GE
TTY(^) x 4
“A lot of these guys come up and say: ‘Man,
you were my inf luence, the way you thrashed
the drums.’ They don’t seem to understand I was
thrashing in order to hear what I was playing. It
was anger, not enjoyment – and painful. I suffered
on stage because of that volume crap. I didn’t like
it then, and like it even less now.”
After Cream, Baker and Clapton quickly joined
forces with singer/guitarist/keyboard player Steve
Winwood and bass player Ric Grech to form
Blind Faith. Hailed as an instant “supergroup”,
the band played their debut show in June 1969
in front of 100,000 people in London’s Hyde
Park. They released a self-titled album, which
topped the US and UK charts. But the impossible
expectations which accompanied the band’s
rapid ascent to such dizzying heights was all too
much, and after one, brief, US tour, Blind Faith
split up in August 1969, having been publicly
active for all of three months.
Baker then brought in Winwood and Grech as
the core of his own jazz-rock supergroup, Ginger
Baker’s Airforce, which toured and released two
albums featuring a vast and rapidly f luctuating
roll-call of contributors, including his old
colleagues Phil Seaman and Graham Bond.
Baker moved to Africa in the 70s,
where he worked with musicians
including the Afrobeat star Fela Kuti
and set up a commercial recording
facility, Batakota Studios, in Lagos,
Nigeria. In the decades that followed
he ranged freely across continents and
musical genres, recording a bunch
of sublime jazz albums with his own
bands – notably Middle Passage (1990)
and Coward Of The County (Ginger Baker
and the DJQ20, 1996) – and lending his
considerable weight to various rock
projects including a short-lived power
trio with Jack Bruce and guitarist Gary
Moore, BBM, who released one album,
Around The Next Dream in 1994.
He also contributed to the writing, with songs
such as Sweet Wine, Those Were the Days and Passing
The Time, and in a group with two such imposing
singers as Clapton and Bruce, Baker nevertheless
managed to muscle in with his cockney growl
leading the way on several numbers including
Pressed Rat And Warthog and Blue Condition.
Cream’s work rate and speed of success was
phenomenal. Within a year they had gone to
America, where they recorded their second
album, Disraeli Gears, with artwork and lyrics
which remain a benchmark of the psychedelic
era. Within two years they had become one of
the biggest touring attractions in the
world and recorded their third album,
the double Wheels Of Fire. But after
just 27 months together they split up,
playing two farewell shows at London’s
Royal Albert Hall in November 1968,
leaving a legacy which inf luenced and
inspired a generation of bands from
Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black
Sabbath onwards.
Not that Baker was bothered about
any of that. “I’ve seen where Cream is
sort of held responsible for the birth of
heavy metal. Well, I would definitely go
for aborting. I loathe and detest heavy
metal. I think it is an abortion,” he told
Forbes magazine.
Fresh Cream: Ginger Baker, Eric Clapton
and Jack Bruce, London, 1966.
The post-Cream^ band^ Blind^ Faith,^
the^ first^ ‘supergroup’,^ in^1969 :^
(l-r) Steve Winwood,^ Ric^ Grech,^
Ginger^ Baker,^ Eric^ Clapton.
12 CLASSICROCKMAGAZINE.COM