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In the March edition of Record Collector, Chris Welch recalls a story of his from a 1966 edition of Melody Maker which describes polling for a Supergroup (called a Group's Group in those days) chosen by fellow musicians such as Mick Jagger, Ray Davies, Tony Hicks, Georgie Fame etc. The results were as follows...

Eric Clapton
Steve Winwood
Bruce Welch
John Entwistle
Brian Auger
Ginger Baker

Not a bad lineup. Not sure that Bruce and Ginger would have become pals, though!

Andrew

I remember that article.

For several years after The Beatles, the other beat boom groups and the blues boom had turned the UK music scene on its head and the Shadows were starting to be seen as irrelevant, Bruce still routinely won the annual Melody Maker Poll for "Best Rhythm Guitarist"!

Yeah Ginger Baker doesn't have a good history with Bruces and anyway i'd sooner have Keith Moon or Ringo Starr or anyone other than Baker. An unpleasant man apparently who doesn't know when enough is enough ! Better for all of us that he doesn't start in the first place.
For all the attention Hank gets (and rightly so) Bruce gets very overlooked for his contribution. On the studio records that great sound from his Gibson acoustic is as much a part of The Shadows as John's Gibson acoustic is to the fabs. I cannot think of a better rhythm guitar player than Bruce and i'm in the camp that believes the Beatles invented music, painted the mona lisa and made Citizen Kane before breakfast.
Is that sound (ie Bruce's) really all about the ceramic saddle as Beatle fans claim with John's 160E....you know that ping thing that just sits in there great with the cymbals ?

Back to the supergroup, the one that freaked me out actually made some recordings but only one (Stone Crazy) sneaked out. How's this...

Aynsley Dunbar - drums
Jack Bruce - Bass
Peter Green - guitar
Rod Stewart - vocals

i reckon that leaves the Melody Maker 66 supergroup in the dust.

"An unpleasant man apparently who doesn't know when enough is enough!"

A description which could well apply to Keith Moon and Ringo Starr!

Why would Keith Moon or Ringo be described as unpleasant ?
Quite the opposite, gregarious people, both of them.

Gregarious as newts., both with a penchant for antisocial and unpleasant behavoour when they'd had a skinful. I'm sure plenty of Holiday Inn managers from the 1970s would struggle to describe certainly Keith Moon's antics as entertaining horseplay.

I probably didn't phrase it well. I was not talking about the ability to eat entire chemists, drink breweries and destroy entire hotel chains on a night out. I was applying the phrase enough is enough in describing his drum style. Yes that could be applied to Moon but how many days has the world lost to a Moon drum solo ? None. If you tally up Baker's performances of Toad during The Cream's career alone that's probably several weeks of people's lives they'll never get back.

If you've not read much about Ginger's legendary inability to get along with the human race i would suggest watching Beware Mr Baker, a very interesting documentary in which the director ends up being physically assaulted by Baker. Baker has struck me (not physically i hasten to add) as a jazz drummer who got stuck in the pop/rock world that he felt was clearly beneath him along with everyone else on two legs. As far as i'm aware neither Starr nor Moon pulled knives while fisticuffing their bass player on the rehearsal room floor although i'm always up for a bit of rock gossip if anyone has a good story to tell.