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Gerald "Gerry" Rafferty (16 April 1947 – 4 January 2011) was a Scottish singer and songwriter best known for his solo hits "Baker Street" and "Right Down the Line", and "Stuck in the Middle" with the band Stealers Wheel.
Rafferty was born on 16 April 1947 into a working-class family at Paisley and grew up in a council house on the town’s Glenburn estate. He was educated at St Mirin’s Academy.
His Irish-born father was a heavy-drinking miner and lorry driver who died when Rafferty was 16. Inspired by his Scottish mother, who had taught him Irish and Scottish folk songs as a boy, and heavily influenced by the music of The Beatles and Bob Dylan, the young Rafferty started to write his own material.
In 1963 Rafferty left St Mirin's Academy and worked in a butcher's shop and, later, as a civil service clerk. At weekends, he and a schoolfriend, Joe Egan, played in a local group, The Mavericks. At a dancehall in 1965, Gerry met his future wife, apprentice hairdresser Carla Ventilla. She was 15, from an Italian Clydebank family. They married in 1970 and divorced in 1990.
In the mid-1960s, Rafferty earned money busking on the London Underground. Later, after working with Billy Connolly in a band called The Humblebums, he recorded a first solo album, Can I Have My Money Back. In 1972, Rafferty and Joe Egan formed Stealers Wheel, a group which was beset by legal wranglings, but did have a huge hit "Stuck in the Middle" (which was used in the 1992 movie Reservoir Dogs) and the smaller top 40 hit "Star" ten months later. The duo disbanded in 1975. In 1966 Gerry and Joe had released a single, "Benjamin Day"/"There's Nobody Here" (Columbia 8068), as members of The Fifth Column.
In 1978, Gerry Rafferty cut a solo album, City to City, which included the song with which he remains most identified, "Baker Street". The single reached No. 3 in the UK and No. 2 in the U.S. The album sold over 5.5 million copies, toppling the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack in the U.S. on 8 July 1978."Baker Street" features a "glistening" saxophone solo by Raphael Ravenscroft which remains a mainstay of soft-rock radio airplay. In October 2010 the song was recognised by the BMI for notching up over 5 million plays worldwide. Stuck in the Middle With You has achieved over 4 million plays worldwide, and Right Down The Line has achieved over 3 million plays
Also from City to City, "Home and Dry" managed a #28 spot in the US Top 40 in early 1979. "Right Down the Line" is the third track from the 1978 album City to City. The song made #12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and #1 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks charts in the U.S., making this the only Rafferty song to ever reach #1 on any U.S or U.K chart. It remained atop the adult contemporary chart for four nonconsecutive weeks. One of the more obscure tracks from that time is "Big Change in the Weather" (the B-side of "Baker Street"). His next album, Night Owl, also did well with the help of guitarist Richard Thompson performing on the track "Take The Money and Run", and the title track was a UK No. 5 hit in 1979. "Days Gone Down" reached #17 in the U.S. The follow-up single "Get It Right Next Time" made the UK & US Top 40.
Subsequent albums, such as Snakes and Ladders (1980), Sleepwalking (1982), and North and South (1988), fared less well, perhaps due partly to Rafferty's general reluctance to perform live. "Don't Give Up On Me", from his 1992 collection On a Wing and a Prayer, is a much-featured oldie on BBC Radio 2. That album reunited him with Stealers Wheel partner Joe Egan on several tracks. Rafferty redid his own "Her Father Didn't Like Me Anyway" on the album Over My Head (1994). Another World, released in 2000, was originally available only by direct order via his no longer active website but is now available on the Hypertension label. Another World featured an album cover illustrated by John Byrne 'Patrick', who also illustrated the covers for Can I Have My Money Back?, City to City, Night Owl, and Snakes and Ladders, as well as all three Stealers Wheel albums.
Rafferty also contributed to the soundtrack to the film, Local Hero with the song "The Way It Always Starts" (1983), and co-produced The Proclaimers' first UK hit single, "Letter from America", in 1987 with Hugh Murphy. In 2009, Rafferty released Life Goes On, again on Hypertension. This album features a mixture of new recordings, covers of Christmas carols and traditional songs that had previously been available as downloads on his web site, and edited tracks from his previous three albums.
In August 2008, the newspaper Scotland on Sunday reported that Rafferty had been asked to leave the Westbury Hotel in London and had then checked himself into St Thomas' Hospital suffering from a chronic liver condition, brought on by heavy drinking. The same report claimed that on 1 August 2008, Rafferty had disappeared, leaving his belongings behind, and that the hospital had filed a missing persons report. However no such missing persons report existed.
On 17 February 2009, The Guardian reported that Rafferty, "who has battled alcoholism for years", was in hiding in the south of England, being cared for by a friend. Subsequently, Rafferty's spokesperson Paul Charles told The Independent newspaper that he had been in touch with Rafferty two weeks previously and that he was alive and well but had no plans to either record or tour. This was then contradicted by a further report in The Daily Telegraph on the following day which quoted from a statement by his solicitors issued to Channel 4 news: "Contrary to reports, Gerry is extremely well and has been living in Tuscany for the last six months ... he continues to compose and record new songs and music ... and he hopes to release a new album of his most recent work in the summer of this year 2009". The album, titled Life Goes On, was released in November 2009.
In November 2010, Rafferty was admitted to a hospital in Bournemouth, Dorset, suffering from liver failure. He died on 4 January 2011 of liver disease.
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The lengthy career of the reclusive Rafferty started as a member of the Humblebums with Billy Connolly and Tam Harvey in 1968. After its demise through commercial indifference, Transatlantic Records offered him a solo contract. The result was Can I Have My Money Back?, a superb blend of folk and gentle pop music, featuring one of the earliest cover paintings from the well-known Scottish artist "Patrick" (playwright John Byrne). Rafferty showed great promise as a songwriter with the rolling "Steamboat Row" and the plaintive and observant, "Her Father Didn't Like Me Anyway", but the album was a commercial failure. Rafferty's next solo project came after an interruption of seven years, four as a member of the brilliant but turbulent Stealers Wheel, and three through litigation over managerial problems. Much of this is documented in his lyrics both with Stealers Wheel and as a soloist. City To City in 1978 raised his profile and gave him a hit single that created a classic song with probably the most famous saxophone introduction in pop music, performed by Raphael Ravenscroft. "Baker Street" became a multi-million seller and narrowly missed the top of the charts. The album sold similar numbers and Rafferty became a reluctant star. He declined to perform in the USA even though his album was number 1.
The follow-up Night Owl was almost as successful, containing a similar batch of strong songs with intriguing lyrics and haunting melodies. Rafferty's output has been sparse during the 80s and none of his recent work has matched his earlier songs. He made a single contribution to the movie Local Hero and produced the Proclaimers' 1987 hit single, "Letter From America". North And South continued the themes of his previous albums, although the lengthy introductions to each track made it unsuitable for radio play. During the early 90s Rafferty's marriage broke up, and, as is often the case this stimulates more songwriting creativity. On A Wing And A Prayer was certainly a return to form, but although the reviews were favourable it made little impression on the charts. Over My Head in 1995 was a lacklustre affair. The only songs offering something original were re-recorded Stealers Wheel tracks, written with his former songwriting partner Joe Egan. "Over My Head" and "Late Again" are the high points on an album which Rafferty seems bereft of ideas. One More Dream was a good selection of songs but marred by having some tracks re-recorded, actually detracting from the atmosphere and quality of the originals.
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