Original subtitles

You just want to push up the people

I've moved here to get away from.

I haven't spoken to not one single one of them

Since I left there.

And I don't want any of them on my film!

You don't understand.

I do understand.

Yeah.

What the fuck is wrong with that?

Are you really gonna hit me with the...

I fucking well am!

I'm gonna fucking put you in hospital!

Why? Oh, my God!

Yes!

Ginger Baker just hit me in the fucking nose.

This film is about Ginger Baker,

A man who stands for something in life

That probably most of you do not.

Love and appreciate,

No matter how awkward this character may appear to you.

God bless him.

May the road rise.

He helped me rise my road.

Love you, Ginger.

Johnny Rotten!

I'm your man.

Ginger Baker is a motherfucker. That's it.

He personally is what drums are all about.

He is certifiably nuts. He's mad.

I think he was kind of fairly consistently horrible

To people and to himself.

If they've got a problem with me,

Come and see me and punch me on the nose.

I ain't gonna sue you. I'm gonna hit you back.

He's moved around the world,

Getting thrown out of every country.

He's a rogue. He's a lovable rogue.

He was a fucking dope addict, man.

He was into drugs heavily.

Are you surprised that he's still living?

Yes, I am.

If a plane went down and it was one person gonna get off,

It would be Ginger.

He was a scary guy.

When I would look at him, he looked like the devil.

The devil takes care of its own, yes.

Like a great virtuoso madman.

Maybe you have to be a little mad to play the way he does.

Probably the greatest drummer that any of us had ever heard.

He was the hammer of the gods.

- He's a force of nature. - The world's greatest drummer.

He influenced me as a drummer, but not as a person.

Ginger Baker on drums!

I was 26 years old,

And my friend popped in a DVD of this redheaded madman

Driving across the Sahara Desert.

My initial reaction was, "This guy has to be dead."

But I searched for his name on the Internet,

And, lo and behold, I found this article...

"Ginger Baker vows to strip in South African court

"To prove that woman claiming to be his lover

Has never seen his cock before."

Not only was he still alive, but he's still a fucking madman.

I have to meet this guy.

Ginger. Ginger.

Hey, Ginger, it's Jay.

Hey, it's Jay Bulger.

I told him I was a writer for Rolling Stone magazine,

Which was a total lie.

I want to come and write an article

About your trip to Africa.

But that was my in,

And he invited me to come down and hear his story.

Oh, are you all right?

Your dog got poisoned?

Hey, feel better. I'll call you on Wednesday.

I'm coming out there. Bye.

And I flew to South Africa

And just kind of showed up at his house.

Mr. Baker, nice to finally meet you.

Huh?

Thanks for having me.

Yeah.

And I lived with him.

It was a truly humbling experience.

Why don't you listen to the fucking story?

This is a fucking nightmare.

Fucking my brain up.

People zapper.

I wrote an article, and it was published in Rolling Stone.

Thank you, Ginger Baker.

He had gifted me with a career as a journalist,

But I owed him so much more than just words on paper.

People needed to meet the man, hear him play the drums,

And experience this legendary character for themselves.

Phew.

As we enter into the Baker compound.

Okay, the laws of South Africa, which are loose enough,

No longer apply.

My friends.

How are you?

I'm great.

Look. You got a smile on your face.

You missed me!

- Yeah. - You missed me!

I can see it in your eyes.

So, you've been practicing the drums?

Haven't touched them?

Haven't touched them for months.

Really?

Meet Ginger Baker.

Hello.

The man, the myth, the legend.

The only thing I can say to that, really,

Is it's far too long a story to say on one interview.

I'm writing a book.

When the book's published, read it,

And perhaps you'll understand.

And when were you born?

You know when I was born.

It's in the book.

Fuck the book. We're not doing the book.

It's the 19th of August 1939,

Three weeks or so before war was declared.

My dad was a hero.

He died when I was 41/2 years old.

You don't see bombs dropping,

'Cause the siren goes off, and you're in the shelter.

You hear them.

They used to go "bop, bop, bop, bop, bop"...

This funny little clattering noise.

And then the noise would stop, and they'd go...

When we went back to school,

There were quite a few empty desks, yeah.

Yeah, the bombs going off, you know, to me was great.

I still love explosions to this day, you know?

You don't know. Right.

I love disasters.

I was considered a troublemaker, a smartass, brainless child.

I was part of this school gang, and we'd go in this record shop,

And the other guys would be nicking records.

But I was a decoy.

I'd just take records into the booths and play them.

And then one day, I heard "The Quintet of the Year."

I didn't even have a record player, but I nicked it.

All of a sudden,

There was something that I really could relate to.

You know, Max on "The Quintet of the Year"

Is just out of this fucking world.

My mom found the records, and she went fucking crazy.

Mom used to use the strap on him,

And it made no difference.

I used to be in my bedroom,

Listening to him being strapped and screaming.

But it made no difference.

She just said, "Look, if ever I find you

"Doing something dishonest like this,

I will call the police."

So I wouldn't talk to the gang anymore,

And I got beaten up several times by them.

Started carving me up with a razor blade with tape around it.

They carved all these lines all over my arms

And my face and everything.

I wasn't very popular when I went back to school.

It was about this time that I'd got the letter from my dad.

He wrote a letter for me to be opened when I was 14.

"My dear son, it's just a little advice

"In the way I should like you to turn out.

"Be a man at all times.

"Hold your own ground.

"Use your fists.

"They are your best pals so often.

I remain your loving father."

Before that, if people used to punch me and that,

I just used to cry and think, "Why are they hitting me?"

I wouldn't retaliate.

And I beat this kid up.

I was gonna kill him.

It's the Baker temper.

I've learnt to control it, but he hasn't.

I was drumming all the time, as long as I can remember.

I was always banging on the desks in school,

And they were all just boogieing and dancing and going crazy.

There was a party, and they had a band there.

And all the kids from school kept saying, "Go on."

Go and play the drums. Go and play the drums."

And I just sat down, and I could play.

That's when a light went off... I went "Fuck, I'm a drummer."

It's a gift from God, Jay.

You've either got it or you haven't.

I had it.

Had what?

Time.

Natural time.

His drumbeat is so personal that I always know if it's him.

I started doing quite well, I guess.

I'd got a sort of reputation as a jazz drummer.

