About Cary Baker

Is it OK if we do this in first person? I, for one, can always discern when someone is writing about themselves in the third person.

I was born in Chicago in 1955. I lived on the city’s South Side for a few years before my family’s move to the north suburbs. Thankfully it was the suburb that serves as the northern terminus of Chicago’s El train, which would prove handy a few years down the line. But let’s not get ahead of the narrative.

My parents were music fans and record collectors. My mother had played classical violin professionally. But my first moment of music appreciation came when I saw the Beatles on Ed Sullivan Show. A year or two later, I found myself in a Sunday School carpool; my mom played Chicago’s classical station but the other moms had the radio tuned to Top 40 WLS-AM. I began to hear the Yardbirds, the Supremes, the Kinks, the Buckinghams and Wilson Pickett.

Four years later, 1968 or ‘69, I was reading the Chicago Sun-Times’ newspaper radio listings (yes, radio listings — imagine that!) when I saw a listing for a program featuring “underground rock, music not usually heard on teeny-bop radio stations” Hmmm. I tuned into WOPA-FM to hear Scorpio, the station’s late-night underground DJ. Later I discovered WLS-FM’s underground counterpart, Spoke. One night on the latter, I heard a song that immediately turned my life around. “That was Muddy Waters from his new Electric Mud album with ‘I Just Want to Make Love to You.’” I went out and bought the album, and looked at the record company’s address on the back cover: “Chess Producing Corp., Chicago, Ill. 60616.” Hey, that’s not far from where I’m sitting! Suddenly I felt my life come into focus. I began to publish a scrappy blues fanzine. One day I called Chess Records and told them I’d like to visit. They connected me with their “public relations director,” who welcomed me to come on down. Chicago-based record company, public relations director – my destiny was shaped in that moment.

My high school years were more extracurricular than curricular. On Day #1, I walked into the 33-watt high school FM radio station and asked the program director if he’d give me a blues radio program. To my delight, he said yes. Mojo, my program, was heard on Tuesday nights. Soon, I added Public Relations Director and Music Director to my responsibilities at the radio station – and kept publishing my fanzine, Blue Flame, out of my bedroom. I published at the local Sir Speedy print shop, and, too young to drive, schlepped each issue home in a couple of suitcases via municipal bus. Before long, Blue Flame had subscribers from all over the globe. Suddenly I had pen-pals in Sweden, Germany, Japan and Australia, as well as every corner of the U.S. Among my Stateside subscribers were future authors Nick Tosches and Peter Guralnick, as well as A&R man Joe McEwen and guitar journalist Dan Forte. Blue Flame had advertisers varied from Arhoolie Records to CBS Records.

I was probably a high school sophomore when my father decided it was time to take me to Maxwell Street Market, a flea market west of downtown Chicago where, as a lad, he’d shopped for bargains with his Eastern European immigrant parents. “Believe me, you’ll only want to go there once,” he emphasized. How wrong he was! As we parked alongside University of Illinois’ Chicago Campus, I could hear the sound of slide guitar wafting from blocks away. We followed the music and chanced upon Blind Arvella Gray, a Texas native and Maxwell Street regular, playing blues and work songs – and a survivor of an earlier era. He was the first busker I ever saw (little did I realize busking would become a lifelong passion of mine). We listened for an hour, whereupon I asked his phone number. Our lives would intersect for the next ten years.

One day soon after that, while walking around Northwestern University campus, I noticed a new publication called Reader subtitled Chicago’s Free Weekly. It seemed the next evolution of the underground press. On speculation, I wrote an article about Blind Arvella Gray. They published it. My freelance writing career had begun. I also became aware of a traditional country music label located not far from my parents’ house in Wilmette called Birch Records. I called the number listed in the phone book and found myself speaking with owner Dave Wylie, a fan of the old WLS Barn Dance broadcasts. Turns out he’d seen Arvella Gray at the University of Chicago Folk Festival and was very interested in releasing an album by him. So one night, we gathered in Wilmette, drove down the Edens, Kennedy and Dan Ryan Expressways, picked up Gray at his South Side apartment, and headed to Sound Unlimited Studio in Harvey, Ill. – primarily an outpost for country and rockabilly recordings. It was there that we recorded the album – in one take, all night long. We drove back north at dawn, completed album in hand.

The Blind Arvella Gray story ran in the Reader in 1972, and it was the start of many varied assignments. I also began to write for the Bomp! fanzine, Living Blues, Blues Unlimited, Fusion, and other publications of the early ‘70s. I took one high school journalism course which was so detailed that by the time I started in the journalism program at Northern Illinois University, I knew about 80% of what I needed to know. I became the music reporter at the campus’ Northern Star, while writing for the Illinois Entertainer, Sunrise (and its later incarnation, Prairie Sun), Fusion, and eventually Creem. (I even flew into Detroit to be interviewed for a possible editorial position there, but knew immediately I had not dazzled them.) For a while, I edited the Rockford entertainment weekly, Lively Times. I befriended that city’s best-known band, Cheap Trick, whom I interviewed many times for print and radio.

