Thursday, November 20, 2014

Monty Baker (1944-2014)



It is with great sadness that I report that Monty Baker, the bassist for the Minnesota-based band The Radiants, and the Pueblo-based bands The Trolls and Jade, along with the Colorado Springs-based New World Blues Dictionary, passed away on Nov. 19, 2014, after a long illness.

I had regularly kept in touch with Monty over the past few years, documenting his time in these bands for a 2011 story. He was immensely supportive of this blog, and the effort to call attention to the history and wealth of music which came out of Southern Colorado.

I was honored to visit with him at his home in Northern Iowa, just three weeks before his passing.

We talked about his band memories, and shared a few laughs and tears. Before I left, he gave me a present - a large bag of memorabilia from his band days, items his family is entrusting with me to preserve and use to further memorialize him, and his music. I will be posting some of these pictures, reel-to-reel audio clips from concerts and studio recordings, and Super 8 movies, along with the stories he shared on our last visit, here.

Monty, thank you for the music.

The author and Monty Baker - Oct. 26, 2014 

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