Andy Babiuk ( ; born November 27, 1963) is an American musician, author, consultant, and owner of Andy Babiuk's Fab Gear in

Fairport, New York Fairport is a village located in the Town of Perinton, which is part of Monroe County, New York, United States. Fairport is a suburb east of Rochester. It is also known as the "Crown Jewel of the Erie Canal". In 2005, it was named as one of th ...

. He is a founding member and bassist of the supergroup The Empty Hearts and was also a member of

The Chesterfield Kings The Chesterfield Kings were a rock band from Rochester, New York, who began as a retro-1960s garage band, and who have heavily mined 1960s music, including some borrowing from the 1960s recordings of The Rolling Stones. Core members were form ...

. Babiuk is the author of ''Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four's Instruments from Stage to Studio'' (2001), ''The Story of Paul Bigsby'' (2009), ''Rolling Stones Gear'' (2014) and ''Beatles Gear – The Ultimate Edition'' (2015). He is a staff consultant to the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), sometimes simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum A museum ( ; plural museums or, rarely, musea) is a building or institution that cares for and displays a collection of artifacts and othe ...

as well as to auction houses in New York, London and Los Angeles.

Early years

Andrew Michael Babiuk was born on November 27, 1963, in

Rochester, New York Rochester () is a City (New York), city in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York, the county seat, seat of Monroe County, New York, Monroe County, and the fourth-most populous in the state after New York City, Buffalo, New York, Buffalo, ...

. He is of

Ukrainian Ukrainian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Ukraine * Something relating to Ukrainians, an East Slavic people from Eastern Europe * Something relating to demographics of Ukraine in terms of demography and population of Ukraine * So ...

descent and both his parents immigrated to the United States from Europe in the early 1950s. Interested in music from a very young age, Babiuk taught himself to play the guitar when he was nine years old.

Career

Band member

At age 16 while attending high school, Babiuk landed a job at a local music store. There he connected with other local musicians and joined the garage band

in 1979. Babiuk, a member of the band, bassist and songwriter, toured with the Kings throughout the United States, Europe and Canada, helping to breathe life back into a fledging garageband scene. During a career spanning over 30 years, The Chesterfield Kings recorded 11 albums and 15 singles, performed live on television shows such as ''

Jimmy Kimmel Live! ''Jimmy Kimmel Live!'' is an American late-night talk show, created and hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, broadcast on American Broadcasting Company, ABC. The nightly hour-long show debuted on January 26, 2003, at Hollywood Masonic Temple in Hollywood, Los ...

'' and ''

Late Night with Conan O'Brien ''Late Night with Conan O'Brien'' is an American late-night talk show hosted by Conan O'Brien. NBC aired 2,725 episodes from September 13, 1993, to February 20, 2009. The show featured varied comedic material, celebrity interviews, and music ...

'', and made an appearance on the

HBO Home Box Office (HBO) is an American premium television network, which is the flagship property of namesake parent subsidiary Home Box Office, Inc., itself a unit owned by Warner Bros. Discovery. The overall Home Box Office business unit is ba ...

hit show ''

The Sopranos ''The Sopranos'' is an American Crime film#Crime drama, crime drama television series created by David Chase. The story revolves around Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a New Jersey-based American Mafia, Italian-American mobster, portraying h ...

''. The group disbanded in 2011. In 2014, Babiuk, together with

Elliot Easton Elliot Easton (born Elliot Steinberg, December 18, 1953) is an American guitarist. He played lead guitar and sang backing vocals for The Cars, and his guitar solos are an integral part of the band's music. Easton has also recorded music as a so ...

The Cars The Cars were an American rock band formed in Boston in 1976. Emerging from the new wave scene in the late 1970s, they consisted of Ric Ocasek ( rhythm guitar), Benjamin Orr (bass guitar), Elliot Easton (lead guitar), Greg Hawkes (keyboards), ...

Clem Burke Clement Burke (born Clement Anthony Bozewski; November 24, 1954) is an American musician who is best known as the drummer for the band Blondie from 1975, shortly after the band formed, throughout the band's entire career. He also played drums f ...

of Blondie and

Wally Palmar Wally Palmar (born Volodymyr Palamarchuk; April 27, 1954 in Hamtramck, Michigan) is a Ukrainian-American musician, singer, songwriter and composer. He is best known as a founding member and lead singer of The Romantics, a rock band from Detroit, ...

