Credit: Far Out / Al Kooper / ATCO Records
Fri 21 August 2026 1:00, UK
When it comes to Ginger Baker, it’s fair to say that his reputation preceded him.
Known as much, or maybe even more, for his quick temper as for his quick hands at the drum-kit, Baker first began to make his name as the stickman with groups like Graham Bond Organisation and Blues Incorporated in the early 1960s, before coming to much wider notoriety in the middle of the decade with Cream.
But even in his earliest days, word was beginning to spread about his volatile temperament. Baker was known to feud constantly with bandmate and bassist Jack Bruce, even being expelled from the Graham Bond Organisation for pulling a knife on his fellow rhythm-keeper, but somehow that shared history was not quite enough to stop the pair from getting together again to form the trio Cream, alongside Eric Clapton. Of course, it was enough to raise question marks about the potential longevity of the project among anyone out there who’d been paying any attention to the heavy-hitting drummers’ affairs.
And any doubters were soon proven both wrong and right. Cream didn’t stick together for too long, though the four albums they released in two years from their 1966 inception were well regarded and well received.
Caught between the often-warring Baker and Bruce, Clapton later revealed that the band members didn’t listen to each other enough, which led to constant tension in the group and a breakdown in communication, although that is always liable to happen when three enormous egos come together, only to be lavished with equally gargantuan amounts of narcotics, money, attention and adoration.
Credit: Far Out / F. van Geelen / Omroepvereniging VARA
But it wasn’t only a refusal to listen to each other that doomed Cream to a short lifespan before they’d even begun. All the physical altercations, including plenty in public and on-stage, were one thing, but the pair would even attempt to sabotage each other’s playing and performing. It’s a real wonder why they kept on getting into groups together.
And Baker wasn’t only quick to dismiss his own bandmates or musicians he seemed to have trauma-bonded with; he was ready to fire on anyone he felt like. Personally, I happen to agree with Ginger Baker that you don’t need to believe the hype surrounding drummers like John Bonham and Keith Moon (or, much later, Chad Smith) and, more broadly, “heavy-metal drummers”.
However, despite Baker’s jazz training and high opinion of himself, I hear no evidence that Ginger Baker couldn’t hold a candle to the truly phenomenal kitmen like Al Jackson Jr, Roger Hawkins, Art Blakey, Philly Joe Jones, Francis Clay, Sam Lay or George Recelli.
In a 1970 interview with Disc and Music Echo, Baker admitted that “I’m not an easy person to get on with” and, though he always seemed to be butting heads with somebody, surely no one would have argued with him on that particular point.
But not everybody found his temperament, personality and attitude to be so off-putting. In fact, I heard first-hand from my early mentor and life-long inspiration, Keith Hale, who sadly passed away earlier this year at 75, about a more down-to-earth side of Ginger Baker. Ironically, those stories about the down-to-earth side of him dated back to their time together in the space-rock band Hawkwind.
And, of course, even those stories about his more amenable moments were fated to end with an explosive bust-up, as Baker and Hale both left Hawkwind in a whirlwind following a heated dispute with the rest of the band during rehearsals at the Rockfield Studios in Wales.
The pair continued to work together, alongside a handful of other players and under the moniker Ginger Baker’s Nutters, touring Europe and releasing a couple of live albums before Baker left the UK as a tax exile.
Credit: Al Kooper
But Keith Hale wasn’t the first incredibly talented keyboard and organ player who’d taken a liking to Ginger Baker. Years before him, Al Kooper, most famous for playing that organ line on Dylan’s ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ in 1965, and for facilitating the Super Session which so perfectly showcased Michael Bloomfield’s prodigious guitar talents a few years later, had bumped into Baker backstage at Murray the K’s Easter Rock Extravaganza during the drummer’s first trip to the United States.
“What do you think of America so far?“, the generally softly-spoken Kooper remembers asking Baker, who in turn replied about as politely as you’d have expected him to. “How the fuck should I know? I’ve only been here 35 fucking minutes, haven’t I?“
Most people would likely have left things there and moved on to speak to a less obtuse and more affable character, telling anybody else they spoke to that night to give the flame-haired Briton with the drumstick up his backside a wide berth. But Kooper doesn’t give up as easily as most people, as you’ll know if you’ve ever heard his story about how he came to be playing that organ part on ‘Rolling Stone’ in the first place, or any of his stories about working with the troubled talent of Michael Bloomfield.
Kooper was unfazed by Baker’s blunt reply and even turned things right around before the tour was through.
“By the last night of the show,” he’s said since, “We were throwing eggs and whipped cream at each other, that old American rock ‘n’ roll ritual that denotes mutual respect.”
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