Why Ginger Baker hated The Beatles: “They don’t know a hatchet from a crotchet”
If you’re looking for an honest answer, you can’t go wrong with Ginger Baker. Generally regarded as one of the most miserly, cantankerous and violent musicians of the classic rock era, Baker has not once shied away from telling the truth, especially when telling the truth meant taking a bestselling pop act down a peg or two. That’s right; even The Beatles were unable to stop Ginger Baker’s finger-wagging.
First things first: Ginger Baker hated the idea of being known as a rock drummer. Born in Lewisham, London, in 1939, he started his career as a jazzman, honing his dexterity with several groups before forming Cream with Eric Clapton and Jack Bruce in the 1960s. Blending jazz with blues and rock ‘n’ roll, the group allowed Baker to exhibit his unparalleled technical proficiency alongside some of the most talented rock musicians in England. Together, they sold over 15 million records and won huge critical acclaim, with Baker helping to establish the drum kit as a lead instrument in its own right.
One of the things that distinguished Baker from many of his peers was his reverence for musical literacy. Most of the British acts who made it big in the 1960s – The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks, The Who – all started out in skiffle bands, the whole point of which was to give untrained amateur musicians a chance to express themselves musically. Baker was never into skiffle, he was into jazz – and mastering jazz required a firm understanding of musical notation.
Speaking to Forbes, Baker argued that the mark of a good musician is his ability to read and write music. “Even Paul McCartney needs someone to write it down for him,” he grumbled. “And he thinks that’s good. There was an article where he said that if he learned to read music, he might not be able to write as well. We used to say about the Beatles in 1963: ‘They don’t know a hatchet from a crotchet.’ A crotchet is what we call a quarter note.” It’s perhaps this faith in traditional forms of musical communication that led Baker to tell Classic Rock that “George Martin was The Beatles. Without him they’d have been nowhere.” Martin was, of course, classically trained, helping to orchestrate much of The Beatles’ music.
Despite his distrust in the Beatles, Baker went on to work with George Harrison on the sessions for Billy Preston’s ‘That’s The Way God Planned It’, which Harrison had been hired to produce. Again, a lack of musical literacy led to much conflict between Baker and the former Beatle: “He [Harrison] was like Jagger, didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. His way of explaining an idea was to wave his arms about. He’d be going: ‘Y’know, Ginger, play it like this,’ flailing his arms. What the fk are you talking about! Write it down so I can see what you mean. He couldn’t.” So not a fan, then.
You can read more about Ginger Baker’s most scathing musician assessments here.
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