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1980-09-XX - Beach Boys Stomp 21 - Adrian Baker Article & Discography
ADRIAN BAKER BY MIKE GRANT
Back in STOMP 16 I did a short UK harmony discography featuring Chris Rainbow, Alan Carvell, and Chris White. I wanted to include Adrian Baker as well but I did not have enough disc information at the time to do so. Since then Chris Rainbow has released his third album “White Trails” and is working on a new one. Alan Carvell has released nothing lately. He seems to be just doing sessions now and Chris White seems to have disappeared.
In April 1980 the Australian Magazine “California Music” did a fine Adrian Baker article written by Kingsley Abbott, but not all STOMP subscribers read “California Music”, though you should. Anyway I would like to do a list of most of Adrian's main releases which might interest STOMP readers
In June when Capital Radio played the top six in The Beach Boys Top 12 on Brian's birthday, Roger Scott played a beautiful version of "Happy Birthday Brian Wilson” by Adrian. This prompted me to give him a call and thank him very much for doing it. "I enjoyed doing it how I think Brian would have done it” he told me. He also invited me over to his studio to see how he works. So without apprehension I went one Sunday afternoon. Adrian’s studio is built into the basement of his home and it really is quite marvellous and very homely. Being in the basement there are no windows and the time of day does not seem to matter. The walls display sheet music of Adrian’s songs or songs he has recorded but pride of place is the Silver Disc for Liquid Gold’s "Dance Yourself Dizzy” the first record on his own label and the most successful record he has been involved with. Adrian informed me that he does everything except lead vocals and drums on the Liquid Gold 'A’ sides. Adrian then started demonstrating the fabulous sound system by puting on a reel-to-reel tape of a tremendous wordless harmony track called "Birth of the Universe” which really was quite stunning. Tape after tape he played me of TV jingles, radio jingles, backing tracks and a track from his hopefully forthcoming album. The song was called “Little Jack Horner” a sort of harmony/disco track but very good.
We did get to talking about the Beach Boys and how in the very early days things like “Surfer Girl” and “I Get Around” influenced him. But nowadays Adrian misses the strong melodies of Brian’s sixties songs and he wishes they would do something like “Help Me Rhonda” again.
A couple of projects he had in mind were to record “Don’t Worry Baby” as he feels no cover version so far has done the song justice. He also has ideas to do a “Fun, Fun, Fun” type of song which he also feels could be a big hit. He thinks there are still many people who like that type of sound. He is also planning to record the Four Seasons “Big Girls Don’t Cry” which could be another “Sherry” for him.
He has also talked about the difficulties of puting the Beach Boys gold singles together like trying to get the changes right, e.g. how he had to discard “You’re So Good to Me” because it just wouldn’t flow with anything else. Anyway my afternoon spent with Adrian made me a confirmed Adrian Baker fan.
SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY
Singles:
Adrian Baker
Sherry / I Was Only Fooling - Magnet - 34
Candy Baby / Dance To It - Magnet - 41
So You Think You've Got It Made / Don't Do It - Magnet - 61
Why Haven't I Heard From You / Vibration - Magnet - 82
Work, Work, Work / Marlena / Look For A Miracle / Cry Baby Cry (EP) - Magnet - 117
I'll Keep You Satisfied / Feel Like Dancing - MCA - 395
Crazy About You / Lovemaker - Polo - 3
THE TONICS
White Christmas / Leave Me Alone - Magnet - 52
All Summer Long / Stand Back - Magnet - 67
Love Is Forever / Take A Chance - Magnet - 74
GIDEA PARK
Beach Boy Gold / Lady Be Good - Stone - SON 2162
The Boogie Romance / From Me To You - Ariola - ARO 167
POLO LABEL RELEASES:
Dance Yourself Dizzy / Instrumental - POLO - *Liquid Gold
Everything's Electric / Lady Casanova - POLO - *Dazz
Crazy About You / Lovemaker - POLO - Adrian Baker
Substitute / Instrumental - POLO - *Liquid Gold
California Girls / Summer Girls - POLO - *Aero
* also released on 12″ singles.
