Born: August 1939, Lewisham/London, England. One of the more prominent drummers in jazz and progressive rock music. Ginger Baker played drums as a teenager, as a secondary passion to bicycle racing. Baker played in several jazz-oriented groups in the London area during the late 1950's. He joined Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated in 1962, and within months moved into the Graham Bond Trio (later Organisation). While with Bond's Organisation, Ginger refined his two bass drum kit technique, which uses advantage of his strong legs that were developed by years of competitive bicycling as a young Lad.

During the mid-1960's, Baker was a key player in fusing jazz with blues, and from that, into the an improvised blues/rock hybrid while with the well-known power-trio group, The Cream. After The Cream's breakup in the autumn of 1968, Baker sought to collaborate with Stevie Winwood and Eric Clapton, who were experimenting with alternative forms of music while on sabbatical from superstar status performing. Ginger Baker was that much of a superior kind of a drummer, which with Stevie's influence led to his inclusion into the group as it gelled toward more than just jamming and partying at EC's country home.

Primo Ginger Baker website
Ginger Baker Obit - Irish Times (Oct 2019)
Ginger Baker - Wikipedia page
Ginger Baker - Interview, 1971
Ginger Baker Discography
Interview with Ginger Baker (UK Old Grey Whistle, 1975)
The Cream website links

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Updated 15 October 2019