Mickey Baker

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Mickey Baker (1982)

Mickey "Guitar" Baker (born McHouston Baker * 15. October 1925 in Louisville , Kentucky ; † 27. November 2012 in Toulouse , France ) was an American blues - and jazz - guitarist .

youth

As a teenager, Mickey Baker ran away from home and spent the remainder of his teenage years in various orphanages. In one of these institutions he learned to read music and to play the guitar between 1937 and 1940. When he was 15, he hitchhiked north to New York . Another source says that he first came into contact with music and the guitar in New York and had no previous musical knowledge. Since he was still too young to play in clubs and the musicians' union in New York was tightly organized and minors were prohibited from accessing clubs even as artists, Baker had to make a living doing jobs that had nothing to do with music, to earn. From 1945 he devoted himself to learning the jazz guitar and after a few years was good enough to be able to earn a living with guitar lessons, among other things. Another source of income were appearances with a Calypso band (around 1948). In addition, he accepted almost every halfway lucrative gig, which meant that he expanded his radius as a musician beyond the borders of New York.

The 1950s - a versatile musician

Mickey Baker was a versatile musician from the beginning of his career in terms of styles: He played jazz in live performances with the alto saxophonist Earle Warren , who already recorded records with Count Basie , the trumpeter Buck Clayton and later with the jazz guitarist Kenny Burrell , among others had rhythm and blues with singers Nappy Brown , Ruth Brown and Big Maybelle , with pianists Amos Milburn , Little Willie John (lead guitar on I'll Need Your Love so Bad from 1956) and Ray Charles ; Blues with pianist champion Jack Dupree and harmonica player Sonny Terry ; Rock 'n' Roll with singer, guitarist and songwriter Earl King (known for example from the original Come On Baby Let the Good Times Roll , covered by Jimi Hendrix ) and with singer Joe Clay (Ducktail) ; Doo Wop with vocal groups The Drifters featuring Clyde McPhatter and the Cardinals; Pop with singer Connie Francis (lead guitar on Lipstick on Your Collar ).

As different as the styles were, as diverse were the record companies for which Baker recorded titles as sideman or main interpreter: Savoy, Victor, King, Aladdin, Atlantic, Rainbow, Groove and his own label Willow (founded in 1961 with headquarters in New York) . While Mickey Baker had been part of the Atlantic Records studio band since 1953 under the direction of Jesse Stone (with musicians like Panama Francis and King Curtis), he played live performances with the tenor saxophonist Red Prysock's band, among others .

Mickey Baker and Sylvia Robinson formed the duo Mickey & Sylvia , which had a hit with Love Is Strange in 1957 . This commercial success meant that the duo took part in so-called "Rock and Roll Package Tours" such as the Alan Freed Rock and Roll Extravaganza and the Ray Charles and Joe Turner Universal Attraction Show . Up until the 1960s, the duo kept making records and made it into the charts. Many follow-up records were based on the original without achieving its originality and thus its success. Another duo, Mickey & Kitty (Kitty Noble), couldn't change that either. Curiously, Mickey Baker secretly had commercial success with another duo: On the recording of the song It's Gonna Work Out Fine by Ike & Tina Turner from 1961, it is not Ike Turner who sings / speaks , but Mickey Baker the male part.

Mickey Baker released only one album in the USA, The Wildest Guitar with instrumental covers of well-known pieces of music. These include versions of the Autumn Leaves and Night and Day jazz standards , an electric guitar version of the song Gloomy Sunday and a version of the film melody The Third Man by Anton Karas from the Orson Welles movie of the same name .

Emigration to Europe

Mickey Baker emigrated to Paris in the early 1960s and toured large parts of Europe from there. He continued to record records with a wide range of artists and still did not allow himself to be determined stylistically. He often appeared with immigrant US musicians or played on their publications such as those of champion Jack Dupree (on Vogue 1968, on Crescendo 1971), Memphis Slim (on Polydor 1967), Willie Mabon (on Big Bear 1973) and with US musicians who have toured Europe such as Jimmy Dawkins (on Vogue 1971). In 1961 he worked in a short film about the tenor saxophonist Coleman Hawkins, who also immigrated to Europe (Coleman Hawkins Quartet). He himself recorded for the following labels in the 1960s and 70s under his own name: Big Bear, Black And Blue, Roots, Kicking Mule, Versailles. In 1973 he recorded a record with fingerpicking specialist Stefan Grossman (and other musicians) in London. In addition to cover versions by Charley Patton , JB Lenoir and Robert Johnson , originals could also be heard here. String arrangements were written for some songs.

In 1969 Mickey Baker wrote the score for the film Float Like a Butterfly, Sting Like a Bee , which explored the career of boxer and political activist Muhammad Ali . The focus was not so much on the sporting aspects, but on the conflict between the races. The music is not about songs, but rather film music that tried to musically portray these conflicts. Since Baker, like Muhammad Ali, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, he knew from personal experience the social conditions blacks had to live under at the time.

Little information is available about Mickey Baker's career after the late 1970s / early 1980s: in 1978 he played at the Groninger Blues Festival in the Netherlands and a few years later appeared live with champion Jack Dupree on a West German talk show (third program) on. Presumably he retired from the music business a little later.

meaning

In 1999, Baker received the Pioneer Award from the Rhythm and Blues Foundation. He has been on Rolling Stone magazine's Rolling Stone 's List of the 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time since 2003 . He is - together with Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry - regarded as the musical link between rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll. He has written a number of textbooks, such as a Guide to Playing Guitar , Complete Course in Jazz Guitar , and a handbook for arrangers, the Complete Handbook for the Music Arranger . Along with Les Paul 's Mickey Baker an important early proponent of the game on the electric guitar without sound ( solidbody guitar) in jazz and popular music.

various

Baker not only played solid body guitars like the Gibson Les Paul , but also archtop and western guitars . His most common technique was playing with a pick .

Fonts

  • Mickey Baker's Complete Course in Jazz Guitar, Book 1 (1959), Lewis Music Publishing Co.
  • Mickey Baker's Complete Course in Jazz Guitar, Book 2 (1959), Lewis Music Publishing Co.
  • Mickey Baker's Analysis of the Blues for Guitar (1970)
  • Mickey Baker's Jazz Guitar (1973), Clifford Essex Publications
  • Mickey Baker's Bottleneck and Country Blues Guitar (1973), Clifford Essex Publications
  • Mickey Baker's Jazz and Rhythm 'n Blues Guitar (1974), Clifford Essex Publications
  • Mickey Baker's Play Professional Guitar (1975), Clifford Essex Publications
  • Mickey Baker's Complete Handbook for the Music Arranger (1978), Clifford Essex Publications

literature

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ Murió Mickey Baker, guitarrista de jazz y blues
  2. ↑ Martin Schmidt: Surf Beat - the who's who of surf and instromusik, p. 19. Ventil Verlag, Mainz 2007. ISBN 978-3-931-555-85-6
  3. ↑ 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time
personal data
SURNAME Baker, Mickey
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Guitar Baker (nickname); Baker, McHouston (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American blues and jazz guitarist
DATE OF BIRTH October 15, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Louisville , Kentucky , United States
DATE OF DEATH November 27, 2012
Place of death Toulouse , France