The Romantics The Romantics are an American rock band formed in 1977 in Detroit. The band is often put under the banner of new wave and power pop. They were influenced by 1950s American rock and roll, Detroit's MC5, the Stooges, early Bob Seger, Motown R&B, ...

, formed the supergroup The Empty Hearts. The band released its debut album in August 2014 before touring the United States and Japan. In August 2020, the band released their second album titled ''The Second Album'' which featured a guest appearance by

Ringo Starr Sir Richard Starkey (born 7 July 1940), known professionally as Ringo Starr, is an English musician, singer, songwriter and actor who achieved international fame as the drummer for the Beatles. Starr occasionally sang lead vocals with the ...

on drums.

Author

In early 1990 while still performing with The Chesterfield Kings by night and working at the music store by day, Babiuk saw the need for a book about The Beatles' gear when he tried to emulate some of their recorded sounds with his own band. Babiuk embarked on six years of research for ''Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four's Instruments'', during which time he interviewed over 400 people who worked with or were closely associated with The Beatles, listened to hundreds of recordings, watched miles of film, and amassed a vast library of documents and historic photographic evidence of The Beatles using their instruments and equipment. Released in 2001, ''Beatles Gear'' remains a critically acclaimed, best-selling work and has earned Babiuk the respected title of the world's leading authority on all the instruments and equipment used by The Beatles. As a result of the accolade, Babiuk's expertise and notoriety as a vintage guitar expert grew in popularity in very important circles in the music industry. Fred Gretsch of

Gretsch Gretsch is an American company that manufactures musical instruments. The company was founded in 1883 in Brooklyn, New York by Friedrich Gretsch, a 27-year-old German immigrant, shortly after his arrival to the United States. Friedrich Gretsc ...

Guitars commissioned Babiuk to research and write the ''Story of Paul Bigsby The Father of the Modern Solid Body Electric Guitar'', which was published in 2009. As a follow-up to ''Beatles Gear'', Babiuk worked for nine years researching and writing ''Rolling Stones Gear'', a detailed history of all the equipment used by

The Rolling Stones The Rolling Stones are an English rock band formed in London in 1962. Active for six decades, they are one of the most popular and enduring bands of the rock era. In the early 1960s, the Rolling Stones pioneered the gritty, rhythmically d ...

. The book was published in 2014. As had been the case when he did his research for ''Beatles Gear'', Babiuk was granted unprecedented access to and worked directly with members of the Stones and their camp, securing permission to photograph The Rolling Stones' guitars and equipment.

Consultant

Babiuk served as the Associate Music Supervisor and Technical Consultant on the film '' Not Fade Away'', a drama film released by

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

, directed and written by The Sopranos creator

David Chase David Henry Chase (born August 22, 1945) is an American filmmaker. He wrote and produced the HBO drama ''The Sopranos'' which aired for six seasons between 1999 and 2007. Chase has also produced and written for such shows as ''The Rockford Files ...

. Babiuk is a staff consultant to the

and in 2013 he authenticated

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

's electric guitar which Dylan first played at the

Newport Jazz Festival The Newport Jazz Festival is an annual American multi-day jazz music festival held every summer in Newport, Rhode Island. Elaine Lorillard established the festival in 1954, and she and husband Louis Lorillard financed it for many years. They hire ...

. It sold at auction for just under a million dollars. In 2015, he authenticated

John Lennon John Winston Ono Lennon (born John Winston Lennon; 9 October 19408 December 1980) was an English singer, songwriter, musician and peace activist who achieved worldwide fame as founder, co-songwriter, co-lead vocalist and rhythm guitarist of ...

Gibson J-160E The Gibson J-160E is one of the first acoustic-electric guitars produced by the Gibson Guitar Corporation. The J-160E was Gibson's second attempt at creating an acoustic-electric guitar (the first being the small-body CF-100E"''As implied by it ...

that was lost for over 50 years. It sold at auction for 2.4 million dollars.

