Ginger Baker

(from 9/22/09)
I keep hearing about Ginger Baker and thinking "wow, a female drummer back in the early days?" No, I'm dumb.

Peter Edward "Ginger" Baker was the drummer in Cream.

"Baker's drumming attracted attention for its flamboyance, showmanship, and pioneering use of two bass drums instead of the conventional single bass kick drum. As a firmly established jazz drummer, he dislikes being referred to as a rock drummer. While at times performing in a similar way to Keith Moon from The Who, Baker also employs a more restrained style influenced by the British jazz groups he heard during the late 1950s and early 1960s. In his early days as a drummer he performed lengthy drum solos, the best known being the thirteen-minute drum solo "Toad" from Cream's double album Wheels of Fire. He is also noted for using a variety of other percussion instruments and for his application of African rhythms. He would often emphasize the "flam", a drum rudiment where both sticks would attack the drums at almost the same time to give a heavy thunderous sound."

Here he is talking about drum technique (love those black socks!):


And playing a drum solo in 1969:


And played White Room with Cream in 1968 (strangely, this video shows more of Baker than Clapton):