Mickey Baker

by Richie UnterbergerOf all the 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 isnt nearly as well known as those legends is that a great deal of his work wasnt 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 Turners Shake Rattle & Roll, Ruth Browns Mama, He Treats Your Daughter Mean, and Big Maybelles 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. Bakers 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 Bakers 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 Turners first hit, Its 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. Hes recorded only sporadically since the mid-60s.