Ginger Baker’s death hit his son Kofi harder than he expected it would because the estranged pair ended their lifelong feud just before the Cream drummer’s death.
Father and son had been at war for years and Kofi always felt sure he wouldn’t be upset when his dad died, but he was overcome with emotion.
“I used to say to my girlfriend, ‘When he dies, I’m going to feel nothing’,” Kofi told Rolling Stone. “I really didn’t think I’d feel anything. The arsehole had to open up to me right before he died. I think if he’d stayed an a**hole to me, maybe, it would be easier. But I didn’t think it would affect me the way if affected me (sic).”
“I sat quietly with him at first, then just thought, ‘What the fuck? I’ve got all this stuff I want to tell him’… I said to him, ‘Hey, I’m learning Blue Condition and I’m doing your stuff… Dad, I’m carrying on. I’m keeping everything you taught me, all the secrets and everything. I’m going to keep it going as well as I can now’.
“And he just smiled, and it was just amazing. It was, like, his eyes lit up, and I told him stories about the past and everything… It was so amazing to actually connect with my dad. I don’t know if people change right before they die. I think he knew he was going to die, and I think he relaxed at the fact that he could be himself. He just dropped that hard exterior… Underneath all that temper and stuff, I thought he was a really loving person. I just don’t think he could say it to me.”
Kofi and the son of Baker’s Cream bandmate Jack Bruce are planning to tour North America next year (20), performing the band’s Disraeli Gears in its entirety.
“It was a no-brainer to go out and celebrate Disraeli Gears in its entirety,” Kofi recently said. “There are songs that are quite different, they wanted to challenge everything! And from a personal point of view, it gives me the opportunity to perform another song my dad wrote, called Blue Condition, that I really like.”
You’ll discover music news first following Noise11 on Twitter
Comment on the news of the day, join Noise11 on Facebook
Listen to the Noise11 Music News channel now at iHeartRadio
