Joe Baker and his Barefoot Brakemen

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"If Doc Holliday sauntered into a bar, hacking up blood, you can bet your weight in sarsaparilla he'd want to hear a sound like that of Portland's, Joe Baker and his Barefoot Brakemen. With their surly steam-engine country twang and ample tinkling on the ivories, the band's sound is the kind of authenticated Americana you'd expect to hear in a boomtown saloon, making one jones for some corseted working girls and a massive, chair-smashing bar brawl as the band plays on." -Willamette Week

Joe Baker and his Barefoot Brakemen are actively playing shows featuring:

Joe Baker   vocals, guitar, steel guitar
Christen Hubbard mandolin, tenor banjo, fiddle, guitar, vocals
Sean Oldham   drum set, vocals
Simon Feeney   upright bass

Joe Baker and his Barefoot Brakemen’s

“Shook, Broke, Hung”

2008 Alonzo Records, Portland, OR

Joe Baker and his Barefoot Brakemen have been playing all over their hometown of Portland, OR for several years now. Their music has been called “dixie-tonk” and can be described as being equal parts country, jazz, and blues, with influences being mostly from the 78 rpm era. On “Shook, Broke, Hung”, their 2008 debut release, the band disregards current popular music with a sound rooted deeply in the past.

Recorded onto tape and mixed in mono by Mike Coykendall (M Ward, She & Him, Tin Hat Trio), the bulk of "Shook, Broke, Hung" was done as a live 5-piece band in one room with no amplifiers, all in one day. Instrumentation consisted of steel-string acoustic guitar (Joe Baker), mandolin and tenor banjo (Christen Hubbard), drums (Richmond Fontaine’s, Sean Oldham), upright bass (Jim Delaney) and piano (Joey Prather). The following day David Goldstein (founding member of Hackensaw Boys) was brought in to add some fiddle to a couple of numbers. Finally, Joe added some steel guitar and then completed all of his vocals (Christen managed to squeeze in a background vocal on one song). On the third day it was all mixed.

The result is an inspired collection of songs that showcase each player as they take on five Baker originals (three bluesy honky-tonk weepers, "Why Are You Doing This To Me", "Wiping Back These Tears", and "Wasn't That Nice", the ragtimey, "Owyhee River Home" and the hillbilly-boogie instrumental, "Baker's Boogie"), renditions of songs by the likes of The Delmore Brothers ("Gonna Lay Down My Old Guitar"), Lefty Frizzell (You Want Everything But Me"), Peggy Lee (I'm Gonna Go Fishin'"), Porter Wagoner ("A Satisfied Mind"), as well as their take on two dixieland jazz standards ("Please Don't Talk About Me When I'm Gone" and the instrumental "China Boy").

Lively, raw, exciting, and fun, and with a dose of plaintiveness, sorrow and heartbreak for good measure, “Shook, Broke, Hung”, is sure to bring Joe Baker and his Barefoot Brakemen to the attention of those seeking a great new band with an old-style sensibility. Recommended for fans of country, blues and jazz.

Joe Baker - his Portland music experience (1997-2009)

Originally having grown up in Sedona, AZ, Joe Baker arrived in Portland, OR in 1995 and soon became involved in that town’s music scene. His passion for country, blues and punk, plus his ability to play guitar, drums and sing, has led him to play with a wide variety of bands. He currently leads Joe Baker and his Barefoot Brakemen, Portland’s premiere dixie-tonk outfit. (“dixie-tonk”, a mix of 78 rpm-era honky-tonk, blues and dixieland jazz)

Though he was known back in Arizona as a drummer, the first band he joined in Portland was on electric guitar. That band was The Starlings. Led by the Neo-Boys’ KT Kincaid, The Starlings surf-tinged dark-folk was a perfect match for Joe’s guitar style. For several years the four-piece played the Portland punk circuit. They gained lots of regional press for their self-titled CD, all singling out Joe’s guitar work as being exciting. By 1999, The Starlings disbanded.

Joe spent the next 8 years playing in a bunch of different groups both on guitar and drums as well as singing, sometimes as a leader, but also as a sideman. After a year stint as drummer for New Bad Things spin-off, Wallpaper, (he played lap-steel guitar on their Black Bean and Placenta release, “Honing The Spectacular”) Joe spent a total of 3 years as lead guitarist for Wife Stealin’ Bastards, a high-energy honky-tonk act that dabbled in surf and rock (they have a stand-out cut on Last Chance Records’, “In The Cole Mind: A Tribute To Fred Cole and Dead Moon”. At this time Joe fronted two three-piece bands featuring his indie and roots-tinged punk originals, first the short-lived Shackleton, and then The Goatuckers who enjoyed a three-year run. Both of those bands recorded well received EP’s. Somehow through this period he also found time to frequently sit in with acclaimed blues guitarist, Terry Robb, which led to Joe having a solo performance at the 2002 Portland Waterfront Blues Festival. In 2004, after a year playing drums for Rob Scrivner’s (John Fahey Trio) pop act, Sir Lawrence and The Student Prince, Joe dropped all his other bands to play drums for heavy rock quartet, Pretty Monster. Featuring all former northern Arizonan’s, Pretty Monster enjoyed two years of playing the clubs of Portland and Seattle, opening up for such national acts as The BellRays, Legendary Shack Shakers, Jucifer, and Immortal Lee County Killers to name a few, before disbanding just as they completed and self released their full-length CD.

In 2006, Joe decided that he was going to switch gears once again. Inspired by western swing pioneer Bob Wills, whose music anticipated rock ‘n roll by combining elements of country, blues and jazz, Joe devoted his energies to singing and playing acoustic guitar, began doing solo shows and figured that he had finally found his true calling. He soon enlisted ex-Goatsuckers and Sir Lawrence and The Student Prince bassist Jim Delaney on stand-up bass, Richmond Fontaine’s Sean Oldham on drums, and recent Portland transplant Christen Hubbard, a veteran of the Charlottesville, VA music scene, on mandolin and tenor banjo. As The Joe Baker Combo, they quickly developed a repertoire of almost 50 songs, featuring their own material as well as arrangements of country, jazz and blues songs originally recorded between the 1920’s through the early 1950’s.

After spending 2 years playing dozens of 3-sets-a-night gigs all around Portland, the newly named, Joe Baker and his Barefoot Brakemen, capped off 2007 by recording their debut CD “Shook, Broke, Hung”, a honky-tonk, early jazz and blues informed masterpiece, the first release on Joe’s own label, Alonzo Records. The band is currently playing shows featuring Joe, Sean, Christen, and new upright bassist, Simon Feeney.