The drummer Stewart Copeland called a “God”
Everyone has a favourite drummer. Whether based on musical style, specific songs, personality or talent, these favourites vary wildly. However, when it comes to the “best” drummer, a small handful of names tend to haunt heated dinner table discussions. In the rock drumming realm, John Bonham, Ginger Baker, Mitch Mitchell and Stewart Copeland tend to crop up time after time in such debates.
When examining the drummers these drummers named as favourites, we’re more likely to find decisions based on technical ability. In his memoir, Hellraiser: The Autobiography of the World’s Greatest Drummer, Baker recalled that Led Zeppelin drummer Bonham said they shared a position on the drumming throne.
“John Bonham once made a statement that there were only two drummers in British rock ‘n’ roll: himself and Ginger Baker,” the Cream drummer wrote. “My reaction to this was: ‘You cheeky little bastard!'” The title of the ever-humble Baker’s autobiography makes no bones about Baker’s favourite.
As for Stewart Copeland, who rose to prominence about a decade after Bonham and Baker as the drummer of The Police, he seems to concur with Baker’s brazen assessment. “Before Ginger Baker, the drums were a very simple instrument providing a very simple ingredient to pop music, which was the beat,” Copeland wrote in a 2019 tribute for Time following Baker’s death. “The drummer’s job was to be one of the handsome guys on the album cover. Then Ginger Baker came along and threw in all kinds of stuff that was much more sophisticated.”
Signing off his warm appraisal, the Police drummer remembered Baker’s jazz sensibilities. “He always described himself as a jazz musician, but I never bought that,” he said. “Amid my properly obsequious interactions, I couldn’t help rattling his cage about the jazz thing. I would say, “Dude, get over it. You are a rock god.”
Although Copeland holds Baker in extremely high regard, Mitch Mitchell of The Jimi Hendrix Experience just about clinches the top spot. While appearing as guests on Amazon’s motoring show, The Grand Tour, in 2018, Copeland and his fellow guest, Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason, agreed on their all-time favourite drummer.
“Well, that’s the travesty right there,” Copeland interjected when the host, Jeremy Clarkson, explained who Mitchell was. “This great towering… this monument of drums, was Jimi Hendrix’s drummer!”
“Well, how would you describe him?” a perplexed Clarkson asked. “Well, Jimi was Mitch’s guitarist,” Copeland asserted. The pair then agreed on a hierarchy wherein Baker took second place.
“It was all Ginger Baker and Mitch Mitchell then, and Bonham came later,” Copeland noted in a 2022 interview with Far Out while discussing his early fascination with drumming. “I liked the fact that Ginger used his tom-toms a lot. He was playing more of his drums than the others, as was Mitch Mitchell, who was probably the most inspiring out of all of them.”
Watch Ginger Baker and Stewart Copeland drum together below.
