gerry rafferty: on track

Sometimes acclaimed as Scotland’s finest-ever singer-songwriter, Gerry Rafferty was born in 1947. After developing a passion for several genres of popular music during childhood, from traditional folk and classical to rock’n’roll and the early 1960s beat boom, he played in a couple of bands during his teens. After joining The Humblebums, an acoustic duo with future stand-up comedian Billy Connolly, and releasing a solo album Can I Have My Money Back?, he formed Stealers Wheel, whose debut spawned the transatlantic top ten hit ’Stuck In The Middle With You’. Initially a five-piece band and finally a duo, they split in 1975. He resumed his solo career three years later with the single ’Baker Street’ and accompanying album City To City, the global successes of which proved impossible to surpass. Although he disliked many aspects of the music business, rarely toured, never played live in America, and became increasingly reclusive in later years, he released eight more albums before his death in 2011, with a posthumous collection Rest In Blue following ten years later. This book examines in detail all his recorded songs, some of them quite starkly autobiographical in content, from every stage of his career.

John Van der Kiste has published over a hundred books, mostly historical biography and music, including titles for Sonicbond on The Rolling Stones, Eagles, Mott The Hoople and Ian Hunter, Free and Bad Company, and Manfred Mann’s Earth Band. He has reviewed books and records for the local and national press and fanzines, and written booklet notes for CD reissues from EMI and other labels. A former DJ and performer with various groups, he also co-wrote one track on Riff Regan’s Milestones, and played harmonica on London’s The Hell For Leather Mob. He lives in Devon, U.K