Albums:
ADRIAN BAKER - Into A Dream - Magnet - MAG 5009
LIQUID GOLD - Liquid Gold - POLO - POLP 101
Unreleased
ADRIAN BAKER - Voices In Harmony - BRH 6
(a whole album of wordless harmonies including 'Birth Of The Universe').
Tuesday, 30 August 2022
1992 - California Music - The Sounds Of Summer: Adrian Baker And Gidea Park (CM79)
As a recording artist, the career of Britisher Adrian Baker has been well documented by this magazine ever since he first hit the road with Gidea Park, CM 61, the BRITISH BEACH MUSIC issue, featured an extensive story on the studio wiz. Subsequent issues have attempted to augment any additional developments.
Now a full time vocalist with The Beach Boys, Adrian has also recently issued A B C D, a sixteen track CD of some things old, some things borrowed and some things new. At present it is a private issue only, but can be readily acquired from Gidea Park group member Martin Lawford, c/o The Shire, Grosvenor Road, Orsett, Essex RM16 3BT, UK
“After I had finished talking to Bruce I found myself to be in a state of shock which lasted for several hours afterwards.” This is how Adrian Baker described his feelings after Bruce Johnston of The Beach Boys had called to congratulate him on the quality of the jingle Adrian had put together to commemorate Brian Wilson's birthday in 1981 (1). This call led to Adrian meeting The Beach Boys and working with them over the next three years.
Adrian's career had reached a high point with his two main bands Gidea Park and Liquid Gold seeming to hit the UK charts with every new release. It is a badly kept secret that apart from percussion and Ellie Hope's voice, Adrian had produced, arranged, recorded, engineered, played all the instruments and sung lead and harmony vocals at his basement studio in East London, finding time to write Liquid Gold's hits in-between.
It had always been a dream of Adrian's to make his living from music. He started at school, rehearsing in the classrooms with his school friends until joining local bands and playing in youth clubs in London. 'Then he hit the road with Pebbles, a top show band that toured throughout Britain and Europe during the mid sixties. Although he was the youngest member of the band, he had become heavily involved in Pebbles' recording career, learning his trade by recording in studios such as Abbey Road, Pye and many other famous studios that were springing up all over London. After Pebbles, he joined a well established East London band called Playground, whose members subsequently became the nucleus of several of his later recording projects. Playground became one of the most popular live acts in London. Adrian's high falsetto vocal and searing guitar solos were often the high point of the act.
Adrian's recording career took off in 1976 when he took his reggae version of The Four Seasons' song Sherry into the British Top 10. This catapulted Adrian into the mainstream of the mid-seventies Rop scene. He was then introduced to Liquid Gold and started writing and recording, soon finding success with a self penned song Anyway You Do It in 1978. Adrian was riding high in the charts again with Beach Boy Gold (Gidea Park) and Dance Yourself Dizzy (Liquid Gold) when he took the call from Bruce, a call that was to dramatically change his life for the next few years.
“Joining The Beach Boys on tour did not only mean realising a lifetime dream, but gave me the experience I would need to further my future career.” This was how Adrian described the years spent on the road with The Beach Boys in the early eighties. Then followed many other hits such as Substitute and The Night, The Wine And The Roses for Liquid Gold and following a mid-tour break in 1981, Adrian recorded the next Gidea Park hit Seasons Of Gold. Three years of touring the USA with The Beach Boys saw Adrian return to the UK to begin the next phase of his career After the release of the 1985 single Summertime City, he decided to hit the road once again, this time with some close friends from Gidea Park With brother Ian (keyboards, vocals), co-writer Martin Lawfccd (guitar, vocals), Alex Duncan (drums), Dave Walker (drums, percussion) and Roger Whatling (bass, vocals).
Over the next six years Adrian fronted the band on numerous gigs and TV shows throughout Europe, moulding the band into the forefront of the European live-music scene. A major move change took place when Adrian moved to Suffolk and rebuilt his studio at his new home “Yew Tree Farm” where after several months revamping and resting his recording equipment, he began work on several solo singles. Two of these - Warmth Of The Sun and Endless Sumner Days - were used to promote Continental Airlines in Europe and the UK to great critical acclaim.
