Ginger Baker Thinks He Might Be Cursed

Ginger Baker's golden years aren't what he thought they'd be.

The legendary Cream and Blind Faith drummer painted a grim picture of his current condition in a profile published in the January 2015 issue of Mojo, saying, "At 75 I should be sitting on a desert island in a deckchair, but I [still] have to work to keep going."

The piece finds Baker living in a rented flat in England rather than his large South African abode, and missing his most recent windfall, which arrived in the millions he earned for participating in Cream's 2005 reunion shows. "I blew it all, taking advice from the wrong people," he admitted. "I put a state-of-the-art polo field on my property [in South Africa]. It was beautiful, but all these people told me I’d get sponsorship and nothing happened. ... I’m gullible. People become my friends, give me advice but it usually works to their benefit and my deficit. But I still have this optimism."

That optimism only goes so far, however. Taking a far more conciliatory stance than the one depicted in the 'Beware of Mr. Baker' documentary, which opens with Baker assaulting the director and generally living up to his pugnacious reputation, he mused, "God is punishing me for my past by keeping me alive with these incredibly painful situations. I’ve just had a disaster with one of my royalty payments. I go forward. I don’t look backward, but these things keep happening to me. There’s a curse on me, I think."