Gerald Rafferty (16 April 1947– 4 January 2011) was a Scottish singer-songwriter. He was a founding member of Stealers Wheel, whose biggest hit was "Stuck in the Middle with You" in 1973. His solo hits in the late 1970s included "Baker Street", "Right Down the Line" and "Night Owl".

Rafferty was born into a working-class family in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland. His mother taught him both Irish and Scottish folk songs when he was a boy; later, he was influenced by the music of the Beatles and Bob Dylan. He joined the folk-pop group the Humblebums (of which Billy Connolly was a member) in 1969. After they disbanded in 1971, he recorded his first solo album, Can I Have My Money Back? Rafferty and Joe Egan formed the group Stealers Wheel in 1972. In 1978, he recorded his second solo album, City to City. A heavy drinker for much of his life, Rafferty died from liver failure in January 2011.

Early years

thumb|left|[[Foxbar in Paisley, Renfrewshire, where Rafferty grew up]]

Rafferty was born in 1947 into a working-class family of Irish Catholic origin in Underwood Lane in Paisley, His parents were Joseph Rafferty and Mary Skeffington, and he had two brothers, of whom he was either the middle sibling (sources differ).

Rafferty grew up in a council house in the town's Ferguslie Park, in Underwood Lane, and was educated at St Mirin's Academy.

Musical career

Rafferty left St Mirin's Academy in 1963. He then worked in a butcher's shop, as a civil service clerk, and in a shoe shop. However, he explained in an interview, "But there was never anything else for me but music. I never intended making a career out of any of the jobs I did." In the mid 1960s, Rafferty earned money, for a time, busking on the London Underground. In 1966, Rafferty and Egan were members of the band the Fifth Column, along with Dennis Bell. The group got a deal with Columbia Records and released the single "Benjamin Day"/"There's Nobody Here", but it was not a commercial success. In his own stand-up shows, Connolly has often recalled this period, telling how Rafferty made him laugh and describing the crazy things they did while on tour. Once Rafferty decided to look in the Berlin telephone directory to see if any Hitlers were listed.

After the duo separated in 1971, Transatlantic owner Nathan Joseph signed Rafferty as a solo performer. Rafferty recorded his first solo album, Can I Have My Money Back?, with Hugh Murphy, a staff producer working for the label. Billboard praised the album as "high-grade folk-rock", describing it as Rafferty's "finest work" to date: "His tunes are rich and memorable with an undeniable charm that will definitely see him into the album and very possibly singles charts soon". Yet although the album was a critical success, it did not enjoy commercial success. According to Rafferty's daughter Martha, it was around this time that her father discovered, by chance, Colin Wilson's classic book The Outsider, about alienation and creativity, which became a huge influence both on his songwriting and his outlook on the world: "The ideas and references contained in that one book were to sustain and inspire him for the rest of his life." Rafferty later confirmed that alienation was the "persistent theme" of his songs; "To Each and Everyone", from Can I Have My Money Back?, was an early example.

In 1972, having gained some airplay from his Signpost recording "Make You, Break You", Rafferty joined Egan to form Stealers Wheel and recorded three albums with the American songwriters and producers Leiber & Stoller. The group was beset by legal wranglings, but had a huge hit with "Stuck in the Middle with You", which earned critical acclaim as well as commercial success: a 1975 article in Sounds described it as "a sort of cross between white label Beatles and punk Dylan yet with a unique Celtic flavour that has marked all their work". Twenty years later, the song was used prominently in the 1992 movie Reservoir Dogs; Rafferty refused to grant permission for its re-release. Stealers Wheel also produced the lesser top 50 hits "Everyone's Agreed That Everything Will Turn Out Fine" followed by "Star", and there were further suggestions of Rafferty's growing alienation in tracks such as "Outside Looking In" and "Who Cares". The duo disbanded in 1975.