In the summer of 1990 Adrian was invited to rejoin The Beach Boys' line-up and with prat regret he left his close friends in Gidea Park and set off to start a new life in the USA. The proudest moment of his carer came in 1991 when his parents and all his close friends saw him appear on stage at Wembley Stadium with The Beach Boys. Following a heavy touring schedule, he returned to Suffolk in December 1991 and together with Martin Lawford compiled a sixteen track CD of various recordings taken from the previous ten years of sessions at “Yew Tree Farm” and the basement studios in East London. A B C D is the result.
(1) The single in question was: Happy Birthday Brian Wilson b/w Don't Worry Baby: POLO 11 - 1981 [Issued under the name ADRIAN BAKER
ABCD
Track Lineup:
The Surf Is Up/Surfer's Paradise/Warmth Of The Sun/Lazin' On The Beach/Have You Seen That Girl?/Party Beach/I've Got Rhythm/Endless Summer Days/ La-La-La-Limbo/Bring Back Those Surfin' Days/Back In '65/Don't Look Back/American Girls/Summertime City/Stay Healthy/And Your Dream Comes True
Thursday, 25 August 2022
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Monday, 27 June 2022
1981-08-17 - Record Business - Soundalike Summer of '81 Puts The Sparkle Back In Pop
And while mysterious Dutch disco-mix expert Lobo zips up the Top 20 with his handclapping versions of Harry Belafonte standards, Britain's own one-man Beach Boys industry Adrian Baker is making similar progress with 'Beach Boys Gold' under the pseudonym of Gidea Park.
Baker is said to have picked the name because so many on Britain's top close-harmony singers have come from that strange no-man's-land segment of South Essex, and he actually recorded the piece three years ago. It went on to make the Top 10 in Holland and w as a hit in Australia, Belgium and Germany without ever getting anywhere in the UK
In the meantime, Baker was asked to record a bithday tribute jingle to Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys by Capital Radio's Roger Scott and Wilson happened to hear it while in Britain for the Knebworth Festival. When he was looking for a replacement Beach Boy, Adrian sprang to mind, and he got the gig.
With the rise of soundalikes in Britain, DJs remembered Baker's Beach Boy medley and began playing it again, with a resultant grass roots response. “Over the years, the record must have down well over half a million sales,” said Baker's manager Mel Medalie.
Soundalike disco thumpers show no sign of a let-up. Next week there will be a Sam Cooke medley on the market, while original artists have got in on the act by splicing together disco-mixes of their own material — The Supremes, Beach Boys and the Hollies have all done it. There is even a punk soundalike medley out produced by original Sex Pistols desk man Dave Goodman. Where will it all end?
The answer is probably in a wave of parody discs, which could well be hitting the market before September is out. Record Business has heard rumours of spoofs from several quarters, including ones aimed at the classical, all-girl and Beach Boy markets.
The remarkable Adrian Baker - one-man Beach Boys' band who cracked the charts with 'Beach Boy Gold' and then went on to join his favourite group.
Sunday, 19 June 2022
1981-10-XX - Beach Boys Stomp 27 - Interview With Adrian Baker
The following is an interview with Adrian Baker by Brian Mathew, on Round Midnight, Radio 2 on 31st August.
After playing I Get Around (Beach Boys version) BM introduces AB as a British musician who has become a Beach Boy 'albeit in a temporary sort of fashion'.
BM: It's an interesting story how this has come about, Adrian, but how do you feel about it, because you also exist under a number of other names as well as in your own right, don't you?
AB: Well, the Beach Boys... it's a kind of music that I've adored and loved all my life... it's not just the Beach Boys, in fact, it's vocal harmony. Ever since the age of 1 ½ I started to get into vocal harmony, and it's led me to the music business.
