Supertramp

 

 

Rick Davies - Vocals, keyboards

Roger Hodgson - Vocals, bass, guitar, keyboards 1970-1983

Dougie Thomson - Bass 1972-1988

John Helliwell - Horns

Bob Siebenberg - Drums

Mark Hart - Vocals, guitar, keyboards 1985-2002

Carl Verheyen - Guitar 1996-

Lee Thornburg - Horns 1996-

Cliff Hugo - Bass 1996-

Jesse Siebenberg - Percussion, keyboards 1996-

The group formed in London when Rick Davies broke up his band The Joint and placed an ad in a UK music paper looking for musicians to form a band. The group was financed by a Dutch millionaire named Sam Miesegaes, who put up the money after seeing Davies play in The Joint. Singing with A&M Records, they released their first (self-titled) album in 1970, and also played the Isle Of Wight Festival that year. Miesegaes pulled his financing in 1972, and the band settled on a new lineup, with just Davies and Roger Hodgson remaining as original members. Their third album, Crime of the Century, was a breakthrough, making #4 in the UK on the strength of hits "Dreamer" and "Bloody Well Right."

Davies and Hodgson did all the songwriting, and even though they wrote most of their songs separately, they agreed to share composer credit on all the songs, just like Lennon/McCartney or Jagger/Richards. Like the Lennon/McCartney arrangement, whoever wrote the song sang lead. Hodgson's song were spiritual and introspective: "Give A Little Bit," "The Logical Song," "Take The Long Way Home." Davies' were more pragmatic: "Goodbye Stranger," "Bloody Well Right," "Crime of the Century."

In 1979, Supertramp became one of the most successful bands in America, thanks to an album (Breakfast in America) that explored the country from the perspective of an Englishman. The band moved to California in the mid-'70s; Hodgson loved it and lived there permanently. Davies was less enthusiastic about California ("I don't think that's a place where anybody wants to settle down, not even Americans," he said), and moved to Long Island. Moving to America allowed them to keep a lot more of their income, as they would have been heavily taxed in England.

The band was originally called Daddy, but they changed it at the suggestion of their original guitarist Richard Palmer, who got the name from a 1910 book by the Welsh author W.H. Davies called The Autobiography of a Super Tramp.

There was a lot of personal tension between Davies and Hodgson, which came out in the open in a 1979 Melody Maker piece where they were both interviewed. "We've never been able to communicate too much on a verbal level," said Hodgson. "There's a very deep bond, but it's definitely mostly on a musical level."

Hodgson left the band in 1983 and released the solo albums In the Eye of the Storm (1984) and Hai Hai (1987). With two children, he spent much of the '90s focused on being a parent, and in 2010 he started touring again, happy to perform the hits he wrote with Supertramp. "I'm not one of the artists who has to say, Okay, you have to listen to my new stuff now," he said. "I'm in the service industry, and my job is to give people the most in the two hours that I'm with them."

Remarkably, Hodgson has never appeared with Supertramp since he left in 1983. The band has continued on with Davies at the helm (he owns the name), but any attempt to reunite Hodgson, even for a one-off performance, has always failed.

In 2010, Supertramp played Hodgson's songs on their tour, which Roger said violated a verbal agreement he made when he left. Hodgson says that he offered to perform some shows on the tour, but was rebuffed.

 

So without further ado, Ladies and Gents, I give you Supertramp: