And it was here that his legendary love-hate relationship with bassist Jack Bruce began in earnest

And it was here that his legendary love-hate relationship with bassist Jack Bruce began in earnest. Eventually Baker, who had taken over the band from the increasingly heroin-ridden Bond, fired Bruce, having already disposed of John “Mahavishnu” McLaughlin in a less than mystical manner.Despite the claims of conspiracy buffs, who like to suggest that Bruce’s exit from the Graham Bond Organization was stage-managed to facilitate the formation of Cream, Baker was not pleased when Eric Clapton, whom he had “invited to join my band”, suggested Bruce Baker wasn’t keen, but eventually relented “I suppose Jack’s … Bond started to introduce him as “the best drummer in Europe” That must have annoyed him. And by 1962, along with a like-minded corps of renegade jazzers that included Dick Heckstall-Smith, Graham Bond and Manfred Mann, Baker had switched to R&B.Success in Alexis Korner’s Blues Incorporated and the Graham Bond Organization followed.

His rent, by a pleasing piece of arithmetic, was 10 shillings too.He played with some of the top British jazz bands of the day, including top trad jazzer Terry Lightfoot “It was like stardom, you know. Sixteen quid a week – huge money then.” Ginger Baker can tell you exactly how much he got paid for every gig of his career.Lightfoot eventually chucked him out for trying to pull Max Roach bebop stunts on the bass drum. The week before he’d earned pounds 12 gigging around the jazz circuit The week he went professional, he earned 10 shillings. He passed.In those uncomplicated days he often travelled to a gig by bus, kit and all He couldn’t have done that 10 years later. Shortly after he started playing, aged 17, he handed in his notice to the sceptical boss of the graphic-design studio where he worked: “I’m going to be a professional musician, man.” This was in 1956. Three weeks later he arrived at an audition for the Storyville Jazzmen pretending that his real one was being mended. He had time.” To be praised by Ginger Baker is to join an elite club indeed.His fierce pride in his own ability is not without some substance.

He paid his dues in the competitive world of British jazz in the Fifties, hanging round Soho to pick up gigs, playing at Ronnie Scott’s and at after- hours all-nighters His first kit was a toy one, costing three pounds ten. But he talks with great affection of his mentor, the drummer Phil Seaman, of the late Graham Bond, of Stevie Winwood, of Eric Clapton – “I liked him as a person And his playing was just very unusual. Brian Jones had to go ‘One, two, three, four,’ and tell Mick where the beat was.” The Stones were popular, Baker thinks, because they were so bad: people liked seeing them trying so hard It’s a point of view.Not every musician gets slagged off Just most of them. “I hope you’re using the word ‘musician’ lightly! Because how many musicians are there in rock?”Pop icons fare no better. The Beatles – “I never was a fan of them people.” Elvis Presley – “I thought Elvis Presley was one of the biggest berks that ever lived And still do.”He has fond memories of the Stones though.

In the early days of Blues Incorporated, “Alexis Korner persuaded me and Jack Bruce to give up our break and play with Mick Jagger and Brian Jones. So we were playing around with it, going ‘Go on Mick, try and sing to this,’ hur hur. He stops in mid-pipe refill and fixes me with a stare that would stop Jonah Lomu in his tracks. It quickly became clear that this was not going to be an option.
Many a musician from the Sixties has his “I Was Threatened By Ginger Baker” story. Here’s one I heard several times, a kind of rock urban myth: a band arrives at a package show to find Baker’s vast kit already set up, leaving them a tiny piece of stage to play on. A glowering Baker, arms crossed, doesn’t even wait for them to ask the question: “I don’t move my drums for nobody.”Early in the conversation I make the mistake of using the word “musician” loosely to describe the class of people who play rock music.