Mickey Baker
Encyclopedia
Mickey Baker, also known as Mickey "Guitar" Baker (born MacHouston Baker, October 15, 1925, Louisville
, Kentucky
, United States
,) is an American
guitarist
. He is widely held to be a critical force in the bridging of rhythm and blues and rock and roll
, along with Bo Diddley
, Ike Turner
, and Chuck Berry
.
. He ran away frequently, and had to be retrieved by the staff from St. Louis, New York City, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. Eventually the orphanage quit looking for him, and at the age of 16 he stayed in New York City
. He found work as a laborer and then a dishwasher. But, after hanging out in the pool halls of 26th Street, gave up work to become a full-time pool shark
.
At nineteen, Baker decided to make a change in his life. He went back to dishwashing, and was determined to become a jazz musician. The trumpet
was his first choice for an instrument, but with only fourteen dollars saved up, he could not find a pawnshop with anything but guitars for that price.
He enrolled at The New York School Of Music, but found the learning pace too slow. He dropped out and resolved to teach himself, but gave up shortly afterwards. Six months later he met a street guitarist who inspired him to start playing again. He continued taking private lessons from different teachers over the next few years, and, like many musicians of the day, tried to play his instrument like Charlie Parker
played the saxophone
.
. Baker said of the encounter:
"I asked Pee Wee, 'You mean you can make money playing that stuff on guitar?' Here he was driving a big white Eldorado
and had a huge bus for his band. So I started bending strings. I was starving to death, and the blues was just a financial thing for me then."
He found a few jobs in Richmond, California, and made enough money to return to New York.
After returning east, Baker began recording for Savoy
, King
and Atlantic Records
. He did sessions with The Drifters
, Ray Charles
, Ivory Joe Hunter
, Ruth Brown
, Big Joe Turner
, Louis Jordan
, Coleman Hawkins
, and numerous other artists. During this time, Baker (along with either Paramour Crampton or Connie Kay
on drums, Sam "The Man" Taylor on tenor
, and Lloyd Crompton on bass) played on virtually every hit record by Atlantic, Savoy, and King.
Inspired by the success of Les Paul & Mary Ford, he formed the pop
duo
Mickey & Sylvia
(with Sylvia Robinson
, one of his guitar students) in the mid 1950s. Together, they had a hit single
with "Love Is Strange
" in 1956. The duo split up in the late 1950s, but continued to record off and on until the middle of the next decade. It was around this time that he moved to France, making a few solo
records and working with some French pop and rock performers, including Ronnie Bird
and Chantal Goya
. Baker appeared at the 1975 version of the Roskilde Festival
.
In 1999, Baker received a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation
.
In 2003, he was listed at #53 on Rolling Stone
s "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
:
Louisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
, Kentucky
Kentucky
The Commonwealth of Kentucky is a state located in the East Central United States of America. As classified by the United States Census Bureau, Kentucky is a Southern state, more specifically in the East South Central region. Kentucky is one of four U.S. states constituted as a commonwealth...
, United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
,) is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
guitarist
Guitarist
A guitarist is a musician who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselves on the guitar while singing.- Versatility :The guitarist controls an extremely...
. He is widely held to be a critical force in the bridging of rhythm and blues and rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, along with Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley
Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...
, Ike Turner
Ike Turner
Isaac Wister Turner was an American musician, bandleader, songwriter, arranger, talent scout, and record producer. In a career that lasted more than half a century, his repertoire included blues, soul, rock, and funk...
, and Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
.
Early life
In 1936, at the age of eleven Baker was put into an orphanageOrphanage
An orphanage is a residential institution devoted to the care of orphans – children whose parents are deceased or otherwise unable or unwilling to care for them...
. He ran away frequently, and had to be retrieved by the staff from St. Louis, New York City, Chicago, and Pittsburgh. Eventually the orphanage quit looking for him, and at the age of 16 he stayed in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He found work as a laborer and then a dishwasher. But, after hanging out in the pool halls of 26th Street, gave up work to become a full-time pool shark
Hustling
Hustling is the deceptive act of disguising one's skill in a sport or game with the intent of luring someone of probably lesser skill into gambling with the hustler, as a form of confidence trick...
.
At nineteen, Baker decided to make a change in his life. He went back to dishwashing, and was determined to become a jazz musician. The trumpet
Trumpet
The trumpet is the musical instrument with the highest register in the brass family. Trumpets are among the oldest musical instruments, dating back to at least 1500 BCE. They are played by blowing air through closed lips, producing a "buzzing" sound which starts a standing wave vibration in the air...
was his first choice for an instrument, but with only fourteen dollars saved up, he could not find a pawnshop with anything but guitars for that price.
He enrolled at The New York School Of Music, but found the learning pace too slow. He dropped out and resolved to teach himself, but gave up shortly afterwards. Six months later he met a street guitarist who inspired him to start playing again. He continued taking private lessons from different teachers over the next few years, and, like many musicians of the day, tried to play his instrument like Charlie Parker
Charlie Parker
Charles Parker, Jr. , famously called Bird or Yardbird, was an American jazz saxophonist and composer....
played the saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
.
