Michael Baytop

Bluesman “Big Mike” is a towering figure at 6’8″, a powerful presence, always sharp-dressed and debonair. He was born in Washington, D.C., in 1948, and is one of the important members of the local acoustic blues scene, an impressive personality in the old and new Archie’s barbershop. He was a student of Archie Edwards’, and everyone at the famous barbershop that he could pick something up from.

Himself an accomplished performer, he is today a blues elder, storyteller and a symbolic leader of the current barbershop scene. He was also a teacher and mentor to Miles Spicer of the M.S.G. Acoustic Blues Trio. Baytop is a popular performer, workshop teacher and friend to all who cross his path, a gentleman and a fine musician who sings, plays guitarin the Piedmont style, harmonica and bones, which he learned directly from Richard “Mr. Bones” Thomas. Together with Franklin, Eleanor Ellis and Phil Wiggins, he was one of the “next generation” of players to emerge from the local scene, ready to carry on the true local tradition.Yet, as a testament of how inexplicably unfair the traditional music scene can be, he is largely unsung in the national blues world.

He made a terrific album of Frank Stokes covers with Rick Franklin, titled Searching for Frank, a beautiful tribute to the Memphis picker and minstrel, which stands as one of the best tributes to Stokes. Both Rick Franklin and Michael Baytop came up through the Archie’s barbershop experience, and this album aptly showcased their own skills as fingerpickers and singers. Phil Wiggins referred to the album as one of his all-time favorites. It’s roots music at its finest, clean, delightful, lovely and perfectly played in the Piedmont style. Phil indicated that he had hoped to cooperate on future projects.

Then something tragic happened.

Michael Baytop had a stroke that stopped the important ambassador of the local blues in his tracks. For a long time he could not perform, a setback that would have ruined the musical passion in many. Yet, Mike persevered despite the struggle it took just to walk and talk. Now, in 2017, he is reportedly back to singing with his friends and even playing bones. Michael Baytop is back. He is too strong of a character to give up.

His teacher Archie Edwards had a profound influence on him. He is full of stories about the time with Archie and the gang at the barbershop. His oral history is what keeps the memories of wonderful characters alive, [1],

“When I first came into Archie’s barbershop, I was about 35 years old. A friend of mine brought me to Archie’s shop to meet him. Archie was a little teeny guy, but he took up so much space. He was like 290 pounds in that little teeny body. Archie was about 60 or 70 years old, and there were these two young guys in their 20s– and Archie was setting them straight – “Yeah, because I said so” — he was jumping down their throats. One of the young guys was trying to tell his friend, “Hey, man – no, this old dude can’t talk to me like that.”  Archie said, “I can talk to you any way I want to talk to you.  In my shop I can talk any way I want.” I thought that is one of the meanest little guys I ever met. He could care less what size this guy was. He had my undying admiration after that. He didn’t care or give a wit how big this guy was. Archie just fascinated me…You could sit there, just between Mr. Bones and Archie and listen to them all evening long. They’d tell you story after story. Then you found out they were “true” stories. I mean, you had some big liars in the barbershop spinning tall tales. But, the thing was that Archie and Bones, they didn’t lie. Those guys were for real. …There was a lot I intended to do with the (new) barbershop, but I had a stroke and then I got kind of sidetracked. But the whole idea for the barbershop was to remember all the players who were here before, Archie and all the great plyers who came through here, like the Gaines Brothers. I could tell stories about them all. Unfortunately, though, one of the things I found out was that some of the new people coming in didn’t want to listen. When Archie spoke and told the stories, people listened. When I spoke nobody cared. So after a while I found that I was just in there fighting all the time trying to impart knowledge on people. Archie didn’t have to try to impart knowledge to me and other people. People would ask him for it. The barbershop as it exists today is nothing like I had planned for it to be.”

He recalled,

“ Me and Mr. Bones went to a bones convention – yes, they actually have those things. (Laughter.)  And everybody knew who Mr. Bones was, and I was a celebrity because I learned under him. It was a big deal. People would say, “Oh! He studied with Mr. Bones.” I didn’t think it was such a big thing, but those guys were in awe. People said, “I was trying to get to D.C. to meet him and I couldn’t meet him.”  Mr. Bones played differently than most of those players, because they didn’t get everything they could get out of the bones that he did. I didn’t know that until then. As a matter of fact, Bones was the only bones player I ever knew. But it turned out he was the best. Up to that point I didn’t know that Mr. Bones was special.  But I knew that Archie was special, because he told me. (Laughter)…One time me and Archie were doing a show, and I did your part and everybody really liked me and clapped and everything. Then after Archie had done his part he said, “Well, you’re pretty good, but you’ve got to remember, there is one who is greater than you.” You’d think he was talking about God. And then he said, “Me.” (Laughter.) And I just started laughing because that was vintage Archie.  He used to put a lot of weight on you, and say, “Yeah, I taught this boy everything he knows – come on now, show them what you know. Show them what you know.”

