If you're of a certain age you'll remember turning up the volume on your car stereo in those days of the late 1970's.....there was the slow, ethereal sounding intro, followed by an unforgettable sax solo, and then the Lennonesque voice of Scottish singer Gerry Rafferty singing his greatest hit song Baker Street. He was once part of the group STEALER"s WHEEL with partner Joe Egan, and had a hit with Stuck In the Middle With You in 1972, and his debut solo album, 1978's CITY TO CITY contained Baker Street and another hit, All Down The Line.
Those were the highlights to a good career that had the potential to be great. And today we've learned that Gerry Rafferty has passed on at age 63 after being taken off life support in the UK. He was suffering from liver failure after battling alcoholism for years.
I'm very sad to hear the news....I liked his music, and feel this man only scratched the surface of his talents.
3 comments:
Tragic ending to a sad life for a man with so much talent.
On one of my show's in 2008, I played "Stuck In the Middle With You" and "Right Down the Line" back-to-back. Out of curiosity, I looked up Gerry on Wikipedia. That's when I found out about his health problems and an allegation that he was missing after leaving a hospital in London.
2011 is not even a week old and already there have been 3 celebrity deaths (along with Gerry, actors Peter Postlethwaite and Anne Francis have already passed away).
Leslie and Malcolm- BAKER STREET always conjures up images from those years when I was living in the Colorado high country and had the best stereo system in Breckenridge...trust me, it was true!
Whenever I read about a person who kills themselves slowly through substance abuse I can't help but think, "For the grace of God that could have been me." Obviously Gerry's condition affected his career; it peaked early, and made a gradual descent. But he did create two classics in a very rich era of pop and rock music. He was no Springsteen, Mellencamp, or Jackson Browne.....but he was an artist who's work helped to define a decade, and bring back memories in many of our lives.
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