Dan Baird

Dan Baird

Dan Baird is a US singer, songwriter and guitarist from San Diego, and he is best known as the founder and frontman of The Georgia Satellites. He is associated with Southern rock, roots rock, blues rock, blues and classic rock.

Career

Baird is raised in Atlanta, Georgia, and starts playing guitar at an early age. As a teenager, he plays with local bands before forming The Georgia Satellites in December 1980. The group develops a stripped-down bar-band style built around classic rock influences such as AC/DC and the Rolling Stones. The line-up settles on Baird and Rick Richards on vocals and guitar, Rick Price on bass, and Mauro Magellan on drums.

The Georgia Satellites release an independently issued six-song EP, Keeping the Faith, in 1985. That record leads to a deal with Elektra, and the band’s self-titled major-label debut follows the next year. The album grows into a platinum-selling hit, helped by the singles “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” and “Battleship Chains.” The band then issues Open All Night in 1988 and In the Land of Salvation and Sin in 1989. The group splits by the early 1990s.

Solo work and later projects

Baird begins a solo career with Love Songs for the Hearing Impaired, released on Def American, the label run by Rick Rubin. The album produces the single and video “I Love You Period.” His second solo album, Buffalo Nickel, follows in 1996. In the same period, The Georgia Satellites reform without him.

He also works as a producer and guest musician on recordings by Fred Haring, Will Hoge and Chris Knight. Alongside his band The Yayhoos, formed during the tour for Buffalo Nickel, he releases Fear Not the Obvious in 2001 and Put the Hammer Down in 2006.

Associated acts

Baird is also associated with The Harshed Mellows, The Mystic Knights of the Sea, The Bluefields, Dan Baird and the Sofa Kings, Dan Baird and Homemade Sin and Keith and the Satellites.