Rick Davies, who along with his associate Roger Hodgson co-founded the British rock group Supertramp and served as one in all its two lead singers, died Saturday in East Hampton, N.Y. He was 81.
His loss of life was introduced in an announcement on Supertramp’s web site, which stated Davies battled a number of myeloma for greater than a decade. The assertion described Davies as “the voice and pianist behind Supertramp’s most iconic songs” and stated his “soulful vocals and unmistakable contact on the Wurlitzer” shaped the “heartbeat” of the band’s sound.
Davies’ keyboard taking part in was maybe greatest showcased in Supertramp’s “Goodbye Stranger,” a High 20 pop hit about an unrepentant drifter that helped drive the band’s 1979 album “Breakfast in America” to quadruple-platinum gross sales in the USA and a Grammy nomination for album of the 12 months. In 1999, the director Paul Thomas Anderson memorably used “Goodbye Stranger” to soundtrack a dramatic scene starring William H. Macy within the film “Magnolia.”
Davies was born in 1944 in Swindon, England, and fell in love with music after listening to Gene Krupa’s “Drummin’ Man,” in line with Supertramp’s assertion. In school he performed in a short-lived band with Gilbert O’Sullivan; he shaped Supertramp (which was first known as Daddy) after Hodgson responded to an advert he’d positioned in England’s Melody Maker in 1969.
Supertramp launched its self-titled debut in 1970 and launched a follow-up the subsequent 12 months; neither garnered a lot curiosity. (Rolling Stone known as the band’s early prog-rock work “rhythmically underfed” and “lyrically facile.”) But Supertramp scored successful with the funky “Bloody Effectively Proper,” which Davies wrote for 1974’s “Crime of the Century” LP and which prominently featured his electrical piano.
Among the many different hits that adopted have been “Give a Little Bit” and “The Logical Music” — each of which have greater than 500 million streams on Spotify — in addition to “Breakfast in America,” “Take the Lengthy Method House” and “It’s Raining Once more.” Regardless of the band’s success, Hodgson give up Supertramp after 1982’s “Well-known Final Phrases” album. He later informed The Occasions that the group “turned stagnant, and I personally simply couldn’t develop anymore.”
Davies carried on with out Hodgson, recording and touring intermittently beneath the Supertramp identify till the early 2010s. When his well being prevented him from happening the highway, he performed near house on Lengthy Island with a bunch known as Ricky and the Rockets. Davies’ survivors embody his spouse, Sue Davies, who additionally managed his profession.
