Peter Baker was born in Lewisham South London, he was nicknamed Ginger for his shock of flaming red hair. His mother Ruby May worked in a tobacco shop, and His father Frederick Louvain Formidable Baker was a bricklayer employed by his own father, who owned a building business and was a lance corporal in the Royal Corps of Signals in World War 2, he died in the 1943 Dodecanese campaign. Baker went to Pope Street School where he was considered one of the better players in the football team and then to Shooter's Hill Grammar School. While at school he joined Squadron 56 of the Air Training Corps based at Woolwich and stayed with them for two or three years. Baker began playing drums at around 15 years of age, In the early 1960s he took lessons from Phil Seamen, one of the leading British jazz drummers of the post war era. In the 1960s he joined Blues Incorporated where he met bassist Jack Bruce. The two clashed often, but would be rhythm section partners again in the Graham Bond Organisation, a rhythm and blues group with strong jazz leanings. Their relationship was so volatile that Baker once attacked Bruce with a knife during a concert. In March 1963 Baker and Bruce played in the Johnny Burch Octet with Burch, Jack Bruce, Mike Falana, Stan Robinson and John Mumford and others. Despite this volatile relationship Baker and Bruce reunited in 1966 when they formed Cream with guitarist Eric Clapton. A fusion of blues, psychedelic rock and hard rock the band released four albums in a little over two years before breaking up in 1968. Baker then joined the short lived supergroup Blind Faith, comprising Eric Clapton, bassist Ric Grech from Family and Steve Winwood from Traffic on keyboards and vocals, They released only one album Blind Faith before breaking up. In 1970 Baker formed toured and recorded two albums with fusion rock group Ginger Baker's Air Force. Following Air Force Baker created the short lived Ginger Baker Drum Choir, which released a sole single on Atco Records in 1971. The 45 RPM record featured a three piece drum ensemble and call and response vocals with the song Atunde We are here and Atunde part 2 on its A and B sides. In November 1971 Baker decided to set up a recording studio in Lagos, then the capital of Nigeria. He decided that it would be an interesting experience to travel to Nigeria overland across the Sahara Desert. Baker invited documentary filmmaker Tony Palmer to join him and the film Ginger Baker in Africa follows his odyssey as he makes his journey and finally arrives in Nigeria to set up his studio. After many frustrating setbacks and technical hitches, Batakota studios opened at the end of January 1973 and operated successfully through the seventies as a facility for both local and western musicians. Paul McCartney and Wings recorded the song Picasso's Last Words for Band on the Run at the studio with Baker playing a tin can full of gravel.
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