Career
By 1949, Baker had his own combo, and a few paying jobs. He decided to move west, but found that audiences there were not receptive to progressive jazz music. Baker was stranded without work in California when he saw a show by blues guitarist Pee Wee CraytonPee Wee Crayton
Connie Curtis Crayton , known as Pee Wee Crayton, was an American R&B and blues guitarist and singer.-Career:...
. Baker said of the encounter:
"I asked Pee Wee, 'You mean you can make money playing that stuff on guitar?' Here he was driving a big white Eldorado
Cadillac Eldorado
The 1953 Eldorado was a special-bodied, low-production convertible . It was the production version of the 1952 El Dorado "Golden Anniversary" concept car, and borrowed bumper bullets from the 1951 GM Le Sabre show car...
and had a huge bus for his band. So I started bending strings. I was starving to death, and the blues was just a financial thing for me then."
He found a few jobs in Richmond, California, and made enough money to return to New York.
After returning east, Baker began recording for Savoy
Savoy Records
Savoy Records is an American record label specializing in jazz, R&B and gospel. Starting in the mid 1940s, Savoy played an important part in popularizing bebop.Savoy Records is an American record label specializing in jazz, R&B and gospel. Starting in the mid 1940s, Savoy played an important part...
, King
King Records (USA)
King Records is an American record label, started in 1943 by Syd Nathan and originally headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio.-History:At first it specialized in country music, at the time still known as "hillbilly music." King advertised, "If it's a King, It's a Hillbilly -- If it's a Hillbilly, it's a...
and Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records
Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...
. He did sessions with The Drifters
The Drifters
The Drifters are a long-lived American doo-wop and R&B/soul vocal group with a peak in popularity from 1953 to 1963, though several splinter Drifters continue to perform today. They were originally formed to serve as Clyde McPhatter's backing group in 1953...
, Ray Charles
Ray Charles
Ray Charles Robinson , known by his shortened stage name Ray Charles, was an American musician. He was a pioneer in the genre of soul music during the 1950s by fusing rhythm and blues, gospel, and blues styles into his early recordings with Atlantic Records...
, Ivory Joe Hunter
Ivory Joe Hunter
Ivory Joe Hunter was an American rhythm and blues singer, songwriter, and pianist. After a series of hits on the US R&B chart starting in the mid 1940s, he became more widely known for his hit recording, "Since I Met You Baby" . He was billed as The Baron of the Boogie, and also known as The...
, Ruth Brown
Ruth Brown
Ruth Brown was an American pop and R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, composer and actress, noted for bringing a pop music style to R&B music in a series of hit songs for Atlantic Records in the 1950s, such as "So Long", "Teardrops from My Eyes" and " He Treats Your Daughter Mean".For these...
, Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner
Big Joe Turner was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. According to the songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." Although he came to his greatest fame in the 1950s with his pioneering rock and roll recordings, particularly "Shake, Rattle and...
, Louis Jordan
Louis Jordan
Louis Thomas Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the...
, Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Hawkins
Coleman Randolph Hawkins was an American jazz tenor saxophonist. Hawkins was one of the first prominent jazz musicians on his instrument. As Joachim E. Berendt explained, "there were some tenor players before him, but the instrument was not an acknowledged jazz horn"...
, and numerous other artists. During this time, Baker (along with either Paramour Crampton or Connie Kay
Connie Kay
Connie Kay was an American jazz drummer.Kay was a member of the Modern Jazz Quartet from 1955 until the group's dissolution in 1974...
on drums, Sam "The Man" Taylor on tenor
Tenor saxophone
The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...
, and Lloyd Crompton on bass) played on virtually every hit record by Atlantic, Savoy, and King.
Inspired by the success of Les Paul & Mary Ford, he formed the pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
duo
Duet (music)
A duet is a musical composition for two performers. In classical music, the term is most often used for a composition for two singers or pianists; with other instruments, the word duo is also often used. A piece performed by two pianists performing together on the same piano is referred to as...
Mickey & Sylvia
Mickey & Sylvia
Mickey & Sylvia was an American R&B duo, composed of Mickey Baker and Sylvia Robinson. They were the first big seller for Groove Records.Mickey was a music instructor and Sylvia one of his pupils. Baker was inspired to form the group by the success of Les Paul & Mary Ford. They had a Top 20 hit...
(with Sylvia Robinson
Sylvia Robinson
Sylvia Robinson was an American singer, musician, record producer, and record label executive, most notably known for her work as founder/CEO of the hip hop label Sugar Hill Records. She is credited as the driving force behind two landmark singles in the genre...
, one of his guitar students) in the mid 1950s. Together, they had a hit single
Hit single
A hit single is a recorded song or instrumental released as a single that has become very popular. Although it is sometimes used to describe any widely-played or big-selling song, the term "hit" is usually reserved for a single that has appeared in an official music chart through repeated radio...
with "Love Is Strange
Love Is Strange
"Love Is Strange" was a crossover hit by American rhythm and blues duet Mickey & Sylvia, which was released in late November 1956 by the Groove record label.The song was based on a guitar riff by Jody Williams. The co-writers of the song are of some dispute...
