Gerry Rafferty 'City to City' Turns 40

[Magic]

January 2018 is the 40th Birthday of City to City

RIP Gerry!




https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_to_City

Right Down The Line

 

[E-Z]

BAKER STREET nothing else needs to be said.

"Everyone and his dog always mentions the saxophone solo in Baker Street and rightly so but what about the lead guitar solo after the saxophone solo that lead guitar break is pure air guitar heaven!!!."

E-Z

 

[Fever]

One of my favorite albums

 

[E-Z]

A quite funny radio comedy that I heard about a year ago and was repeated again about 6 months ago was of a saxophone musician who couldn't play the saxophone solo in Baker Street to the amusement of everyone that he came in contact with who kept asking him to play it and when he told them that he couldn't they wouldn't believe him and would laugh in his face and would then say "You can't play Baker Street?". Anyway in the meantime he meets a new girlfriend who likes his saxophone playing so she invites him back to her flat in where else(?) Baker Street which he takes as her taking the micky out of his inability to play the sax solo in the famous song anyway he then decides to kill himself by throwing himself in front of a tube train at where else(?) Baker Street station!. So the guy throws himself under a tube train but by a strange twist of fait falls down a shaft and lands at the bottom of it and then comes face to face with none other than Gerry Rafferty himself who by now is some kind of tramp who is apparently living underneath Baker Street tube station as a hermit!!.

Anyway the saxophone playing guy tells Gerry that he can't play the saxophone solo in Gerry's famous song so Gerry says that he could play it as a 'one off' at a massive concert if he's wants to but the price to pay would be he wouldn't be able to play it again and he mite end up in a wheel chair so the guy decides to take a chance and goes along with Gerry's offer so the guy performs the famous Baker Street saxophone solo at a massive concert where all goes well for the first few bars before his saxophone solo breaks down and everyone at the concert starts laughing at him where he falls crumpled on to the stage floor talking like an idiot!!.

It mite not sound funny but listening to it on the radio it was!!.

E-Z

 

[Big Ears]

My favourite track on this album is the beautiful Whatever's Written in Your Heart. The lyric is brilliant and his voice is perfect:

The follow-up album, The Night Owl, is almost as good as City to City, but he could not do much wrong for me.

 

[Jake T]

One of my favorites is "Home And Dry". Very underrated song and album.

 

[Marbles]

The follow-up album, The Night Owl, is almost as good as City to City, but he could not do much wrong for me.

With you 100% there. I find it hard to choose between "City To City" and "Night Owl" - "Snakes And Ladders" isn't bad, either.

So many great songs. "Mattie's Rag" has always been special to me.

 

[Big Ears]

^ I like Mattie's Rag too, it as about Gerry Rafferty's daughter (Martha). She contributed to a recent article in Classic Rock magazine. Contrary to what I have read and heard before, he lived with her in the years before his death.

His first solo album, Can I Have My Money Back?, recorded before Stealers Wheel, is also surprisingly good.

Another great track from City to City, Right Down the Line:

 

[E-Z]

When it comes to Gerry Rafferty it boils down to two words-

BAKER STREET

E-Z

 

[BikerDude]

And of course before his solo work there was Stealer's Wheel