Gerry Rafferty of “Stuck in the Middle With You” Fame has Departed

Although not well known by his given name Gerry Rafferty, you can be assured you knew his songs. The singer/songwriter behind such ’70s hits as “Baker Street” and “Stuck in the Middle With You” passed away Tuesday (January 4) at the age of 63. He had been struggling with kidney failure and had been on life support in a hospital, though he passed at his home in Dorset, England.

Born in Paisley, Scotland, on 16th April, 1947, Rafferty had, by his own admission a rather unhappy childhood. His love of music in fact was born of rebellion towards and abusive deaf drunk father who had no sympathy for music of any kind. In later years he would grow disillusioned of the music industry and its out of control greed and lack of concern for any discernible quality

Best known for the unavoidably catchy “Stuck in the Middle With You”, which was in fact a bit of mocking of Bob Dylan and pretentious artists in general. The song achieved renewed fame when Quentin Tarantino used it in the now infamous ear-slicing scene in his movie Reservoir Dogs.

Also as far as “Baker Street” goes, it is one of the best known saxophone bits in music history and one that has been covered to death by a billion different covers. Let us remember the talented  Gerry Rafferty at the height of his powers with these two videos: