Baker Symes

History:


Baker Symes is a singer-songwriter from St. Louis, Missouri. Symes' primary focus in the youth of his musical career was to become a successful singer-songwriter. To fulfill this goal, he wrote a collection of tracks and recorded them at Multisound Studios. It's unclear where the studio was located. The 15 original songs were released as a self-titled album in 1974 when Symes was just 17 years old. 


The album features two different backing groups. On Side-A, Bill Cluff plays bass guitar and Chuck Jackson is on the conga drums. Symes sings and  plays acoustic guitars and pianos. On the flip side, Symes plays all of the instruments himself, including acoustic guitars, lead guitar, bass guitar, drums, percussion, and piano. The album is a singer-songwriter affair, with the A-Side hovering more so in the folk section and the B-Side comfortably sitting in the pop rock realm. 


Symes released a single a few years later titled "I Got This Feeling (I Love You)" with "Smile Again". Both songs were penned by him. Symes still apparently performs to this day as a tribute act for James Taylor and The Beatles while writing his own material. 




Review:



Baker Symes (Not On Label, 1974)

Rating: 6.5/10 



A lot of people dislike this album as it used to be hyped as a psych release which is not the case. This is pure folk rock on one side and piano driven pop rock on the other. 


I actually prefer the piano ballad side to the folk side, but what really stands out is the advanced level of song construction. The musical compositions are very similar to Paul McCartney's and James Taylor's work at the time and that says something. Symes was only 17 during the production of this album and was producing solid pop and folk music with excellent lyricism already. 


Side A is fine, and songs like "Out Of The Dark", "I Can See You" and "People Maker" are great. But I personally enjoy the emotion and rawness of Side B. "Molly", "We Must Go On", and "Raucous Randy" are all really good tracks with good vocals, piano, and lead guitar. All reminded me musically of Macca. Very solid album.