Ginger Baker

In sports journalism, there is a tradition that when someone so loathed by all of his peers dies, the obituary refers to them as “one of the game’s great characters”. Ginger Baker was one of the music industry’s great characters. A man who made Bono look humble, Kanye West appear chilled out and Van Morrison only somewhat of a cunt. Indeed, the 2012 documentary Beware of Mr. Baker begins with Ginger repeatedly hitting the movie’s director with a metal cane. And that’s a sympathetic narrative.

Of course, rock music’s angriest man wouldn’t have had anything like the career he did if he wasn’t a truly talented drummer. Cream and Blind Faith were both supergroups that had tremendous early success, recorded truly revolutionary music and burned out within years due to Baker’s clashes with other bandmembers. The introduction of a shit-tonne of cocaine up his nose didn’t help matters either. In the 1970s, following a near-overdose, he moved to Nigeria to detox and became friends with another down-to-earth musico: Fela Kuti. He also took to polo at this time and helped break down racial boundaries in the polo world by hiring black players for his teams in single-race leagues. So he wasn’t a total arsehole then…

Ginger Baker
19 August 1939 – 6 October 2019
Died aged 80 (10 picks)