Master Fiddle Man Kenny Baker Suffers Stroke

[Mike Bunting]

Thank you, Raymond E.

[Raymond E.]

Evenin'....I didn't know this was going to be put on Facebook...It was filmed for the IBMM,i think. For the hundreds of tunes I played with Kenny..I was never nervous,was fun...but speaking about him and playing FOR him....was a whole different experience. I thank you all for the kind words but I just had to say something before we played for Kenny. I thank Mike Fagan for playing with me...we played "Pass Me Not" then at the end a happy tune,,,"Sweet Bunch Of Daisies"...hard to get through it...Kenny was my friend for 40 years and I love him...gonna really miss him...Raymond E.

[doc holiday]

Raymond, Thank you on behalf of all of us who loved Kenny Baker through his music, and who would have come to pay our last respects to him if the world were not so wide. Denver Belle is one of my very favorite tunes & I learned it from a Kenny Baker. recording.

[Marty Henrickson]

Raymond, Thank you on behalf of all of us who loved Kenny Baker through his music, and who would have come to pay our last respects to him if the world were not so wide.

Very well said, Doc. My thoughts exactly.

Evenin'....I didn't know this was going to be put on Facebook...It was filmed for the IBMM,i think. For the hundreds of tunes I played with Kenny..I was never nervous,was fun...but speaking about him and playing FOR him....was a whole different experience. I thank you all for the kind words but I just had to say something before we played for Kenny. I thank Mike Fagan for playing with me...we played "Pass Me Not" then at the end a happy tune,,,"Sweet Bunch Of Daisies"...hard to get through it...Kenny was my friend for 40 years and I love him...gonna really miss him...Raymond E.

Mr. Huffmaster, I think that prayer was right to the point. As much as all of his fans and admirers are going to miss Kenny, I know it's that much more difficult for his friends and family - I'm sorry for your loss.

Touching to say the least

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vg1Wh...&feature=share

Mr. Huffmaster...I know you frequent these pages. Thanks so much for this.

Thanks for sharing the link, Scotti. "Wayfaring Stranger" is probably my all-time favorite song, and I really enjoyed Kenny's take on the melody included in that archival footage. I'm taking the liberty of embedding the video.

[Scotti Adams]

....http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0rps...layer_embedded

[Dagger Gordon]

Frost On The Pumpkin was one of my favourite albums for quite a long time. I used to put on that record every day when I came in from work. Some good Sam Bush mandolin on it too, I seem to remember.

A truly great musician. RIP

[Pete Martin]

Frost On The Pumpkin was one of my favourite albums for quite a long time. I used to put on that record every day when I came in from work. Some good Sam Bush mandolin on it too, I seem to remember.

Great Sam playing on that record. Here is one of his solos from that album, Make a Little Boat.

[Jmoss]

Frost On The Pumpkin was one of my favourite albums for quite a long time. I used to put on that record every day when I came in from work. Some good Sam Bush mandolin on it too, I seem to remember.

A truly great musician. RIP

I agree with you on Frost. Frost is my favorite album too. It was the starting point for my recording sound (for Bluegrass albums) after my experience making the Tanyards album and I am still working on the sound. I heard Baker play all those tunes on the Frost album in person and they didn't sound like that album. Of course, the performances were all great on that album, but there is more than that. The Frost album is a Baker album on steroids. I always thought of it as sounding like the fiddle sounds under your chin. Baker and I would talk about that album a lot. He liked that album as well as his other albums. He just didn't like Baker's Dozen much. He liked the tunes on Dozen, but was not wild about the tracks. I remember... he was teaching me "High Dad in the Morning", from Portrait, in his kitchen when we got to talking about Dozen. He said that the tracks all started out at one speed and ended at another faster speed.

After it came out, he knew the Frost album was different from all of the others, but he didn't really involve himself in the mixing process. He would say, "I leave that to the experts". When we were recording Tanyards I asked something of the engineer and Baker said to me, "Don't try to tell that man his business, he will get mad at you!" It is funny looking back.

I did a lot of research on the actual recording of Frost, from the audio chain to the room and proximity to mic that was used on that recording and how it was used. I ran down many details in the recording and mixing process. I acquired all the parts of the audio chain in the process.

After that I felt that I had to go off on my own to create a finer tuned version of that sound. The roots of the sound on my later projects is based on the recording of Frost, from the mic'ing to the final mix. That is how impressed I was with Frost. After working up a rough mix I would play it and then play a cut off of AC/DC's "Back in Black" to see that it would hold up. The Frost album held up in this test so then my mix should too. If it didn't then I would create a new mix. I generally would work up a mix in 11 hours for a tune. A lot of this time is used creating environments for each instrument and avoiding audio masking effects. So that would be typically 3 mixes at 11 hours each to get "the sound" and in a way that was similar to the other mixes on the album. I don't have to pay for studio time so it didn't cost me other than my time.

