Since the very beginning, the music industry has produced a constant stream of bitter feuds. Yet there was none more explosive and intense than that between Ginger Baker and Jack Bruce. This rivalry is also the most headscratching of them all, because the pair played in not one, but two groups together. You’d have thought after the first run they’d learn never to enter each other’s creative and personal orbits again, but life can be funny sometimes.
Most famously, the rivalry between drumming extraordinaire Baker and game-changing bass whizz Bruce marred the iconic outfit Cream’s short but widely influential career, which spanned from 1966 to just 1968. It makes their sonic achievements in pushing rock music forward with their scintillating psychedelia even more remarkable, given that the relationship between the rhythm section was always teetering on the brink of total mayhem.
Although Baker and Bruce’s rivalry in some ways propelled Cream forward at breakneck speed, creating a musical battle like nothing else heard before as both tussled for prominence, there was no escaping their mutual hatred. It proved to be the final nail in the coffin for the group, who split before their final album, the aptly titled Goodbye, was released.
By that point, though, their bitter rivalry had started a long time ago. It can be traced back to the early 1960s, when both played in the storied blues-rock outfit The Graham Bond Organisation (GBO). After Baker joined their ranks in 1963, he first met the talented Scot who would prove to be his lifelong nemesis. Both were undoubtedly at the top of their game, but the fact that they were immensely proud, outspoken and deeply volatile set the scene for some jaw-dropping moments of fury.
The feud began one night at a GBO show, and while both had different takes on what actually unfolded, it’s clear there was no going back after that performance. In an interview with Forbes, Baker claimed that Bruce was something of a “Jekyll and Hyde” character, prone to getting angry onstage and yelling at him, often followed by bouts of extreme rage.
That fateful evening, during one of his famous drum solos, Bruce started dovetailing with the rhythm. It wouldn’t be long before things descended into pandemonium. Bruce furiously turned to Baker and said: “You’re playing too f*cking loud.” For Baker, who had been gradually getting fed up with Bruce’s erratic behaviour, this was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. The flame-haired Londoner burst with indignation, recalling: “The result was that I nearly killed him. A bouncer had to pull me off. After the gig, he was okay for a while, but then he’d yell again.”
According to the drummer, he tried to talk things through with Bruce one evening after the eruption but was met with fury. Following that failed attempt at a parley, bandleader Bond took the executive decision to fire Bruce after he nearly killed them all, angrily driving their tour bus out of Ipswich. Baker recalled: “Graham got out and said, ‘He’s got to go.’ Of course, I was the heavy, so I had the job of doing it. But it was a band decision.”
Naturally, Bruce’s account of his firing differs from Baker’s. He believed the drummer went behind Bond’s back to fire him through some Machiavellian manoeuvring, something he never got over. “He took it upon himself to fire me from Graham Bond, although he wasn’t the band leader,” Bruce claimed. “He said I was playing ‘too busy’. I think I was just finding myself, in a style very much influenced by James Jamerson.” It’s also claimed that Baker pulled a knife on Bruce one evening to make his feelings about his standing in the band clear.
Despite the rivalling accounts, it’s evident that Bruce and Baker’s feud kicked off that night onstage, when both jostled for the limelight during the drum solo. It was the start of a very long road for both men, which culminated with a moribund Bruce ringing Baker in 2014 just to tell him: “I’m dying, Ginger, f*ck you.”
