Gerry Rafferty
Gerald " Gerry " Rafferty ( born April 16, 1947 in Paisley, Scotland, † January 4, 2011 in Poole, England) was a Scottish folk rock singer-songwriter. As Rafferty's greatest musical strength of his sense of melody was appreciated. His composition Baker Street ( 1978) made him world famous and wealthy, because this song is often played to date of radio stations.
Biography
Gerry Rafferty was the third and unwanted child of Irish miner Joseph Rafferty († 1963) and his Scottish wife Mary, nee Skeffington. In his childhood, he suffered from the violence and disregard of his alcoholic father. His mother often went with her youngest child while walking, until the father was asleep after work and pub night. Gerry Rafferty broke in 1963 to attend school and worked with 16 years first in a butcher shop. On weekends, he played and his school friend Joe Egan in a pop music group, the Mavericks. In 1965 he met his future wife Carla Ventilla in a dance hall know, a 15 -year-old, Italian -born hairdressing apprentices. He had with her in 1972 his daughter Martha, who later worked for him. His wife divorced him in 1990, as well Rafferty had become addicted to alcohol. However, they remained until his death in contact with him.
Musical Career
His early musical experiences were Catholic church hymns, traditional folk music and popular music of the 1950s.
At age 21, Rafferty, vocals and guitar to write songs professionally started, and looked for opportunities for public appearances. So he earned in his early years with money then illegal appearances as a street musician in the passages of the London Underground. His biggest hit Baker Street - not only Sherlock Holmes ' fictitious residence, but among other things, a subway station in London - is a poetic homage to this time.
In the late 1960s he played in the beat band " Fifth Column " before he became the third member of the folk band The Humblebums with Billy Connolly (now better known in the UK as a comedian ) and Tam Harvey. Their live performances were by Connolly's comedic talent and Raffertys pop-rock compositions quite popular, but their albums were commercially unsuccessful.
Together with his school friend Joe Egan and other In 1972, the Folk-/Rockband Stealers Wheel, which was touted as Britain's answer to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. They achieved in 1973, after all, a top- ten hit with Stuck in the Middle with You, in Quentin Tarantino's film Reservoir Dogs 1992 - Wild dogs a second time reached a larger audience. Some other titles could to this commercial success despite top -200 rankings unable to repeat, and 1975, the group split up. Litigation between the musicians continued until 1978.
Solo career
Parallel to this, Egan and Rafferty worked as a solo artist: Gerry Rafferty published in 1971 an album titled Can I Have My Money Back? in collaboration with Egan; it was commercially not very successful despite the melodic - catchy folk - rock songs.
International success was Gerry Rafferty in 1978 with the album City to City. The decoupled song Baker Street reached worldwide in a shortened and re- assembled form top positions in the charts and let the album continue to rise in the charts. Baker Street has one of the most famous saxophone solos of the pop-rock history, played as a hook by Raphael Ravenscroft, who was also active in the jazz - rock band Brand X.
The follow-up LP Night Owl 1979 could reach the UK Top 10, the single Get It Right Next Time reached the UK Top 40, but overall he was not able to last year's success.
Gerry Rafferty's subsequent publications - also be benevolent captured by the criticism album Snakes and Ladders (1980 ) - were financially not as profitable, which coincided with the acquisition of the record label Liberty United Records through EMI Records.
Its 1982 - back from the Liberty label - out accommodated album Sleepwalking certainly had potential to be a bestseller. Also, this critically acclaimed album was played by radio stations rarer than his previous albums, whereupon Rafferty retired to the family area.
Noteworthy for 1983 is its contribution The Way It Always Starts for the soundtrack of the British film Local Hero with Burt Lancaster and others.
With North and South (1988 ) seemed to succeed in making a comeback again. However, the American market reacted very subdued. A role played probably Gerry Rafferty's increasing reluctance to perform live, and his silence in dealing with the media; nevertheless managed a change of record label to Polydor.