My boyfriend at the time said,

"Oh, you want to hear this drummer.

He's really great."

She really could dance. She had really good time.

And a good body, obviously.

He's always been insecure deep down.

And I think Ginger did search for a father figure,

But they were always a drummer.

One night, I was playing the all-nighter in the Flamingo,

And I'd got offstage to be confronted by God.

Phil was just the most amazing drummer.

He was the only drummer at that time

That brought tears to my eyes.

He said, "You're the first fucking drummer I've heard here."

Come with me."

So we go down into his basement flat,

And that is when I got introduced to heroin

And the African drummers.

He tied this thing around his arm

And told me, "When I tell you, undo it."

And his arms were fucking just a mass of scars

And tracks and stuff.

And he managed to hit a vein,

And I pulled the thing off, and he shot up.

Then he gets out all these African records

And Watusi drummers.

African records...

Watusi... African records...

Gets out all these African records and Watusi...

Phil said, "Where's the beat?"

And I'm doing like a three beat on it.

And he said, "No, no, no. Listen."

And he played this four, the real beat,

And it was like a fucking light going on it.

Wow! The basic African rhythms were so fucking cool.

Then Phil's giving me a great lecture

About how I must never touch heroin ever,

And I walked back five miles or something

In the early-morning sunshine

With Africa going through my head.

I think with Ginger and the heroin,

It was more he thought it would improve his playing.

You're fearless if you use smack.

You don't have any feelings.

You're not scared of anybody or anything.

Whatever you wanted to play, you played.

It was just wonderful.

He didn't want to be a family man

Or anything like that, really and truly.

Liz discovered she was pregnant,

And we were only 20 years old.

So she tried to get rid of it, and it didn't work, thank God.

They didn't want to have a child,

And my mom took something, some tablets.

He got some tablets off another drummer to get rid of me.

I don't care.

They would have been doing me a bloody favor.

No, I don't mind, but it didn't work.

No screaming or anything.

The baby come out.

And I'm carefully looking

To make sure it's got all its toes and fingers and stuff,

You know, thinking about the time

We tried to abort it and stuff.

There was this little kid.

And that's when I decided to get straight,

And it took me another fucking 19 years or so.

So, what's the difference

Between your state of chemical dependencies now

Than it was when you were a junkie?

I've no idea.

I take it every day.

It's called degenerative osteoarthritis.

Is that why you haven't been playing the drums?

What?!

Don't you fuck...

How I restrain myself

From throwing everything at you, Jay, I don't know.

There's nothing you can do about it, is there?

You're not gonna give up?

Sometimes I feel like doing just that.

When you first met Jack Bruce,

Was it as if you knew you had met your musical counterpart?

Early on, for sure, yeah.

I mean, he's a fucking brilliant player.

There's no doubt about that.

Ginger looked like a complete and utter madman.

He was the loudest drummer I'd ever heard.

And I wanted to play with him, so I asked if I could sit in.

Kept bugging us to sit in, and he wouldn't fucking go away.

So, of course, they did the thing

That jazz musicians always do, which is to try and cut you.

I think the first thing they played was very, very fast.

And he played it.

Which is quite extraordinary.

Jack got the gig

With Alexis Korner's Blues Incorporated,

And none of them were terribly happy with the drummer,

Who was Charlie Watts.

I actually don't know how long Ginger was with the band.

I know he took over for me, on my recommendation.

Charlie left the band so that I could join.

Can you tell me the story of Mick Jagger?

"Can you tell me what it was like meeting Mick Jagger?"

This effeminate-looking kid got up and sung one number.

And I'm going, "Jack, who is this stupid little cunt?"

What's he doing here?"

Jack and I used to put some jazz things in,

Completely throw him off.

I mean, I was a heavy junkie at the time,

So I just terrified the shit out of him.

And then Alexis decided to get Graham in the band.

My first reaction to that was, "Fucking no.

Alexis, watch it, 'cause he'll steal half the band,"

Which is exactly what he did.

Can you contextualize who we're speaking about right now?

Well, I've just said it, for fuck's sake.

You just said "Graham." That's it.

People who don't know who Graham is.

Graham Bond was a fat guy.

* Well, I was standing on the corner, waiting to go home *

* When I heard this sound that made me want to go *

* Well, it was coming from a doss across the street *

* It was kind of stompy, with an R&B beat *

* It went... *

Harmonica! Oh!

Graham Bond Organization was to musicians

What The Beatles were to the public.

Brilliant.

Jack Bruce, Ginger Baker, Dick Heckstall-Smith,

And Graham Bond were at the top.

We were a band trying to be like a band in Chicago.

But they were something else, you know?

* Playin' with an R&B band *

* Oh, yeah! *

His reputation was as being, you know,

Probably the best drummer around in those days.

It was really Ginger's first taste of fame, yes.

It's the same with you, Ginger.

This is beat.

Don't worry about splitting your skins.

They can be replaced.

And so can you.

They did sort of contain the seeds of their own destruction,

What with Graham and Ginger's bad habits

And the conflict between Jack and Ginger.

For two musicians

Who were incredibly complementary to each other

And who have played consistently over the years,

It's really remarkable how well they didn't get along.

It was a very sad situation, really.

In the early days, when he was following me more,

The music was really fucking great.

When I switched from upright bass to bass guitar,

That wasn't what Ginger wanted.

I think that was when the problems started.

Jack's like a guy who gets up before the sun comes

To see the sun rise.

He sees the sun come halfway over the horizon

And runs home and says, "I've seen the sun rise."

That was how Jack got the time things

That I was showing him.

He didn't get the full picture.

I have perfect time, which is a quite useful thing to have.

Very few people have that.

It's just a gift.

The last number was always the drum solo.

And I've kicked into the drum solo,

And Jack's, like, playing with me.

I wouldn't be playing during his drum solo.

And I off-loaded a right-hander on him.

He went down on the ground, and I'm kicking him.

You know, "Get up, you little cunt!"

I was kicking the shit out of him.

I just let go, and I was gonna kick him to death.

And then he pulled a knife on me and said, "You're fired."

And I said, "But you can't fire me.

"It's The Graham Bond Organization,

And I'm the founding member."

But poor old Graham...

He was well gone into smack by that time,

So he didn't really care.