I should briefly mention my very short-lived radio career: After DJ-ing at WNTH-FM at my high school and brokering time on Chicago’s WOJO-FM for an hour of free-form rock music per week (Concept Radio) and north suburban WVVX-AM/FM, I landed a slot at NIU’s rock station WKDI-AM. But during a short pause in my first year of college due to a long bout with mononucleosis, I relinquished my air shift and decided to devote my rebound energies to my greater passion, print media.

Thanks to mono and also to my tendency to pare down to a few classes while editing newspapers, I was a five-year college student, and eventually graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Journalism. Parchment in hand, I left my college town and returned to Chicago. My first job was editing a Chicago music monthly magazine called Triad. I continued to write freelance, adding Trouser Press and Jann Wenner’s Record magazine to my growing butterfly net of outlets. In my vast spare time, I released the odd 7” single or EP on a label I ran out of my kitchen pantry called Fiction Records. Fiction released limited-edition 45s and/or EPs The Names and Wazmo Nariz. (When The Cure bowed its own very unrelated Fiction label out of London, I decided that was my cue to get out of the label biz.)

In late 1979, I was offered a job by one of a small handful of national record companies based out of the Chicago area: Ovation Records. Ovation had become a player on Nashville’s Music Row thanks to a Grammy-winning gold-certified release by The Kendalls, plus albums by critically acclaimed Joe Sun and Vern Gosdin. That was this city kid’s cue to learn a thing or two about country. And thanks to a few mentors in Music City, I learned quite a bit; one could say I was well-positioned when alt-country and Americana became an acknowledged genre a dozen or so years later! Ovation was also shoring up its pop division, which failed to gain traction despite a few good recordings by Tantrum, Robbin Thompson Band, Sussman-Lawrence and Citizen. Finally, a one-off novelty single by WLUP-FM afternoon drive DJ Steve Dahl and his band, Teenage Radiation – an anti-disco parody of Rod Stewart’s “Da Ya Think I’m Sexy” – shot to #58 on Billboard’s Hot 100.

I also became a voting member of the Recording Academy while at Ovation (part of my job had been writing liner notes for nearly every album). During my more than four decades since becoming an Academy member, I’ve served on the Board of Governors in both Chicago and Los Angeles. (I’ve also kept writing liner notes for such labels as Omnivore Recordings, Universal/UMe/Chess, EMI/The Right Stuff, Motown’s catalog division, and Numero Group. Search for me at AllMusic or Discogs for a full listing.)

I left Ovation in 1981 and continued work both as a freelance writer and (doing my best to avoid conflict of interest) indie publicist. Among my PR clients were Chicago Recording Co. studio, roots music venue On Broadway and new-wave venue Tuts. In the flush era of record company press junkets, I was able to see a lot of America during that time: I traveled to New York to interview James Brown for Record (Rev. Al Sharpton was in the room); Detroit to interview Styx; Fargo, N.D. to interview old friends Cheap Trick; Ann Arbor for Fred “Sonic” Smith and Sonic’s Rendezvous; Milwaukee for the Violent Femmes; Cleveland for Greg Kihn; and Dayton, Ohio for Roger & Zapp for an overview of that city’s legendary funk scene.

One day — a particularly wind-chilled Chicago winter morning — I received a piece of mail that changed my life. A press release announced that the head of publicity at I.R.S. Records was leaving, adding that “qualified candidates should apply.” I thought about that for a moment – I certainly knew and loved the label, and had gained hands-on experience at Ovation – so I decided to submit a cover letter and resumé, walking it four blocks up N. Southport Ave. to the post office in sub-zero temps. To my surprise, they called and asked if I could be in Los Angeles for an interview in the next two weeks. As fate would have it, I had existing plans for a visit. I flew to L.A., met with three or four different label execs on the A&M Lot, then returned to Chicago, grateful to have considered and not counting my chickens. I had been told there had been 60 submissions. To my shock, I received an offer which I immediately accepted. Within the next two weeks, I said my Chicago goodbyes, put my belongings on a truck, and flew to L.A. – my home for the next 38 years – armed with two suitcases and an open-ended motel reservation. After two weeks in the Sunset LaBrea TraveLodge, I moved to an apartment in L.A.’s historic Miracle Mile district.