The medium-fast and atypical for Rafferty Country Code Do not Give Up on Me was still one of BBC Radio 2 often played song from the elaborately produced album On a Wing and a Prayer (1992 ), including some songs reunited with Joe Egan of Stealer 's Wheel as a background singer, just ten years later, a near- reunion with Billy Connolly (The Humblebums ) on his album Glasgow Accents ( Stories and Songs ). On a Wing and a Prayer sold only unsatisfactory, perhaps because those fully digitized production was mainly tailored for the headphone use and could display their charms on older analog systems only imperfectly. On the album Gerry Rafferty's brother Jim was involved as a harmony vocalist, songwriter and album designer.
The bizarre and ambiguous Her Father Did not Like Me Anyway ( in 1969 appeared on the album The Humblebums ) on the 1994 album Over My Head (1994 ) was moderately successful, but could not build on former heydays. Gerry Rafferty Over My Head was the first failure after a long time.
His last attempts for a commercial connection success were the musical multilayered Another World (2000) and the compilation Please Sing a Song for Us ( 2004), the only on the site in 2006 set by Gerry Rafferty were initially available. The record covers of Another World comes from John (Patrick ) Byrne, who also designed the cover of City to City, Night Owl, and Snakes and Ladders, " Can I Have My Money Back" and the first two albums by " Stealers Wheel".
The large number of compilations from Gerry Rafferty's work speaks for the continued great popularity of this artist, who was traded at the height of his fame in the late seventies as the antipode of the punk and New Wave movement.
The last years
Gerry Rafferty lived until 2005 standing alone at his home in Hampstead ( London). After a collapse caused by excessive alcohol consumption, he was admitted to a rehabilitation clinic of the Scottish Church. In July 2008, he rented a hotel suite in a London 5 -star hotel and there was a negative impact on. On July 25, he was invited to a liver check into London's St. Thomas Hospital and was since August 1, 2008 as missing after he disappeared from his hospital room.
By mid- February 2009, the suspicion of kidnapping, which could be dispelled by the BBC insisted; so should Rafferty have all the time lived on in a villa in Tuscany and also worked on a new album. Already a part of the recordings for the poetic album Another World, which was released worldwide until the year 2003 in a luxury edition of 15,000 copies on CD was originated in Tuscany and on the Caribbean island of Barbados. On 27 November 2009 the new album Life Goes On was released. It includes re-recordings of pieces from the previous three albums as well as new songs, but do not originate exclusively from Raffertys spring, such as a Beatles cover from the album Abbey Road, or some Christmas carols ( and Others Silent Night ).
On January 4, 2011, he died in the presence of his daughter Martha at home in Poole (formerly Dorset ) from the effects of liver and kidney failure.
Others
Baker Street
- Through the music magazine " New Musical Express" containing false rumor was spread that the English actor Bob Holness had played the saxophone solo.
- There are many cover versions of " Baker Street": In the animated series "The Simpsons" Lisa Simpson plays in the episode " The saxophone history" ( " Lisa's Sax" in the U.S. original ) a cover version.
- As title song of the pilot episode of the TV soap "Stella " and " The Dave Ramsey Show" ( U.S. radio ), on the soundtrack of " Good Will Hunting " and in the films "Kung Fu Hustle " and "Zodiac - The trace of the Killers ".
- " Foo Fighters " took a hard rock version of " Baker Street " on the B-side of their single "My Hero", which peaked in the " Billboard Modern Rock Tracks" 34th 1998.
- The pop band " Undercover" ( # 2 in the ' British Single Charts " ), country singer Waylon Jennings, Rick Springfield, folk singer Livingston Taylor, " Jars of Clay " (live) and the heavy metal band" Carnival in Coal " played the piece, Dance versions exist of Leif Benjamin, " DJ Octopus " and Michael Mind, jazz trumpeter Maynard Ferguson and" Deejay Goldfinger ".
Discography
Chart Sources: DE AT CH UK U.S.
Compilations
With The Humblebums
With Stealers Wheel