{"id":490934,"date":"2019-10-06T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-06T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rollingstone.com\/?p=240630\/"},"modified":"2019-10-06T04:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T10:00:00","slug":"ginger-baker-cream-co-founder-who-redefined-rock-drumming-dead-at-80","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kqzr\/music-news\/ginger-baker-cream-co-founder-who-redefined-rock-drumming-dead-at-80\/","title":{"rendered":"Ginger Baker, Cream Co-Founder Who Redefined Rock Drumming, Dead at 80"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ginger Baker<\/a>, the wildly influential and innovative drummer who laid the groundwork for heavy metal and world music and played with everyone from Fela Kuti to John Lydon to Max Roach, died Sunday after a lengthy hospital stay<\/a>. He was 80.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are very sad to say that Ginger has passed away peacefully in hospital this morning. Thank you to everyone for your kind words over the past weeks,\u201d the drummer\u2019s Facebook confirmed<\/a> Sunday, nearly two weeks after Baker\u2019s family said he was \u201ccritically ill<\/a>\u201d in the hospital.<\/p>\n

In 2016, Rolling Stone<\/em> placed the Cream<\/a> co-founder third on its list of the \u201c100 Greatest Drummers of All Time<\/a>,\u201d writing, \u201cGifted with immense talent, and cursed with a temper to match, Ginger Baker combined jazz training with a powerful polyrhythmic style in the world\u2019s first, and best, power trio \u2026The London-born drummer introduced showmanship to the rock world with double-kick virtuosity and extended solos.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of the most cantankerous and volatile figures in rock history, Baker rarely lasted more than a couple of years with any single band. Cream, his most famous group, dissolved after barely two years. But they packed a lot into that brief period, recording classic songs like \u201cSunshine of Your Love,\u201d \u201cWhite Room,\u201d and \u201cBadge\u201d that set the stage for nearly every hard-rock and heavy metal band that followed them into the 1970s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve seen where Cream is sort of held responsible for the birth of heavy metal,\u201d Baker said in a typically caustic 2015 interview<\/a>. \u201cWell, I would definitely go for aborting. I loathe and detest heavy metal. I think it is an abortion. A lot of these guys come up and say, \u2018Man, you were my influence; the way you thrashed the drums.\u2019 They don\u2019t seem to understand I was thrashing in order to hear what I was playing. It was anger, not enjoyment \u2014 and painful. I suffered onstage because of that [high amplifier] volume crap. I didn\u2019t like it then, and like it even less now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Regardless of how Baker felt about his influence, countless hard-rock drummers consider him one of the greatest players in history. \u201cHis playing was revolutionary \u2014 extrovert, primal, and inventive,\u201d Rush drummer Neil Peart told<\/a> Rolling Stone<\/em> in 2009. \u201cHe set the bar for what rock drumming could be. I certainly emulated Ginger\u2019s approaches to rhythm \u2014 his hard, flat, percussive sound was very innovative. Everyone who came after built on that foundation. Every rock drummer since has been influenced in some way by Ginger \u2014 even if they don\u2019t know it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Cream;<\/p>\n

Cream pose for a portrait in New York\u2019s Central Park in November 1968. From left: Eric Clapton<\/a>, Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce. Photo: Michael Ochs Archives\/Getty Images<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Peter Edward Baker was born on August 19th, 1939, in London. As a child, he dreamed of making his name as a champion cyclist. But after an accident with a taxi left his bike crushed to pieces in 1956, he turned his attention to drums, where he quickly found he had incredible natural talent. Before he was 18, Baker was a mainstay on the Soho jazz scene, playing in British Dixieland-revival groups and absorbing the influence of American bebop masters like Roach, Charlie Parker, and Dizzy Gillespie. By 1962, American R&B was sweeping England, and he got a job in Alexis Korner\u2019s Blues Incorporated with keyboardist Graham Bond and bassist Jack Bruce.<\/p>\n

When it became clear the group was going nowhere, Baker, Bond, and Bruce left to form the spinoff band the Graham Bond Organization. The group earned a fiercely devoted following all over England, but internal tensions were tearing it apart. Bond was fighting a heroin addiction, and Baker and Bruce were often fighting each other, with their physical spats sometime breaking out midway through sets. Baker eventually fired Bruce, though fate and their undeniable chemistry would continue to bring them together time and time again.<\/p>\n

In 1966, Eric Clapton, fresh out of the Yardbirds, teamed up with Baker and suggested they form a blues-rock trio and bring in Bruce, much to Baker\u2019s chagrin. Considering themselves three of the best players in the British rock scene, they called the group Cream. They were rock\u2019s first supergroup, giving them a huge audience from the get-go. Singles like \u201cSunshine of Your Love\u201d and \u201cWhite Room\u201d were all over pop radio, but as the drummer, Baker didn\u2019t receive songwriting credit.<\/p>\n

\u201cCream was doomed three months after it started,\u201d Baker said in 2009<\/a>. \u201cIt was my band, and Jack tried to fire me! I didn\u2019t get any of the writing credits. It will piss me off for the rest of my life.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite his rock bona fides, Baker always insisted that Cream were a jazz band. \u201cOh, for God\u2019s sake, I\u2019ve never played rock,\u201d he told jazz.fm<\/a> in 2013. \u201cCream was two jazz players and a blues guitarist playing improvised music. We never played the same thing two nights running \u2026 It was jazz.\u201d<\/p>\n

The band called it quits after a pair of farewell shows at London\u2019s Royal Albert Hall in 1968; Clapton formed Blind Faith with Steve Winwood the following year. Clapton had little interest in working with Baker again, but the drummer showed up anyway at their first rehearsals. \u201cSomehow he got wind of what we were doing and had tracked us,\u201d Clapton wrote in his memoir. \u201cSteve\u2019s face lit up when he saw Ginger, while my heart sank.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baker\u2019s drumming powered Blind Faith\u2019s incendiary 1969 self-titled debut LP, though the band folded after a quick tour, partially due to Baker\u2019s growing drug problems that were beginning to rub off on Clapton. \u201cI took one look at his eyes and was sure he was back on it,\u201d Clapton wrote. \u201cI felt that I was stepping back into the nightmare that had been part of Cream.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Ginger<\/p>\n

Ginger Baker performs at Grounds, in Rotterdam, Netherlands, on November 28th, 2015. Photo by Peter Van Breukelen\/Redferns<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

It took watching his good friend Jimi Hendrix die after a debauched night on the town together for Baker to finally kick hard drugs. Feeling he couldn\u2019t pull that off in Europe, he packed up and traveled to Africa, teaming up with Afrobeat legend Fela Kuti for his classic 1971 LP, Live! (\u201c<\/em>He understands the African beat more than any other Westerner,\u201d Afrobeat co-creator Tony Allen told RS in 2016.<\/em>) Baker developed a lifelong love of polo, but he was far removed from the rock scene \u2014 now a huge business thanks to groundbreaking groups like Cream \u2014 and he began slowly descending back into severe drug addiction, crippling his career.<\/p>\n

Throughout the late 1970s, Eighties, and Nineties, Baker traveled the world, working with nearly anyone who would hire him, constantly struggling to pay the bills and stay sober. He played with Hawkwind, Public Image LTD, and the hard-rock group Masters of Reality before teaming up with Bruce once again in BBM, a short-lived power trio that also included guitarist Gary Moore. In 1993, Baker was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as part of Cream.<\/p>\n