Rick Davies

This article is about the musician Rick Davies. For other people, see Richard Davies .

Rick Davies at the Supertramp concert in the Kulturpalast Dresden (Germany; 2002)

Rick Davies (born July 22, 1944 as Richard Davies in Swindon , Wiltshire , South England ) is a British musician and songwriter who, alongside Roger Hodgson, became known as the founder, singer and composer of the rock band Supertramp and has been the only permanent member since its inception .

Life

Rick Davies, son of a hairdresser and a sailor, gained musical experience as a drummer in a band at the age of 12. But he soon switched to keyboards and founded his first band Ricks Blues in 1962 . The drummer of this band was the later pop star Gilbert O'Sullivan (Get Down) . From 1966 to 1968 Davies was a member of The Lonely Ones band .

In 1969 Davies met the Dutch millionaire Stanley August Miesegaes , known as Sam , during a performance with the band The Joint . This encouraged him to start his own band and supported Davies financially. He found the musicians Roger Hodgson, Richard Palmer-James and Keith Baker through a newspaper advertisement in Melody Maker , with whom he founded the band Daddy . After first appearances in the Munich PN Club, the band was renamed Supertramp .

In 1973 Davies was a guest musician as a drummer with his bandmate Roger Hodgson, who played on bass and guitar, on the recordings of four songs on Chick Churchill's album You & Me ( Ten Years After ).

After initial failures and various line-up changes, Supertramp achieved great commercial success with their third album Crime of the Century (1974) and released the mega-selling album Breakfast in America (1979) , among others .

Davies plays Wurlitzer electric pianos and grand pianos and, in some songs, the Hammond organ to accompany the songs written by Roger Hodgson. His baritone and occasional falsetto singing, for example with Goodbye Stranger , complemented the characteristic tenor voice of Hodgson. After Hodgson left the band in 1983, Davies remained the voice of Supertramp as the sole lead singer. His best-known compositions include Bloody Well Right , Crime Of The Century , Ain't Nobody but Me , From Now On , Goodbye Stranger , My Kind Of Lady , Cannonball and You Win, I Lose (in chronological order here), all from Supertramp -Albums come from. Due to contractual agreements, however, all compositions were recorded as joint works by the two until Hodgson's departure.

In 1977 Davies married Sue, who has also been the manager of the Supertramp group since 1984.

In 1988 Davies broke up the band until further notice. While working on his planned first solo album in 1996, he reformed the band and instead released the tenth Supertramp studio album in 1997 with Some Things Never Change and a live album in 2000 with It Was the Best of Times . In 2002 the band released their eleventh studio album, Slow Motion , and Davies toured with the band.

After another break of eight years, Davies toured Europe for the 40th anniversary of the band with Supertramp and gave the anniversary concert for the group's 1000th show. The tour continued in 2011 in Canada and France.

On August 4, 2015, Davies' management announced that he had cancer.

In 2018, Davies said he had mostly overcome his health problems and was enjoying playing music again, which he couldn't do in 2016 when he was under medical treatment. He performed on August 28 and 29, 2018 with a few Supertramp members (including Carl Verheyen and Mark Hart ) as Ricky and The Rockets at the Stephen Talkhouse in Amagansett, a settlement in East Hampton (USA); they played the Supertramp songs Downstream and From Now On , among others . Some band members, who were too excited to go to sleep after long Supertramp concerts, have been giving previously planned but generally unannounced after-hour gigs in a hotel bar or club under this band name since 1985 . They played the music that influenced the band: blues and jazz. On November 30, 2019, Davies performed again under the same band name in Amagansett, this time together with GE Smith and Mike Reilly .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ 35 Years on from Breakfast in America. In: www.swindonweb.com. May 19, 2014, accessed February 25, 2016 . 
2. ↑ Supertramp cancels upcoming European Tour , August 4, 2015, accessed on August 4, 2015, at supertramp.com
3. ↑ ... Interview to Rick Davies ... (Alma RadioTv), September 28, 2018, accessed October 17, 2019, on YouTube
4. ↑ Rockin 'with the Rockets , September 4, 2018, accessed October 17, 2019, at avenuemagazine.com
5. ↑ Ricky and the Rockets… Stephen Talkhouse, Amagansett, NY , in Tour Dates , accessed December 3, 2019, from gesmithmusic.com

Web links

• Works by Rick Davies in the catalog of the German National Library