Carmine Appice and Ginger Baker, along with the Who’s Keith Moon and Jimi Hendrix’s Mitch Mitchell, pioneered hard rock drumming. Carmine feels that Ginger's influence is everywhere.
"I admired Ginger's
drumming because he combined technical skills, with a jazz feel and
innovating double bass drum patterns. He could pretty much play
anything in the jazz, rock or afro arenas. His influence is
tremendous and it is everywhere. We became friends in 1967 when Cream
and Vanilla Fudge toured together, we toured again in later years and
Ginger and I also did drum clinics together. Ginger was always the
wildest guy on the tour and although he could be quite prickly, we
had some mighty good times.
It saddens me that
so many of my early contemporaries are gone -Keith, Mitch, and now
Ginger. I believe we were four that pioneered the underground rock
music movement. Everything was new, including the drumming which
combined elements of old and new, and gave birth to the hard rock,
progressive and psychedelic genres. God bless you, Ginger. RIP."
-Carmine Appice