Speaker/Lecturer

Having worked closely with The Beatles' insiders, Babiuk's presentation offers a closer, more intimate look at the Fab Four and their collective influence on music and pop culture. Appealing to all types of audiences, universities in particular often invite Babiuk to present to their students studying various disciplines ranging from music and audio technology programs to sociology and pop culture.

Personal life

In 1990, Babiuk married Monica Rodrigues and they are parents to six children, four girls and two boys. Monica is vice-president of Andy Babiuk's Fab Gear.

Books

* ''Beatles Gear: All The Fab Four's Instruments From Stage To Studio'' – November 2001 by Andy Babiuk published by

Backbeat Books In music and music theory, the beat is the basic unit of time, the pulse (regularly repeating event), of the ''mensural level'' (or ''beat level''). The beat is often defined as the rhythm listeners would tap their toes to when listening to a pi ...

. * ''Der Beatles Sound: Die Fab Four Und Ihre Instrumente- Auf Der Buhne Und Im Studio'' - Translated into German 2001 PPV Media Germany - von Andy Babiuk * ''Beatles Gear: All The Fab Four's Instruments From Stage To Studio'' Translated into Japanese 2001 Rittor Music Japan * ''Harrison By The Editors Of Rolling Stone - The Strings of His Heart'' by Andy Babiuk 2002

Simon and Schuster Simon & Schuster () is an American publishing company and a subsidiary of Paramount Global. It was founded in New York City on January 2, 1924 by Richard L. Simon and M. Lincoln Schuster. As of 2016, Simon & Schuster was the third largest publ ...

* ''Beatles Gear'', Revised Edition (Revised) aperbackPaperback – October 16, 2002 by Andy Babiuk (Author) * ''The Story Of Paul A. Bigsby: The Father Of The Modern Electric Solidbody Guitar'' Jan 1, 2009 by Andy Babiuk * Limited Edition - ''The Story Of Paul A. Bigsby: The Father Of The Modern Electric Solidbody Guitar'' Feb 1, 2009 by Andy Babiuk * ''Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four's Instruments from Stage to Studio'' (Black Book) Dec 1, 2009 by Andy Babiuk * ''Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four's Instruments from Stage to Studio'' (Gretsch Edition) 2009 by Andy Babiuk - Fred Gretsch Enterprises * ''Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four's Instruments from Stage to Studio'' (Epiphone Edition) 2009 by Andy Babiuk - The Epiphone Company * ''Beatles Gear'' Japanese Edition (book) published by Disk Union - by Andy Babiuk 2014 * ''Rolling Stones Gear: All the Stones' Instruments from Stage to Studio'' Jan 1, 2014 by Andy Babiuk * ''Beatles Gear: All the Fab Four's Instruments from Stage to Studio'' - The Ultimate Edition November 10, 2015 by Andy Babiuk

Discography

Albums

* (1982) ''Here are the Chesterfield Kings'' (Mirror Records MR-9, 14-song LP) * (1985) ''Stop!'' (Mirror Records MR-10, 12-song LP; also remastered 14-song LP and cassette MR-10R) * (1987) ''Don't Open Till Doomsday'' (Mirror Records MR-12, 14-song LP featuring Dee Dee Ramone, 15-song cassette) * (1989) ''The Chesterfield Kings Night Of The Living Eyes'' (Mirror MR13, CD13 15-song LP, CD, and cassette) * (1989) ''Berlin Wall of Sound'' (Mirror Records MR-15, 15-song CD/cassette, 14-song LP) * (1990) ''Drunk On Muddy Water'' (Mirror Records MCD-16, 13-song limited edition CD) * (1994) ''Let's Go Get Stoned'' (Mirror Records MR-19; 14-song LP, CD, and cassette). * (1997) ''Surfin' Rampage'' (Mirror Records M-23, 32-song double LP and CD) * (1999) ''Where the Action Is'' (Sundazed LSD 13, 17-song CD) * (2003) ''The Mindbending Sounds of...'' (Living Eye / Sundazed, 2003; 14-song CD, 12 song LP - Wicked Cool Records, 2006; 14-song CD) * (2004) ''Christmas with the Kranks'' soundtrack - "Hey Santa Claus" Hollywood Records 2004 * (2008) ''Psychedelic Sunrise'' (12-song CD, 12-song LP - Wicked Cool Records, 2008) * (2009) ''Got Live...If You Want It'' (CD, DVD set- Wicked Cool Records, 2009) * (2013) ''The Andrew Oldham Orchestra Play the Rolling Stones Songbook, Vol. 2 Paint It, Black'' - Andrew Oldham Orchestra feat. Andy Babiuk, John Abuiso * (2014) ''The Empty Hearts'' – ''The Empty Hearts'' (429 Records/Universal - Nippon Columbia Japan - Universal Australia) * (2020) The Empty Hearts - The Second Album (Wicked Cool/Orchard/Sony)

