This music journalist amassed 50,000 records. Now he’s selling all of them
By Frances Howe
In an unassuming storage unit among the industrial blocks of western Sydney, a record collection apparently too vast to be counted is about to be auctioned off.
Records, CDs, books, magazines, newspaper clippings and other rock music ephemera sit haphazardly on warehouse shelves as potential buyers sift through what is estimated to be over 80,000 items.
Glenn A. Baker among his 50,000 records in the Penrith warehouse. Credit: Louise Kennerley
The value of each item ranges from $20 books to rare records that could fetch closer to $20,000.
The entire collection will go under the hammer on August 30, when a lucky bidder will become the owner of what could be Australia’s largest trove of rock music memorabilia.
The seller is 72-year-old Glenn A. Baker, an eminent music journalist and commentator for over 200 magazines and the author of at least 16 of the books in his own collection.
After more than 50 years of collecting, the sale of the building housing the storage unit has triggered Baker to sell his stash.
“I was like a magnet,” Baker said of how his collection came to be. “Steel filings were drawn to me when I walked around.”
As a teenager in the ’60s, he invited his neighbours to come over and see his 100-strong assortment of albums. He’d been working on it since he was 11, building from his first purchase, Reverend Mr Black, by folk group the Kingston Trio.
“They were completely unimpressed,” Baker said of his neighbours at the time. “I always had trouble getting people to share my enthusiasm.”
With his collection having grown somewhat (it took three semi-trailers to move it from his home to the storage facility some years ago), Baker isn’t short of prospective buyers, with interested parties flying in from Melbourne to inspect it.
No catalogue
Like the conductor of an unruly band, Baker jostles between the shelves of the Penrith storage facility, losing track of the record in his hand when another grabs his attention.
There is no sale catalogue to guide you through the shelves, moving boxes and Woolworths bags full of things, as Baker jokes that the only reference lies between his ears.
Baker had a chance encounter with Stevie Nicks in person.
One potential bidder, Paul Lambess, 44, representing property development group Winarch Capital, plans to put the collection on public display if successful.
Lambess, also a music fan, is aware that the collection’s value increases when Baker is in the room. “He’ll just touch something and tell you a story for half an hour,” he said.
Baker pulls out Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham’s 1973 album Buckingham Nicks and shares the story of how he once accidentally turned a corner and ran right into Nicks, knocking her over.
When looking for the Buckingham Nicks album, he passes a few of Jimmy Buffett’s records and explains how he met Buffett in Cuba with Fidel Castro.
Rolling cabinets house paraphernalia relating to especially significant artists.
In the Beatles section, a copy of the Liverpool Echo blasts an unforgettable headline: “Crazed gunman charged. John Lennon shot dead”, while a copy of Star Parade magazine displays another stark headline: “Elvis is dead”.
‘Would I collect all this again? I have no idea, but probably, yes, because it burnt so brightly in my life’
Glenn A. Baker
When forced to decide what to do with the collection, Baker’s oldest son, Orson, put feelers out on Facebook to gauge interest. Several offers came in, but none of them were for the entire collection, which Baker hopes to see kept together.
While there is a melancholy to saying farewell, Baker stopped adding to the collection years ago.
“I realised that there was not much point. I had everything that I could listen to in ten lifetimes, and it started to get a bit obsessive.”
“Would I collect all this again? I have no idea, but probably, yes, because it burnt so brightly in my life.”
The auction, held by Lloyds Auctions, begins at 7pm on August 30.
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