Ginger's Gear

Ginger Baker

Ginger Baker played a Drum Workshop kit with Zildjian cymbals.

 

Ginger's last kit

 

From 1966 to 1968, Ginger played a Ludwig Silver Sparkle:

 

 

Snare: 1940's 6.5" x 14" black finished Leedy Broadway, wood
Fittings: Rogers, some Ludwigs, some customised

Snare tuned high, toms and bass tuned low.

 

Ginger gave his silver sparkle kit to a roadie. Lucky roadie!

 

In May 1968 Ginger purchased a new Ludwig kit:

 

Ginger Baker's Silver Sparkel kit

 

Cymbals

In 1963 Ginger purchased his first Zildjian cymbals - and used them to the very end.

 

Ginger looked after his cymbals - the 22" rivet ride cymbal and the 14" hi-hats were with him from the Cream tours in 1968 until his death in 2019.

 

Percussion

 

Ginger sent this when I asked him about his drum kit experience ...

"So I made my first kit out of biscuit tins - a toy kit. Then I'd only been playing three months, but I got an audition with a trad band, quite a good one, actually - and told 'em I'd been playing three years. So I showed up with me tin drums - told 'em my regular drums were broken - and they were incredulous. But I got the gig."............"me Mum..lent me fifty quid and I bought a good drum kit. All calf skins in those days....used to down 'em with a teaspoon......" Speaking in 1987

 

"when I got home [from John Finch's party that he first sat on a kit at], I started looking for a drum kit straight away.....I told my Mum I wanted to buy a kit and she said, 'you haven't finished paying for your bloody bike yet!' [which had gone under a taxi in London] She didn't agree at all that this was a good idea; it was something quite insane to her.

 

However, I was pretty determined & managed to get hold of a toy drum kit for three quid (£3). It had only one head on the bass drum, so I cut up my tent to make another one & painted a design on it. The tom tom was very thin, so I got a biscuit tin and I made it deeper so it sounded a bit better. The tighteners were just on the top head with wing nuts, but I had a kit of sorts." (Hellraiser)

 

"I got offered a job with the Terry Lightfoot Jazzmen............I got Vic O'Brien to make me up an all-white matching drum kit to replace my previous one, which had been made up of bits & pieces." (Hellraiser)

 

How Ginger switched to DW...

"....did a gig at the Iridium in New York with djq2o. Ludwig wouldn't provide a kit...DW did...was so impressed with the drums they built me - my present kit."