Miles Spicer, Baytop’s student, remembered,[2]

“We had a gig. It was a cold November and it was a county fair at a college folk festival.  I was on stage with these guys, but when I played I didn’t get anybody’s attention – not a soul’s. There was this group of old black farmers –  old black gentlemen in the back of the tent standing up, and they were just talking to each other. I played whatever I played, and they hardly looked up at me. Then Mike played and they looked up and stopped talking, listening to Mike. I was looking on, thinking, damn, that’s how it is done. You could tell from Mike’s body language, okay, this guy has got their attention. He had them front and center. It was like a sea change from the different levels of some little punk kid, like me, to an elder. Part of my education with Mike was learning about not just what to play or how to play, but how to frame it for people. He explained to me that you have to have something to say to that generation. Those gentlemen looked at me and I have no experiences that will ever match theirs. Okay, I was pretty much written off.  But when Mike and NJ Warren got up there they could absolutely connect to them. That’s part of the lesson that I learned from Mike.”

Michael Baytop told another story about a barbershop pal, Joe Watson,

“Archie had this friend Joe Watson. Next to the barbershop there was a flower shop. Archie was sick and he stayed home for a few days. So, I went to the barbershop one day and thought I’d pick something up for Archie.  The guy from the flower shop said, “Hey, man, come here, come here.” He said, “What’s up?  Man, you’ve got to go find Archie’s friend, because he comes around here every day and he sits around here for half of the day waiting for Archie.” I said, “Which one?” And he said, “This little fellow.” I knew he was talking about Joe Watson. Joe had no idea what happened to Archie, where he went, whatever.  So I went around the corner to Joe’s house because he was looking for his buddy.  So I told him, “Look, I’ll tell you what. I’ll take you around to Archie’s house where you can see him.” First, I had to go by and find out if it was all right, because Joe wasn’t really that good a player. So I said, “Archie, Joe’s been coming around, sitting around here waiting day in and day out, because he had no way to get in touch with you.”  So he said, “All right, you can bring him by, but don’t have him bring no instruments.” (Laughter.) I brought Joe in and he had this gravelly old blues voice.  So he goes in to Archie and says, “How you doin’? My name is Joe Watson, I’m going to be singing the blues for you…That was Joe. He was not a very good player at all, but one day a radio guy, I think from a Baltimore NPR station came to the barbershop and they were going to do some kind of program on it and they started talking to Joe. So Joe told them that he’d been to music school, that he was an accomplished musician, that he played for years and what a bluesman he was. They were eating it all up, taping him and everything, and Joe was sitting up in the chair, acting like he was authentic. You know, like Mike said, he had a right voice, he was holding the guitar, and he had a nice gig bag and nice guitar, and you know, it just seemed like they discovered a new talent. These guys had no idea they were being fooled.”

Michael Baytop just released a new album. Here is the CD review by Frank Matheis as published in Living Blues in January, 2018.

Mike Baytop and Jay Summerour
Self-titled
Patuxent Music
CD 314

Harmonica player Jay Summerour is best known for his longtime partnership with guitarist Warner Williams. Both are friends with 6 ft. 8 “Big Mike” Baytop, a Washington, D.C. musician renowned for his debonair, sharp-dressed sophisticated style. He sings, plays guitar and bones, which he learned directly from master Richard “Mr. Bones” Thomas. Mike Baytop had emerged as one of the important and beloved players of the “new generation” in Archie’s barbershop scene, the epicenter of the traditional acoustic blues scene in the African American community in Washington, D.C., along with fellow guitarist Rick Franklin. They had issued a wonderful album Searching for Frank, a tribute to Frank Stokes, also on the local label Maryland label Patuxent Music. This record alone should have put them on the national map as serious practitioners of the Piedmont acoustic blues, but both of these musicians stayed predominately local, way-too-unsung and deserving of greater national attention.

The guitar-harmonica duo went into the recording studio in 2009 to put down tracks for the new album Mike Baytop and Jay Summerour, starting out strong, as fine as any acoustic blues recorded today. Michael Baytop was in top form, singing with energetic force, and passionate drive. Jay Summerour, who is an experienced harmonica player in the duo setting after more than 30-years with Warner Williams, came in behind him, gently filling in the spaces. Their versions of Standing on the Landing, Walking Blues andMaggie Country stand as a testament to the musical prowess of Baytop and the ensemble.

Then, a cruel twist of fate hit tragically. Mike Baytop had a serious and debilitating stroke. The album went into the can, sitting unfinished while the musician struggled through slow and difficult rehabilitation and recovery. As the years passed, the unfinished album became mysterious local lore and legend. Friends and fans wished to see it finished, for Mike, and for history. As a matter of personal pride and determination, Baytop and Summerour went back into the studio in 2017 to finish the record. Baytop’s disability is noticeable with a slight but ineffectual slurring. As he had not quite gained the motor control to play guitar, they called in friends to fill in the gaps. Guitarist and musicologist Mark Puryear helped out and mandolinist Tom Mindte, who is also the sound engineer and producer, joined them to add a lovely string layer. The result is the real, true blues, literally and figuratively, like on Neil Pattman’s 1 To 99, for example.

This is an album of exquisite instrumentation by marvelous musicians who go down deep. The cliché is that “the blues is a feeling.” You can’t get more feeling than this – raw and exposed pain and redemption – gut-wrenching, emotive and heartfelt expressiveness. This record is a triumphant personal catharsis for Baytop and a gripping testament to the resilience of true blues.

[1]Personal interview – Frank Matheis with Michael Baytop, Eleanor Ellis and Miles Spicer.November 11, 2014.

[2]Personal interview – Frank Matheis with Michael Baytop, Eleanor Ellis and Miles Spicer.November 11, 2014.