Faces In The Crowd: Mickey "Guitar" Baker

Today on the Rock & Roll is a State of Mind blog, we're celebrating Mickey "Guitar" Baker, one of the greatest guitarists who "helped transform rhythm & blues into rock & roll...Mickey Baker is one of the very most important, ranking almost on the level of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. The reason he isn't nearly as famous as those legends is that a great deal of his work wasn't issued under his own name, but as a backing guitarist for many R&B and rock & roll musicians. Baker originally aspired to be a jazz musician, but turned to calypso, mambo, and then R&B, where the most work could be found.” (All Music)

"Mickey Baker was one of the very most important, ranking almost on the level of Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley. The reason he wasn't nearly as well known as those legends is that a great deal of his work wasn't issued under his own name, but as a backing guitarist for many R&B and rock & roll musicians. Baker originally aspired to be a jazz musician, but turned to calypso, mambo, and then R&B, where the most work could be found.

In the early and mid-'50s, he did countless sessions for Atlantic, King, RCA, Decca, and OKeh, playing on such classics as the Drifters' "Money Honey" and "Such a Night," Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle & Roll," Ruth Brown's "Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean," and Big Maybelle's "Whole Lot of Shakin' Going On." He also released a few singles under his own name, and made a Latin jazz-tinged solo album, Guitar Mambo.

Love Is Strange - Mickey & Sylvia

Baker's best work, though, was recorded as half of the duo Mickey & Sylvia. Their hit "Love Is Strange," as well as several other unknown but nearly equally strong tracks, featured Baker's keening, bluesy guitar riffs, which were gutsier and more piercing than most anything else around in the late '50s. Mickey & Sylvia split in the late '50s (though they recorded off and on until the middle of the next decade), and Baker recorded his best solo album, the all-instrumental The Wildest Guitar. In 1961, he took the male spoken part (usually assumed to be Ike Turner) on Ike & Tina Turner's first hit, "It's Gonna Work Out Fine." Shortly afterwards he moved to France, making a few hard-to-find solo records and working with a lot of French pop and rock performers, including Ronnie Bird, the best '60s French rock singer. He recorded only sporadically after the mid-'60s." (Richie Unterberger)

In course of my research on Mickey "Guitar" Baker, I came across an excellent article on the Houndogblog Blog: "Mickey "Guitar" Baker came into this life as McHouston Baker, born in Louisville, Kentucky on Oct. 15, 1925. He was arrested for stealing clothing at age eleven and was incarcerated in the Ridgewood Orphanage for three years where he attempted to learn to play trumpet. Upon release he worked his way north, arriving in New York City in 1945 where he took up the profession of pimping, however a beating at the hands of rival players sent him into a career detour of the equally sleazy profession of musician. Since he couldn't afford a trumpet he bought a guitar from a local pawnshop and took lessons for a year or so eventually landing a job in a group called The Incomparables led by pianist Billy Valentine. Their music has been described at various times as mambo, calypso, be-bop, and according to Baker "some weird shit".

The Incomparables worked their way west and somewhere in or near San Francisco, Baker had a revelation. He witnessed Pee Wee Crayton, a popular rhythm and blues guitarist who was driving the women wild in a packed club. The response to Crayton's music included babes in tight dresses showering him with bank notes while he played the guitar behind his head T-Bone Walker style. The Incomparables were getting no such response, in fact the audiences barely paid attention to their music, but Baker's revelation-- if that guy could do it, so can I, sent Baker into a totally new direction musically. He would no longer attempt to play jazz, mambo, calypso, or any weird shit. The money was in primitive, raw, blues influenced sounds, the wilder the better. And so it came to be-- Baker would invent a guitar style with the accent on wildness.

By the mid 1950's Baker, a fast learner, was playing sessions all over the New York area. One of the best was for the Savoy label out in Newark where he and King Curtis (who would be another session regular) appeared on a series of instrumental sides by piano pounder Sam Price such as Bar-B-Q Sauce and Chicken Out. Sammy told me he thought Mickey was a "big mouth". He also started cutting discs under his own name, "Guitar" (with quotes) was now his middle name.