Asked about his ability with a number of instruments AB puts it down to his mother who made him learn piano at the age of seven. His mother plays the organ, his father the drums, and they play regularly four nights a week. Adrian, himself says he plays 'basically keyboards, guitar, bass, acoustic guitar' and that his studio took him a year to build - 'a sixteen track'. He says he picked up electronics as he went along, bought a ready made control desk and converted it from eight to sixteen track. Asked about facilities he agrees he could record a small group quite easily, in fact there are three electric pianos at the moment as well as a drumkit. Drum-tracks are done in a garage at the end of the garden to avoid annoying the neighbours.
BM: You've produced a lot of other people on record, haven't you?
AB: Yes, I've produced Liquid Gold, who have had six hits so far... very successful... I play a few of the instruments on the records
BM: And you do the production yourself in your own studio?
AB: Yes, everything I record I do in my own studio. I don't like working in other studios, in my own studio I know what to do to create sounds.
BM: Now then, I think it's really unfair to say to people 'well, we've heard the Beach Boy and now we'll hear Adrian - how close do they sound?', so what we've done is dub off a little section of one of your records and little bit of one of theirs and stuck them together, so we can really get a very close comparison here, and it goes something like this.
(follows, a short section of AB's Fun, Fun, Fun then the original)
BM: Well, you've got to admit it's close. There is a difference, of course, what would you say it was?
AB: The difference? I would say... the fact that The Beach Boys recorded that in 1965, was it? and they all had to stand around one mike and they only had one take... I think it's the slightly out of tune voices that give it that certain character.
BM: Do you not think, too, that you do inevitably get a different characteristic, because on your own record all the voices are yours, and on theirs there are five guys singing.
AB: Yeah, well I take more time over getting my voices right. I think mine has a smoother appearance to it.
BM: Now, how did The Beach Boys get to hear of you, get to hear your product, and ask you to join them?
AB: Well, dare I say it, Roger Scott from Capital Radio is a great friend of Bruce Johnston and about a year ago Roger Scott gave Bruce Johnston the record 'Beach Boy Gold', and Bruce has been sitting on it for about a year wondering how he could get me involved with the Beach Boys. I think the perfect opportunity has arisen where Carl Wilson has gone on tour promoting his solo album, so Bruce phoned me, totally out of the blue, via Roger, and said come out, meet the guys, and it's ended up with my touring with them.
BM: Well, that's really the next part of our story, so lets, before we get into that in detail, listen to your own record which you put out as Gidea Park.
(plays Beach Boy Gold)
BM: You've been out in the States a couple of months now.
AB: Yes, I've just been back a week.
BM: How many dates did you do?
AB: We did 32 shows in all.
BM: What is a Beach Boy date like now, and what kind of reaction do they attract?
AB: It’s fantastic, you would not believe the audiences… I mean the average audience size was about 22,000
BM: Were most of these dates on the West Coast?
AB: No, actually, they were east coast. We did a few west coast, but they go down a storm anywhere in the States. There’s no ‘better’ part of the States to play.
BM: This is astonishing isn’t it? What was the biggest audience you were in front of?
AB: Ah! That was Washington. I think it was a record breaker of 525,000.
BM: The mind can't conceive an audience of that size... (compares it to the Royal Wedding)... can people actually hear, did you get any impression of what the sound system was like?
AB: Well, I think Mike Love tested that, and he said 'How are you doin' to the people right at the back, and they all screamed… they could hear it fine.
BM: Were you already familiar with the Beach Boys repertoire?
AB: Oh yes, actually, you would not believe this but we didn't even have a rehearsal…
BM: Good grief... did you fill in one voice... how did it work?
AB: There were obvious parts to sing with Carl Wilson not being there. I just sort of learnt with each gig we did... they gave me different parts.
BM: Are you going to do some more with them?
AB: Yes, I'm going back in about two weeks time to do a tour of Canada.
BM: What about this business of making records - getting back to your own output now - depends to a large extent on what somebody else has done before. I'm not saying it's a copy because it's rather different from that, but you do take someone elses creation and then do your own thing with it, don't you…
AB: mm..mm..
BM: Don't you feel it in any way kind of frustrating in that it isn't something you devised yourself.
AB: Ah... I still do work on my own material, and I suppose, sadly, I haven't had any success with my own material. If there’s a demand for that kind of record - Beach Boy Gold - it makes sense, if I do it well, to do it.