Graham was probably a bigger disaster area than Ginger was.

We would be using a mixture of cocaine, heroin,

And lysergic acid in a fix.

I was very hurt by not the knife thing,

But the fact that I was out of that band.

And it was very stupid of him, because the band was doing well,

And I was quite an important part of the band.

The band continued being very successful

And just reached a point where I thought,

"I've been running the band successfully for three years.

Why don't I run my own band instead?"

The first person I thought of was Eric.

He saw something in me that I never saw before.

He would say it was about time.

He had time that very few people have.

Eric had it.

Ginger was pretty dismissive and antisocial...

Seriously antisocial.

But he had the gift.

He had the spark, the flair, the panache.

He had it in spades.

And Jack had the same thing.

He said, "What about Jack as the bass player?"

And all the red lights in the world went off,

And I thought, "Oh, God."

I was very surprised when he came knocking again.

I didn't see that coming. No.

I didn't expect that, no.

* Feel when I dance with you *

* We move like the sea *

* I feel free *

* I can walk down the street, there's no one there *

* Though the pavements are one huge crowd *

* I can drive down the road, my eyes don't see *

* Though my mind wants to cry out loud *

When an atomic bomb went off like that,

Like I think Cream really represented,

It overwhelmed everything.

When Hendrix came to England, he wanted to jam with Cream,

Because there was nobody else that he admired as much.

They were the beginning of many, many things.

Cream absolutely might be called

The first progressive band.

The first supergroup.

The first band that played in big arenas.

The first jam band.

They were breaking out of the chains of pop.

We were fucking good.

That's how we called ourselves Cream.

We knew we were the three best musicians around.

If Cream did not invent heavy metal,

They certainly were part of a band of brothers

That were very instrumental in facilitating it.

The birth of heavy metal should have been aborted.

He was really at the forefront

Of a complete revolution of rock.

It's hard to find fault with the notion

That he was the pioneer of a rock drummer.

There was no context for him. There was no archetype.

He is the archetype.

Before Ginger, rhythm was

"Ting, ting, ting-ting, ting, ting-ting."

And Ginger comes along...

"Dug-a-dug-dug, dug-a-dug-dug, Dug-dug-dug-a-dug..."

* I'll be with you, darling, soon *

* I'll be with you when the stars start falling *

* I've been waiting so long *

* To be where I'm going *

* In the sunshine of your love *

When he was listening to music as a kid,

He wasn't listening to the Jimi Hendrix

And guitar-hero bands and so on.

He invented all that stuff.

Jack brought it in as going

"Diddle-a-di-di, di-di-da-dee-dee, diddle..."

Dingbat, ditty bat.

That's where Jack's head is writing.

And I said, "Man, that's terrible.

Why don't you slow it down and play it backwards?"

Ba-da-da-ba, ba-ba...

Another one is "White Room," the 5/4 bolero that makes it.

Da, bum-bum-bum-bum, bum-bum-bum, da...

Wasn't written like that.

Jack wrote it in 4/4.

He now declares "I wrote it in 5/4."

I mean, hello?

* In the white room *

* With black curtains *

* In the station *

Today and for the last... How long is it now?.. 40 years,

Pete Brown and Jack Bruce have been earning

A hell of a lot more money from Cream

Than Eric and I will ever earn, to this day.

The guy who gets the credit for writing the song

Is the guy who writes the lyric gets half of it,

And the guy who writes the melody of the lyric

Gets the other half.

The drums are part of the arrangement,

And the arrangement doesn't get royalties.

Zip. Nada.

Cream was my thing.

And it did exactly what I planned it to do.

Only I'm the guy who lost out on it.

I'm fucking broke right now.

* Run from themselves *

To Jack Bruce's counterpoint, he gives rhythm,

And to Eric Clapton's technical virtuosity, he gives shape.

On their first tour together, he practiced so intensively

That he left behind him a trail of hotel bills

For broken furniture.

We asked him if he still practiced as much.

No. I don't practice at all.

Not at all?

I used to, but I don't anymore.

I just used to play solos.

Just used to sit on the drum kit and play it all day.

Can you show us some?

- You want me to play? - Please.

At this time of the day.

Independence... the ability to play a different thing

With all four limbs,

Which is how I play things that sound incredibly fast

When I'm not actually moving anything very fast.

Because all four beats are landing in a different place,

So what comes out is four times as fast.

But it's not how fast you play.

It's what you say.

Ginger Baker's most notable achievement

That should be recognized is the first rock drum solo.

And me as a 15-year-old kid at the time

Was like, "Yeah, yeah, that's the rock drummer I want to be."

I must have been 16.

I was exactly the sweet spot

Where my brain clicked on and said, "What's it all about?"

It was Ginger's drums.

I'm here today because of Ginger,

Because he was the absolute inspiration

For me being in a band, playing the drums.

I absolutely thought, "You know, that's what I'd like to be."

It became Ginger's thing.

He'd do these very long drum solos.

You either liked them or you didn't like them.

I liked them because I could go off and have a smoke, you know?

Cream... How popular were they?

Oh, huge, huge.

How huge is "huge"?

Well, they did three nights in Madison Square Garden.

They could have done two weeks and sold out every night.

When a promoter hired The Cream,

Ginger wanted a case of beer and two black hookers

And a white limo or he wouldn't play.

I've been in hotel rooms,

And there's been a knock on the door.

I've opened the door,

And there's been three groupies all standing there.

Just queues of chicks waiting.

One would knock on the door and climb into bed.

We used to call them "star fuckers."

You know, they'd come and say like,

"I'd like to give you a blowjob and see you come."

They all wanted to fuck Cream, you know?

It was quite a rapid rise to fame.

I don't know whether it was too fast for Ginger.

I didn't really care.

We'd lived in a succession of not very nice places.

And then for once, we thought,

"Oh, we can actually buy a house of our own."

The family at home was something totally separate

From being on tour.

His dad died when he was 4 or something like that.

So he didn't really have someone, a role-model father.

He communicates more through his drums than through his words.

I told my wife long before we were married,

"If you get me to choose between the drums and you,

I'm gonna choose the drums."

We had no other interest.

There was nothing else going on.

There was no family.

There was no desires for success.

There was no commerciality involved.

There was no responsibility

Other than to that unique moment in time when we were together.

