The reason why Eric Clapton didn’t want Ginger Baker in Blind Faith
By the end of 1968, Cream was officially done. The blues rock power trio had spent the better part of two years clawing their way to becoming one of the most popular bands in the world, but it came at the expense of their unity. Particularly, the confrontations between Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker had become more frequent and violent, with Eric Clapton acting as the middleman in their frequent rows.
After a series of farewell shows at the Royal Albert Hall, Cream officially split up. Clapton didn’t take long to find his next project, hooking up with Traffic singer Steve Winwood for some casual jam sessions. The pair’s activities eventually leaked out to the music press, who began reporting that a new group between the two was forming. Hearing of this, Baker decided to insert himself into the project.
“Musically, Stevie and I got along wonderfully,” Baker later explained. “He was one of the greatest musicians I’ve ever worked with. What I didn’t know then was that Eric would probably rather have worked with Jim Capaldi. It’s a curious thing with me and Eric: I regard him as the nearest thing I’ve got to a brother, but we always found it difficult to talk about personal things. He never explained, for example, that he wanted it all to be a much more low-key affair than Cream had been.”
“Steve and I were at the cottage smoking joints and jamming when we were surprised by a knock at the door,” Clapton wrote in his 2007 autobiography. “It was Ginger. Somehow he had gotten wind of what we were doing and had tracked us down. Ginger’s appearance frightened me because I felt that all of a sudden we were a band, and with that would come the whole [manager Robert] Stigwood machine and the hype that had surrounded Cream.”
Clapton also had lingering thoughts about a promise he made to Bruce during the demise of Cream. He had promised that had any of the two musicians played together again, the third would be invited as well. Clapton tried his best to convince Winwood to let them find another drummer, but Winwood recognised the talent that Baker brought to the lineup.
“I had to convince Eric to let Ginger join,” Winwood told Mojo. “We’d played together before and he was someone I really respected as a drummer and enjoyed working with. It wasn’t until later that I realized how much Cream had been built around the interaction of Ginger and Eric. I knew Ginger did serious drugs but I didn’t realize how destructive that could be, because I’d never encountered it before.”
As it turned out, Blind Faith only existed for a matter of months. One album and one tour in 1969 was all that Clapton could take, and he eventually decided to break the group up with Winwood’s blessing. Baker wouldn’t be informed of the band’s demise until he returned from a Jamaican holiday later that year.
Check out ‘Can’t Find My Way Home’ down below.
