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| Mickey Baker | |
|---|---|
| Name | Mickey Baker |
| Caption | Baker in the 1950s |
| Background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
| Birth name | McNorton Baker |
| Birth date | June 15, 1925 |
| Birth place | Louisville, Kentucky, United States |
| Death date | November 27, 2012 |
| Death place | Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis, France |
| Instruments | Electric guitar |
| Genres | Rhythm and blues, rock and roll, jazz |
| Occupations | Guitarist, session musician, teacher, author |
| Years active | 1940s–2000s |
| Labels | Rainbow, Coral, Mercury, Atlantic, MGM |
| Associated acts | Mickey & Sylvia, King Kolax, Lionel Hampton, Buddy Johnson, Big Joe Turner |
Mickey Baker was an American-born guitarist, session musician, teacher, and arranger whose work helped shape postwar rhythm and blues and early rock and roll. A prominent figure in the 1940s–1960s New York City music scene, he played with touring big bands, backed vocalists on hit records, and co-led the duo Mickey & Sylvia whose recording of "Love Is Strange" became an enduring classic. Later in life he lived and taught in France, influencing generations of guitarists across Europe.
Born McNorton Baker in Louisville, Kentucky, he moved during childhood and spent formative years in Hampton, Virginia and later in Boston, Massachusetts and New York City. He served in the context of mid-20th-century American life that produced many African American musicians who migrated to urban centers such as New York City and Chicago, Illinois; during this period he absorbed influences from touring big bands like Lionel Hampton and jump blues bands including Louis Jordan. Baker learned guitar through practical apprenticeship with working musicians on the nightclub and theater circuits and by studying the repertoire of artists such as T-Bone Walker, Charlie Christian, and Les Paul.
In the late 1940s and early 1950s he became a sought-after session guitarist in New York City, contributing to recordings for labels including Atlantic Records, Coral Records, and Mercury Records. He worked with bandleaders and vocalists such as Lionel Hampton, Big Joe Turner, Buddy Johnson, Savannah Churchill, and Billy Ward; his sharp, amplified single-note runs and rhythmic chordal style were featured on R&B and early rock sides. Baker also played on sessions for pop and crossover artists represented by companies like Decca Records and studios located in the Brill Building vicinity, where arrangers and songwriters including Leiber and Stoller were active.
Teaming with singer Sylvia Robinson, a figure later associated with Sugar Hill Records, he co-led the duo famous for the 1956 hit "Love Is Strange," released on Atlantic Records' affiliated labels and later covered by acts including The Everly Brothers and Buddy Holly. The record's success brought television appearances, touring dates, and steady demand for Baker's guitar work; it also connected him with the network of producers and managers operating in Harlem and Tin Pan Alley. The partnership intersected with other commercial projects involving publishers and record companies such as Hill & Range and MGM Records.
As a solo artist and session leader, he recorded instrumental singles and albums for labels including Coral Records and Mercury Records, showcasing a hybrid of jazz-based improvisation and R&B rhythm patterns heard on records marketed to both American and European audiences. In the 1960s he relocated to France, where he became part of the expatriate community of American jazz and blues musicians that included figures like Lionel Hampton alumni and contemporaries who found receptive audiences in Paris. His presence in Europe influenced French and British players during the 1960s and 1970s, intersecting with scenes that produced musicians affiliated with bands like The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, and British blues revivalists who studied American R&B sources.
Baker authored instructional materials and method books for aspiring guitarists, publishing chord and scale studies that emphasized chord shapes, double-stop techniques, and single-note soloing rooted in the vocabulary of artists such as Charlie Christian and T-Bone Walker. His best-known instructional work, presented as a practical method for electric guitar, circulated among students and influenced guitar pedagogy alongside contemporaneous methods by educators tied to institutions like Berklee College of Music and private studios in New York City and Paris. Technically, Baker favored amplified, clean-to-mildly-overdriven tones, use of barre chords, and vocal-inspired phrasing that bridged jazz and rhythm and blues idioms.
Baker's later years were spent in Montreuil, Seine-Saint-Denis and other suburbs of Paris, where he continued to teach and to appear at concerts and festivals celebrating American roots music. His role as an early electric-guitar stylist and session player is cited by historians and musicians documenting the evolution of rock and roll, R&B, and jazz guitar technique; writers and interviewers in periodicals and documentary projects have connected his contributions to the broader narratives involving labels such as Atlantic Records and figures like Leiber and Stoller and Sylvia Robinson. Awards and formal recognitions were less prominent than the practical legacy of recordings, session credits, and teaching materials that helped shape players in Europe and the United States.
Category:American guitarists Category:1925 births Category:2012 deaths