Audio Autopsy, 1989, A&M Records: The Soul Perfection of Arthur Baker & The Backbeat Disciples, "Merge"

The re-mix master gathered Al Green, ABC's Martin Fry, Communard Jimmy Somerville, rock singer, John Warren, & various studio pros together for a stunning R&B album in 1989. Why did no one care?

Apr 14, 2022

The most audacious and unexpected soul/R&B/disco album ever recorded was released in 1989 on A&M Records, and maybe….maybe was heard by 47 ears (and a dozen of them sat behind desks at the label).

It was, quite appropriately, titled Merge, and indeed, Arthur Baker and the Backbeat Disciples gathered together not only a slap-happy assortment of beats and rhythms, but also seduced the likes of ABC (with their lead singer, Martin Fry), soul giant Al Green, Jimmy Somerville (of Bronski Beat and the Communards), OMD’s Andy McCluskey, and a criminally under-heard rock singer, John Warren!

Or, as Electricityclub.co.uk put it in 2019:

“Baker gathered a diverse all-star cast…to sing on the Merge album, a pop hybrid record tracing his love of soul, synthpop, disco, HI-NRG, and Europop.”

How I got the CD in my hands in 1989, I couldn’t tell you, although it’s likely it was in a record store cut-out bin. I was already about seven years removed from the record biz (and an abrupt industry format change from vinyl), so an A&M promo was out of the question.

Regardless, I’ll let you experience the record as I did at the time, by dropping the laser beam on the clear polycarbonate plastic substrate disc and hearing the first track, “Talk it Over” (featuring John Warren on vocals, about whom we’ll hear more later):

If a rope line and disco ball didn’t just appear in your room at first sax blow, you weren’t playing it loud enough!

“I just had ideas about what I wanted to do with the music.”—Arthur Baker

Arthur Henry Baker is a tough man to pin down (I’ll let those who’ve actually wrestled him be the final judges), but a musician, he’s not. He’s also not a club DJ, although he’s done it. He has been a producer, and he produced Merge.

“Well, I was never really a DJ,” Baker tried to convince DJHistory.com recently. “Actually, I was probably one of the worst disc jockeys ever. No, I was. Because if I didn't get a good reaction on a record, I'd just rip it off, break it up and throw it on the dance floor! And that was before I took drugs!”

From Beantown to Philly to N-Y-C

The 67-year-old was born in Boston in 1955. He started disc-spinning in Beantown clubs in the early ‘70s, specializing in Philly soul, likely much of it coming out of the Kenny Gamble/Leon Huff/Thom Bell-founded Philadelphia International Records, a CBS affiliate since 1971.

In 1981, Baker moved to New York City, and found work at Tommy Boy Records, producing Afrika Bambaataa, and Soul Sonic Force’s “Planet Rock” single, a summer ‘82 hit. For the latter, he interpolated (re-recorded…common in pre-rampant-sampling days) two Kraftwerk songs.

Doing dance re-mixes of rock and pop hits followed (producing Cyndi Lauper and the Pet Shop Boys, as well), as did creating his own Streetwise Records label (signing New Edition), and recording and co-writing a New Order song in 1983, “Confusion.” Look for producer Baker in the song’s video. Can’t miss him:

The next year, Baker worked with Hall & Oates as mix consultant on their RCA album Big Bam Boom, and the result seemed to portend the sound he sought for Merge five years later: More urban and electronic. Baker co-wrote the opening instrumental with Daryl Hall, called “Dance On Your Knees.”

He also remixed that song and the 12” disco version of “Out Of Touch,” the album’s first of three hit singles. Baker’s influence can be heard on the little-heard (on radio, anyway) segue from “Dance” into “Out of Touch,” what one could call a seamless…uh, “merge”:

In 1985, Baker helped Bob Dylan complete his Empire Burlesque album as mixer and arranger, and with Little Steven Van Zandt, Baker organized and produced “Sun City” by Artists United Against Apartheid.

In the late ‘80s and into the 1990s, Baker worked with Al Green, writing and producing the international hit, “The Message is Love.” This song, with Green fronting, is on Merge, and appears as the sixth track.

