Supertramp
Supertramp were a British rock band that formed in London in 1970. They experienced their greatest global success in 1979 with their sixth album Breakfast in America. Marked by the individual songwriting of founders Roger Hodgson (vocals, keyboards and guitars) and Rick Davies (vocals and keyboards), the group were distinguished for blending progressive rock and pop styles as well as for a sound that relied heavily on Wurlitzer electric piano.[5][6] The group's lineup changed numerous times throughout their career, with Davies being the only constant member throughout its history. The classic lineup, which lasted ten years from 1973 to 1983, comprised Davies, Hodgson, Dougie Thomson (bass), Bob Siebenberg (drums) and John Helliwell (saxophone).
For other uses, see Supertramp (disambiguation).
Supertramp
London, England
- 1969–1988
- 1996–2002
- 2010–2012
- Off-Reunions (1993, 2015)
- Rick Davies
- Roger Hodgson
- Richard Palmer
- Keith Baker
- Dougie Thomson
- Robert Millar
- Dave Winthrop
- Kevin Currie
- Frank Farrell
- Bob Siebenberg
- John Helliwell
- Mark Hart
- Carl Verheyen
- Tom Walsh
- Cliff Hugo
- Lee Thornburg
- James Harold Brown
- Jesse Siebenberg
Initially a prog-rock group, they began moving towards a more pop-oriented sound with their third album, Crime of the Century (1974), the first album with the classic lineup.[5] The band reached their commercial peak with 1979's Breakfast in America, which yielded the international top 10 singles "The Logical Song", "Breakfast in America", "Goodbye Stranger" and "Take the Long Way Home". Their other top 40 hits included "Dreamer" (1974), "Give a Little Bit" (1977) and "It's Raining Again" (1982). In 1983, Hodgson left the group to pursue a solo career. The band continued with Davies as the sole leader until 1988, after which they disbanded and periodically reformed in various configurations.
As of 2007, Supertramp album sales exceeded 60 million.[7] They attained significant popularity in North America, Europe, South Africa and Australia. Their highest sales levels were in Canada, where they had two diamond-certified (ten-times platinum) albums (Crime of the Century and Breakfast in America), and their only number 1 singles anywhere ("The Logical Song" and "Dreamer").
History[edit]
1969–1972: Formation, Supertramp and Indelibly Stamped[edit]
In 1969 Stanley "Sam" August Miesegaes, a Dutch millionaire, ceased providing financial support to a band called The Joint, as he was disappointed with them. He offered Swindon-born keyboardist Rick Davies, a former bandmate of Irish singer-songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan, whose talent he felt had been "bogged down" by the group,[8] an opportunity to form his own band with Miesegaes's financial backing.[5] The band included Roger Hodgson (bass and vocals), Richard Palmer (guitars and vocals) and Keith Baker (percussion).
Davies and Hodgson had radically different backgrounds and musical inspirations: Davies was working class and fiercely devoted to blues and jazz, while Hodgson had gone straight from English private school to the music business and was fond of pop. Despite this, they hit it off during the auditions[9] and began writing virtually all of their songs together, with Palmer as a third writer in the mix. Hodgson and Davies collaborated on the songwriting while Palmer composed the lyrics.[10][11]
The group, having dubbed themselves "Daddy",[12] after several months of rehearsal at a country house in West Hythe, Kent, flew to Munich for a series of concerts at the P. N. Club.[13] One 10-minute performance there of "All Along the Watchtower" was filmed by Haro Senft (Daddy Portrait 1970).[14] The rehearsals had been less than productive and their initial repertoire consisted of only four songs, two of which were covers.[13]
In January 1970 Keith Baker left, and to avoid confusion with the similarly named Daddy Longlegs,[13] at Palmer's suggestion, the band changed its name to "Supertramp", a moniker inspired by The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp by William Henry Davies.[15]
In February 1970 Baker was replaced by former stage actor Robert Millar (b. 1950).[16]
In April 1970 Supertramp, while back in Munich, returned the favour to their friend Haro Senft by contributing music to his next film, Purgatory (a.k.a. Fegefeuer), and would also agree to have tracks from their first album used in a documentary, Extremes (1971), by Tony Klinger and Michael Lytton.
Supertramp were one of the first groups to be signed to the UK branch of A&M Records and their first album, Supertramp, was released on 14 August 1970 in the UK and Canada (it would not be issued in the US until late 1977). Stylistically, the album was fairly typical of progressive rock of the era. Despite receiving a good deal of critical praise, the album did not attract a large audience.[13]
Dave Winthrop (flute and saxophone, vocals) had first auditioned for the group in March 1970 but didn't join until July, just before the release of the first record. He performed with Supertramp at the 1970 Isle of Wight Festival on 27 August 1970.
