Glenn A. Baker
Encyclopedia
Glenn A. Baker is an Australian journalist
, commentator, and broadcaster
well known in Australia for his vast knowledge of Rock music
. He has written books and magazine articles on rock music and travel, interviewed celebrities, managed bands such as Ol' 55
and promoted tours of international stars. In the mid-1980s, Baker took the BBC
's "Rock Brain of the Universe" crown three times. Baker was the Australian editor of Billboard
for over 20 years. He won the inaugural Australian Travel Writer of the Year award in 1995 from the Australian Society of Travel Writers, he won the award again in 2000.
until he was nine; when the Bakers relocated to Canberra. His younger brother, Johnny, drowned in an accident in the following year and his parents separated not long after. He moved about NSW, attending 12 schools in 10 years.
While working for the Department of the Media, where he worked on the research project that led to the establishment of 2JJ, Baker met Geoff Plummer who was a drummer
for a 1950s retro band, Fanis. Baker saw them perform in 1975 and became their manager, changing their name to Ol' 55
after the Tom Waits
' song. Baker's management was astute and presented the group as a combination of retro kitsch
, rock music
and clever theatrics. Baker introduced chartered accountant, Peter Brian, to the band, he became their versatile front man Frankie J. Holden
; in October, Baker recruited saxophone
player, Nick Aitken, who performed as Wilbur Wilde
. Ol' 55 had hit singles with "On the Prowl", "Looking for an Echo" and the number one "(I Want A) Rockin' Christmas" (which Baker co-wrote, as he did "C'mon Let's Do It") and a #2 triple platinum debut album, Take It Greasy. Both Holden and Wilde had careers in television after Ol' 55. During 1976–1978 Baker also managed Punkz which he molded into the pop
group Cheek, who had national chart success with "So Much In Love".
Raven Records
is an Australian label established in 1979 by Baker, Kevin Mueller and Peter Shillito, specialising in reissue
s and retrospectives. Baker's radio career started by hosting a music trivia
program on Sydney
radio station 2JJ (soon to become Triple J
) and moved on to the Triple M network. In the mid-1980s, Baker took the BBC
's "Rock Brain of the Universe" crown three times.
Specialising in music and travel writing, Baker has authored 16 books, written for more than 200 magazines and annotated over 500 music albums, as well as acting as a consultant on various music-related projects. He has also co-written music for films and is an active television/radio presenter and public speaker appearing regularly on The Today Show, Mornings With Kerri-Anne, 20 To 1 and on The Ovation Channel. He has been heard as an in-flight presenter on Qantas for more than two decades. Glenn won the inaugural Australian Travel Writer of the Year award in 1995, from the Australian Society of Travel Writers, and won the award again in 2000. He has visited more than 100 countries. He resides in the Sydney Hills District and is the father of five sons and a daughter. He and his wife Lorelle divorced in mid 2009. His second son Rudi Baker is an accomplished Australian actor having appeared in numerous Australian feature films (such as "Dirty Deeds") and television series, including the role of regular cast member 'Quentin Richards' on ABC TV's "Love Is A Four Letter Word".
Baker is a member of the Australian Recording Industry Association
(ARIA) Hall of Fame
Advisory Committee. On 1 July 2008, Baker inducted New Zealand-born blues
/rock and roll veteran, Max Merritt
, into the Hall of Fame, having previously inducted Australian Crawl, The Masters Apprentices and Billy Thorpe. September 2010 will see the simultaneous release of two books - "Best Of Baker: Music" and "Best of Baker: Travel".
Journalist
A journalist collects and distributes news and other information. A journalist's work is referred to as journalism.A reporter is a type of journalist who researchs, writes, and reports on information to be presented in mass media, including print media , electronic media , and digital media A...
, commentator, and broadcaster
Presenter
A presenter, or host , is a person or organization responsible for running an event. A museum or university, for example, may be the presenter or host of an exhibit. Likewise, a master of ceremonies is a person that hosts or presents a show...
well known in Australia for his vast knowledge of Rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
. He has written books and magazine articles on rock music and travel, interviewed celebrities, managed bands such as Ol' 55
Ol' 55
Ol' 55 was an Australian band specialising in retro, 1950s-era Rock 'n' Roll. They formed as Fanis in 1972 in Sutherland, Sydney, New South Wales . Drummer Geoff Plummer was working with Glenn A. Baker at the NSW Department of Media and invited Baker to hear his part-time band, including Pat...
and promoted tours of international stars. In the mid-1980s, Baker took the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's "Rock Brain of the Universe" crown three times. Baker was the Australian editor of Billboard
Billboard (magazine)
Billboard is a weekly American magazine devoted to the music industry, and is one of the oldest trade magazines in the world. It maintains several internationally recognized music charts that track the most popular songs and albums in various categories on a weekly basis...
for over 20 years. He won the inaugural Australian Travel Writer of the Year award in 1995 from the Australian Society of Travel Writers, he won the award again in 2000.
Biography
Glenn A. Baker was born in 1952, the eldest of four children to Joyce Baker and grew up in CoogeeCoogee, New South Wales
Coogee is a beachside suburb of local government area City of Randwick. It is located 8 kilometres south-east of the Sydney central business district, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is also a part of the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney....
until he was nine; when the Bakers relocated to Canberra. His younger brother, Johnny, drowned in an accident in the following year and his parents separated not long after. He moved about NSW, attending 12 schools in 10 years.
