Throughout its first 14 years and 7 studio albums, Supertramp was blessed with two very completely different and distinctive songwriters (and lead singers).
Roger Hodgson was, usually talking, the hippie seeker, high-minded and hopeful. Rick Davies — who handed away Saturday on the age of 81 — was his counterpoint, earthier, grounded and, OK, sometimes grumpier, however in a method that labored in tandem and alongside his former bandmate.
The British-born Davies, who was dwelling in East Hampton. N.Y., on the time of his loss of life, was as enthusiastic about R&B, blues and jazz as he was rock and op. He began on drums earlier than shifting to keyboards and had a school band that included a fledgling Gilbert O’Sullivan in its ranks.
He and Hodgson met through an advert Davies positioned in in Melody Maker, retooled the band after its first two albums and led it via a “traditional” interval that lasted from 1974’s Crime of the Century via …Well-known Final Phrases… in 1982, and together with the quadruple platinum Breakfast In America in 1979.
Davies continued to information Supertramp after Hodgson’s departure in 1983 — “As Rick and Roger have been rising older there was a bit extra of a rift between their outlooks,” saxophonist John Helliwell advised UCR earlier this yr — recording one other 4 albums and sporadic touring via 2012.
A deliberate 2015 tour was scuttled attributable to Davies’ well being issues, although he carried out together with his personal band, Ricky and the Rockets, as not too long ago as October of 2024 on Lengthy Island.
His passing, like so many earlier than, offers a chance pause and respect the work Davies did — together with these 10 Supertramp tracks we might deem his greatest…
10. “It is A Onerous World”
From: Some Issues By no means Change (1996)
A lot of Supertramp’s post-Hodgson output has been eclipsed by what got here earlier than, however this opening monitor from the group’s 10 studio album deserves rediscovery. At almost 10 minutes it is one thing of an epic, opening with bass and piano alternate earlier than winding into an understated groove and steadily increasing association that carried the tune via Davies’ sentiments of defiant resolve. 13 years after the cut up with Hodgson, now we have to think about Davies is re-planting his flag as he sing, “Rejections, I’ve had a number of/Occurs to the perfect, it ain’t nothin’ new/Nonetheless I carry on swingin’ away/S’gonna be a breakthrough any day.”
9. “My Type of Woman”
From: …Well-known Final Phrases… (1982)
In a method in contrast to something Davies had written and recorded for Supertramp as much as that time — an unconflicted love tune during which he declares “You recognize I am going to love you all the best way/When instances get onerous, we’ll smile and sing” in a traditional doo-wop association that additionally reveals off his falsetto. The tune’s video additionally marked the “debut” of the quartet Supertramp would change into, because the departing Hodgson is lacking from the session.
Learn Extra: High 10 Supertramp Songs
8. “One other Man’s Girl”
From: Disaster? What Disaster? (1975)
Davies’ tackle a Louisiana blues-style cheatin’ tune — extra polished and complicated, in fact, however nonetheless crammed with the angst of somebody who’s doing one thing flawed, is aware of he is doing one thing flawed and that there might be hell to pay nevertheless it doing it anyway, and with sly grin and wink to go along with it. The monitor rocks, and notice the refrain reference to “your cannonball comin'” a decade earlier than “Cannonball” really got here alongside.
7. “Cannonball”
From: Brother The place You Certain (1985)
What Supertramp was going to sound like was answered by this lead single from the group’s first album with out Hodgson. Although it has a decidedly 80s sonic taste it cooks alongside a jazzy blues groove that lets Davies stretch out on keyboards and offers Helliwell loads of room for exposition — together with a quote from Depend Basie’s “Topsy” through the outro of the (extremely really useful) album model. Many although he was singing about Hodgson with sentiments akin to “I am washing my arms on you/how might you be so unfaithful?,” however Davies subsequently maintained that his goal was really a live performance promoter who did him flawed. If he says so…
6. “Simply One other Nervous Wreck”
From: Breakfast in America (1979)
Eclipsed by Breakfast In America‘s huge hits, that is one other melodic gem that kicks off with Supertramp’s trademark piano tone (a kissing cousin to “Goodbye Stranger,” the truth is) and Davies exhorting his listeners to “give a rattling” and “combat, whilst you can” because the monitor builds to a gospel-flavored fervor. A pleasant reward to those that listened the album right through.
5. “Ain’t No one However Me”
From: Disaster? What Disaster? (1975)
Davies gave the impression to be in a little bit of a state — a Disaster, if you’ll — this trip, and like “One other Man’s Girl” this offers with deception and a level of despair at the same time as he guarantees to “lie for you” and “die for you.” He performs the Jekyll and Hyde he references within the lyric convincingly, and the tune has the theatrical high quality of a second-act lover’s lament.
4. “Crime of the Century”
From: Crime of the Century (1974)
Davies would not want quite a lot of phrases to make his level on the closing and title monitor of Supertramp’s breakthrough album; “Who’re these males of lust, greed and glory?/Rip off the masks and let’s have a look at” he sings on a monitor that has eerie functions to the current day. It is suitably dramatic as nicely, a foreboding, Broadway-esque mode whose lengthy instrumental outro matches with the perfect of 70s British prog.
3. “Goodbye Stranger”
From: Breakfast in America (1979)
Davies’ highest-charting single (No. 15 on the Billboard Sizzling 100) is playful, deceptively gentle as his protagonist slips out the door (again or entrance shouldn’t be specified) after what we presume is a romantic dalliance. “I should be shifting on,” he declares, and the tune does transfer, via a falsetto-flaunting refrain and an ebb and move association that resolves right into a sizzling guitar solo from Hodgson and a few ferocious bass work by Dougie Thomson.
2. “From Now On”
From: Even Within the Quietest Moments (1977)
There is a sure luxuriousness in the best way Davies lets this monitor unspool over almost six and a half minutes, a languid journey whose understated dynamic is bolstered by loads of sonic house and one in all Davies’ best vocal performances and a palpable sense of longing that results in as resigned a call-and-response train as you will ever right here. All that, and a pleasant sax break from Helliwell match for the smokiest of jazz golf equipment.
1. Bloody Properly Proper”
From: Crime of the Century (1974)
The flip aspect of the “Dreamer” single grew to become a rock radio favourite with Davies’ prolonged, jazz-flavored piano intro that leads into Hodgson’s aching electrical guitar licks and an association that slides into each onerous rock and music corridor flavors, with what’s arguably Helliwell’s most memorable recorded sax solo. The lyrics are of a chunk prolong past the previous monitor “Faculty,” inspecting how the inequities of the British instructional system described in that tune influence its society at giant — lofty stuff, nevertheless it would not in any respect lavatory down a landmark tune.
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Gallery Credit score: Bryan Rolli
