One of the best and most versatile American guitarists of the 1950s and 1960s, Mickey Baker played on hundreds of sessions and added instrumental spice to records by Ray Charles, The Coasters, and Ike & Tina Turner, among many others. He is widely respected among R&B devotees for his bluesy chords and attention-grabbing solos. Baker originally aspired to be a jazz musician, but turned to calypso, mambo, and then R&B, where work opportunities were more plentiful.
This release presents two of Baker’s finest LPs under his own name, which were cut in 1962 during his solo heyday in France: the sensational but underrated But Wild, and the equally splendid Bossa Nova. Long unavailable, both albums have been remastered and packaged together in this special collector’s edition, which also includes 6 bonus tracks from the same period.
Recorded in Paris, France, 1962.
