Excerpt from Ginette Baker’s Biography

Posted on December 13, 2010 by Leda

The Rainbow: February, 1975

On the day of the ‘Gurvitz Army’ Rainbow gig; Janet and I got tarted up in our satin bomber jackets, flared jeans and platform shoes. A limo duly arrived to ferry us there and we both took great pleasure in waving to all the snooty neighbours out of the car window. Once at the gig, we stood with Mum at the entrance to the dressing room tunnel and were denied access by a zealous bouncer. We said,

‘Look mate, we know the guy in charge, his name is Jack, just get him and he’ll confirm who we are, etc, etc.’

But no, this bouncer thought we were a bunch of liars and said as much very rudely, which of course, resulted in him getting a thick ear from Mother, who bashed him so hard that her heavy jade bracelet broke into a thousand pieces and scattered noisily across the stone floor of corridor. Then, as if by magic ‘Jack’ suddenly did appear to let us in. We told Dad about our difficulties, so he had a fit and went and smashed the naughty bouncer’s room up. I felt a bit sorry for the guy I have to say, but power trips can often end badly. We had to walk across the back of the stage to get to our seats. This resulted in much whistling and cat calling from the audience. How we loved it!

That exciting walk across the stage pretending we were famous, reminded me of a time back in the ‘sixties when I had been with my parents at a Jeff Beck gig and Rod Stewart was with his band. Rod had looked after me for my Mum and Dad for about half an hour or so; he kept me entertained by clowning about and never being one to remain unmoved by a pretty face, whatever my age, I quickly became well smitten. Somebody or other then suggested that I might like to go up on stage and introduce a song. Rod led me to the front of the stage and reminded me to, ‘Mind the wires love’, as I stood for a moment, completely mesmerised by the reflected light that bounced back at me from the many spectacle wearing members of the audience.

‘This is Ginger Baker’s daughter Nettie’ said Rod, ‘and she’s going to introduce our next song’.

He handed me the mic. Rather tentatively I introduced ‘Hi Ho Silver Lining’ and everybody clapped.

It really IS us here!

Posted on September 13, 2010 by Leda

Perhaps you don’t believe it, but this website, forum, blog and Facebook Fan page are all run by the Baker family! For the most part Nettie (Fan page), me (website), Mickey (a lot of other important stuff), Kofi (forum), Liz designing t-shirts, and of course Mr. B commenting, blogging and starting threads (with a bit of help) on the Drummers’ Forum… We really are all here!

We’ve been getting a ton of emails in from talktoginger@live.co.uk, and have been doing our best to read them all, and reply to them when we can. Currently Nettie is handling all these incoming and doing a grand job, I must say! And because we’ve also been getting some technical questions and comments we’ve created another email address – technical@gingerbaker.co.uk – where you can send all your technical questions and suggestions.

And let me say, we’re also having a lot of fun too! We’re enjoying the interaction – your input, comments, posts, and support!

The story behind gingerbaker.co.uk …

Posted on September 4, 2010 by Leda

A long time ago in a country far far away… Nettie and I found we were ruminating over the same idea: how to communicate the Ginger Baker story, without the frills? We shared a good part of that story and knew it had to be told– and somewhere people wanted to hear it.

In 2008, Nettie took on the daunting task of writing Ginger’s autobiography, a feat she accomplished in just 4 months, going out to South Africa to sit with Ginger and work through it. She completed the editing herself the night before she was due to go into hospital for surgery…

Nine months later, Nettie organized a book signing and a gig at the Jazz Café in Camden, London to launch the book and celebrate Ginger’s 70th birthday – we thought this would be the end, the story was told. But as time went by we knew something was missing…

It wasn’t until Nettie met Mickey Banks (of Jimmy and the Destroyers) at a gig in London that the plan began to take shape. Mickey, a long time fan of Cream and Ginger Baker, immediately saw great potential in the idea.

So we started the Ginger Baker Facebook Group to find out if there were still some die hard fans out there and got Mr. Baker involved. The response was incredible! We hit the Facebook limit of 5,000 friends within a month and grew to over 9,000 in the following month, with Ginger’s profile quickly hitting the 5,000 friends limit; he still has over a 1000 (probably disappointed) fans waiting to be his Friend …

To be free of all the limits we finally created the Ginger Baker Fan Page.

Running the group and fan pages proved to be a lot of fun for all of us; reading the daily responses, posts, comments, and messages – then we KNEW we had to make a website. At last, there in the Facebook pages we’d found the answers we’d been looking for.

In earnest, we began bashing out our initial ideas and designs, and started the work that continues today – www.gingerbaker.co.uk

As we continue this journey, we want to include you in it as much as possible, to add your experiences of Ginger, Cream, and Blind Faith to our archives, read your posts on the Drummers’ forum and your comments on these blogs.

Most of all, we look forward to reading Ginger’s posts on the Blog and his answers to your questions on the Drummers’ Forum.

Looking forward to some cool times ahead!

Leda