A new book called Cream Chronicled, authored by Ginger Baker’s daughter Nettie, sets out to document every gig and recording session, and various major events that happened to the band between 1966 and 1968.
It also covers the times Ginger, Jack and Eric got back together at the Rock ’N’ Roll Hall Of Fame inauguration in 1993 and the reunion gigs in 2005.
Needless to say, painstaking research, combined with an obvious love of the subject matter, has resulted in an amazingly authoritative book. We speak with Nettie about what it was like to spend so much time in Cream’s glorious past.
When I started researching, that’s when I realised how intense their workload was and it seemed that it was a normal thing to do, and probably a lot of other bands at the same time were doing it, too.
Can you remember the effect that had on your dad?
“Well, I think it was stress – the ambition and the hard work and the attention to detail. There were a lot of other things going on because at the beginning he was sort of running it, collecting the money and all of those sorts of things. I think at first he was very happy, but they did have the [burden] of going around the country in a van. No-one flew anywhere. And, as it went on, the stress began to affect him.”
In the book, you say that Ginger eventually put his foot down to playing two gigs a day.
“I don’t think anyone took any notice. I think it’s very important to understand that all three of them were not in control because they were young men; they were in their 20s, and it was a new phenomenon. It was a new genre and it suddenly caught on.”
How difficult was it to research the book? Did your dad keep diaries or any other records?
No. I mean, I’ve got a BA and a MA in English Lit from Queen Mary [University of London], and they’re one of the top research universities. So I was actually able to bring some of my academic qualifications into this thing, which is different from the other books I’ve written. And I’m a diarist, so I had diaries from the ’60s and I had diaries from the 2005 [reunion], so I was able to bring a bit of that in. But you just have to find as many sources as you can.
“I mean, the internet is great now, but I did go through books, too. Some of these retrospective anecdotes are not reliable at all, but you might get two or three sources that agree. So you think, “Yeah, that’s quite likely.” You just have to keep going. I just went everywhere and to everything I could find, you know?”
You said that Cream Chronicled sets out to bust some of the myths about the band. Which ones were you specifically keen to clear up?
That they all hated each other; they never socialised; they never travelled together. That Jack and Ginger were always fighting, according to all the retrospective accounts. And on the Goodbye album cover, that the photos of them were shot separately and then they superimposed their heads on the picture or something. I mean, for goodness’ sake!
I think he was so proud because it was his band. I think when he did look back he only ever wanted to play Cream songs with Cream, which was why he didn’t really like BBM
Later in the book I say that when they came to do the Hall of Fame, people just got stuck on an image of axe-wielding maniacs on drugs or if they would even speak to each other. So I tried to say that the band split mainly because of the pressures of touring and the stresses they were under.
They didn’t say that they didn’t argue – because they were like brothers. Even in 2012 Jack was saying, ‘I really love Ginger, he’s my brother and brothers sometimes fight.’
I also explained that they didn’t tell everyone at the time, but they were socialising, but because people would have just said, “Oh, are they going to get back together again?” they probably thought, “Just leave us alone.” So yes, they socialised the whole time.
![Cream – White Room (Live from Royal Albert Hall 2005) [Official Live Video] - YouTube](https://img.youtube.com/vi/njV0yqFR36E/maxresdefault.jpg)
How do you think Ginger looked back on the Cream years?
I think he was so proud because it was his band. I think when he did look back he only ever wanted to play Cream songs with Cream, which was why he didn’t really like BBM [the group that featured Jack, Ginger and Gary Moore] that much. He felt quite strongly about that.
I think the legacy of the band is immense. I’m proud to have managed to document it because no-one’s done that. They’ve just fallen down the rabbit hole of ‘Oh, they all took drugs and hated each other,’ which is just completely and utterly not true; even the drugs they get wrong.
There was one heroin addict, which was Ginger, and most of the time in Cream he was not taking it. And when he did, in his own autobiography, he held his hands up. I think they did have some sort of [trauma] afterwards. 1968 wasn’t a happy time for them. They really didn’t want to break up.
- Cream Chronicled is out 20 March via Wymer UK
- This article first appeared in Guitarist. Subscribe and save.
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