The three classic rock icons Ginger Baker thought were a 3/10: “I’m a golden ten”
Spare a thought for the poor press managers of the world: they’ll have had to deal with some shockers in their time. But when you had Ginger Baker on your books, that was simply all part of the fun.
To be fair to the man, if you had been dubbed as “rock’s first superstar drummer”, wouldn’t your ego be slightly inflated? Most heads wouldn’t even fit through the door. As such, Baker was naturally more than a little complimentary towards his own talents – but this just so happened to come at the expense of a legion of others.
There’s no denying that the music industry is a numbers game in terms of record sales and chart success, but Baker decided to take this to a new extreme by giving a rating out of ten to some of his drumming compatriots. As you might have already guessed by now, there was only ever one person who was going to be scoring full marks.
The rest were all seen, at least in the Cream drummer’s eyes, as the runt of the pack, even though the scores of critical appeal and adoration among the masses may beg to differ on that front. You would be forgiven for thinking that there might be more of a sense of camaraderie among the bands who fronted the British invasion, leading the pack and – quite literally – marching to the beat of their own drums.
But instead, Baker was leaving them all for dust. “I’m a golden ten,” he stated without any hint of humility, before going on to snarl: “John Bonham, Ringo Starr, Charlie Watts… they’re a three or four.” No, your eyes do not deceive you – that is the classic drummers of Led Zeppelin, The Beatles, and The Rolling Stones, none of whom Baker scores even half as well.
It’s made even more perplexing by the fact that he quickly admitted that Watts was a friend. “I like Charlie, he’s a good friend since the old jazz days, and he’s perfect for The Stones”.
But nevertheless, “I hate The Stones and always have done. Mick Jagger is a musical moron. True, he is an economic genius. Most of ’em are fucking morons.”
Of course, if that’s what he said publicly about the people he supposedly liked, you would fear anything he had to say about his enemies behind closed doors. Yet that was simply the mark of the man – rock and roll always had the mirage of hedonism, but you needed the people to actually put it into practice. Baker was simply performing his duty.
Indeed, the drummer took that mantra by the scruff of its neck and frankly raised hell with it, having gained a notorious reputation over the course of a lifetime for some of his more electrifying antics. That eccentricity was all part of what made him a showman, and in his view, the cream of the crop.
Listen, no one is denying that the man was talented, pioneering, even prodigal. But when you stand by the sides of three of the greatest drummers of all time and rate them at roughly 30% of the capacity you have, the argument falls a little flat. There was one surefire way to drown Baker out, though, and that would be to get Bonham, Starr, and Watts all behind the kit.
