Draft:Cary Baker

Cary Baker (or Cary S. Baker), born November 14, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois, is an American music publicist, author, journalist, and reissue record producer. He is the author of the book Down on the Corner: Adventures in Busking and Street Music (Jawbone Press, Nov. 2024) and the in-progress authorized biography Elvin Bishop: Strut My Stuff.

Early life
Baker was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in the suburb of Wilmette, Illinois, where his father was a doctor of psychiatry and his mother a violinist and writer.

By age 15 he had been appointed music director and public relations director of a radio station where he was hosting a blues show. While attending New Trier Township High School West (graduating in 1973) and later in the 1970s and into the 1980s he wrote for zines focusing on blues, rock and punk rock.

As a journalist
In 1973, Baker began his music journalism career by placing a feature about Maxwell Street blind street singer Blind Arvella Gray (“Blues Over a Tin Cup”) for the Chicago Reader on March 7, 1972. While taking journalism classes at Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois, he wrote for other outlets including Billboard, Creem, Mix, Record, Illinois Entertainer, Bomp!, Living Blues, Hit Parader, and Trouser Press. After graduating from Northern Illinois University in 1978 he got a part-time job at Billboard, then a full-time one as publicity director for the country record label Ovation Records.

From the 1970s to the present day he has written frequently for publications including No Depression, American Blues Scene, Goldmine, Trouser Press, and Best Classic Bands.

As a music executive, reissue producer, and publicist
In 1984, Baker left Chicago to work at the International Record Syndicate (I.R.S. Records) from 1984-88. As National Director of Publicity and then Vice President/Publicity, he helped artists such The Go-Go's and R.E.M. find audiences in their early days, and also worked with The Alarm, Timbuk3, Fine Young Cannibals, The dB's, General Public and others.

In 1988 Baker became National Director of Media & Artist Relations at Capitol Records. Leaving Capitol in 1991, he worked in national publicity director roles at PLA Media, Enigma Records, Morgan Creek Entertainment, and Discovery Records, then a division of Warner Music Group.

He helped compile and annotate reissue collections from a number of record manufacturers, including Omnivore Records, where he represented hundreds of releases and co-produced the Blues Music Award-winning box set Bobby Rush: Chicken Heads: 50 Years of Bobby Rush and wrote liner notes for reissues from The Numero Group, as well as for albums from Muddy Waters and Little Milton for Chess Records, Luther Allison, Little Milton, The NoBS, Jay Migliori and others.

In 1998 he co-founded the Baker/Northrop Media Group, whose clients included Cheap Trick, Robert Cray, Delbert McClinton, Yes, HBO’s Reverb series, and Susan Tedeschi.

In 2004, Baker founded L.A.-based Conqueroo, a music publicity business that became a leader in roots music, Americana and blues. Baker's clients in those years included Mitch Ryder, Bobby Rush, Pam Tillis, Los Lonely Boys, Willie Nile, James McMurtry, Marshall Crenshaw, Chris Hillman, Rodney Crowell, Nils Lofgren, and many other artists and labels including BMG and Omnivore. In 2006, Baker was named Blues Publicist of the Year at the Blues Foundation’s Keeping the Blues Alive Awards.

Baker retired from Conqueroo in March 2022. His collected roots music-related archival papers from the 1970s through 1990s are at the Wilson Library at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His other papers are being archived at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.