Legendary producer Roy Thomas Baker, most famous for his work with Queen, has died at the age of 78. The news was confirmed in a statement from his publicist, who revealed that Baker died at his home in Lake Havasu City, AZ on April 12. A cause of death has not been announced.
Baker was born in Hampstead in North London in 1946 and began his career at Decca Records in the late 1960s, where he worked alongside senior producers Tony Visconti and Gus Dudgeon on recordings by Ten Years After, Dr. John, Ginger Baker’s Air Force, Savoy Brown, Moody Blues, Nazareth, Yes, David Bowie, Be Bop Deluxe, The Rolling Stones, The Who, Dusty Springfield, Free, T. Rex and many more.
After making a name for himself Baker became in-house engineer at the Central London studio Trident, where he began a long and fruitful relationship with Queen. After working on the band's debut album, he also produced Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack, A Night At The Opera (which included the classic Bohemian Rhapsody), A Day At The Races and Jazz.
"It [Bohemian Rhapsody] was the first time that an opera section had been incorporated into a pop record, let alone a Number One," Baker told Sound On Sound in 1995. "It was obviously very unusual and we originally planned to have just a couple of 'Galileos'. But things often have a habit of evolving differently once you're inside the studio, and it did get longer and bigger.
"The opera bit was getting longer, and so we kept splicing huge lengths of tape on to the reel. Every time Freddie came up with another 'Galileo', I would add another piece of tape to the reel, which was beginning to look like a zebra crossing whizzing by!
"This went on over a three or four day period, while we decided on the length of the section. That section alone took about three weeks to record, which in 1975 was the average time spent on a whole album."
In the wake of Queen's success Baker moved to New York to work for Columbia Records, where he produced Journey, Ian Hunter and Ronnie Wood, before being offered a senior A&R role at Elektra Records, where he looked after albums by Lindsey Buckingham, Dokken, Mötley Crüe, Joe Lynn Turner and The Cars.
Elsewhere, Baker produced recordings by Foreigner, Alice Cooper, Cheap Trick, Devo, Ozzy Osbourne, Sammy Hager, T'Pau, Devo, The Stranglers, Guns N’ Roses, The Darkness and Smashing Pumpkins. Baker also produced Yes's 2014 album Heaven & Earth, 35 years after the infamous aborted Paris sessions that preceded the band's Tormato album.
"My whole thing is, the more different you can sound from anything else around but still be commercially successful is great!," he told MixOnline in 1999. "Over the years, I’ve always hearkened back to that philosophy. Back when I did Bohemian Rhapsody, who would’ve ever thought of having a single with an opera section in the middle?
"If you don’t have that identifiable sound, you are getting merged in. If the DJ isn’t mentioning who it is, then nobody will know who it is. It will just be another band, and nothing is worse than being anonymous. That is exactly what you don’t want."
