Ginger Baker - Biography

Biography

Baker formed and recorded with Ginger Baker's Energy and was involved in collaborations with Bill Laswell, jazz bassist Charlie Haden, jazz guitarist Bill Frisell, and pioneering afro beat musician Fela Kuti. He was also member of Hawkwind, Atomic Rooster and Public Image Ltd..

Baker gained fame as a member of the Graham Bond Organisation and then as a member of the rock band Cream from 1966 until they disbanded in 1968. He later joined the group Blind Faith. In 1970 Baker formed, toured and recorded with fusion rock group Ginger Baker's Air Force.

He lived in Nigeria from 1970 until 1976. Baker sat in for Kuti, during recording sessions in 1971 and these were released by Regal Zonophone as Live! (Fela Kuti album) (1971)' Fela also appeared with Ginger Baker on Stratavarious (1972) alongside Bobby Gass, a pseudonym for Bobby Tench from The Jeff Beck Group. Stratavarious was later re-issued as part of the compilation Do What You Like. Baker formed Baker Gurvitz Army in 1974 and recorded three albums with them before the band broke up in 1976.

In 1992 Baker played with the hard-rock group Masters of Reality on the album Sunrise on the Sufferbus, yielding the top-ten hit "She Got Me (When She Got Her Dress On)".

In 1994 he formed The Ginger Baker Trio and joined the bassist known as Googe in Masters of Reality formed by producer, singer and guitarist Chris Goss.

In 1994 Baker joined BBM, a short-lived power trio with the lineup of Baker, Jack Bruce and Irish blues rock guitarist Gary Moore. On 3 May 2005, Baker was reunited with Eric Clapton and Bruce for a series of concerts at the Royal Albert Hall and Madison Square Garden. The London concerts were recorded and released as Royal Albert Hall London May 2–3–5–6 2005 (2005), In a Rolling Stone article written in 2009, Bruce is quoted as saying: "It's a knife-edge thing between me and Ginger. Nowadays, we're happily co-existing in different continents ...although I was thinking of asking him to move. He's still a bit too close."

In 2008 a bank clerk, Lindiwe Noko, was charged with defrauding him of almost one-half million Rand ($60,000). The bank clerk claimed that it was a gift after she and Baker became lovers. Not so, insisted Baker, who explained, "I've a scar that only a woman who had a thing with me would know. It's there and she doesn't know it's there."

Baker's biography Hellraiser was published in 2009.