Gerry Rafferty

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, a son and grandson of coal miners. He was a son of Mary Skeffington and Joseph Rafferty (died 1963); he had two brothers, Jim and Joe (died 1995). Rafferty grew up in a council house on the town’s Glenburn estate and was educated at St Mirin's Academy. His Irish-born father, a violent alcoholic, was a miner and lorry driver who died when Rafferty was 16. Inspired by his Scottish mother who 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. In the mid-1960s, Rafferty earned money for a time busking on the London Underground. In 1966, Rafferty was a member of the band The Fifth Column along with future Stealers Wheel collaborator Joe Egan. The group released the single, "Benjamin Day"/"There's Nobody Here" (Columbia 8068) but it was not a commercial success.

In 1969 he became the third member of an existing folk-pop duo The Humblebums which featured future comedian Billy Connolly and Tam Harvey. Harvey left shortly afterwards and Rafferty and Connolly went on to record two acclaimed albums for Transatlantic Records as a duo. After the two decided to go their separate ways in 1971, Transatlantic owner Nathan Joseph signed Rafferty to a contract as a solo performer and Rafferty recorded his first solo album – Can I Have My Money Back. The album was a critical success but did not enjoy commercial success. 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 20 years later was used prominently in the 1992 movie Reservoir Dogs) and the lesser top 40 hit "Star" ten months later. The duo disbanded in 1975.

Legal issues after the breakup of Stealers Wheel meant that, for three years, Rafferty was unable to release any material. After the disputes were resolved in 1978, he recorded his second 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" featured a very distinctive saxophone solo by Raphael Ravenscroft and remains a mainstay of soft-rock radio airplay. In October 2010 the song was recognised by the BMI for surpassing 5 million plays worldwide. "Stuck in the Middle With You" has received over 4 million plays worldwide, and "Right Down The Line" has had over 3 million plays

Also from City to City, "Home and Dry" reached #28 in the US Top 40 in early 1979. "Right Down the Line" is the third track from 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 non-consecutive weeks. One of the lesser known from that time is "Big Change in the Weather" (the B-side of "Baker Street").

The irony of the success of "Baker Street" was that the lyrics reflected Rafferty’s disenchantment with certain elements of the music industry. This was elaborated by music journalist Paul Gambaccini for BBC World News:

“ His song "Baker Street" was about how uncomfortable he felt in the star system, and what do you know, it was a giant world hit. The album City to City went to no. 1 in America, and suddenly he found that as a result of his protest, he was a bigger star than ever. And he now had more of what he didn’t like. And although he had a few more hit singles in the United States, by 1980 it was basically all over, and when I say ‘it’, I mean basically his career, because he just was not comfortable with this. ”

His next album, Night Owl, also did well. Guitarist Richard Thompson helped by 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 longstanding reluctance to perform live, which he felt uncomfortable with.

On a Wing and a Prayer reunited him with Stealers Wheel partner Joe Egan on several tracks. Rafferty recorded a new version of his Humblebums song "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.[12] 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, as well as edited tracks from his previous three albums.


Rafferty met Carla Ventilla at a dancehall in 1965. She was a 15-year-old apprentice hairdresser from an Italian family in Clydebank. They married in 1970 and divorced in 1990. Rafferty enjoyed travelling, and lived in Florence, Italy, splitting his time between a home in Dorset and visits to Scotland each year.

Rafferty spent his later years fighting alcoholism and depression. 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 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 the Royal Bournemouth Hospital, Bournemouth, Dorset, suffering from liver failure. He died at home on 4 January 2011. He is survived by his daughter Martha, granddaughter Celia and brother Jim.Other entertainers have 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."