Lamh Foistenach Abu!
Posted on 01/04/2011 11:57:47 AM PST by Borges
The Scottish singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty, who has died aged 63 after a long illness, wrote the multimillion-selling hit Baker Street, which more than 30 years after its 1978 release still netted him an annual £80,000. At the end of the 1970s he did his best work, a series of richly resonant albums that gave no hint of their creator's inner troubles.
Rafferty was born in Paisley, near Glasgow, an unwanted third son. His father, Joseph, was an Irish-born miner. His mother, Mary Skeffington, whose name would provide a Rafferty song title, dragged young Gerry round the streets on Saturday nights so that they would not be at home when his father came back drunk. They would wait outside, in all weathers, until he had fallen asleep, to avoid a beating. "If it wasn't for you, I'd leave," Mary told Gerry. Joseph died in 1963, when Gerry was 16.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
He was awesome.
Kinda sad. Still play his song through a playlist in my iPod.
Lamh Foistenach Abu!
I never heard "Stuck in the Middle With You" quite in the same way ever again after watching this scene.
Baker Street still holds up, classic song.
RIP, Gerry Rafferty, one of my inspirations.
Right Down The Line.....this dude was talented. RIP.
Very sad.
I’m 34 and I’ve got some of his MP3’s.
“Right Down the Line”
RIP
Baker Street was a staple of my college life. “And you talk about everything”
Talented and yet, as the article discusses, crippled by severe alcoholism for the “last two decades” of his life. The last years of his life sound utterly miserable. From his miserable childhood onward, this man had a lot of ups and downs in life.
I still have “Baker Street” on my ipod...also “Star” by Stealer’s Wheel...great stuff from a talented man...magritte
I could swear I heard him do a cover of “Come Back When You Grow Up” by Bobby Vee and it was better than Vee’s but I can find no reference to such a song by Rafferty.
Tarantino does have an immense talent for selecting the perfect music to accompany his films. I’d forgotten that song was one of Rafferty’s. RIP.
after contributing a vocal to the soundtrack of the film Local Hero (1983)
Didn't know this - BTW the movie is well worth seeing.
And Sheryl Crow’s “All I Wanna Do” was a blatant rip-off of that song.
Great talent. RIP.
Him and Knopfler on guitar would have been an awesome combination.
Kind of Dave Ramsey related ping.......
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