Here is the official and inspirational music video with the studio audio track (click here…still incredibly relevant and relatable 33 years later), but I prefer this live performance on what appears to be a 1989/90 Late Night with David Letterman appearance (with David Sanborn guesting on sax).

Look carefully in the background: Recognize a certain ubiquitous Arthur Baker-looking gent going all Tracy Partridge on the tambourine?

While he doesn’t have buses lined up outside to transport us, let’s follow the Reverend Green as he takes us to “chuch.” The congregation may rise:

Popular, hit-making ‘80s synth-pop group, ABC, actually has a song on Merge, as well, and any ABC fan who considers themselves a Fry/ABC completist, likely has no idea that their “Mythical Girl” (yes, with Martin Fry singing) only ever appeared on this Arthur Baker album!

It’s not on ABC’s 1987 Alphabet City, or their ‘89 Up, or their 1990 Absolutely LP, or even the next year’s Abracadabra album (or any of those albums’ subsequent re-issued CDs with bonus tracks)! All-singing, all-dancing, here it is in all its singular, unheard glory:

By now, you’re hearing Baker’s huge sound on each track. Full, but never cluttered; massive, even, but never muddled. Big drums, background singers galore, and subtle touches like bells, melodic guitar figures, and a lot of the percussive building blocks that helped complete Phil Spector’s storied, sonic Sound Wall 2 1/2 decades prior.

Warren Piece

We finally get to meet John Warren, in a song that comes closest to being the album’s only ballad, but its sonic impact is no less monumental.

We’ll let there be something of a build-up to it, as some who have heard the album rate this song as a, if not the, highlight, on an album packed with several.

Warren was huge in Japan in the late 1980s, after coming from an early-’80s L.A.-based session beginning to his recording career. Apparently an EP, called Take Me Back became all the rage in Japan in 1988, a year before Baker came calling.

Warren’s small Japanese label then released a full-fledged album-length CD, Private Motion, but only to the Asian market. No European, Australian, or American label picked it up, despite the entire album being recorded (with A-list session players, mind you) at Hollywood’s Capitol Records studios.

One wonders how the widely-separated paths of Baker and Warren somehow managed to meet. But, with Baker’s “I just had an idea about what to do with the music” still ringing in our ears, we can guess that his ears found a way to find Warren, whatever the path. Apparently, Warren managed a follow-up to Private Motion, but again with Asia as the record’s only market.

Here’s some John Warren (born John Warpinski), rarely played anywhere in the states, on “The Love Beat” (from that 1988 Take Me Back EP) sounding very rockin’ ‘80s (but showing his impressive vocal range). For Warren’s follow-up Private Motion album, accessible in its entirety, click on this blue link.

Western Hemisphere? John Warren; John Warren? Western Hemisphere. Time You Two Met:

Here’s John again (in a Baker/Warren co-write), with all of Arthur Baker’s knob-twisting muscle, with a lyric any loved one would give anything to hear on a special day, or even going out the door: Our hero in song may feel it’s necessary to move on, but “when I leave this world behind, you’ll be the last thing on my mind; baby, in my dreams and in my heart, time and space won’t keep us apart. In my heart and in my dreams, I’ll always know what your love means.”

Warren’s ability to emote is undeniable and wrenching, and especially, after the halfway-point sizzling guitar solo (which is doing its own wailing), his impressive range is effectively used to pull whatever anguished tears may have formed to that point:

The last dance belongs to the UK’s Shirley Lewis, younger sister to ‘70s hitmaker (for Warner/Reprise and Arista Records), Linda Lewis (who also contributed backing vocals on David Bowie’s Aladdin Sane LP).

With a dab of rap, a dash of hip-hop, and a hunk o’ funk, Shirley delivers “It’s Your Time,” with Baker as clearly visible as he is audible on the ivories for this one. Coincidentally enough, this song might’ve fit quite neatly on Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation album released, as was Merge, on A&M in 1989:

“If I hadn’t been a DJ, I wouldn’t have known what to listen for.”—Arthur Baker

Front Row & Backstage

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