And for a short, sweet period of time,

It was unfettered and extreme and beautiful.

They were like Vikings.

You know, they just came on our shore

And just took the women and the children,

It was scorched earth. There was no question about it.

They were here to take heads.

We went there to show the Yanks how to play.

I saw them when they first came to San Francisco.

They looked and sounded like giants.

They took off and started playing supersonic music.

And supersonic music is when the Holy Ghost takes over

And you're playing something that, when you hear it back,

You have no idea what the hell you did.

There was something about that little chemistry that we had,

Ginger and me and Eric.

It'll never be repeated by anybody else.

Cream... They were together shorter than our last tour.

You know, we've been on the road for two years and two months.

That's two months longer than their entire life-span.

Sam Kinison would say, "I've had parties

That lasted more than two years."

* We... *

Cream only lasted as long as it did because it was so popular.

I just couldn't handle working with Jack anymore.

Whatever energy was happening

Between Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker

Also mounted Eric

To play beyond what he was playing with John Mayall

Or later on, all the other bands that he played.

They focused on one another all the time

For their aggression and their frustrations,

And it wore me out.

I remember Eric breaking down in tears once.

That was not very good.

Sorry, Eric.

From time to time, I would break down

And just go, "I can't stand this anymore."

'Cause I was really on the sidelines,

And I knew I couldn't affect anything,

Because I didn't have the understanding

Or the power to be able to do anything about it.

You'd just run, really.

And, you know, when Cream, I thought, had run its course,

I was quite keen to get out of there and have a break, really.

A banger... You know, a firework,

Whatever you call them... Cracker or whatever...

They only last a second, don't they,

And they fizzle up and burn up and that's it.

It's all dead and gone. And the band was like that.

They were never, ever going to be a long-lasting band.

* We're going wrong *

Hello, Bonnie.

Mimosa, don't be scared of the camera.

You're a soldier boy, aren't you?

Big old, tough soldier boy.

Eric and I decided that we wanted to get together

With this project with Blind Faith.

And...

Ginger showed up.

I just hit it off musically with Stevie

In the same way as I had hit off with Eric.

Stevie had time.

I actually didn't realize until quite a bit later

That Eric was so horrified

That he was hooking up with Ginger again.

The last person that Eric wanted on drums

With his new venture was Ginger.

I believe he turned up at a rehearsal and said, "Right."

Where do we start?"

* It's already written *

* That today will be one to remember *

* The feeling's the same *

* As being outside of the law *

* Had to cry today *

* Saw your sign, and I missed you then *

We were called a supergroup from day one.

We hit the road too early.

And, you know, it overpowered us.

I think Ginger was as happy as a pig in shit in Blind Faith.

You know, there was no one... There was Rick Grech...

Great player, you know, but no Jack Bruce.

And Ginger could fucking do what he wants.

* Do what you like *

I was driving a Shelby Cobra up the coast to Los Angeles

With three gorgeous chicks in the car.

And the radio station stopped the music

With the news that Ginger Baker, Blind Faith drummer,

Had just been found dead in his hotel room

From a heroin overdose.

And I went "Fucking hell. I must be in heaven," you know?

I'm driving this supercar with three super chicks.

There was huge amounts of drugs,

Which at the time, I must admit, I didn't really know about,

Because I was probably smoking so much weed,

I didn't really know what was going on anyway.

Every time we got to Los Angeles,

The drugs would appear,

So I decided to go to Hawaii after the tour

To try and get straight.

So Liz come out with the kids.

Considering all the places we've left him before,

I have to say it was marvelous.

* You are the reason I've been waiting so long *

* Somebody holds the key *

* Well, I'm near the end *

* And I just ain't got the time *

* And I'm wasted *

* And I can't find my way home *

Only at that time, there was more heroin on Hawaii

Than there was in Los Angeles.

It wasn't a good place to be to get straight.

So we decided to go to Jamaica.

That's when I flew my car out.

That is wild, to fly your car over to Jamaica.

That's crazy.

You get to feel that the money is inexhaustible,

Which, of course, it isn't.

It was like nearly three months after the last gig

That I came back to London.

I'd brought back quite a lot of dope in some masks and stuff.

And so I went to see Stevie

With a bag of grass as a little present.

And he told me that Eric had gone off

With Delaney and Bonnie

And he was getting Traffic back together.

I take full responsibility for having, you know,

Strong interests in going somewhere else.

But they wouldn't have been quite so strong

If the core of the band had been better.

Were you hurt at all that Eric had left without telling you?

No. You could see it coming.

Something to do with me getting so fucked up

On the end of the tour.

He's the best friend I've got on this planet

And always will be, okay?

Whether it be polo or the drums or drugs,

Ginger seems to always go full force

Into whatever he's doing.

Compulsion. We're talking about compulsion.

You know, what's the payoff in being compulsive?

You know, for Ginger, I'm not gonna be his doctor in this

Or psychologist or make a diagnosis.

I can't make a diagnosis of Ginger.

When I was driving in today,

I thought, "Well, do I know Ginger well?"

Do I?"

I've been with him in fairly rarefied situations,

Which allowed me to see certain sides of him.

I probably haven't seen him like you've seen him,

Because I didn't take the effort, the time,

The risk to step into his life and become a part of it

For any length of time.

You know, I've always pulled back

When it started to get scary or threatening

Or just difficult.

You guys want to wait a minute? 'Cause I'm about to cry.

Why?

'Cause, I mean...

I might cry.

Why? Because Ginger is...

He's all by himself, all alone, in the woods or something.

Well, he's got a wife. He's got...

Oh! Well, then I won't.

You guys are trying to live a pretty quiet life here.

As quiet as possible.

Lisa's a little angel.

Hello, Lisa.

I'm extremely fond of her.

I think of her like she's my own.

I wasn't studying yesterday.

She's a great little kid.

It's really nice to have a family again.

If that falls apart, I really don't know what to do.

So Ginger is a good stepfather?

Stepfather.

Yeah.

Do you find yourself to be a tragic hero?

Go on with the interview.

Stop trying to be an intellectual dickhead.

* Tell me *

* Tell me, Toady *

Ginger's not just a player.

He's also a bandleader and arranger.

We were all brought up on the big-band era, you know?

And that's what Air force was like.

* Tell me *

* Tell me, Toady *

I made a stupid decision of saying, "Okay."

