Ginger Baker finally has now. Keep drumming there.
BBC
He did.
BBC
His early ambition was to ride in the Tour de France but he was forced to quit the sport when, aged 16, his bicycle got "caught up" with a taxi. Instead, he took up drumming.
"I was always banging on the desks at school," he recalled. "So all the kids kept saying, 'Go on, go and play the drums', and I just sat down and I could play.
"It's a gift from God. You've either got it or you haven't. And I've got it: time. Natural time."From Rolling Stone
“I’ve seen where Cream is sort of held responsible for the birth of heavy metal,” Baker said in a typically caustic 2015 interview. “Well, 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, ‘Man, you were my influence; 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 onstage because of that [high amplifier] volume crap. I didn’t like it then, and like it even less now.”
...
Despite his rock bona fides, Baker always insisted that Cream were a jazz band. “Oh, for God’s sake, I’ve never played rock,” he told jazz.fm in 2013. “Cream was two jazz players and a blues guitarist playing improvised music. We never played the same thing two nights running … It was jazz.”NBC
While Rolling Stone magazine once ranked him the third-greatest rock drummer of all time, behind Moon and Bonham, Baker had contempt for Moon and others he dismissed as "bashers" without style or background. Baker and his many admirers saw him as a rounded, sophisticated musician — an arranger, composer and student of the craft, absorbing sounds from around the world. He had been playing jazz since he was a teenager and spent years in Africa in the 1970s, forming a close friendship with the Nigerian musician-activist Fela Kuti.From Jaltcoh
This is from Blind Faith's first show. Ginger Baker's drumming added so much to this — it's hard to imagine it with a typical rock drummer:
The video "Beware of Mr. Baker" ist a must-view.
The genetic basis of music ability
The genetic basis of music ability
Music is an integral part of the cultural heritage of all known human societies, with the capacity for music perception and production present in most people. Researchers generally agree that both genetic and environmental factors contribute to the broader realization of music ability, with the degree of music aptitude varying, not only from individual to individual, but across various components of music ability within the same individual.
"It's the drummer's job to make the other guys sound good."
He did.