While working for the Department of the Media, where he worked on the research project that led to the establishment of 2JJ, Baker met Geoff Plummer who was a drummer
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
for a 1950s retro band, Fanis. Baker saw them perform in 1975 and became their manager, changing their name to Ol' 55
Ol' 55
Ol' 55 was an Australian band specialising in retro, 1950s-era Rock 'n' Roll. They formed as Fanis in 1972 in Sutherland, Sydney, New South Wales . Drummer Geoff Plummer was working with Glenn A. Baker at the NSW Department of Media and invited Baker to hear his part-time band, including Pat...
after the Tom Waits
Tom Waits
Thomas Alan "Tom" Waits is an American singer-songwriter, composer, and actor. Waits has a distinctive voice, described by critic Daniel Durchholz as sounding "like it was soaked in a vat of bourbon, left hanging in the smokehouse for a few months, and then taken outside and run over with a car."...
' song. Baker's management was astute and presented the group as a combination of retro kitsch
Kitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
, rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
and clever theatrics. Baker introduced chartered accountant, Peter Brian, to the band, he became their versatile front man Frankie J. Holden
Frank Holden
Frank Holden, also known as Frankie J. Holden, , is an Australian singer and actor. In the 1970s, he fronted, Ol' 55 which had a hit with "On the Prowl" from their debut album, Take It Greasy which peaked at number three on the Australian Kent Music Report Albums Chart in 1976...
; in October, Baker recruited saxophone
Saxophone
The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...
player, Nick Aitken, who performed as Wilbur Wilde
Wilbur Wilde
Wilbur Wilde is an Australian saxophonist. He rose to prominence with the bands Ol' 55, Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons...
. Ol' 55 had hit singles with "On the Prowl", "Looking for an Echo" and the number one "(I Want A) Rockin' Christmas" (which Baker co-wrote, as he did "C'mon Let's Do It") and a #2 triple platinum debut album, Take It Greasy. Both Holden and Wilde had careers in television after Ol' 55. During 1976–1978 Baker also managed Punkz which he molded into the pop
Pop music
Pop music is usually understood to be commercially recorded music, often oriented toward a youth market, usually consisting of relatively short, simple songs utilizing technological innovations to produce new variations on existing themes.- Definitions :David Hatch and Stephen Millward define pop...
group Cheek, who had national chart success with "So Much In Love".
Raven Records
Raven Records
Raven Records is an Australian record label that specializes in retrospectives and reissues or recordings by American, British and Australian artists.Raven Records was established in 1979 by Glenn A. Baker, Kevin Mueller and Peter Shillito....
is an Australian label established in 1979 by Baker, Kevin Mueller and Peter Shillito, specialising in reissue
Reissue
A reissue is the repeated issue of a published work. In common usage, it refers to an album which has been released at least once before and is released again, sometimes with alterations or additions....
s and retrospectives. Baker's radio career started by hosting a music trivia
Trivia
The trivia are the three lower Artes Liberales, i.e. grammar, rhetoric and logic. These were the topics of basic education, foundational to the quadrivia of higher education, and hence the material of basic education, of interest only to undergraduates...
program on Sydney
Sydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
radio station 2JJ (soon to become Triple J
Triple J
triple j is a nationally networked Australian radio station intended to appeal to listeners between the ages of 18 and 30. The government-funded station is a division of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation...
) and moved on to the Triple M network. In the mid-1980s, Baker took the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's "Rock Brain of the Universe" crown three times.
Specialising in music and travel writing, Baker has authored 16 books, written for more than 200 magazines and annotated over 500 music albums, as well as acting as a consultant on various music-related projects. He has also co-written music for films and is an active television/radio presenter and public speaker appearing regularly on The Today Show, Mornings With Kerri-Anne, 20 To 1 and on The Ovation Channel. He has been heard as an in-flight presenter on Qantas for more than two decades. Glenn won the inaugural Australian Travel Writer of the Year award in 1995, from the Australian Society of Travel Writers, and won the award again in 2000. He has visited more than 100 countries. He resides in the Sydney Hills District and is the father of five sons and a daughter. He and his wife Lorelle divorced in mid 2009. His second son Rudi Baker is an accomplished Australian actor having appeared in numerous Australian feature films (such as "Dirty Deeds") and television series, including the role of regular cast member 'Quentin Richards' on ABC TV's "Love Is A Four Letter Word".
Baker is a member of the Australian Recording Industry Association
Australian Recording Industry Association
The Australian Recording Industry Association is a trade group representing the Australian recording industry which was established in 1983 by six major record companies, EMI, Festival, CBS, RCA, WEA and Universal replacing the Association of Australian Record Manufacturers which was formed in 1956...
(ARIA) Hall of Fame
ARIA Hall of Fame
Since 1988 the Australian Recording Industry Association has inducted artists into its ARIA Hall of Fame. While most have been recognised at the annual ARIA Music Awards, in 2005 ARIA sought to create a separate standalone "ARIA Icons: Hall of Fame" event as only one or two acts could be inducted...
Advisory Committee. On 1 July 2008, Baker inducted New Zealand-born blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
/rock and roll veteran, Max Merritt
Max Merritt
Max Merritt is a New Zealand-born singer-songwriter and guitarist who is renowned as an interpreter of soul music and R&B...
, into the Hall of Fame, having previously inducted Australian Crawl, The Masters Apprentices and Billy Thorpe. September 2010 will see the simultaneous release of two books - "Best Of Baker: Music" and "Best of Baker: Travel".
External links
- Glenn A Baker at Global Travel Writers