Singles

* "I Ain't No Miracle Worker" b/w "Exit 9" (1979, Living Eye Records, LSD-1; limited edition 500 copies) * "You Can't Catch Me" b/w "I Won't Be There" (1981, Living Eye Records, LSD-2; limited edition 50 copies) * "Hey Little Bird" b/w "I Can Only Give You Everything" (1982, Living Eye Records, LSD-3) * "I'm Going Home" b/w "A Dark Corner" (1982, Mirror Records) * "She Told Me Lies" b/w "I've Got a Way With Girls" (1984, Mirror Records) * "Baby Doll" b/w "I Cannot Find Her (acoustic version)" (1987, Mirror Records) * "Next One In Line" b/w "Talk Talk" and "You Drive Me Nervous" (1991, Mirror Records, MIR45-4, 7-inch EP) * "Hey Joe" b/w "Roadrunner" (as "The Paisley Zipper Band", 1994, Get Hip Recordings, GH-144) * "Misty Lane" b/w "Little Girl" (1997, Misty Lane records, Italian fanzine release) * "Wrong From Right" b/w "So What" (1998, Living Eye Records, LSD-5) * "Run Rudolph Run" (1998, Living Eye Records, LSD-FC98, fan club Christmas single) * "Help You Ann" b/w Lyres "She Told Me Lies" (1999, Living Eye Records, LSD-6;each band covers a song originally by the other) * "She Pays The Rent" b/w Lyres "She Told Me Lies" (2000, Feathered Apple Records, FA-1300;each band covers a song originally by the other) * "Where Do We Go From Here" b/w "Louie Go Home" (1999, Living Eye / Sundazed Records S-146; vocals by Mark Lindsay of Paul Revere and the Raiders) * "Yes I Understand" b/w "Sometime At Night" (2001, Sundazed Records; vocals by Sal Valentino of The Beau Brummels) * "It's Christmastime" b/w "Joyful Noise" (2016, Empty Hearts/ Wicked Cool Records; featuring backing vocals by The Bangles

* "Coat-Tailer b/w "Run And Hide" (2019,Wicked Cool/Orchard/Sony

* "Remember Days Like These" b/w "Tell Me Reasons Why" (2020, Wicked Cool/Orchard/Sony; featuring Ringo Starr on drums

* "Jonathan Harker's Journal" b/w "The Haunting Of The Tin Soldier" (2020, Wicked Cool/Orchard/Sony

Bootlegs

* ''Johnny Thunders and the Chesterfield Kings'' * ''Fossils'' * ''Kingsize Rock 'n' Roll Long Ago, Far Away'' (Paisley Zipper Band) *

Film

* '' Not Fade Away'' (2012) *

' full-length feature film ''Where is the Chesterfield King?'' (2000)

Television

* ''

'' Season 5 Episode 5 * ''

History Detectives ''History Detectives'' is a documentary television series on Public Broadcasting Service, PBS. It features investigations made by members of a small team of researchers to identify and/or authenticate items which may have historical significance or ...

'', Season 10 "Bob Dylan's Electric Guitar" * H2 ''Lost History'' "George Harrison's Lucy Les Paul" * ''

'' Season 2004 * ''

'' Episode #14.205 September 11, 2007

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Babiuk, Andy American rock bass guitarists American rock guitarists American rock singers Songwriters from New York (state) American writers about music 1963 births Living people Musicians from Rochester, New York Writers from Rochester, New York