" in 1956. The duo split up in the late 1950s, but continued to record off and on until the middle of the next decade. It was around this time that he moved to France, making a few solo
Solo (music)
In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...
records and working with some French pop and rock performers, including Ronnie Bird
Ronnie Bird
Ronnie Bird, born Ronald Méhu, is a French singer born in Boulogne-sur-Seine on the 24 April 1946. As a student, he attended lycée Claude Bernard until he had an argument with a teach. He debuted his recording career in 1964 with Decca, with the title track Adieu à un ami, which was a homage to...
and Chantal Goya
Chantal Goya
Chantal Goya is a French singer and actress.Chantal Goya started her career as a yé-yé girl, singing a catchy mid-'60s hybrid of girl-group pop and French chanson...
. Baker appeared at the 1975 version of the Roskilde Festival
Roskilde Festival
Roskilde Festival is a festival held south of Roskilde in Denmark and is one of the six biggest annual music festivals in Europe . It was created in 1971 by two high school students, Mogens Sandfær and Jesper Switzer Møller, and promoter Carl Fischer...
.
In 1999, Baker received a Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation
Rhythm and Blues Foundation
The Rhythm and Blues Foundation is an independent American nonprofit organization dedicated to the historical and cultural preservation of rhythm and blues music....
.
In 2003, he was listed at #53 on Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
s "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time".
Books
His self-tuition method book series, the Complete Course in Jazz Guitar is a mainstay for introducing students of guitar to the world of jazz. They have remained in print for over 50 years.Credits
His guitar playing appeared on the following recordsGramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
:
- "Money Honey" - Clyde McPhatterClyde McPhatterClyde McPhatter was an American R&B singer, perhaps the most widely imitated R&B singer of the 1950s and 1960s, making him a key figure in the shaping of doo-wop and R&B. He is best known for his solo hit "A Lover's Question"...
with The DriftersThe DriftersThe Drifters are a long-lived American doo-wop and R&B/soul vocal group with a peak in popularity from 1953 to 1963, though several splinter Drifters continue to perform today. They were originally formed to serve as Clyde McPhatter's backing group in 1953... - "Shake, Rattle and RollShake, Rattle and Roll"Shake, Rattle and Roll" is a prototypical twelve bar blues-form rock and roll song, written in 1954 by Jesse Stone under his assumed songwriting name Charles E. Calhoun. It was originally recorded by Big Joe Turner, and most successfully by Bill Haley & His Comets...
" - Big Joe TurnerBig Joe TurnerBig Joe Turner was an American blues shouter from Kansas City, Missouri. According to the songwriter Doc Pomus, "Rock and roll would have never happened without him." Although he came to his greatest fame in the 1950s with his pioneering rock and roll recordings, particularly "Shake, Rattle and... - "Need Your Love So BadNeed Your Love So Bad"Need Your Love So Bad" sometimes known as "I Need Your Love So Bad", is a blues song first published in 1955 and written by Mertis John Jr....
" - Little Willie JohnLittle Willie JohnWilliam Edward John was better known by his stage name Little Willie John. Many sources erroneously give his second name as Edgar... - "It's Gonna Work Out FineIt's Gonna Work Out Fine"It's Gonna Work Out Fine" is a "rock-ish" soul song issued by the team of Ike & Tina Turner, released in 1961.The single, which featured support from another popular duo, Mickey & Sylvia, became another popular single by Ike & Tina, who were still supporting themselves off the success of their...
" - Ike & Tina TurnerIke & Tina TurnerIke & Tina Turner were an American rock & roll and soul duo, made of the husband-and-wife team of Ike Turner and Tina Turner in the 1960s and 1970s. Spanning sixteen years together as a recording group, the duo's repertoire included rock & roll, soul, blues and funk... - "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin OnWhole Lotta Shakin' Goin On"Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On" is a song best known in the 1957 rock and roll/rockabilly hit version by Jerry Lee Lewis.-Origins of the song:...
" - Big MaybelleBig MaybelleMabel Louise Smith , known professionally as Big Maybelle, was an American R&B singer and pianist. Her 1956 hit single "Candy" received the Grammy Hall of Fame Award in 1999.-Biography:... - "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean" - Ruth BrownRuth BrownRuth Brown was an American pop and R&B singer-songwriter, record producer, composer and actress, noted for bringing a pop music style to R&B music in a series of hit songs for Atlantic Records in the 1950s, such as "So Long", "Teardrops from My Eyes" and " He Treats Your Daughter Mean".For these...
Discography
- Wildest Guitar (1959)
- But Wild (1963)
- Mississippi Delta Dues (1973)
- Take A Look Inside (1973)
- The Legendary Mickey Baker (1992)
External links
- 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time
- Everyguitarist.com
- [ Allmusic biographical notes]