1984-88, my years as VP of Publicity at I.R.S. Records, were some of the best of my life: R.E.M., already developing into critical faves thanks to the diligent early work of my predecessor, released their second through seventh albums on my watch – and each time, we worked hard to take them a step farther...the cover of SPIN, the cover of Musician, the cover of Rolling Stone...and national TV too. The Go-Go’s released their third and (for the moment) final album, Talk Show. I also got to work with The Alarm, Fleshtones, The dB’s, Concrete Blonde, Timbuk3, General Public, Fine Young Cannibals, Tom Verlaine, Hunters & Collectors, William Orbit, The Balancing Act, Beat Rodeo, Adrian Belew & the Bears, and solo Go-Go’s Belinda Carlisle and Jane Wiedlin.

It was an event-packed four years. A sad day for the I.R.S. staff came when R.E.M. departed to court a bigger offer amidst a 1988 bidding war as their I.R.S. contract came to a close. They went to Warner Bros., which, as all of us understood, afforded them a larger, more unified global presence.

Shortly thereafter, I was gone also. I re-emerged as National Director of Media & Artist Relations for Capitol Records – head of the label’s bi-coastal publicity department – during a significant and pivotal time. The next two years would bring several Grammy Awards for Bonnie Raitt’s Nick of Time LP; it was amazing to watch that album connect emotionally with so many fans who were coming of age and now had an anthem. Also released during my Capitol tenure: Paul McCartney’s Flowers in the Dirt, Smithereens’ 11, Beastie Boys’ Paul’s Boutique, Tina Turner’s Foreign Affair, MC Hammer’s Please Hammer Don’t Hurt ‘Em and more. There were releases by Johnny Clegg & Sakuva, Donny Osmond, Tim Finn, Cocteau Twins and BeBe & CeCe Winans as well. I had a great team and (in a few cases) some amazing indies working these titles alongside my department. I had not been born to work in a corporate setting, but worked extra hard at delivering. (I now realize I should have worked equally hard at corporate politics!) It was a blast working at the world-famous midcentury modern Capitol Tower in Hollywood. It’s amazing what my team and I accomplished in just over two years.

From there, I returned to my indie roots for a minute – Enigma Records – but didn’t stay there for long. Morgan Creek Records, a division of the film company by that name, was launching and I was invited aboard. From 1991-93, I worked at the label and film company’s Century City office. In addition to learning a thing or two about the film industry with several soundtracks in the pipeline (a platinum soundtrack for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, plus Last of the Mohicans, White Sands, Pacific Heights...), we had a roster that was better than most folks remember: Mary’s Danish, Little Feat, Miracle Legion, Eleven, Shelby Lynne, Janis Ian, an artist brought to us by Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group) named Chris Kowanko, and more. After three years, the parent film company began to pare down the label, and me along with it.

By then, I’d had a bit of experience working country music – at Ovation Records with The Kendalls, of course, but also helping the Nashville bureau of Capitol with a new artist named Garth Brooks, and more recently with Shelby Lynne, who’d made a “transitional” album between her early years as a fresh-faced Music Row aspirant to her later resolutely indie-spirited work. Pam Lewis at PLA Media, whose co-managed Brooks in the early days, had taken studious note. She was good enough to set me up with a major label’s Nashville office, while simultaneously talking to me about working in the L.A. office of her own PLA Media. After many sleepless nights, I realized I wasn’t ready to leave California, and chose to work for PLA as a VP of the indie publicity house, whose main office was (and still is) in on Nashville’s Music Row. My job was to parlay my years of contacts into creating my own roster while also working on established PLA clients. So in addition to pitching the media, I was now pitching artists, managers and labels for projects. My clients included Rykodisc’s Frank Zappa reissues and Capitol’s and Motown’s catalog departments, Raffi, John Mayall, power pop band Shoes, and Ardent Records with an Alex Chilton album.

I left PLA in around 1995 to work for a label called Discovery Records, groomed to become the fourth free-standing label (amongst Warner Bros., Elektra and Atlantic) of the Warner Music Group. Its chairman was none other than Elektra founder Jac Holzman, who’d purchased and reactivated the vintage West Coast jazz label Discovery, adding a pop division. Artists included Morcheeba, Art of Noise, Too Much Joy, Willy DeVille, Bernie Taupin’s Farm Dogs, and the entire Antone’s label out of Austin, which gave us Sue Foley and Candye Kane among others. Offices were in a cool gallery loft space in Santa Monica. Despite a deadly L.A. crosstown commute, I felt I’d finally found a label home as satisfying as, say, I.R.S. at its best.

