Goodbye to Roy Thomas Baker, producer of Queen and other rock giants

Roy Thomas Baker, a legendary British producer, passed away at the age of 78 on April 12, in his residence in Lake Havasu City, in Arizona. The sad news was made public only now by his family, while the causes of death remain unknown.

Born in London in 1946, Baker's career began in 1963 as a sound technician for Decca Records, where he has the opportunity to collaborate with some of the greatest names of rock, such as Rolling Stones, The Who, T. Rex and David Bowie, alongside Production Masters such as Gus Dudgeon and Tony Visconti.

The real change in his career takes place with the meeting with Queen, an emerging band. It is with them that he signs the first four studio albums: “Queen” (1973), “Queen II” and “Sheer Heart Attack” (both from 1974), and the masterpiece “A Night at the Opera” (1975). He will also return to work with the band for the subsequent “Jazz” (1978), a record that contains the unforgettable “Don't stop me now”. Baker told with an amused smile of how “Bohemian Rhapsody”, one of the most iconic songs in the history of rock, had been born as a sort of game. The opera section, initially conceived to last a few seconds, turned into one of the most elaborate parts of the song, with weeks of work dedicated to the recording of its complexity, so much so that every new “Galileo” sung by Freddie Mercury pushed the band to record even more. That part, said Baker, took three weeks of work, or the time needed to complete an entire album.

His visionary approach marked the transition of Queen from a powerful sound aimed at more stratified and complex music, in clear contrast to the musical fashions of the period. “We used four studies at the same time,” Baker said, underlining the experimental and ambitious nature of his productions.

After his experience with Queen, Baker continues his career with another fundamental chapter, the one with the Cars, for which he produces four albums, from “The Cars” (1978) to “Shake It Up” (1981), passing through “Candy-O” and “Panorama”. In this period, he also collaborated with artists such as Journey, Ian Hunter, Ronnie Wood and Lindsey Buckingham, and in the New Wave landscape it stands out for the work with the Devi.

In the 1980s, as Vice -President A&R by Elektra Records, he played a crucial role in the management of the exits of artists of the caliber of Ozzy Osbourne, Cheap Trick, Mötley Crüe, and contributes to the signature of bands destined to become legends, such as Metallica, Simply Red and 10,000 Maniacs.

His return to the studio in the 2000s marked a new phase of his career, with productions for Darkness (“One Way Ticket to Hell … and Back”), the Smashing Pumpkins (“Zeitgeist”) and the Yes (“Heaven & Earth”). Although he never called himself a manufacturer with an easily recognizable sound, he loved to say that, often, he was told that his records had that “beautiful, big and powerful sound”, a distinctive trait that, in fact, characterized his long career.

Baker will remain forever in the memory of rock fans as a fundamental figure, capable of transforming the sound of contemporary music and of being the engine of some of the most innovative and influential productions in the history of the genre.