Mickey "Guitar" Baker - Greasy Spoon

As time went on, Baker knew instinctively just what to add to a record, whether it was the genius one note solo on the Coasters' I'm A Hog For You (Atco) or the crazed five thousand note fills on Louis Jordan's 1955 remake of Caladonia (Mercury/Wing) he left his personal stamp on each disc. He can be heard blazing away on discs as diverse as Wilbert Harrison's Florida Special (Savoy), Roy Gaines' Right Now Baby (Groove), Square Walton's Bad Hangover and Pepper Headed Woman (RCA), even with rockabilly bus driver Joe Clay on You Look That Good To Me (Vik), doo wop greaseballs the Continentals' Don't Do It Baby (Jay Dee) and folk bluesman Brownie McGhee's Anna Lee (Savoy).

A complete session discography for Mickey Baker could fill up a medium size phone directory. It was around this time that Baker, who also gave guitar lessons to make ends meet, decided to team up musically with one of his students, the sultry Sylvia Vanderpool soon to be Sylvia Robinson when she married record biz gangster Joe Robinson (Note: Joe would end up owning labels like All Platinum, Sugar Hill and buy the Chess catalog for a mere 3 million in the late 70's, less than half of what the Chess brothers sold it for earlier in that decade).

Mickey and Sylvia hated each other, but commercially they were a winning team. After a few flops recorded for the Brooklyn based Rainbow label they were signed to RCA's Groove imprint. Mickey & Sylvia's first disc on Groove was a wild, upbeat, two guitar and washboard rocker-- No Good Lover and their second, adapted from Bo Diddley and Billy Stewart's Billy's Blues. Love Is Strange became a smash hit.

Mickey & Slyvia's next disc- Dearest (with Bo Diddley playing rhythm guitar) was issued on Vik as was their excellent LP-- New Sounds Of Mickey & Sylvia. That LP featured an incredible instrumental called Shake It Up. Doc Pomus was at the session when Shake It Up was recorded and told me Mickey was in a particularly foul mood that day. Eventually Mickey & Sylvia's records grew softer and stopped selling, Mickey attempted to replace Sylvia with somebody named Kitty, recording for Atlantic a version of St. Louis Blues that failed to sell.

Atlantic also issued a Mickey Baker solo LP, titled, appropriately enough The Wildest Guitar. On said disc Mickey shows the influence of Les Paul, albeit, a twisted Les Paul, as he works his unique magic on standards like the Third Man Theme, Old Devil Moon and Milk Train. While not the wild rock'n'roll of his early 45's, it's a great album none the less, and rare too, since nobody bought it. That mattered little as the live work with Sylvia was lucrative and he was now New York's most in demand rock'n'roll session guitarist.

Another steady source of income came with series of instructional guitar booklets he wrote and published such as the one pictured above. These became his main source of income.

By the early sixties it's was over for Mickey "Guitar" Baker and not just in rock'n'roll but in America itself. He moved to Paris in 1962 and rarely returned to the States. Since relocating he has cut records with Champion Jack Dupree and returned to what he'd always badly wanted to do--- play jazz. And he does, that is, play jazz badly. The greatest rock'n'roll guitar player in the world is one of the worst jazz guitar players in France. He released a few mediocre discs before dropping from sight completely.

Mickey "Guitar" Baker was last seen in New York City after the movie Dirty Dancing (1987) had made Love Is Strange a minor hit again, evidently he quietly slipped in and out of the country in a few days time. There's a rumor that he left the States after a row over his part of the copyright of Love Is Strange (which he shared with Bo Diddley although one Ethyl Smith is credited on the label) with a mobster, whom, since he's still alive I'll refer to only as "the Big Guy". It could even be true, who knows at this point? Only Mickey and the Big Guy, and neither of them are talking.

For those who still buy CD's Rev-O-La has issued an excellent 31 song career retrospective called Mickey "Guitar" Baker In The 50's: Hit, Git & Split while the German Bear Family label has a double CD representing the almost complete works of Mickey & Sylvia-- Love Is Strange and a set of his early solo discs with some Mickey & Sylvia outtakes thrown in entitled Rock With A Sock. There are worse ways to blow your money than this.

