: Jon Van der Kiste
: Gerry Rafferty Every Album, Every Song
: Sonicbond Publishing
: 9781789522150
: 1
: CHF 4.40
:
: Musik
: English
: 128
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB

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, UK.
Chapter7

Can I Have My Money Back? (1971)


Personnel:

Gerry Rafferty: guitar, vocal, piano

Joe Egan: backing vocals

Rab Noakes, Zed Jenkins, Alan Parker: guitar

Roger Brown: guitar, backing vocals

Gary Taylor: bass, backing vocals

Rod King: steel guitar

Hugh Murphy: backing vocals

Tom Parker: Hammond organ, harmonium, harpsichord

Tom Lasker: piano

Henry Spinetti, Andy Steele: drums

Johnny Van Derrick: violin Produced by Hugh Murphy

Recorded at Morgan Studios, London

Record label: Transatlantic (UK), Blue Thumb (US)

Release date: October 1971

Running time: 40:23

‘New Street Blues’ (2:59)

A few seconds of muffled chat (‘Do it on the microphone, thank you, Gerald’) lead into some sharp stabs of brass, organ, lead guitar and piano rhythm.

Stuck at home, our hero decides to go downtown and look up a friend with whom he can talk or drink the night away – a theme Gerry returned to on another ‘street’ song with more success a few years later.

‘Didn’t I?’ (3:42)

Love, doubt and seeking reassurance are the main themes in this charmingly simple song. ‘Didn’t I tell you we could make it as long as you believed in me?’. Paisley meets Nashville, with a little help from country-style steel guitar alongside the usual acoustic picking, bass and drums.

‘Mr Universe’ (2:43)

This jaunty, gently humorous song with a Bonzo Dog Band air was inspired by reading a bodybuilding advertisement in a comic and took the form of a plea from a seven-stone weakling sick of having sand kicked in his face to be turned into somebody different. A man’s voice announces grandly that ‘You can have a body like mine’, and lively piano with Beach Boys-style vocal harmonies made this one of the more accessible songs.

‘Mary Skeffington’ (2:31)

Mary Skeffington was Gerry’s mother’s name, and he used the melody of her favourite hymn, ‘Sweet Sacrament Divine’, as the intro when writing a song for her as he urged her gently to go to sleep ‘and make believe that you are just a girl again’. We can assume that Mary heard the song, as she lived to be 95, passing away around 2000. Gerry remained proud of it, later saying he thought it ‘a nice little song’, and was happy when people told him it was one of their favourites. ‘I draw