But as I’d learned five times before: Never get too attached to a label job. The regime changed, and a few of us were out. I decided that, going forward, I needed to avoid that syndrome yet again. With a friend and former I.R.S. Records co-worker, Sheryl Northrop, I launched the Baker/Northrop Media Group. There seemed to be a need for a great new music PR house, and we worked some great projects: Susan Tedeschi’s solo debut album, which was nominated for a Grammy for Best New Artist during our campaign; “Weird Al” Yankovic; Cheap Trick; Yes; Robert Cray; J.J. Cale; and Delbert McClinton, to name a few. Five of us worked out of an office tower in Encino, Calif. We did some great work and had some great laughs along the way.

The only way left to go was solo. So in April 2004, I respectfully resigned from BNMG and launched Conqueroo. For the ensuing 18 years, Conqueroo became one of the pre-eminent indie music publicity companies. Our clients included many Grammy nominees and winners: Bobby Rush, The Mavericks, Delbert McClinton, Ruthie Foster, Janiva Magness, Mike Farris, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, and Omnivore Recordings, among others. We worked every James McMurtry from aught four’s Live in Aught Three to 2021’s The Horses and the Hounds. We worked on 12 albums with Willie Nile, spanning 17 years. Our tenure of 18 years also found us working with Ray Wylie Hubbard, Billy Joe Shaver, Chris Hillman, Marshall Crenshaw, Sarah Borges, Rev. Peyton’s Big Damn Band, David Olney, Hoodoo Gurus, Flesh Eaters, Nils Lofgren, Chuck Mead, Peter Himmelman, Pam Tillis, The dB’s (collectively and individually), Jim White, Dan Penn, Cidny Bullens, Paul Kelly, Van Dyke Parks, Jimbo Mathus, Suzzy Roche & Lucy Wainwright Roche, Eilen Jewell, Matthew Sweet, Wesley Stace, Cruzados, Dar Williams, Urge Overkill, Flamin’ Groovies, Kelly Willis, Bruce Robison, Tony Joe White, Whitney Rose, Mitch Ryder, Lloyd Price, Hank III, Michael Nesmith, and many projects from Omnivore, BMG, Concord/Fantasy/Craft, Yep Roc, Blue Corn Music, Thirty Tigers, Bear Family, Sunset Blvd. and Resonance. It was during this time that I helped produce a four-CD 50-year career compilation for Bobby Rush, which won a Blues Music Award the following year. At SXSW, we co-sponsored the Guitartown Conqueroo party and, a while later, the Rebels & Renegades party with Jenni Finlay Promotions.

I was honored to receive the Blues Foundation’s Keeping the Blues Alive Award for Best Publicist in 2006. Blues wasn’t all we did at Conqueroo, of course – projects ranged from Americana to jazz to power pop to reissues and books – but we did work on several Grammy-winning and -nominated blues projects (Bobby Rush, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, Ruthie Foster and Janiva Magness come to mind) as well as the Blues Foundation itself.

Five of us worked at Conqueroo from Los Angeles and San Francisco. We really had some fun doing what we did. We made it through the worst of the pandemic together. And I sincerely believe we helped some recording artists’ careers get to the next level.

As the years advanced, I was approaching retirement age and there were still a few things I wanted to do while spry enough to do them. Certain of these ambitions were personal – travel, listen to my ridiculously large record collection, and read more, for instance. But some had to do with writing – returning to the profession I had in my late teens and 20s. I recently completed my first book (due out in November 2024) and am at work on my second, and have written articles for a handful of music magazines and blogs along the way. (See links page for a few early articles.) I’ve begun work on book #2. But no details yet – it’s a longer haul.

Trust me: I realize better than anyone that the world is not clamoring for a new music journalist returning to the field at age 67. But that hasn’t stopped me. My forté has long been my grasp on music history, from the blues to bebop to the Beatles to Big Star to Beck and beyond. And music histories are what I’ll be writing.

So here I am. An exciting and hopefully significant career behind me – a new life ahead of me. And a move too! Leaving my 38-year home of Los Angeles, a city I loved right away and til the very end (and still do!), for the drop-dead gorgeous scenery and slower pace of the greater Palm Springs/Coachella Valley area – able to drive into L.A. every now and again in just a couple of hours, and a far shorter drive to the burgeoning Joshua Tree/Twentynine Palms/Pioneertown hi-desert music scene. My first published manuscript in the new era was this love letter to the region for No Depression.

That’s who I am, where I’ve been, and where I am. I am grateful for the many great opportunities I’ve had, and proud of the difference my work may have made in helping make the world aware of worthy recording artists.

And now, a bit of writing, and a few desert mountain hikes perhaps. Wish me luck in this new chapter.

My first book, Down on the Corner: Adventures in Busking and Street Music, is due out from Jawbone Press on November 12, 2024.

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