Rob Baker (born April 12, 1962) is a Canadian guitarist, best known as the lead guitarist for the Canadian rock band

The Tragically Hip The Tragically Hip, often referred to simply as the Hip, was a Canadian rock band formed in Kingston, Ontario in 1984, consisting of vocalist Gord Downie, guitarist Paul Langlois, guitarist Rob Baker (known as Bobby Baker until 1994), bassis ...

. He has also released an album with the side project Stripper's Union in 2005.

Life and career

Baker was born in

Kingston, Ontario Kingston is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the northeastern end of Lake Ontario. It is at the beginning of the St. Lawrence River and at the mouth of the Cataraqui River, the south end of the Rideau Canal. Kingston is near the Thousand Islands, ...

. He is the son of the late Judge P.E.D. Baker. Baker is a former student of Queen's University where he studied visual art. Until the

Tragically Hip The Tragically Hip, often referred to simply as the Hip, was a Canadian rock band formed in Kingston, Ontario in 1984, consisting of vocalist Gord Downie, guitarist Paul Langlois, guitarist Rob Baker (known as Bobby Baker until 1994), bassis ...

's fifth release, '' Day for Night'', he was credited in the liner notes as Bobby Baker. Baker designed many of the Hip's T-shirts and album art. He was inducted—as a member of the Tragically Hip—to the

Canadian Music Hall of Fame The Canadian Music Hall of Fame was established in 1978 by the Canadian Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (CARAS) to honour Canadian musicians for their lifetime achievements in music. The award presentation is held each year as part of th ...

in April 2005 at the Juno Awards in Winnipeg,

Manitoba Manitoba is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada at the Centre of Canada, longitudinal centre of the country. It is Canada's Population of Canada by province and territory, fifth-most populous province, with a population ...

. He was also one of the winners of a 1999 Juno Award for Best Album Design, for The Tragically Hip release ''

Phantom Power Phantom power, in the context of Professional audio, professional audio equipment, is Direct current, DC electric power equally applied to both signal wires in Balanced line, balanced microphone cables, forming a phantom circuit, to power m ...

''. On June 15, 2017, it was announced that Baker, along with the other members of The Tragically Hip, would be appointed to the Order of Canada for "their contribution to Canadian music and for their support of various social and environmental causes." In one of his first musical projects since the end of the Tragically Hip, he played guitar on much of singer-songwriter

Justin Rutledge Justin John Rutledge (born January 3, 1979) is a Toronto-based Canadian alternative country singer-songwriter signed to Outside Music. Rutledge's musical style is often compared to that of American alt-country singer Ryan Adams. In 2006, Justi ...

's 2019 album '' Passages''. His son Boris Baker is a member of the rock band Kasador. In 2023, Baker endorsed and co-chaired the campaign of his local MPP Ted Hsu in the Ontario Liberal Leadership race.

Gear

Up until the mid-1990s, he used a 1970s burnt umber

Fender Stratocaster The Fender Stratocaster, colloquially known as the Strat, is a model of double- cutaway electric guitar designed between 1952 and 1954 by Leo Fender, Bill Carson, George Fullerton, and Freddie Tavares. The Fender Musical Instruments Corpora ...

, a thirteenth-birthday gift from his father, along with

Mesa Boogie Mesa/Boogie (also known as Mesa Engineering) is an American company in Petaluma, California, that manufactures amplifiers and other accessories for guitars and basses. It has been in operation since 1969. Mesa was started by Randall Smith as a ...

amplification and more recently Hamilton amplifiers. He now uses a variety of guitars such as

Paul Reed Smith Paul Reed Smith Guitars, also known as PRS Guitars or simply PRS, is an American guitar and amplifier An amplifier, electronic amplifier or (informally) amp is an electronic device that can increase the magnitude of a signal (a time-vary ...

Ernie Ball Music Man Music Man is an American guitar and bass guitar manufacturer. Originally formed in 1971 by Forrest White and Tom Walker, along with Leo Fender as a silent partner, the company started manufacturing electric and bass guitars under the Music Man na ...

and

Ovation Guitar The Ovation Guitar Company is a manufacturer of string instruments. Ovation primarily manufactures steel-string acoustic guitars (both 6 and 12-string versions) and nylon-string guitars, often with pickups for electric amplification. In 2015, i ...

s, as well as a cream-coloured

Fender Telecaster The Fender Telecaster, colloquially known as the Tele (), is an electric guitar produced by Fender (company), Fender. Together with its sister model the Fender Esquire, Esquire, it was the world's first mass-produced, commercially successfulLes ...

, and

Garrison A garrison is any body of troops stationed in a particular location, originally to guard it. The term now often applies to certain facilities that constitute a military base or fortified military headquarters. A garrison is usually in a city ...

acoustics. Baker uses these specific guitar models on stage: * Garrison: G-41-CE and G-50-CE * Ernie Ball Music Man: Silhouette Special * Paul Reed Smith: Custom * Rickenbacker: 360/12 JG * Fender: early-1970s Stratocaster * Fender: 1963 Telecaster and mid-1980s Telecaster Custom * Fender: 1953 Lap Steel Double Neck (each neck has 8 strings: neck 1 has C6 tuning and neck 2 has E13 tuning) * Reverend: Jetstream 390 His amplifier and effects are: * Mesa Boogie Tremoverb * Pedals: Green Delay, distortion, modulation, wah-wah

References

External links

*Interview with Bobby Baker of The Tragically Hip original posted o
Guitar.com by Adam St. James
{{DEFAULTSORT:Baker, Rob 1962 births Canadian rock guitarists Canadian male guitarists Canadian people of English descent Juno Award winners Living people Musicians from Kingston, Ontario Queen's University at Kingston alumni The Tragically Hip members Members of the Order of Canada