For Baker, that sound of Frost was a fluke. Other records like Farmyard Swing had great tracks to work from too, but the album mix had the sound of the work of an rank amateur. Kenny gave me his rough mix cassette for Farmyard and it sounds huge. It was so much better than the actual album, which Kenny later gave me to compare with. We are talking about the take home cassette study tape know as a reference tape, not a finished recording. It sounds better then the album mix. Man that says something. If you wanted to make Baker mad start talking about Farmyard. He told me about there an instrumental break on the album that just showed up on the LP when it came out. This was not the original break that they had recorded, but a new one that Baker said he found about when the LP came out. Baker wouldn't stop talking about that, I mean to the point that he would turn red in the face. He was pretty upset about Farmyard.

If you listen to Farmyard the fiddle suffers from serous masking issues which make the fiddle harder to hear within the mix at times. I talked to Kenny a lot about Farmyard and he was really pissed at the guy who did the mixed for what he did on that album. I am just telling you what Baker told me. I was there at the studio one night with Baker for some reason, when he noticed Farmyard was being worked on and... well. I won't inject my own impression of what I saw into this post. This is about Baker and his opinions as expressed to me about his own albums Frost and Farmyard as a comparison as far as he expressed it to me.

In later years I offered to remix that album for County as a favor to Baker, but they said that there wasn't enough money to reissue the album. I talked to David Freeman's son on that. I told him that Farmyard could be mixed to sound like Frost, but you would need to know what you are doing. We might even find the so called "Lost Instrumental Track" which would make the album complete.

When I first started reverse engineering Frost I would look for engineers here in the Bay Area, I continually ran into engineers who would say to me, "Don't worry I can match this recording OR BETTER". I would tell them "I don't want better". I did this to evaluate the ear and talents of engineers that I wanted to work with. Each time these, very talented, engineer/producers came back to me with a mix that sounded like a Windham Hill Record... (You remember them, right?) that is until I met a great producer engineer from Germany who I would work with who actually listened to what I was asking for. From there on out he worked with me until I started doing all my own mixing work. I decided it was critically important to locate the people who were involved in recording and mixing Frost. The Engineers I was running into seemed to be totally opposed to the Frost sound, but I wasn't. The sound is in fact coarse, but hits the spot.

Jim Moss

[Jmoss]

I have been thinking, sometimes a musician is his own worst critic. Baker's Dozen is the album with Johnny The Blacksmith, Ragtime Annie, Doc Harris the Fisherman, Sail Away Ladies, Cross Eyed Fiddler, Denver Bell, Shelby Rock, and a bunch of other great tunes on it. With Kenny Baker, Butch Robbins and Sam Bush, and all these great tunes, Baker's Dozen is a CLASSIC. I mean, I never noticed anything but the great music on this album. Baker's albums really stand the test of time. Listening to Baker at a midnight jam playing through all of these tunes maybe with Bob Black on the banjo, as a lot of us have done, was an experience that was beyond words.

Jim Moss

[John McGann]

Thanks Jim, great food for thought. I think the production on "KB Plays Bill Monroe" is quite good as well. "Frost" does have something special sonically; all those albums are the benchmark of excellence in Bluegrass music.

[BradKlein]

The New York Times finally ran a featured obit today.

Kenny Baker Obit

[mrmando]

Perhaps the NYT had to clear the decks of other dead musicians before they noticed Kenny.

[Marty Henrickson]

Thanks for the link on the NYT obit. Here's a great photo that was included:

[Mike Bunting]

Once again, one of my favorite photos of Mr. Baker.

[Cornelius Morris]

Two questions for Jim Moss (and anyone else who knows).

1. Would you talk a bit about Kenny Baker's fiddles? Favorite? Did he have many? Interesting info?

2. From Baker's side (since you spent so much time with him), after the famous onstage split with Monroe, did things cool down after that? Were they friends after that, up until Monroe's death?

Thanks,
Cornelius

[allenhopkins]

...From Baker's side (since you spent so much time with him), after the famous onstage split with Monroe, did things cool down after that? Were they friends after that, up until Monroe's death?

From Richard Smith's account in Can't You Hear Me Callin':The Life of Bill Monroe (p. 278), Monroe contacted Baker in 1995, invited him to the Monroe farm for a day, and then brought him onstage at Bean Blossom to guest with the Blue Grass Boys. No mention of Baker's participation in Monroe's memorial services, however.

[Spruce]

I did a lot of research on the actual recording of Frost, from the audio chain to the room and proximity to mic that was used on that recording and how it was used. I ran down many details in the recording and mixing process. I acquired all the parts of the audio chain in the process.

Can you elaborate a tad??
Anything out of the ordinary in that signal chain??
I've always loved the sound of that recording as well, do a lot of recording of fiddles, and am really curious....
Thanks...!

[Cornelius Morris]

Allen,
Thanks for the reference. I only had to turn around and pull the book off the shelf. Don't know why I forgot about it.

For those who don't know the circumstances, I thought that I'd quote from Smith's text.

Baker quits (Smith, p. 252):

In the autumn [of 1984], just as the band was leaving for a prolonged tour, Kenny's brother was hospitalized. Baker desperately wanted a tour schedule so that his family could find him if the situation worsened. Had he approached Bill's secretary or Tony Conway, he certainly would have gotten one. Instead, he did what he had done for years. He asked Bill. And Bill did what he had done for years about providing schedules to his musicians. Nothing.

