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Meet the music aficionado

16 Jul 2015

Going on tour with the Rolling Stones, hanging out with good mate lyricist Tim Rice and shooting the breeze with Bob Dylan is all in a day’s work for Australia’s well-loved music historian, Glenn A. Baker.

As famous for his extensive knowledge of pop and rock music as he is for his vast collection of jaunty hats, Glenn has been fully immersed in the world of music since he was a child and was officially crowned the BBC’s Rock Brain of the Universe three times in the 80s.

As a boy, Glenn experienced quite a tumultuous upbringing and went to 12 schools over the course of a decade, making it difficult for him to form solid friendships. It was then that he discovered music.

“I had a little pile of singles, a battery-operated record player and music magazines. They became my friends and the way that I connected with the world. Wherever I went, I had pop music,” Glenn explains. 

The go-to man

After he decided not to pursue tertiary education, Glenn entered the world of pop music and began selling records from his bedroom and promoted hippie concerts at Paddington Town Hall in Sydney. He eventually went on to manage famous Austraian band Ol’ 55 with Geoff Plumber, Wilbur Wilde and Frankie J Holden.

Later on, Glenn became a music journalist and edited Billboard magazine for 21 years, after which he became the go-to man for commentary on pop music. Over the years, he has appeared on television and radio countless times, written 17 books on music history and worked with some of Australia’s biggest artists, including ‘Barnesy’ and ‘Farnesy’. Last year, Glenn led a group of 30 diehard Beatles fans on a tour around Hamburg, London, Liverpool, where they met John Lennon’s sister.

A time of discovery

Glenn’s all-time favourite music genre is the classic rock and roll of the 60s, which he listened to as he was growing up, but as he explains, “I think we’re all captives of our adolescence” when it comes to music. 

“Although we can like the music of another generation, there’s no question that [we connect] to the music we listened to before we became swept up with mortgages, and families and responsibilities. At that time, we think everything in pop music is aimed at us and about us. It’s like it’s speaking to us and it’s telling us all these things we want to know. It’s all really, really exciting at that time.”

The music of today

As for the current music at the top of the charts, Glenn may not listen to it as much as his old favourites, but he still appreciates today’s popular artists.

“I decided very early on that I wasn’t going to be one of those grumpy, curmudgeonly old buggers that say, ‘the stuff you listen to these days is rubbish’, which is nonsense. There is no question that to young people now, what they’re hearing means as much to them as what I was listening to when I was young,” he reflects. 

“One of my sons is a huge fan of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and Silverchair and I recognise the same enthusiasm in him that I had for The Who in the 60s.”

Glenn regularly keeps in touch with many of Australia’s most well-loved performers during the 60s including Russell Morris, Normie Rowe (“he still sings like a demon”), Glenn Shorrick and Leo Sayer, and according to him, they’re performing even better than before. 

“They’re all singing better than they did when they were in their 20s. Their voices have matured and beautifully modulated and they’re powerful. When they sing, you get a feeling that they’re going to be doing this forever – you just can’t imagine them not doing it.”  ••