"Well, I've made my money with Cream and Blind Faith,

So I will pay the band all the money."

Just ridiculously expensive... Hotel bills,

The transportation, the wages.

The name came from the air force section

Of the Duke Ellington Band, which was the junkie section.

It really was an air force.

I think somebody said that they were flying at 30,000 feet,

I think it was.

It was a very high band.

Now they're saying Air force was some kind of a fusion band.

I don't know what the fuck that is.

You can't put music in boxes, especially my music.

It was really exciting.

I thought it was gonna last forever.

But, you know, Ginger's bands have tended to be like that.

Didn't they?

Like what?

You hear them, you think, "This is fabulous."

It's gonna go on forever."

And it lasts a week.

Maybe that's just part of being him, you know?

I don't know.

Because of his fame from Cream and Blind Faith,

You know, he was considered

The great rock drummer of his generation.

But as Ginger will tell you, he was a jazz drummer.

The general public are so fucking dumb.

That, you know, like, that anybody could think of Bonham

Was anywhere near this kind of drummer I am,

It's just extraordinary.

Bonham had technique,

But he couldn't swing a fucking sack of shit.

Or Moonie, for that matter.

I mean, if they were still alive today, ask them.

When they think of Ginger,

They think of Keith Moon and Bonham.

No, no, no, no.

Ginger was nothing like those players.

His musical capabilities are full-spectrum.

He can write and compose and arrange,

And he has an ear, and he is harmonic.

He's a fully formed musician.

He wanted to be respected by the jazz drummers,

So Ginger did these drum battles

With the guys he looked up to, thought were the great drummers.

What always happens is you end up,

If you're playing with a good guy,

You end up playing together.

By him taking all these guys on...

And nobody else really did in the "rock world"...

He was considered to be in that elite echelon

Of great jazz drummers, which, ultimately,

That's what he considered himself to be...

The great jazz drummer of his generation.

Not a fucking rock drummer.

So, here you are, at the height of your career.

You've battled all the greatest drummers.

You've become a bandleader.

And you decide to go to Africa.

Oh, God.

Way back, when Phil turned me on to all the African drummers,

It was obviously very high on my priorities to go to Africa.

Ginger says, "How do you feel about filming me"

Going across the Sahara?"

And I said, "How are you proposing

To go across the Sahara, Ginger?"

And he said, "I'm gonna drive."

* Ah-ah-ah-ah *

* Ah-ah-ah *

* Ah-ah-ah-ah *

* Ah-ah-ah *

* Ah-ah-ah *

There was that questing spirit of a true artist there.

It was news that Ginger dropped out,

Or he went following the groove.

From Africa.

He predates everybody else who later on said,

"We discovered the sounds of Africa."

The only person that made me cry before playing was Phil,

And these guys had me crying,

Because the time things they were doing were just so subtle.

This is why I went to Africa.

When I arrived in Nigeria,

I went straight to the Afro Spot.

And there was Fela playing onstage.

And it was just like, "Wow, man. This is cool."

It was unlike anything anybody else was playing.

Fela was like, "That's Ginger Baker!

That's Ginger Baker!"

Who is Fela?

Some say he's the greatest musician in Africa,

Others that he's a prophet, still others that he's a rebel,

A revolutionary tribune.

Fela was one of the most important, influential,

And courageous musicians of the 20th century.

Ginger got the opportunity

To sit in the drum chair for a while

Of one of the greatest bands

Ever to play African popular music.

Ginger was very close to everybody...

The girls, my father, the band.

It was a color-blind situation.

They smoked together, they drank together, had women together.

They played together... Everything together.

The first... or only Western musician to go out there

And immerse himself and live in it,

In the squalor of it, was Ginger.

And this studio became the first 16-track studio

We've got in our country.

Fela stopped using EMI

And started to use Ginger Baker's studio.

Now, who leaves England to go and record in Lagos?

Africa at that time in Nigeria was an absolute hotbed

Of revolution, of death, of unaccountable violence.

It was a great place to be in those days.

I was in Africa for a period of six years.

It was sort of like the "flower power" days

In Nigeria, you know?

You can't imagine the '70s in Nigeria,

How much fun they all had.

Fela... We used to call him the black president,

And he formed the Calakuta Party.

And we all used to sit around a table the shape of Africa,

And I was elected one of the party.

He was just cool.

He was real cool.

Ginger's a cool white boy.

Meanwhile, no one in Europe knew

What the fuck was going on there.

Nobody what?

Nobody in Europe,

All the people you had left behind, you know?

What people I'd left behind?

I think he just goes.

That's a great thing in music.

You don't want to be thinking too much when you're playing.

He who hesitates is lost.

Just go.

He really desperately wanted a boy.

And when he got a boy, he was awful to him.

He said some nasty things to my mom.

Like, "I wish I had black kids," or something.

Were you guys still in contact with him?

Yeah, yeah.

He would just call you?

Yeah. Like, "Hello. I'm in prison."

"Fine."

I was approached by Range Rover.

Would I join them in a three-car team for this Show 1000 rally?

Anyway, I arrived at the checkpoint

And did 180 and came in backwards.

And I heard this voice say, "Bloody hell!

The way you drive, you should play polo."

And I shouted out of the window,

"You've got to be bloody kidding."

He said, "Okay, Baker. Come with me."

So off we go.

And where do we go?

Lagos Polo Club.

And I've already downed about eight or nine Bacardi and Cokes,

And Colin comes up to me and says, "Right, Baker."

It's time you got on a horse."

And Colin gets out a whip and goes whack!

Boom! It's off like fucking 900 miles an hour.

Absolutely full gallop.

My sunglasses were around one side of my face,

And my beard's around the other, but I was still on the horse.

And I said, "Where's the fucking brakes, Colin?"

So I'd found an old pair of boots

And an old polo stick and a hat, and I became a poloist.

The class of Nigerians

That would have belonged to the Lagos Polo Club

Were very elite people,

People that Fela would dismiss as having a so-called

"Colonial mentality."

Those were definitely the people

That Fela was singing against in the 1970s.

But it was later in the '70s

When Fela really got more radicalized

And began to live the life of a musical dissident.

All this nonsense hanging around here.

They sit there in cars, man!

Fela took on the government, the army.

He was determined to become president.