Last spring I was in Paris, just wandering around and every cafe I saw I'd scan the heads looking for a light skinned black man with reddish hair, knowing that somewhere in that city, Mickey Baker, middle name "Guitar", failed pimp, failed jazzman and the greatest rock'n'roll guitarist of them all, is living out his final years. I'll bet he's got some stories to tell." (The Houndblog)

Mickey Baker, whose prickly, piercing guitar riffs were featured on dozens if not hundreds of recordings and helped propel the evolution of rhythm and blues into rock ’n’ roll, died on Tuesday at his home in Montastruc-la-Conseillère, near Toulouse in southwestern France. He was 87. The cause was heart and kidney failure, his wife, Marie, said.

Mickey & Sylvia - Shake It Up

Memphis Slim & Mickey Baker live in 1968

Mickey "Guitar" Baker Discography

As Leader

The Wildest Guitar (Atlantic, 1959)
Bossa Nova en Direct du Bresil (Versailles, 1962)
Mickey Baker Plays Mickey Baker (Versailles, 1962)
But Wild (King, 1963)
Bluesingly Yours with Memphis Slim (Polydor, 1968)
Mickey Baker in Blunderland (Major Minor, 1970)
The Blues and Me (Black and Blue, 1974)
Take a Look Inside (Big Bear, 1975)
Tales from the Underdog (Artist, 1975)
Mississippi Delta Dues (Blue Star, 1975)
Up On the Hill (Roots, 1975)
Blues and Jazz Guitar (Kicking Mule, 1977)
Jazz Rock Guitar (Kicking Mule, 1978)
Sweet Harmony (Bellaphone, 1980)
Back to the Blues (Blue Silver, 1981)
The Legendary Mickey Baker (Shanachie, 1991)
New Sounds (Legacy, 2015)

As Sideman

With Colette Magny
Melocoton (CBS, 1963)
Frappe Ton Coeur (Le Chant du Monde, 1963)
Colette Magny (Le Chant du Monde, 1967)

With Other Musicians

Big Maybelle, The Okeh Sessions (Charly, 1983)
Ronnie Bird, L'amour Nous Rend Fou (Decca, 1964)
Clarence Gatemouth Brown, The Blues Ain't Nothing (Black and Blue, 1972)
Nappy Brown, Don't Be Angry! (Savoy, 1984)
Ruth Brown, Ruth Brown (Atlantic, 1957)
Ruth Brown, Miss Rhythm (Atlantic, 1959)
Solomon Burke, 1960 Debut Album (WaxTime, 2018)
Milt Buckner, Rockin' Hammond (Capitol, 1956)
Eric Charden, Eric Charden (Vega, 1963)
Gene "The Might Flea" Connors, Let The Good Times Roll (Big Bear, 1973)
Buck Clayton, Buck Clayton and Friends (Gitanes Jazz, 2007)
Jimmy Dawkins, Jimmy Dawkins (Vogue, 1972)
Jean-Jacques Debout, Jean-Jacques Debout (Vogue, 1964)
Bill Doggett, Moondust (Odeon, 1959)
Champion Jack Dupree, Champion Jack Dupree and His Blues Band Featuring Mickey Baker (Decca, 1967)
Champion Jack Dupree, I'm Happy to Be Free (Vogue, 1972)
Stefan Grossman, Friends Forever (Guitar Workshop, 2008)
Coleman Hawkins, Disorder at the Border (Milan, 1989)
Screamin' Jay Hawkins, At Home with Screamin' Jay Hawkins (Epic, 1958)
Screamin' Jay Hawkins, ...What That Is! (Philips, 1969)
Little Willie John, Fever (King, 1956)
Louis Jordan, Somebody Up There Digs Me (Mercury, 1962)
Booker T. Laury, Nothing but the Blues (Blue Silver, 1981)
Booker T. Laury, Booker in Paris (EPM, 1992)
Memphis Slim, Very Much Alive and in Montreux (Barclay, 1973)
Jimmy Scott, If You Only Knew (Savoy, 2000)
Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, Back Country Blues (CBS, 1958)
Sylvie Vartan, Sylvie Vartan's Story 1962 & 1963 (RCA Camden, 1969)