BM: Oh sure, I didn't offer that in any sense as a criticism. I just wondered how you felt deep down... you know, you really like to do something that was all yours…
AB: I think I will, it's going to happen... I mean in a way with Liquid Gold. I write the songs, I produce them... that's a little bit my baby.
BM: Sure very much so.
AB: Well, very much so, yeah…
BM: Will you, meanwhile, do more Beach Boy type records on your own?
AB: ...Probably…
BM: Especially as you've now toured with them... do they mind? How do they feel about that?
AB: They don't mind, actually they don't mind at all. No, I probably will do that, I shall make.. I hate the word soundalike... make records with vocal-harmony content…
BM: Fair comment. All right, and off with them, probably to Australia in the near future.
AB: Yes, in January.
BM: And when is your next record engagement, or is it already in the can, in which case don't tell us about it.
AB: I have got something in the can, and I'm not going to tell you about it. (laughs..)
BM: I thought that might be the case, OK, thank you very much for joining us and giving us a glimpse of this rather interesting aspect of the record business. We're going to play another one of yours right now, and it's the current Don't Worry Baby.
Saturday, 4 June 2022
1999-04-08 - The Kansas City Star - "KC Vibrations"
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KC Vibrations
The Beach Boys were in Kansas City on Wednesday to do some recording. No, they weren't making a new album, just a jingle for a Sonic Corp. ad campaign. The session took place at Evolution Audio, 515 W. 39th St. The Beach boys are Bruce Johnston (left), Adrian Baker (third from left) and Mike Love (right.) Joining in were Sonic executives Cliff Hudson (second from left) and Ken Keymer.
1999-04-25 - The Sunday Oklahoman - If Every Corner Had A Sonic...
From left, Beach Boy Bruce Johnston, Sonic Chief Executive Officer Cliff Hudson, Beach Boy Adrian Baker, Sonic Chief Operating Officer Ken Keymer and Beach Boy Mike Love sing the new jingle Sonic Industries will use for its advertisting this summer.
If Every Corner Had A Sonic ...
Drive-in restaurants and the sound of the Beach Boys both mean summer, and this year Sonic Industries has combined the two.
For the last two years, Beach Boys classics have been the background in the Sonic TV commercials, but this year they've gone one better.
Starting Saturday, this summer's national radio and TV ads feature a new song by the Beach Boys, and they've added two new singers to the band.
Original members Mike Love, Bruce Johnston and Adrian Baker asked Sonic's Chief Executive Officer Cliff Hudson and Chief Operating Officer Ken Kemyer to sing along.
Hudson has sung and played guitar for years, and admitted that if he wasn't in his current job, he very well would have his own rock band.
Keymer, also a guitar player and singer, played Beach Boys songs as a teen-ager n a rock band.
Thursday, 2 June 2022
1975-11-22 - Burton Daily Mail - "Pop Star Opens John Menzies New Burton Store"
Pop Star Opens John Menzies New Burton Store
Adrian Baker busy signing records.
John Menzies opened their new store in Burton yesterday and the premises in St. Modwen's Walk were packed to capacity when pop star Adrian Baker made a personal appearance and for more than an hour signed autographed photos.
Store manager Mr. David Smith, said the opening had gone according to plan and that the extra effort made by staff during the past two weeks to get everything ready had been worthwhile.
About 25 members of staff have been recruited for the store from the Burton area—including Saturday sales girls.
The spacious new store offers a wide selection of books, toys, records and stationery and John Menzies are offering several pre-Christmas offers in all departments.
But the highlight of yesterday's opening was the appearance of Adrian Baker—successful with a recent hit with the record “Sherry” one of the new numbers featured on a newly released album “Into A Dream” which was played in the store throughout his visit.
Adrian spent most of his time at the store signing autographs and chatting with the many of hundreds of youngsters who waited patiently to see him.
One secret he did unfold—and that was he hoped to release a new record in January.
Mr. Smith said it was hoped that personal appearances by other personalities would be arranged between now and Christmas at the new store.
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