Singer Gerry Rafferty, famous for the 1970s hits "Baker Street" and "Stuck in the Middle With You," has died, his agent said Wednesday.
He was 63. A cause of death was not given.
Rafferty was born in 1947 in Paisley, Scotland, near Glasgow, the son of an Irish-born miner, according to Michael Gray, his manager in the late 1970s who wrote Rafferty's obituary Wednesday in The Guardian newspaper.
He was an "unwanted third son" whose mother would take him out of the house on Saturday nights when his father would come home drunk, Gray said. The father died when Rafferty was 16.
That same year, Rafferty started work at a butcher's shop and the tax office, playing music on the weekends with a school friend in a band called the Mavericks, Gray said. Rafferty later joined another band, the Humblebums, with comedian Billy Connolly, Gray said.
It was in the 1970s, however, that Rafferty had his heyday. He was a member of the soft-rock group Stealers Wheel when they recorded "Stuck in the Middle With You," an upbeat song that did well on the U.S. charts.
I had the City to City album in the 70s (the one with Baker Street) and I played it all the time. This was another, more minor, hit. Frankly, hearing it again for the first time in years, I think it would make a great wedding song.
I've been expecting this for a time ever since he had that disappearing act a while back and he had a health issue if I recall. A sad news item as the year begins, I liked his work.
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