The Seventies just wouldn’t be the same without his hit “Baker Street.” Hell, it was one of the first videos MTV showed during its first day on the air with his other single “Right Down the Line.”
As for the former song, the Foo Fighters do the coolest cover. Grohl replaces the saxophone parts with a very loud guitar. It’s not available through iTunes (just checked) but I scored my copy from the “My Hero” single CD, I dug it that much. Rick Springfield took a shot a few years back; his is good yet I don’t recall Rick drifting far from the original arrangement. Lastly, I also have Susanna Hoffs doing her take on “Stuck in the Middle with You,” a song Rafferty did before his solo career. We can all thank the underwhelming director Quentin Tarantino for permanently associating the tune with torturing policemen.
I remember reading about Rafferty’s reclusiveness, like he made a few hits and bailed. Sadly, the big piece on him in The Guardian said drinking was the real problem. Such a shame, especially when he was still making £80,000 ($125,000) annually from just “Baker Street.” My guess would be licensing in addition to ASCAP/BMI money.
There were other cool revelations in the article: his association with Billy Connolly and he worked on a Proclaimers record, before their (recycled) hit in the early Nineties.