The membership continued to change in the six months following the album's release: Palmer left the band in December 1970, followed by Millar in January 1971, who had suffered a nervous breakdown.[17] Palmer, as Richard Palmer-James, went on to work as a lyricist for King Crimson. Palmer was replaced by former The Nice guitarist David O'List, who lasted for only one gig. A drummer from Birmingham, Dickie Thomas, was brought in during the interim until auditions brought the band Kevin Currie in February 1971.[18]
For the next album, Indelibly Stamped, released in June 1971 in both the UK and US, Frank Farrell (bass, keyboards, backing vocals) joined, while Hodgson switched to guitar and Davies served as a second lead singer. With Palmer's departure, Hodgson and Davies wrote and composed separately for this and the band's subsequent albums.[19][20] The record sold even less than their debut.[17] In the aftermath, all members gradually quit except Hodgson and Davies,[5] and Miesegaes withdrew his financial support in October 1972.[13]
1973–1978: Crime of the Century and commercial breakthrough[edit]
After Farrell's departure in the spring of 1972, 20 year old bassist Nick South (from Alexis Korner's band) came in for a temporary stint until Dougie Thomson (from The Alan Bown Set) joined in July. In the summer of 1973 more auditions to replace the departed Curry and Winthrop started and introduced Bob Siebenberg (initially credited as Bob C. Benberg; drums and percussion) and another Alan Bown alumnus, John Helliwell (saxophone, other woodwinds, occasional keyboards, synthesizers, backing vocals), completing the lineup in the summer of 1973. Hodgson would also begin introducing compositions featuring keyboards (particularly the Wurlitzer electric piano) in the band in addition to guitar.[5] This lineup of Supertramp would remain in place for the next ten years.
Meanwhile, the bond between Davies and Hodgson had begun weakening. Hodgson mused, "There's a very deep bond, but it's definitely mostly on a musical level. When there's just the two of us playing together, there's an incredible empathy. His down-to-earth way of writing, which is very rock 'n' roll, balances out my lighter, melodic style."[21] Over Supertramp's history, their relationship would be amicable but increasingly distant as their lifestyles and musical inclinations saw less and less overlap. Their songwriting partnership gradually dissolved; though all of Supertramp's songs would continue to be officially credited as "written by Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson", most of them were written by Davies or Hodgson individually.
Supertramp needed a hit record to continue working and finally got one with Crime of the Century. Released in September 1974, it began the group's run of critical and commercial successes, hitting number 4 in Britain,[22] number 38 in the US and number 4 in Canada. This album made the top 100 albums in Canada three years in a row in 1974, 1975 and 1976, even though it did not have a Top 40 hit in Canada. "Dreamer", the 1975 UK Top 20 single written by Hodgson, was the band's first hit single and drove the album to the top of the charts.[23] Another single from the record, "Bloody Well Right", hit the US Top 40 in May 1975 and would be their only hit in the country for more than two years.[24]
With a hit album under their belt, pressures on the band increased and the follow-up Crisis? What Crisis? had to be recorded in the few months between two scheduled concert tours. As a consequence, most of the material consisted of leftover songs from Crime of the Century. Decades later the band would continue to regard the album as one of their worst moments.[25] Nevertheless, Hodgson said in a 2015 interview that Crisis? What Crisis? was his favourite Supertramp album.[26] Despite Supertramp's own misgivings, the album was well received by critics: when released in November 1975, it broke both the UK Top Twenty[22] and the US Top Fifty in spite of its singles all being commercial flops.
The following album, Even in the Quietest Moments..., released in April 1977, spawned a hit single with "Give a Little Bit" (number 15 US, number 29 UK, number 8 in Canada), first written by Hodgson at 19 or 20 years of age before he introduced it to the band for recording five to six years later.[27] As usual, the popularity of the album itself eclipsed that of its singles and Even in the Quietest Moments... hit number 16 in the US,[28] number 12 in the UK and number 1 in Canada.[22] During this period, the band permanently relocated to Los Angeles.
1979–1983: Breakfast in America, ...Famous Last Words... and Hodgson's departure[edit]
The band's switch to a more pop-oriented approach peaked[29] with their most popular album, Breakfast in America. For the last two months of completing the album, Hodgson parked a camper outside of the studio to work diligently on mixing, with brief periods of rest in between.[30] He remembered feeling that "it could be a big album" and that he spent "days and sometimes weeks choosing the right songs and the right order of songs so one song flowed into the next".[31]
Released in March 1979, Breakfast in America reached number 3 in the UK[22] and number 1 in the US and Canada. The album spawned four successful singles (more than their first five albums combined): three of Hodgson's songs, "The Logical Song" (number 1 Canada, number 6 US, number 7 UK), "Take the Long Way Home" (number 4 Canada, number 10 US, not released in UK) and "Breakfast in America" (number 9 UK, not released in the US or Canada) and Davies' "Goodbye Stranger" (number 5 in Canada, number 15 US, number 57 UK).[32]
Bold denotes members of the classic lineup.