The drummer Ginger Baker thought was terrible
As the 1960s began to turn a corner, the British blues scene quickly started getting louder and louder. Outside of the more commercial music that could be found in acts like The Beatles, Cream had started to come into their own as one of the premiere acts of the day, blending pieces of pop, rock, blues, and jazz into an eclectic musical stew every time they played. Though they tore down every venue they played, Ginger Baker wasn’t willing to mince words while playing, either.
Coming from the world of jazz, Baker’s furious approach to drumming led to some of the most colourful percussion of the era, including his phenomenal drum breaks on songs like ‘Toad’. Even without the drums being overly flashy, his approach to the tom-toms on ‘Sunshine of Your Love’ created a heavy bed for the rest of the track, sounding like a plodding monster in two speakers.
In the wake of Cream’s breakup in the late 1960s, though, an equally heavy band was coming up to take their place. After Jimmy Page had left The Yardbirds, Led Zeppelin became the next major sonic force in the British music scene, taking blues to epic proportions on songs like ‘Dazed and Confused’ and ‘Communication Breakdown’.
While the band may have been Page’s baby, the real muscle behind the group came from John Bonham. Arriving alongside Robert Plant, ‘Bonzo’ approached the drums like a feral animal, unleashing hell behind the kit during drum solos like ‘Moby Dick’. Even though he could play as hard as anyone, Bonham also had tasteful restraint, waiting for ages before thundering in on ‘Stairway to Heaven’.
Though Bonham was lauded as the natural progression for rock and roll percussion, Baker found his style abhorrent. When talking about Bonham’s playing, Baker didn’t mince words about the drummer’s style, recalling to Forbes, “Years ago, John said, ‘There are two drummers in rock and roll, Ginger Baker and me.’ There’s no way John was anywhere near what I am. He wasn’t a musician”.
Baker also didn’t think that Zeppelin ever measured up to what Cream was capable of then, either. Despite thinking they had a decent sound behind them, Baker’s taste only gravitated to a small percentage of what they had done.
Then again, Baker’s indictment of Bonham as not being a proper musician negates the creative ingenuity that he had at the best of times. Combing through Zeppelin’s discography, Bonham was a student of every style of music around him, whether that meant playing with his hands on drum solos or using more than two sticks to get the sound he wanted.
Even though Baker claimed to be a musician in the sense of knowing theory, Bonham’s inherent sense of groove was more than enough, adopting the infamous ‘Purdie shuffle’ for the classic ‘Fool in the Rain’ and digging into a 4/4 groove while the rest of the band plays in ¾ in the song ‘Kashmir’. While Baker may have his place on the Mount Rushmore of rock drumming, Bonham’s impact on rock in just over a decade has usurped Baker’s influence in the public consciousness.
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