All the government top guys played polo,

So they were always at the Lagos Polo Club.

So I was playing polo there

And hanging out with, as it were, Fela's enemies.

And a lot of the people on Fela's committee

Didn't like that and soured Fela's mind against me.

I was pretty upset at the time.

About what?

Well, that Fela wouldn't play with me, with his band.

On Friday, February 18, 1977,

A thousand-odd soldiers surround Calakuta,

Machine guns at the ready.

They plunder the house.

Their clubs spare neither pregnant women nor children.

Fela himself is seriously beaten.

Fela and his tribe find themselves in prison.

It was starting to go wrong, yeah.

But, I mean, I left Nigeria

Because I lost my studio, really.

It took us three years to build it.

It's been open just over two years now.

It's coming along great.

Presumably, there must be a lot of music there.

Yeah. We kept pretty busy.

We were working all the time, yeah.

I think as a businessperson, he's a walking disaster area.

Ginger's out there, discovering a whole new world of sound...

Literally a whole new world of sound...

And recording it in good faith, not even blind faith.

Along comes a gangster record company

And says, "We can take advantage of that."

And Ginger was just taken for a ride.

He said, "You can't build a studio here.

This is our territory."

They banned all the artists they had under contract

From using my studio.

I told him to fuck off.

So shortly after that,

Three armed soldiers entered the studio.

So I just leapt out of the room, over the balcony,

Got in the Range Rover, and went straight towards the road.

I could hear all these gunshots and ricochets going on

Where the police are trying to shoot me.

Why did Ginger leave?

I just know things were not going right.

But when he left, Fela and him lost contact.

You had been off the scene in Africa for so many years.

You must have missed being a rock star to a certain extent.

No, I didn't.

I came back to England to play with the Gurvitz brothers,

For which I got some money.

I'd just lost a fortune, so it was a matter of doing some work.

That was really all he could get, wasn't it?

At that time, nobody wanted to work with him.

* Now is the time *

* Get it all together *

Shut up, you bloody fool!

* Now is the time *

- Hey! - * Put yourself together *

Yeah, I grew up in the downward spiral of his life,

Everything collapsing and falling apart.

The mistake I made was letting polo take over

From thinking about work.

The tax people saw this film the BBC did

Of these horses arriving and gave the impression

That I'd got a hell of a lot of money.

Only this week, 30 polo ponies arrived from Argentina.

This air shipment guarantees Ginger Baker's commitment

To a sport that stands for everything he isn't.

I went absolutely broke.

It was a very bad time altogether.

He left my mom for my first boyfriend's sister.

That was his second wife, was my first boyfriend's sister.

There's a good idea!

She was 18, you know?

Well, maybe 17. I don't know.

She was still going to school.

She was a very naughty-type girl, yeah.

Very sexy-type girl.

* Powder blues *

The tax people go, "You owe us, you know, £150,000."

And it's like, you know, he doesn't have £150,000,

So they took the house.

We'd lived in that house all our lives.

And then one day you come home

And there's a whole load of police

And a whole load of bailiffs,

And they just won't let you back into your house.

And they just take everything that you've ever owned.

I just, you know, took my drums

And went and lived on the streets, lived in squats.

You know, I used to tie my drums to my hands

When I went to sleep so that no one could take them.

You know, I don't think he should've had a family.

I think he would have been way better off in his life

If he'd never had kids and just, you know, did his thing.

He would have left a lot less of a mess behind.

Most of the time Ginger was with Baker Gurvitz Army,

He wasn't really on the hard stuff.

Oh, yeah.

I'm a lot, you know... better in myself.

Fit and well, if you like, you know?

The hard stuff came back

In the recording of "Hearts on Fire."

It was sort of like a pretty disastrous period,

So I got back into using.

And that's when you sort of realize

Your idols have feet of clay, the slight inkling coming in

That this person isn't in control.

The cameraman's in control.

Hello.

Um...

What were you saying?

Jeff, get us a glass of wine, will you?

Fucking hell, man. I tried hard.

I'd decided, "I'd better get away from anybody I know"

If I'm ever going to get straight."

So I decided to go to Italy.

I went to Italy with Sarah,

Living on this place right on top of a fucking mountain,

And I've never lived in England since.

I didn't know anybody.

I didn't even speak Italian.

And the house was falling down.

I met him in '86,

And I was asked to find him by a singer called Johnny Rotten,

Who was in The Sex Pistols.

He was living in a pretty obscure situation,

Rough situation.

And in the house, which was completely in kind of shambles,

I think there was two horses and seven dogs, no electricity,

And a room that overlooked the mountain

With a drum kit in it... Only a drum kit.

But when he played in that room and it echoed over the hills,

You could hear people like five miles away, screaming,

"Ginger! 'Wheels of fire'!"

Sarah obviously married him because she wanted a rock star.

Hey, you know?

And he took her to this little bum-fuck town,

And she was like, "Well, what the hell?" you know?

"Where's all the rock-star shit?"

And when I went out there with some young people,

She went off with one of them, and that was the end of that.

And he was absolutely devastated,

Because he couldn't handle his own medicine, unfortunately.

Was he heartbroken? Oh, yeah.

Yeah. She fucked him good, yeah.

I was completely fucking destroyed.

I was on my own with all my dogs and a couple of horses.

I mean, it was terrible.

I went out there to get drum lessons and stuff.

He had no money,

So he couldn't get me a plane ticket back to England.

So we had to do this gig.

So I got really, really sick, right, the day of the gig.

I was sitting on a chair, and I was throwing up,

And I was just, like, a really bad way.

I was like, "I don't know if I can play."

So, you know, he chops out a line of cocaine.

"Take this."

I'd never done cocaine before, you know?

Like, "I'm 15 years old," you know?

So I ended up taking this line of cocaine.

Played the gig fine.

Somehow, it just, like, you know, makes you feel good.

So then he put me on a coach back to England, you know,

And he took the rest of the money

And wouldn't get me a plane ticket.

And we made good money at that gig.

I started getting these letters from some guy in L.A.

He kept saying, "Oh, man",

You've got a fantastic career in films."

So I went to California.

"The Nasty Boys" was the most extraordinary,

Stupid thing I've ever seen.

"Aah!"

Hollywood. Bah.

That was the end of it for me.

I mean, it was just so stupid.