Now with his brother seriously ill, Baker's frustration was boiling into real anger. Finally, at a show on October 12, in Jemison, Alabama, an audience member kept calling for "Jerusalem Ridge." This musical impression of foxhunting in Bill's childhood was proving one of his most popular new instrumentals. But the fan was loud and had obviously been drinking. Bill apparently didn't realize this or was delighted by a hearty request for one of his favorite tunes.

"Kenny, get that 'Jerusalem Ridge,'" Monroe instructed.

"Get it yourself, old man," he retorted, then walked off the stage. Kenny Baker never again played as a member of the Blue Grass Boys. Monroe was stunned. Once more, his great fear of desertion by a loved one had been made terribly real. And once more, Bill had brought it on himself."

Baker and Monroe reconcile (Smith, p. 278):

As the years weighed on Bill, he mended fences with Charlie Louvin and other he had had breaks with, just as he had made up with Lester and Earl. Now his thoughts were of Kenny Baker. Bill missed his favorite fiddler but was still angered by his departure. Julia LaBella tried to get him to appreciate Baker's side of things.

"Well, it shouldn't have happened like that," Bill said. "It hurt me. We were together so long, it just shouldn't have happened like that."

But Bill wanted to make things right. As was now his practice, he reached out to Baker through intermediaries, making contact but insulating himself against rejection. He ended up shyly calling Baker, and a visit to the farm was arranged.

A reunion took place in Bill's barn, in a little workshop area where Bill puttered and repaired things. They sat and talked about the finer points of raising chickens and about old times.

That June [1995?], at Bean Blossom, it was Vic Gabany's turn to play emissary. He sounded out Kenny about guesting with the Blue Grass Boys. "If that's what the old man wants," Baker replied, "that's what I want."

Monroe casually commented about "an old man backstage that plays the fiddle," and then Baker--like Lester Flatt fourteen years earlier--appeared to an emotional audience response.

"Kenny, it's good to have you out here," Monroe said.

"Bill, I've been waiting for this since 1985," said Baker.

And they again made music together."

Allen, because of you, I've been re-reading Smith's book most of the afternoon. Thanks.

Cornelius

[Jmoss]

Two questions for Jim Moss (and anyone else who knows).

1. Would you talk a bit about Kenny Baker's fiddles? Favorite? Did he have many? Interesting info?

2. From Baker's side (since you spent so much time with him), after the famous onstage split with Monroe, did things cool down after that? Were they friends after that, up until Monroe's death?

Thanks,
Cornelius

1) I only played Blackie. Blackie was the fiddle he had out when I was around him. I don't remember any other fiddles he brought out at the farm or elsewhere. It was always Blackie.

If you look at the link below Baker has another fiddle which is not Blackie.
http://www.mossware.com/Baker1.html
This was not his fiddle. This fiddle he borrowed for some reason. Baker played a few shows with my fiddles. My first one which we didn't like so well. Later when I got my current fiddle which very similar to his, he played that at a few shows for me too. Baker felt that this fiddle was the same maker as his. (I paid enough for it.) When he played that one on the stage Baker could make it sound just like Blackie. Both Blackie and my fiddle have very dry tone... dry just like Frank Wakefield's mandolin. A topic for another time. Blackie had a slightly heavier low end. To me it sounds like a low frequency rumble, at times, when played into a mic. Blackie sounds great, but it seemed to me that this low end while it could work for him, could also be something that he would have to control too. I didn't find that fiddle all that easy to play at first. It took getting used to... for me at least. It could have been his bow too, I am not sure. He never wanted me to use another bow, like my bow, on it as it would "mix rosins". He didn't want to mix rosins EVER! I had taken a lot of measurements of his bridge to string relationship and set my fiddle up like that early on in the mid 1970s. So it might have been the bow that was the different element from what I was used to playing. My fiddle bridge and strings are still set to Blackie's measurements. A lot of what Baker taught me was effected by these settings. I used the same strings too shown here:
http://www.candlewater.com/strings/
I don't care what you read anywhere, these are the strings he used, not the ones he advertised. One year I showed up with wound gut on my fiddle. He made it very clear that he thought I was making a big mistake. I went back pretty fast.

I took this photo (2nd down) of Blackie as Baker took it out of his car trunk. He had just driven into Bean Blossom when I took this photo. Photos from this roll where used on one of Baker's later albums.
http://www.mossware.com/Baker2.html

Regarding the Baker Monroe split, there is so much more to this then anyone has mentioned here so far. Some of it I can tell you, other stuff not. Baker and Monroe had it out in a major way on the bus that night. So much so that when Bill offered me the fiddle job in San Francisco for both that show and for Japan, he was still upset with Baker...
Read about it here beginning at "We knew that Monroe was appearing in San Francisco the next night so we took that day off from recording. The next morning I get this call from the manager of Great American Music Hall."
http://www.candlewater.com/interviews/story009.html

Baker told Monroe exactly where to get off. Baker told me himself. I need to think about how to compose what he told me.

Jim Moss

[Fretbear]

Baker told Monroe exactly where to get off. Baker told me himself. I need to think about how to compose what he told me.

Please do.....