Gerry Rafferty, 'Baker Street' Singer, Dies at 63 | Billboard.com

Gerry Rafferty, who had Top 10 success with Stealers Wheel's "Stuck in the Middle" and his own "Baker Street," died on Tuesday in London from liver failure after a long battle with alcoholism. The Scottish-born singer and songwriter had reportedly been hospitalized during November in Dorset, England, with a grim prognosis. He was taken off life support and showed some improvement until this week. He was 63.

His former manager Michael Gray, in an obituary for the British newspaper The Guardian, praised Rafferty's voice as "redolent of both Lennon's and McCartney's, yet unmistakably his own" and his music as "a shimmering delta of sound...romantic yet pushily sardonic...thanks to Gerry's gift of perfect pitch and an obdurate determination to stick to his guns." The latter, Gray wrote, ultimately limited Rafferty's musical achievements" "Behind an aggressive front, and a strong awareness of his own musical excellence, was fear. He turned down working with Eric Clapton, McCartney and others..."

Rafferty was born in Paisley Scotland, on April 16, 1947, to a Scottish mother and Irish father whose own drinking habit caused Rafferty's mother to walk him around the town on Saturday nights so they wouldn't be home when his father returned, drunk. Rafferty became a musician as a teenager, working days in a butcher shop and a local tax office while playing with friend Joe Egan in a band called the Mavericks and busking. Rafferty, who married Carla Ventilla in 1970 (they divorced in 1990), also worked with Billy Connolly in a Glasgow band called the Humblebums, recording a couple albums with the group before releasing his first solo album, "Can I Have My Money Back," in 1972.

That same year Rafferty reunited with Egan to form Stealers Wheel. "Stuck in the Middle," conceived as a light-hearted homage to Bob Dylan, hit No. 6 on the Hot 100 and was covered by Juice Newton, Jeff Healey, the Bangles' Susanna Hoffs, the Eagles of Death Metal, Michael Buble and Sheryl Crow, among others, and was also used to memorable effect in a torture scene from the 1992 film "Reservoir Dogs."

Stealers Wheel released three albums before splitting in 1975 (former members revived the group in 2008), and Rafferty, who'd left the band briefly at the start of its career, resumed his solo career with 1978's "City to City." The album sold more than 5.5 million copies worldwide thanks to "Baker Street," a song named after a London street and marked by Raphael Ravenscroft's signature saxophone hook and hit No. 2 on the Hot 100. In October BMI announced that the song has been played more than five million times worldwide.

Rafferty had another minor hit, "Right Down the Line," from "City To City" but never achieved similar success over the course of eight more solo albums, including "Life Goes On" in 2009. He worked with Stealers Wheel partner Egan again on 1992's "On a Wing and a Prayer" and sang on "The Way It Always Starts" from the soundtrack to "Local Hero" in 1983. Rafferty also co-produced the Proclaimers 1987 debut album, "This is the Story."

His last couple of years were marked by strange reports, including being asked to leave the London's Westbury Hotel for unruly behavior in July of 2008 and checking himself into a hospital for liver irregularities shortly thereafter. Rafferty was said to have disappeared that August, and at one point was said to be "extremely well and...living in Tuscany" where he was writing and recording new music. But Rafferty was actually back in Dorset, according to ex-manager Gray.

Rafferty is survived by his daughter Martha -- with whom he lived during the early 90s in California -- a granddaughter, Celia, and a brother, Jim. 


 

 

 

My Amazon Reviews: Styx "The Grand Illusion"

Climb Aboard our Starship
4 Out of 5 Stars

Styx was a great band on multiple fronts in their prime. With a three pronged lead vocal attack (Dennis DeYoung, Tommy Shaw and James Young) and a musical sensibilty split between 70's prog-rock and big hair arena bands, they were able to have album rock classics and top 40 singles. Their second album for A&M (and 6th overall), "The Grand Illusion" was the album that found Styx merging into a peak with ambitions.

Of course, like many prog-wannabe's in the 70's, they also had a few hang-ups. The lyrics still were locked onto hobbits, castles, damsels in distress, men lost in their wilderness and UFO's. What was profound to a 17 year old fan now sounds kitschy, yet no less enjoyable. And again, like so many progsters in the 70's, there was a concept behind "The Grand Illusion," in that fame can be an illusion and dirty trick on those who seek it, and it's often better to just let yourself travel a natural course (best emphasized by Shaw's "Fooling Yourself").

There's also the playing. An edited version of "Come Sail Away" became the band's second big hit, but on the album's six minute version, spacey synthesizers bob and weave through an extended instrumental break. During the mid section of "Castle Walls," the band stomps through a medieval sounding build-up, complete with the kind of keyboard bursts you know were just itching for an over-the-top concert light extravaganza.

The flipside is "Miss America," a basic hard rocking put down of shallowness and the toughest song here. It's the kind of rock that would explode on "Blue Collar Man" two years later. Styx's willingness to meld various styles was what made this album so appealing in 1978 (as well as on South Park decades later). "The Grand Illusion" is the album where the classic Styx line-up becomes crystal clear.

    

Passings: Photographer James Bond

I just was notified by my friend here, Nipper, that James Bond passed away on New Years eve. He was one of the best known photographers in the kink community, which is where most folks know him by his Nom de Camera, James Bond. Jim was also an expert in Railroading and trains, and I once accompanied him on a late night photo shoot in Los Angeles of an historic Steam Engine that was in a roundhouse for an evening.

James Bond got into the kinky photography field when he visited the New York Bondage Club, founded by Bob Wingate, who had an idea for a magazine to be called Bound and Gagged. Bond contributed photos to the very first issue of B&G, introducing rubber gear and wetsuits all combined with intense rope bondage. His work has appeared in B&G, Rubber Rebel, Vulcan America and on countless websites, feeding the kinky rubber/bondage community.

While Jim's pictures probably most seen by readers of Bound and Gagged magazine, his work often appeared in my publications Rubber Rebel and Bound and Gagged. Frankly, Vulcan would not have been nearly as interesting without his work. He also sat with me one evening at a Delta Run for a profile that appears in my book Skin Tight. We talked about his fetishes and his coming into kink as a photographer....and his cantankerously conservative politics.

Here's Jim in his own words from that interview in 2006. 

What excites men who can come to me is generally the gear, and the idea of a good top that can tie them up and make them feel good, and they don’t have to worry. I am not a threatening image. There are men in the scene that could scare the shit out of you. I have seen this as a characteristic of a lot of leather tops; part of their scene is to be intimidating. The people I play with tend to go the other way. They don’t want to be intimidated. There is a big difference between a top and a master. I am not a master, I don’t role play; I approach my bottoms one-to-one. It’s you and me and I’m here to let you have fun. I will use whatever skills I have to make you feel good. Now, if making you fell good means hanging you upside-down and being unable to breathe for a minute, well, that is your definition of feeling good.

I took that picture in (I think) 1997 and Jim told me it was one of his favorites of himself. I'm gonna miss you, you old grump....