At 63, Baird succeeds on his own terms
Hit songs can be curses as well as blessings. Such was the case with Dan Baird. Twice.
Baird yodeled his way to No. 2 on the pop charts in 1986 with the Georgia Satellites on the gonzo courtship song “Keep Your Hands to Yourself.” Six years later on his own, he hit again with an unrequited love song full of an editor’s red ink, “I Love You Period.” Between those two songs, Baird came to be regarded as a purveyor of novelty songs.
But a closer look at Baird’s weird career finds him often zagging against trends. When the Satellites had a hit with “Hands” — a guitarcentric capitalized Rock song — chart-topping fare of the era was offered by Bon Jovi, the Human League and Peter Cetera. When “Period” hit, humor was out, grunge was in, and the top of the Top 40 hosted Whitney Houston and Peabo Bryson.
Trends come and go faster than the seasons, but 30 years into his career Baird has largely stayed close to the stripe of rural rock he helped pioneer in the ’80s. The style has since been bottled and sold as Americana. But because of a pair of playful hits, Baird doesn’t always get his due as an early adopter of the sound. Today the Satellites’ three recordings sound far less ’80s than Guns ‘n Roses’ debut album.
“Basically I’ve been like ‘Wee’ Willie Keeler,”
Baird says, referring to the diminutive baseball player who tallied a lot of hits between 1892 and 1910. “I hit ’em where they ain’t. When the Satellites came out, there wasn’t a lot like us going on. The Fabulous Thunderbirds and Jason and the Scorchers had opened the door and made people think the three-chord rock song might make a difference again. And we owed a debut of gratitude to both of those bands. But it just didn’t really happen except for a little window.
“There was also the Replacements, and we went on tour with Petty. Back then you’d recognize each other — the Del Fuegos, the Del-Lords. People trying to get rock to the masses. But for just a moment, it was like, (expletive), I figured it out: yodel once really loud. That seemed to do the trick.”
To dig further than the Satellites’ biggest hit was to find a rare American rock band from that era dialed into something other than glam, which seeped into new wave as well as hair metal. The Satellites made two more records in the ’80s after their self-titled debut was a success, but those records didn’t get much attention. Pity, too, as songs like “Another Chance” showed a band with greater depth of offerings than public perception allowed.
The secret to obscurity was drawing from the Small Faces and Faces, bands so short lived that they avoided the stylistic excesses of survivors like the Rolling Stones, who titled an album “Sucking in the ’70s,” when in actuality their sucking peaked in the ’80s.
Baird embraces the Faces comparisons.
“Turn the chord inversion on ‘Another Chance’ around and raise it up a step,” Baird says, “and you have ‘Ooh La La.’ I’ll admit it. That just resulted from screwing around one day, and the lyric came to me.” By the early ’90s the Satellites were done. Baird released “Love Songs for the Hearing Impaired,” which yielded “I Love You Period,” another hit from left field. Then he entered the wilderness.
His “Buffalo Nickel” album, released in 1996, was a masterpiece of Southern garage rock, a style that would come back into vogue, but not at the time. The record stiffed and Baird’s time recording for major labels came to an end.
Only he never really went away. Baird has recorded varied ensembles: He fronted a band called the Yayhoos and now leads the band Homemade Sin. He sang in a group put together by the late Stones’ saxophonist Bobby Keys. He’s been everywhere, but only to those who knew where to find him.
Baird and Homemade Sin come to Fitzgerald’s Friday. He has a pair of records to plug. With Homemade Sin he has “Rollercoaster.” And there’s also “So Low,” a solo (pun!) record with some stompers and also “Look Away,” a haunting song about having a testy relationship with a home region that lets him down. “So Low” is a survivor’s album, with several songs touching on weariness and resilience, qualities that embody Baird’s highs and lows in music.
The songs sort of pick up where he left off with “Younger Face,” from that ignored 1996 album. That song addressed an industry constantly looking to cycle out the old.
“I’m one of those people who doesn’t hide his age,” Baird says. “I’m proud of the fact I can do this (expletive) at 63.
“One thing I learned in my 20s, being in bands trying to chase what was popular, is that you just end up being a half-assed version of what you really want to be. I thought, ‘(Expletive), if I just stay still and do what I do, and it’s any good, somebody will notice. Maybe there was a certain giving-up in that, but I found myself 27 and playing the music I love.
“I remember I went to see a four-night stand by NRBQ. I went in on Thursday one guy and came out Sunday evening another guy entirely. I knew this is what I should be doing. (Expletive) chasing stuff and failing. If you succeed on somebody else’s terms you have to stay that guy the rest of your life, and that’s no fun. If you fail on somebody else’s terms, you’re over. So just go out there swinging as yourself.”
“One of the things I learned in my 20s, being in bands trying to chase what was popular, is that you just end up being a half-assed version of what you really want to be.” Dan Baird