"Who is Doug Baker"
Born in Boston, Doug enjoyed singing the old gospels in church, and soon in the choir itself. At the dawn of Rock & Roll, he would mimic Elvis and other stars of that period for his friends.
He realized at an early age that
he wanted to chase two dreams: music and aviation. He knew enough to "have a day job" first, so joined the Navy and studied aircraft engines. He bought his first guitar then and started learning chords from other young men in his squadron. He did his first on stage impersonation of Elvis in 1960 at a local bar in Washington D.C. on a dare. His second most memorable one was a year later in Naples, Italy singing the Ray Charles hit "What"d I Say." "Then I gave 'em Blue Suede Shoes", remembers Doug.
After the Navy, it was time to head west to Los Angeles to become a star. Not so fast there "tiger"! Remember; get a "day job" first" So, two years working at the Good Year Tire factory at night, combined with school full time, qualified this very determined Bostonian to work as an aircraft technician with United Airlines at nearby Los Angeles Airport. While there, on graveyard shift, through the late 1960s, Doug took up flying lessons during the day and earned a pocket full of ratings. Meanwhile, any time he could get up and sing locally, he did so. "The Bachelor Club near LA Airport was a favorite hang out then!"
After countless resumes sent world wide, he finally landed a job as a Flight Engineer with Trans International Airlines (later called Transamerica). With time spent away from home, he would need a small guitar to carry with him for the long periods of loneliness, which goes with an international flying job. The Flight Attendants graciously named this guitar Tina. That name came from a pub in Torremolinas, Spain, where Doug would sing on layovers in the early 1970s. It was there that he met and sang with actor, Ty Hardin. "We had a great time, and Ty played pretty good guitar!"
Hundreds of songs were written on this old guitar, including most of the songs on this ON MAUI CD. Yes, there is even a song about Tina, which will be re-formatted to CD and available at a future date on this web site.
With the demise of Transamerica Airlines in the late 1980s, Doug was very fortunate to hire on with NASA right there in Northern California, where he had been living for many years. In 1997, he was forced to relocate down to Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California, where he and Reijeana, bought some land and built a home in the lovely mountain community of Tehachapi.
All through these many years while flying to the glory spots of the world, and places most people never heard of, Doug stayed in touch with two wonderful people he had met in the early 1970"s in Waikiki: Keith and Carmen Haugen of K & C fame. (Check out www.hawaiiansong.com)
"Any time I transited Honolulu, we would always get together and I"d usually have a new song for Keith & Carmen
to listen to. Keith was after me years ago to record these songs of Hawaii. So here we are after all these years, with ON MAUI.
I cannot thank K & C enough for their encouragement and for taking much of Keith"s time to produce this CD."
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