Last one on is a rotten egg.

I hadn't seen him for years.

When I arrived in L.A., I didn't recognize him,

'Cause he looked like an old man.

And I thought, "Where's my dad?"

He actually put an ad on Music Connection magazine

Looking for a job.

"Famous drummer from the '60s,"

You know, "Ginger Baker from Cream,

Looking for a band to play with."

Are you ready to go?

Okay. So this is a drum kit, and I'm Ginger Baker.

You hold the drumstick thusly,

And you play the stick like that.

The 1960s were heady times for Ginger Baker.

He was a drummer

For some of rock music's most influential groups.

We visited Baker at the ranch he rents

In the California desert as he tries to come back.

Tell me about your relationship these days with Eric Clapton.

Do you still speak?

I don't have a lot in common with Eric nowadays.

He's sort of...

Changed considerably.

Ginger, the way he is

And the way, you know, his self-medication

And all of the kind of things that go on in his life,

I would find quite hard to be around for any length of time.

It was quite threatening, you know, to me

And I suppose what I would call my sobriety.

But I've always got time for him, you know,

And I know he knows that.

There was nothing starlike about him when I first met him.

He was pretty much penniless when we met

And had spent everything to get his horses over to America.

I was pretty happy.

I was gonna be going into a master's program

And following medicine.

There was a lot of great stuff ahead of me.

And then I got a little derailed.

Was Karen a good person?

I don't want to discuss Karen.

He is somebody who needs to be cared for,

And maybe that's what was so attractive to me.

It was like, "I can help this person."

He was somebody really interesting to spend time with.

He started playing the drums, and actually,

That was the first time I really understood the drums.

Nobody wanted to play with him.

And this is L.A.

I mean, there should have been gigs everywhere for him.

People were just like, "Mm. No. It's too much trouble."

And then finally, he did join The Masters of Reality.

* John Brown, bring him down *

* Pull his body to the ground *

It was really quite an enjoyable thing,

That Masters of Reality.

They were trying to say it was heavy metal, which it wasn't.

It was music you couldn't put in a box, Jay.

"Sunrise on the Sufferbus."

Musician magazine simply calls "Sufferbus"

"The best rock album of the young decade."

When we were on tour with Alice In Chains,

I think it was a mismatch.

Most of the crowd to begin with

Didn't know who Ginger Baker was.

Kids in the front row with Megadeth T-shirts on

Throwing stuff at Ginger.

How much can a man take?

He was having to start all over again,

Just like a new musician.

And they were treating him like, "You know, you should be happy.

"We got you a tour bus.

A lot of musicians don't have tour buses."

And he's like, "I did this, you know, 30 years ago."

I don't want to do this again."

Do you think Nirvana is the new Cream?

He had gotten a taste of American music business,

Class of '93, and he spit it out.

And I don't fucking blame him one bit.

I didn't like L.A. at all.

He wasn't getting along with the whole polo community

In California at that time,

So he was just ready to move on and start all over again.

When he left to come out here to Colorado,

Nobody wanted to play with him anymore.

So we started a polo club called Mile High Polo.

And that worked out beautifully,

Because he didn't have to go and play with other people.

They had to come play with him.

Here comes Ginger Baker.

Not only can he play drums,

But he can hit that ball down the field.

People would come out, bring their kids, bring their dogs.

We'd have polo and then jazz in the park.

He would get off the horse, come over in his polo uniform,

And sit down at the drums.

And then we'd just go into something from there.

So it was a pretty wild experience to see.

And you could feel the passion of both things.

DJQ20... It was probably the best band I had.

It was great playing jazz, again... the music I came from.

Kofi was living with us at the time,

And we used to do a lot of drum things together.

He's got a prodigious technique.

He's got the most amazing technique.

He's a hell of a sweet kid.

It was the closest I ever got to my dad.

It was great fun.

And I actually got to play with my dad,

And there was some form of bond going on.

I mean, I wish I could have done that my whole life.

It would've been great.

He comes out of jazz, plays rock, plays world music.

I just thought, "We should get some music together"

"That shows him as this major cat,

"Not, you know, a lesser light than Max Roach,

But his own personal music."

Ron so inspired Ginger, Ginger began to practice.

He began to rehearse.

Then, finally, they came to New York

And played a gig at the Iridium

And just blew the doors off the place.

It went down like a fucking bomb.

At the Iridium in New York, Max Roach came to the gig.

The first record he ever bought was Max Roach.

I did one of the best solos I've ever done

When Max was there.

I could see Ginger's face on the break.

Max hugged him.

It was like Max was saying, "Yeah. You're in here.

You're one of us."

He just had tears coming down his face,

Because he had achieved the pinnacle of jazz

For an improvising musician and a drummer.

He has a working band that can go toe-to-toe

With any band in New York, let alone planet Earth.

And he had not only been accepted,

But accepted as a peer and an equal.

The actual words Max said were,

"Jesus, Ginger plays like a nigger."

That, coming from someone like Max Roach,

Was an enormous compliment, you know?

Four drummers in my life that were absolute heroes.

Phil Seamen was the first one,

Max Roach, Art Blakey, and Elvin Jones.

All four of them became friends...

I mean friends.

Dear friends.

And that to me is worth...

More to me than anything in the world.

Anywhere Ginger goes, it's just a matter of time

Before there's gonna be controversy going on.

Somebody did a very nasty

And resulted in Liz getting arrested yesterday

By the immigration people.

He had an English groom that was living with us.

But because her immigration papers hadn't come through yet,

She was illegal, and so they took her away.

And I started going crazy.

And there was these two guys, Louis & Floorwax,

Who had a radio show that I was on.

He came on the radio show one morning

And started talking about it.

And he literally told everybody to fuck off.

I mean, this is a foul deed.

He said something about the United States of America

Can kiss my ass or blow me or something like that.

I think that's the last thing he said on our show.

I believe that was the final sentence.

So we ended the interview,

And next thing we heard, he was deported.

He thought he was seeing the writing on the wall.

I'm the next target now.

So he decided to grab his toys and leave

Before they could kick him out.

People are saying it's one of the best records he's ever done,

And then he left.

We just put this record out, and he just split.

Kofi would come over every single day

And play with his dad.

