Among Glenn A. Baker’s greatest hits was knocking over Stevie Nicks

Glenn A. Baker is a rock historian, collector, author and impresario. Now 72, he’s offloading his lifetime collection of 80,000 vinyl records, CDs and pieces of rock memorabilia accumulated over more than six decades.

Fitz: How old were you when rock ‘n’ roll transfixed you?

Glann A. Baker with some of his estimated 50,000-strong record collection.Credit: Louise Kennerley

GAB: I was 12, sitting at home in my red jammies, watching the evening news. It led with the arrival of the Beatles at Mascot Airport on their 1964 tour, and my life was never the same again. Just seeing them, hearing a burst of their music, changed my view of everything, and even though I couldn’t afford to buy the records, I could walk into a record shop and actually touch the brown Parlophone sleeves, which also carried releases by The Easybeats and The Hollies. It filled me with such joy, captivated me, and as soon as I had saved up enough money, I started collecting LP records. I’ve kept collecting since – enough to fill three semi-trailers, and most of a warehouse.

Fitz: You were an odd kid?

GAB: I went to 12 schools in 10 years, had three different names, and I think three or four fathers.

Fitz: Without pretending to be your psychoanalyst, is there any connection between the background of having multiple names, schools and fathers and obsessing about records? Did they become your anchor?

Baker with Jimmy Barnes in 2008.Credit: Anthony Johnson

GAB: Absolutely correct. I actually could never make friends, never have any social structure because I moved on so quickly. And so the records sort of became my friends. I had a small battery-powered record player, which I carted around with me when I went from school to school. Plus, I had this sort of encyclopaedic recall of data, and I just remembered everything that was on the label; who produced it, where and when it was done. All that stuff.

Fitz: So what was your professional breakthrough, from loving and collecting records as a kid to being paid money to write and talk about them?

GAB: I have to credit a man who’s no longer with us, Graham Webb, a legendary DJ who had a show at Channel Seven called Sounds Unlimited. I was often on the set, and every time one of the guests didn’t show and he needed somebody who could talk under wet cement, he’d throw me on. From there, I went on to spend 40 years on television, doing things like Countdown, The Midday Show, Good Morning Australia, Today and Sunrise because I could express the excitement many felt when the cameras turned my way.

Fitz: Where did your signature hat, like a fez without a tail, come from, and why couldn’t you wear a red bandana like normal people?

Baker with Sydney artist Nafisa who painted his portrait for the 2010 Archibald Prize. The picture won the Packing Room Prize.Credit: Louise Kennerley

GAB: [Laughing.] I first wore it for fun for the cover of one of my travel books, sitting upon the engine of a 747 – they had to get a ladder to get me up there – and then when I went out to do interviews about it, people would say, “Oh, where’s the hat? You look great in the hat!” As I was follicly challenged, I just started wearing it, and I was given a really hard time with people saying it was a terrible affectation. I think you might understand what I’m talking about here?

Fitz: No! I have no idea, and your hat is the most unheard of thing I ever heard of! But, speaking of affectations, where did the “A” of Glenn A. Baker come in?

GAB: When I was young and beginning my writing career, I was in awe of Harry M. Miller because he toured the Rolling Stones on a couple of occasions, and did things like Hair, Jesus Christ Superstar and the Rocky Horror Show. And I thought while nobody would remember “Harry Miller”, they did remember Harry M. Miller, so THAT’S why I became Glenn A. Baker. The “A” actually does stand for something, but very few know. Once, when a radio station offered a cash prize for anyone who could ring in and tell them what the A stood for, my mother rang in.

Fitz: You also famously managed the highly successful rock band Ol’ 55 ...

GAB. Yes, I met a clerical assistant when I was working at the Department of the Media with a swath of greasy hair, who said, “I have a band, and we actually play vintage rock ‘n’ roll.” It was a time when Happy Days was on the small screen, and American Graffiti on the big screen. I’d been managing a folk singer promoting concerts at Paddington Town Hall, and even put on a rock festival out at Blacktown. So I went to see Geoff Plummer and his band play and could see their potential. I got them songs, organised a recording contract, got artwork for the cover done by the Herald’s Alan Moir, and four months later we had a triple platinum hit album. We hit the road and, suddenly, we had girls screaming and howling at this fantastic lunatic with the new name I gave him, Frankie J. Holden.

Fitz: They must have been wild times? Was it like the W.C. Fields line of “98 per cent of my money I spent on wine, women and song, and the rest of it I wasted”, but applied to sex, drugs and rock’n’roll?

GAB: Absolutely. I mean, we actually toured with bands like Sherbet, Skyhooks, the Ted Mulry Gang, and the young AC/DC. Remarkably, now, I find that everybody involved with 70s rock ‘n’ roll goes quiet when the subject turns to excess – because they’ve all got wives and families, and they don’t want to be reminded too much – though I concede it was wild. But not for me, I don’t even drink!

The late INXS singer Michael Hutchence with his then-girlfriend, supermodel Helena Christensen, in 1990.

Fitz: And those times came complete with a shocking roll-call of lead singers of huge Australian bands who died far too young, one way or another, including Bon Scott from AC/DC, Shirley Strachan from Skyhooks, Marc Hunter from Dragon, Michael Hutchence from INXS, Ted Mulry, Doc Neeson and more.

