Rest in Peace.

Sea of Joy:
LINK

Been seeing clips on the news channel.. not many drummers get that kind of mention. Says a lot.

I've never come over here before, but I saw this and couldn’t resist.

The GOAT.

There will be arguments in favor of John Bonham, of course. Bonham had tremendous power, and hand speed.

But the complexity of Baker’s work remains unmatched.

Any hypothetical poll of fans would probably put Bonham at the top of the list.

But I remember seeing a poll, decades ago (yeah, I'm old), of drummers -- Baker’s fellow craftsmen, and expert judges of his work -- and he was at the top by a large margin.

An icon, and a pioneer of the independent drum solo. “Toad” took him 2-1/2 years to write, and is still considered the finest of all time (Bonham’s “Moby Dick”, while spectacular, is derivative).

Baker’s fights with Cream bassist Jack Bruce are the stuff of legend.

Bruce was a gold-plated, forty-weight, narcissistic a-hole, and insisted on raising the volume on his amp until it was loud enough to eclipse the sound of Baker’s drums.

Baker was a hotheaded heroin/cocaine addict who wouldn’t take shyt from anybody. And he had the kind of face that you would expect to see (in a really bad horror movie) peering through your window at 3 AM in the middle of a thunderstorm.

In later years, with Bruce in Los Angeles and Baker in South Africa, each would comment that the other was “still too close”.


There’s not a whole lot of video from those pre-digital days, but there are some links which may be of interest:

(1969)

“Toad” drum solo (1966):

“Toad” drum solo (1989):
(watch Baker’s left hand from 3:24 to 3:32

“Toad” drum solo (Reunion -- 2005)

“Toad” (Wikipedia)

The Devil Looks After His Own


I suspect that, even on this board, there are not a whole lot of people old enough to remember Ginger Baker.

RIP, Sir: the world is a little less interesting for your departure.

Great drum solo. Thanks for posting.

My first drum lesson I took from Buddy Rich. He was friends with friends of my parents. I was interested in drumming and my mom arranged for me to get my first lesson. I was completely in awe, but he was great! He spent at least a half day with me getting me started on fundamentals and telling me to practice, practice, practice until I was exhausted and pouring sweat. I would, too, through the years. It was really motivating. I can still hear his voice in my head telling me that "music IS life and if I wanted to live a full life, I needed to let the music flow out from within me."

I was 9 years old and hooked. By the 9th grade I was teaching percussion myself, and was the jazz band drummer for four years in high school and lead percussionist for the symphonic band, playing and teaching every instrument. Even played in a small group for a while after college but didn't want to do the whole travel on the road thing. I still play, and have a studio upstairs with a full set of Rodgers and Zildians, along with amps, keyboard, guitars, bass, mics, mixer board, pedal boards and launcher boards. My kids play everything, including flute and trumpet. I can sit in, but mostly, their friends come over to jam. We made sure our kids could make music and sing and encourage them to write their own. My daughter sings and plays guitar and keyboard at church, even getting into a ohurch music program in Norman where she attends OU and my son is first chair trumpet in band and in the jazz band is an improvisational player.playing at times on bass, drums or trumpet.

It all goes back to Buddy Rich inspiring me to make music a part of my life.

I will always say that Cream should've been the greatest band of all time. Their egos got in the way.