And then a couple days before he left,

Kind of like you with the cane to your face,

Ginger gave a verbal cane to Kofi's face

And just basically I think told him,

"You're a piece-of-shit drummer,

And you'll never be what I am, and you just can't get it."

And that was it... His way of saying goodbye.

Well, I asked him.

I said, "Do you even care about anything I do or anything?"

He said, "No." So I said, "Fine."

So I got in my car and left.

That was the last time I saw him.

I don't know if it's his ability to move on

Or his inability to stay.

I think he has trouble staying, and so moving on is his option.

I went with him on several of those moves,

And then the last one, I decided, "No."

I'm not up for one more of these."

Maybe it goes back to when his dad died.

He was just kind of taken away abruptly,

And there was nothing he could do about it.

The only time I remember my dad clearly is on the train,

When he went off after his last leave.

And as the train pulled off, I broke away from my mom

And went running down the platform

After the train, crying.

It was like I knew he wasn't coming back.

* Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh *

* But I can't find my way home *

* Can't, ooh, ooh, ooh *

* Ooh, ooh, ooh *

* But I can't find my way home *

* Still I can't find my way home *

* And I ain't done nothing wrong *

* But I can't find my way home *

20 years ago, South Africa was the last place

I would ever have dreamt of going,

Because I was so, you know, appalled

At the apartheid regime.

Well, now it's broken up.

South Africa has joined the rest of the world.

What are you gonna do musically when you get there?

Do you have plans?

I have more plans than you can dream of.

I mean, South Africa is very rich musically.

Sweethearts have done it all.

Fast broads, pretty, ambitious,

And after all the money they can get out of a guy.

Those deadly dames leave behind a trail of dead husbands.

If she has to kill somebody, she's going to.

Real-life femme fatales.

I've got some really cool music in my head.

I tried to do the polo and jazz thing here.

But there's not that many musicians over here.

But how much of it is about you playing

Because it's what you love doing?

Well, it depends.

To have a good time, it depends who you're playing with.

I mean, five years ago,

The Royal Albert Hall gigs were just fantastic.

They were just great.

It was great to play with Eric,

And it was great to play with Jack.

He did the reunion in 2005 with Cream,

Got a whole bunch of money,

And he got 24 horses he imported from the U.K.

Yeah. They cost him a fortune.

I've got 38 horses.

Horses don't let you down, nor do dogs.

They all know who I am.

He got $5 million or so from that reunion.

Now he's broke as shit.

He's blown all the money, and he's got nothing to show for it.

He will go out of his way, effortwise and timewise

And moneywise to do everything for his animals.

Sometimes I get the idea that the animals come first

And then the people.

* I *

* Found out today *

* We're going wrong *

Do you think that you might have to go back

To playing the drums again?

Why?

Because the bank might foreclose on your property.

And besides, it's who you are.

Oh, for fuck's sake, why are we talking this shit?!

I think he's realizing that his time really has come

To finish playing the drums.

Dogs in general... Maybe horses as well,

But dogs specifically know when it's the end of the path.

They just give up.

You know, they know that this is the end of the road.

Obviously some of them have got fight in them.

Some doesn't.

But they realize that they've had their life.

They won't die here in front of you.

They will go underneath a bed, where it's private, quiet.

* We're going wrong *

* Yeah! *

Thank you.

You think you can take your glasses off for me, Ginger?

Why?

I'd like to see your eyes.

I have terrible skepticism about musicians that die young

And create legends which are kind of mythical.

There's no myth about Ginger.

You know, he is exactly what he is.

And that's the thing that we value.

I don't know what he is.

He's his own person, and he's great.

He's definitely the best Ginger Baker in the world,

And I love him.

It was our last day of filming, and here I am, saying goodbye.

He said, "Where are you going now?"

And I said, "I'm gonna go talk to these people"

Who are a part of your life."

And he was like, "Nah."

No, you're not."

And I don't want any of them on my film!

Are you really gonna hit me with the...

I fucking well am!

I'm gonna fucking put you in hospital!

Why? Oh, my God!

Yes!

Ginger Baker just hit me in the fucking nose.

At first I was really pissed.

Say you're sorry! No!

But then I realized the madman is alive and well,

With a precise message to all those who dare enter...

Beware of Mr. Baker.

Ginger Baker! Ginger Baker!

Ginger Baker! Ginger Baker!

Ginger Baker! Ginger Baker!

Ginger Baker!

He seems to go through wars and bombs

And comes out the other end unscathed, amazingly.

And you've got to admire that.

You've got to admire that,

That he doesn't ever kind of give in and go, "Okay."

The indomitable Ginger Baker always gets up off the canvas.

After selling his horses, his farm, and his Range Rover,

He goes back on the road

And to being the one thing that he's always been.

Do what you like.

If you enjoy doing something and you do it very well,

You can be successful and enjoy life.

I like playing the drums.

I know what my life's experiences are,

And I like to exemplify them in music.

Mr. Baker does the same.

If that makes him an unpleasant person socially,

Well, that's exactly what is required

For the music from him to be so superb.

And I cannot question anyone with end results that perfect.

* Don't take the wrong direction *

* Passing through *

This is a Hollywood movie here, so...

Oh...

It's got to be really dramatic,

And I need to get you to cry at a certain point.

So if you could just cry right now...

Oh, yeah.

You're dumb. You know that?

You really are dumb.

Good God, I'm talking to a fucking block of moronic wood.

Just a single tear, like really slow-motion,

Down the side of your face.

If we could just get that shot, it would be great.

Trying to explain to a dumb American is very difficult.

If a stick had five right ends and one wrong end,

You'd get the wrong end every time.

I'm crying for you.

Hello?

Spring will be a little late this year.

Talk about three short blanks.

You take the biscuit, boy.

You drive me fucking crazy.

* For you will hear no laughter *

* Nor see the sun *

* Life will be one disaster *

* All the way through *

* No relaxation *

* No conversation *

* No variation *

* In a very dark blue *

* Blue condition *

* Don't take the wrong direction *

* Passing through *

* Instead of deep reflection *

* Of what's true *

* For it's a combination *

* Of judgments made by you *

* That cause a deep dejection *

* All the way through *

* No relaxation *

* No conversation *

* No variation *

* In a very dark blue *

* Blue condition *

* No relaxation *

* No conversation *

* No variation *

* In a very dark blue *

* Condition *