GAB: Yes, the pressures, the alcohol, the drugs, and the need to travel vast distances between cities across our giant country and stay awake, and deliver, took a terrible toll. And why it took a toll on lead singers more than bass players or drummers or guitarists, I’m not entirely sure, but you’re right. The roster is a complete tragedy, and all of them were friends of mine.

Fitz: What sort of a bloke was Bon Scott just to talk to, to have lunch with, or – more particularly, let’s say – breakfast, away from the alcohol and the rest?

GAB: He was very witty and engaging, a loveable rascal. As to the others you mention, Michael Hutchence was remarkably gentle and well-read. I remember being at an awards ceremony one night, and I’d written something about him in Billboard magazine. He actually crossed the room, dragging his then-girlfriend with him, Helena Christensen. And he said, “this bloke writes about us beautifully”. Shirley Strachan was cocky and cheeky. He scared parents, like all good rockers are supposed to, but could be quite charming when away from the stage. On behalf of the rock industry, I gave the eulogy at Marc Hunter’s funeral at the invitation of his mother. Like Bon, Marc was outrageous and unstable but an absolute darling to know.

Fitz: Meantime, many of us grew up watching Countdown, far and away the coolest show on TV. What was it like backstage?

Baker with Countdown host Molly Meldrum.Credit: Virginia Star

GAB: Often, there were charismatic caricatures, cartoon cut-outs on Mandrax. Some of them were jolly little boy scouts, cherubs with freckles, fringes and funny grins who could only have been sex symbols to Catholic schoolgirls and short-sighted grandmothers. While Molly Meldrum often gets dismissed and not taken seriously, he actually ran … well, I won’t say a tight ship, but let’s say he ran the ship, and was really good. And it was always one of the great highlights being backstage or being on the set – often coalescing into blanket craziness. You had John Paul Young, Hush, the rock royalty of Sherbet, and the bad boys, Skyhooks, who used to go out and perform with a giant inflatable penis, which actually ejaculated Twisties ... But, getting back to my record collection ...

Fitz: Good idea! You’ve built it up to 50,000 vinyl records, and 30,000 CDs. Did you pay for any of them?

GAB: Yes, I did! Well, many of them, anyway.

Fitz: Vinyl record nutters maintain that they retain a better sound and more soul than CDs or any other platform. Are you one of them?

GAB: Yes, sort of. It could be said that the mono release of a great many classic albums on vinyl is possibly the best sound you’ll ever get. But it’s not just the sound, it’s the 12 x 12 inch square album cover itself, folded out with large photos, lyrics and liner notes – it’s the whole thing.

Fitz: What on earth is making you sell all 80,000 of them?

Glenn A. Baker’s signed LP cover of Bob Dylan’s Blood On the Tracks.

GAB: There is the inescapable fact of mortality, and I’ve not been in great health lately. I hobble and stumble a bit. I’m 72 years of age, and I have been thinking it would be really nice to have someone who could take over the entire collection. I could pass the baton, or the cudgel, to them.

Fitz: And yet, I refuse to believe that, 60 years on, the 12 year-old-boy in the red pyjamas who saw the Beatles – who’s about to put his whole collection on the block – isn’t going to keep five or 10 or 20 records back for himself?

GAB: I’ve kept back the ones that have been signed to me personally, many with a story attached. Once, when Bob Dylan asked to meet me ...

Fitz: [Interrupting.] Bob Dylan asked to meet you? You’ve got my complete attention.

GAB: Yes, I’d been at a Dylan press-conference at Brett Whiteley’s gallery, and I was the one who asked most of the – dare I say – intelligent questions. And then I wrote a piece for The Bulletin about it, defending him in the Christian phase of his work. And so I got a call from the promoter Paul Dainty saying Dylan wanted to meet me at the Entertainment Centre before his concert. I raced backstage and, taking a wrong turn in that labyrinthine of passageways, collided hard with somebody. When I bent over to pick that person up, Stevie Nicks snarled at me, “Watch where you’re going!” Anyway, I got to Dylan, we chatted amiably, and I handed him a copy of Blood on the Tracks, and said, “Look, Bob, would you actually sign this for me?” He said, yeah, and as he was spending some time on it, I leaned over his shoulder to have a look, and he was actually writing my name with a whole bunch of strokes coming out of it so that it looked like a blazing sun, and I’m looking at it thinking, “Bloody hell. Here am I, and Bob Dylan is actually turning my favourite album into a piece of artwork.”

Fitz: Shoot me now! Meantime, the BBC program, Desert Island Discs, runs on the premise of what are the songs that you’d take with you to a desert island. In your case, what are the albums you’d take with you to an island in Bass Strait with your little battery-powered record player?

GAB: It would be the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds, Van Morrison’s Astral Weeks, or the Elvis Presley Sun Sessions. But in terms of just songs, it would be Be My Baby by the Ronettes – which echoes the choice of both Bruce Springsteen and Brian Wilson, who named that as their favourite song of all time – and Like a Rolling Stone by Dylan.

Fitz: And come the time of your funeral in 28 years? What songs do you want played?

GAB: I’ll go with Nick Cave’s version of The Carnival Is Over; followed by I’ve Had The Time of my Life by Bill Medley and Jennifer Warnes, and finally, Adios by Linda Ronstadt.

Fitz: Speaking of which ... Thank you, Glenn A.

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