City to City and Night Owl

Legal issues after the break-up of Stealers Wheel meant that, for three years, Rafferty was unable to release any material. and won the 1979 Ivor Novello Award for Best Song Musically and Lyrically.

The album City to City sold over 5.5 million copies, toppling the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack from the top of the Billboard 200 album chart in the US on 8 July 1978. Rafferty considered this his first proper taste of success, as he told Melody Maker the following year: "...all the records I've ever done before have been flops. Stealers Wheel was a flop. 'Can I Have My Money Back?' was a flop. The Humblebums were a flop... My life doesn't stand or fall by the amount of people who buy my records."

"Baker Street" features a saxophone riff played by Raphael Ravenscroft, although the origins of the solo have been disputed. As the singer recalled in a 1988 interview with Colin Irwin:

In his interview with Colin Irwin, Rafferty disputed this and said that Ravenscroft had been his second choice to play the saxophone solo, after Pete Zorn, who was unavailable: "The only confusion at the time that I didn't enjoy too much was the fact that a lot of people believed that the line was written by Raphael Ravenscroft, the sax player, but it was my line. I sang it to him."

"Baker Street" remains a mainstay of soft-rock radio airplay, In a 2003 interview with The Sun (Scotland), Rafferty commented on how profitable his biggest song had been: "Baker Street still makes me about £80,000 a year. It's been a huge earner for me. I must admit, I could live off that song alone." However it earned him another £1.5 million, selling around three million copies in Europe and America. He never let "Baker Street" be used for advertising, despite lucrative offers.

"Right Down the Line" was the second single from City to City. The song made No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 1 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks charts in the US. It remained at the top of the adult contemporary chart for four non-consecutive weeks. The third single from the album, "Home and Dry", reached No. 28 in the US Top 40 in early 1979.

Rafferty's next album, Night Owl, also did well. Guitarist Richard Thompson performed on the track "Take The Money and Run", and the title track was a UK No. 5 hit in 1979. "Days Gone Down" reached No. 17 in the US. The follow-up single "Get It Right Next Time" made the UK and US Top 40.

Snakes and Ladders, Sleepwalking and North and South

Subsequent albums, such as Snakes and Ladders (1980), Sleepwalking (1982), and North and South (1988), fared less well, perhaps due partly to Rafferty's longstanding reluctance to perform live, with which he felt uncomfortable.) confirmed this several years later, noting the singer was now "finding himself at the crossroads and looking to replace the treadmill with a new dimension in his life". Also in 1983, Rafferty announced his intention to take a break and devote more time to his family: "It dawned on me that since Baker Street I had been touring the world, travelling everywhere and seeing nowhere. Whatever I do in the future, it's at my own pace, on my own terms."

Based at 16th-century Tye Farm in Hartfield, near the Kent-Sussex border, Rafferty installed electric gates to protect his privacy, built a recording studio, and worked largely by himself or with Murphy.

According to his former wife Carla, who discouraged visitors: "He was just stalling for time. Maybe some new project would suddenly happen, but I knew he'd crossed the line as far as the record business went."

In the early 1990s, Rafferty recorded a cover version of the Bob Dylan song "The Times They Are a-Changin'" with Barbara Dickson, who had contributed backing vocals to both City to City and Night Owl. The track appeared on Dickson's albums Don't Think Twice It's All Right (1992) and The Barbara Dickson Collection (2006).

On a Wing and a Prayer and Over My Head

Rafferty released two further albums in the 1990s in what musician Tom Robinson later described as "a major return to form". On a Wing and a Prayer (1992) reunited him with his Stealers Wheel partner Egan on several tracks. It included three tracks co-written with Rafferty's brother Jim, also a singer-songwriter, who had been signed to Decca Records in the 1970s. Rafferty recorded a new version of his Humblebums song "Her Father Didn't Like Me Anyway" on the album Over My Head (1994). These were the last two records Rafferty produced with Hugh Murphy, who died in 1998. According to guitarist Hugh Burns, Murphy's death was "a great blow to Gerry" Through his company Icon Music, Rafferty promoted and sold the album independently on a website created specifically for the purpose.

