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The Spectacle Blog
Singer/songwriter Gerry Rafferty died today of liver failure brought on by alcoholism. He was 63.
Rafferty’s final years were difficult ones. He caused alarm in the summer of 2008 when he left a London hospital where he was being treated for liver problems and was not heard from for nearly six months.
Nevertheless, Rafferty is best remembered for two songs. In 1972, as one half of the Scottish folk-rock duo Stealers Wheel, Rafferty scored a hit with “Stuck in the Middle.” This song gained a new lease on life two decades later after its inclusion in the Quentin Tarentino movie Reservoir Dogs.
But Rafferty reached the pinnacle of his success as a solo artist in 1978 with the release of his multi-platinum selling album City to City. This album produced two hit singles, “Baker Street” and “Right Down the Line.” While “Right Down the Line” has become something of a lost classic, “Baker Street” endures as one of the greatest rock n’ roll songs ever recorded. “Baker Street” stood out as an island of introspection in a sea of mindless boogie during the disco era. The combination of Rafferty’s understated vocals and that alto saxophone solo have ensured “Baker Street” will stand the test of time.
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More Blog Posts by Aaron Goldstein
http://spectator.org/blog/2011/01/04/gerry-rafferty-rip
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DougB| 1.4.11 @ 11:06PM
I also suggest "Star" by Stealers Wheel as a good example of the harmonies and melodic songwriting (if even a tad campy) of which he was capable. Good lyrics too. RIP for the man, and much as I came to tire of that sax solo, "Baker Street" did indeed become a surprisingly strong and enduring modern classic.
Larry| 1.5.11 @ 12:25AM
"Baker Street" and "Get It Right Next Time" are two of my favorite songs by Rafferty. A great musician and a tragic end. R.I.P., Gerry.
bfwebster | 1.5.11 @ 2:24AM
Sorry, sorry, sorry to hear this -- both his struggles and his death. I bought "City to City" when it came out, and it remains 30+ years later one of my favorite albums -- there's not a cut on there that I don't like and can't sing along with. Just queued it up on iTunes -- here's to you, Gerry, wherever you are.
Derek Leaberry| 1.5.11 @ 9:04AM
Sorry the man is dead but I found it interesting that he earned about $ 150,000 a year on royalties of "Baker Street." I always wondered how marginal rock musicians were able to make a comfortable living twenty, thirty and even forty years after their last big splash on the music scene. Mr. Rafferty's death has been informative on that question.
Richard Baker| 1.5.11 @ 9:08AM
I've always wondered, since the deaths of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix in 1970, just what is it about Rock and Roll that leads so many to destructive deaths. You could, of course, add the names of many others, sadly.
JCELEPHANT| 1.5.11 @ 10:12AM
IMHO there are three eras in the first three decades (1955-1980) Rock music that were glorious. Obviously the first is the British Invasion (1963-1966), second is the Progressive Rock movement (1970-1974) and finally the Rebirth Era (1975-1980). Rafferty was in the Rebirth Era with Springsteen, Little River Band, Steely Dan, the Doobie Brothers, the Police etc.
Bill| 1.5.11 @ 12:42PM
You're forgetting the Elvis Presley/Doo Wop/Rockabilly Era, the first period of rock 'n' roll, that lasted from about 1954 to about 1960, when the Schlock Rock period began (to be interspersed with such classic rock 'n' roll as surf music, songs about cars, and Motown).
Grzmlyk| 1.5.11 @ 12:03PM
Very sad. I have such great memories of spending the summer painting my bedroom in preparation for my "grown-up" college years and listening to City to City over and over. Along with Steely Dan's Aja, which also hit the ball out of the park.
As to Richard Baker's comments above, it's a question worth pondering - I just think extraordinarily creative minds are often - not always - tortured, confused souls.
Which I think explains why so many of them can be so profound in their artistic expression and simultaneously shallow and idiotic in their ubiquitously liberal politics.
Gerry, you will be remembered.
Bill| 1.5.11 @ 12:39PM
In remembering Gerry Rafferty, one ought not to forget "Home and Dry" and "Days Gone Down."
Mick Lee| 1.5.11 @ 2:16PM
I always loved his "Night Owl" album. As well as coming out about the time my daughter was born, parts of the album has an almost sacred--solemn air.
I would say that there is something about musicians in general--especially the exceptional ones--that exposes them to their self-destructive side. Whatever you might say about the spectacular deaths of noted rock stars, jazz musicians also seem to have a similar predisposition.
Of course, rock musicians of the 1965-1975 period of rock have been dying of diseases and conditions commonly found among those reaching their 60's and 70's. Much of the time, our attention gets focused on those rockers who died young. But folks, we are getting old. The much heralded and disparaged “youth” of the 1960’s are going the way of all flesh. Sociologists, demographers, and the like have been studying and observing us from the cradle. Maybe now we will finally shut up. Maybe now we will no longer be unwitting subjects for some academic’s monograph. Maybe now we will be left alone to fade into the future-past.