Gerry Rafferty – at a portrait session in 1977
Photo: Michael Ochs Archives. All rights reserved.
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You can be sure that some late-night radio DJ will always be telling the story of Baker Street: how Scottish-born Gerry Rafferty had moderate success with Stealers Wheel (and the hit “Stuck In The Middle With You,” the played a macabre role in Quentin Tarantino’s “Reservoir Dogs”), how he then argued with his former colleagues in court and was only allowed to record an album again in 1978.
“City To City” includes “Baker Street” with the most famous saxophone motif in rock history, Raphael Ravenscroft’s eight bars that were meant to be played on guitar. The song brought in around £80,000 to the musician’s account each year.
In the 80’s Gerry Rafferty ran out of luck
Talent dried up in the 1980s and albums came out at long intervals. The introverted, irascible man slowly became addicted to alcohol. His wife Carla left him in 1990, he moved to California and recorded three unsuccessful records; In 2008 he rented a house in Ireland. After several days of binge drinking, he was hospitalized and disappeared.
Most recently he lived in Dorset – he was fine for a while, he was working on new songs, his former manager wrote at the time. Too late. On January 4, 2011, Gerry Rafferty died at the age of 63.
An article from the RS archive
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