Another World, released in 2000, was originally available only via direct order from his website, but since 2003 has been available on the Hypertension label. Another World, almost an esoteric work, also with the assistance of Mark Knopfler and Egan, featured an album cover illustrated by John Byrne, who also illustrated the covers for Can I Have My Money Back?, City to City, Night Owl, and Snakes and Ladders, and all three Stealers Wheel albums. Byrne was also responsible for one of Rafferty's most prized possessions: a hand-painted Martin acoustic guitar bearing his portrait and the name "Gerry Rafferty", which features in many photographs of the singer. Finally, thanks to the Internet, it seemed Rafferty no longer needed the music industry: technology was allowing him to put his music directly in the hands of an appreciative audience. Rafferty felt he had matured as an artist, as he told the Evening Standard at the time of the release: "At my time of life, I don't want to be talking to 23-year-old record executives who are just trying to sell their products to 19-year-olds. I'm older and my audience is older. They'll know where to find me." In the same interview, he said that the entire record had been made for approximately £200,000, with half spent on travel, the recording system costing £75,000, and the website and marketing adding £25,000.

Rafferty maintained his enthusiasm for this new approach to recording for the next three years. In a blog posting dated 31 March 2004 he wrote: "Let's get back to music: after all that's the only reason that this website has been set up." Another posting announced that Rafferty would begin to release music regularly as free downloads: "In reality, Gerry could put a new track out every two weeks or so. We will keep you informed of developments as they happen." Only a handful of tracks were ever released, however, and the website eventually closed down without any explanation.

Life Goes On

During November 2009, Rafferty released what would be his final album, Life Goes On. This was again on the Hypertension music label. Featuring 18 tracks, the album contains six new recordings, covers of Christmas carols, plus also some traditional songs that had previously been available on the Gerry Rafferty website. The remaining tracks are remastered tracks from his previous three albums.

On 3 September 2021 Parlophone UK released Rest in Blue, an album on which Martha Rafferty completed a project started by her father from demos left by Rafferty. The collection of blues, rock, and folk demos had been planned for a new album before his death.

Attitude to the music industry

Rafferty drew a clear distinction between the artistic integrity of a musician, on the one hand, and the music industry's need to create celebrities and sell products, on the other. In an interview with Colin Irwin in 1988, he said: "There's a thin line between being a songwriter and a singer and being a personality... If you feel uncomfortable with it you shouldn't do it. It's not for me – there are too many inherent contradictions." Two decades later, speaking to the press after Rafferty's funeral, Charlie Reid of The Proclaimers confirmed Rafferty's dislike of celebrity: "He was not entirely comfortable with fame. Even more so than most people who work in this business, he saw it as not a good thing." Reid believed Rafferty was fundamentally unsuited to the pressures of celebrity: "He struck me as a very, very sensitive man and for someone like that, fame was probably not appropriate." Billy Connolly agrees that Rafferty had different priorities: "I wanted success and fame and I got it, to a degree. Gerry wanted respect. He wanted his talent to be respected. He wanted his songs to be respected. And he certainly got that."

Generally an autobiographical writer, It was ironic that Rafferty—a lover and collector of religious icons, who would later name one of his publishing companies "Icon Music"—was also an iconoclast.

Rafferty never changed his mind about the music business; if anything, his views hardened. In 2000, he told the Paisley Daily Express that the second Stealers Wheel album, released in 1974, had been named Ferguslie Park, after a deprived area of Paisley, "to get as far away as possible from all the bullshit of the music industry in London." "a substantial listed 1860s mansion" in the Highland village of Strathpeffer, although he sold the property two years later and never actually moved in.

Alcoholism

Rafferty enjoyed alcohol from a young age, although they remained close. While the news stories focused on Rafferty's binges, they revealed nothing of the impact on his family and friends. His girlfriend Enzina Fuschini said she: "felt that he was under some sort of evil spell. He felt crippled by it... I saw a man in despair".

There were conflicting reports about what happened next. The newspaper Scotland on Sunday reported that Rafferty had been asked to leave the hotel 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. Subsequently, Rafferty's spokesperson Paul Charles told The Independent that he had been in touch with Rafferty a fortnight previously and that he was alive and well but had no plans to either record or tour. The album, titled Life Goes On, was released in November 2009.

After leaving St Thomas' Hospital, and while claiming he was in Tuscany, he was moving from one London hotel to another. During this time, he met Enzina Fuschini, an Italian artist living in Dorset. Rafferty and Fuschini rented a large home together in Upton, near Poole. Fuschini said she cared for the singer during 2009 and tried to help him overcome his alcoholism, and that he proposed to her at the Ritz Hotel in Paris on Christmas Eve that year.

Death

In November 2010, Rafferty was admitted to the Royal Bournemouth Hospital where he was put on a life-support machine and treated for multiple organ failure. After being taken off life support, Rafferty rallied for a short time, and doctors thought that he might recover. Rafferty died of liver failure at the home of his daughter Martha in Stroud, Gloucestershire, on 4 January 2011. He was 63. Speaking of the last days she spent with him, Martha stated, “He was dying and we both knew it, and it was okay.... His journey to death was the most profound thing I’ve ever witnessed.” and his ashes scattered on Iona. He is survived by his daughter Martha, granddaughter Celia, and brother Jim.

Tributes and legacy

Newspapers printed lengthy obituaries for the singer; in The Guardian, Michael Gray charted Rafferty's long downward spiral into alcoholism,

Other entertainers also paid tribute to Rafferty, with comedian and ex-bandmate Billy Connolly calling him "a hugely talented songwriter and singer who will be greatly missed" and musician Tom Robinson saying, "His early work with Stealers Wheel was an inspiration to a whole generation of songwriters in the 70s, including me." Speaking after the funeral, Charlie Reid of The Proclaimers said: "I think Gerry Rafferty was one of the few people who really successfully straddled the worlds of both folk and popular music. He did it really well and he was respected in both camps." Finbar Furey, who knew Rafferty for over 40 years, said he "was in a different league completely. He didn't know how good he was. He was one of the most talented musicians and singers I ever knew but he completely underestimated his own talent. He was a very humble man." Shortly after news of the singer's death, Lily Allen tweeted the message "Rest in Peace Gerry x" with a video link to the song "Right Down the Line", reputedly one of her favourite music tracks. Electropop star Elly Jackson described "Right Down the Line" as "my favourite track of all time. It makes me think of home, nostalgia and happiness."

In January 2013, BBC Radio 2 re-broadcast their 2012 programme "Bring It All Home – Gerry Rafferty Remembered", which had been recorded live at Celtic Connections in Glasgow and was presented by Ricky Ross. Contributing artists included his friend Rab Noakes, The Proclaimers, Barbara Dickson, Ron Sexsmith, Jack Bruce, Paul Brady, Emma Pollock, James Vincent McMorrow and Betsy Cook. Rafferty's guitarist Hugh Burns, multi-instrumentalist Graham Preskett and saxophonist Mel Collins, were also featured.

Discography

Studio albums

  • Can I Have My Money Back? (1971)
  • City to City (1978)
  • Night Owl (1979)
  • Snakes and Ladders (1980)
  • Sleepwalking (1982)
  • North and South (1988)
  • On a Wing and a Prayer (1992)
  • Over My Head (1994)
  • Another World (2000)
  • Life Goes On (2009)
  • Rest in Blue (2021)

References

  • BBC Obituary, 4 January 2011
  • The Guardian Obituary, 4 January 2011
  • The Times Obituary, 5 January 2011