Supertramp

From Free net encyclopedia

Supertramp is an English progressive rock and pop band that had a series of top-selling albums in the 1970s.

Their early music included ambitious concept albums, but they are best known for their later, somewhat Beatlesque pop songs including "Dreamer", "Goodbye Stranger", "Give a Little Bit", and "The Logical Song". Despite chart success the band never attained superstardom in the USA(although they did in Canada and Europe); it was remarked at the height of their popularity that Supertramp was the best-selling group in the world whose members could walk down any street and not be recognised.

1 Members
2 Career
3 Trivia
4 Discography
5 External links

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Members

Original members:

Rick Davies - vocals, piano, harmonica;
Roger Hodgson - vocals, guitars, keyboard;
Richard Palmer - vocals, electric guitar, acoustic guitar, balalaika;
Robert Millar - percussion, harmonica;

Members, who joined the band after the departure of Palmer/Millar:

Frank Farrell - harmony vocals, bass, piano, accordion;
Kevin Currie - percussion;
Dave Winthrop - vocals flutes, saxophones;

Members, who joined the band later - the Lineup' period:

Dougie Thomson - bass replaced by Cliff Hugo;
Bob Siebenberg (or C. Benberg) - drums, percussion;
John Helliwell - saxophone, woodwinds, other;

Members, who joined the band after the departure of Roger Hodgson:

Mark Hart - vocals, keyboards, guitars;
Cliff Hugo - bass guitar;
Lee Thornburg - background vocals, trombone, trumpet;
Carl Verheyen - guitars;
Tom Walsh - percussion, some drums;
Jesse Siebenberg (or C. Benberg) - background vocals, percussion

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Career

Backed by a Dutch millionaire named Stanley August Miesegaes, vocalist and pianist Rick Davies (born July 22, 1944 in Swindon, Wiltshire, England) used newspaper advertising to recruit an early version of the band in 1969, an effort which brought aboard vocalist/guitarist and keyboardist Roger Hodgson (born March 21, 1950 in Portsmouth, Hampshire, England). Other members of this embryonic Supertramp included Richard Palmer (guitar, balalaika, vocals) and Robert Millar (percussion, harmonica). Initially, Roger Hodgson played bass (and on the side, cello and flageolet). The first album Supertramp, although very interesting musically, proved a commercial disappointment. Desperate to achieve success, Davies and Hodgson tried to change their style and line-up for the next album. Frank Farrell (bass), Kevin Currie (percussion) and Dave Winthrop (flute and saxophone) replaced Millar and Palmer, Roger Hodgson switched to guitar, and the new album Indelibly Stamped featured rocking Beatlesque tunes, more commercial approach and catching cover artwork. Supertramp had established themselves as a "cult" band. Sales, however, did not improve much, which caused losing the support of Miesegaes and breaking up. Hodgson and Davies were back at square one.

An extensive search for replacements brought aboard Dougie Thomson (pronounced DOO-gie; born March 24, 1951 in Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland) (bass), Bob Siebenberg (born October 31, 1949 in Glendale, California, USA, drums), and John Helliwell (born February 15, 1945 in Todmorden, Yorkshire, England) (saxophone, other woodwinds, occasional keyboards, backing vocals), joining original members Davies and Hodgson, completing a line-up that would create the group's defining albums.

Crime of the Century, released in 1974, began the group's run of critical and commercial successes, hitting number four in England, supported by the top-10 single "Dreamer". Its B-side "Bloody Well Right" hit the US Top 40 in May 1975. Siebenberg would later note that he thought the band hit its artistic peak on this, their third album, though their greatest commercial success would come later.

The band continued its run with Crisis? What Crisis? (1975) and Even in the Quietest Moments (1977). During this period the band moved steadily from the progressive styles of their early albums towards a more song-oriented, pop sound. This trend reached its zenith on their most popular album, Breakfast in America (1979), which reached a peak of Number 3 in the UK and Number 1 in the United States and spawned four successful singles, "The Logical Song", "Take the Long Way Home", "Goodbye Stranger", and "Breakfast in America". The album has since sold over 18 million copies worldwide.

The run of successes was capped with 1980's Paris, a 2-LP live album, in which the band stated its goal of improving on the studio versions of their songs. Interestingly, instead of focusing on songs from the hugely successful Breakfast in America, it included nearly every song from Crime of the Century, another testament to the importance of that album in the group's development.

Hodgson and Davies' differing singing and song-writing styles provided these albums with an interesting counterpoint, contrasting Davies' determined blues-rockers and songs of broken relationships ("Another Man's Woman", "From Now On", "Goodbye Stranger") with Hodgson's wistful introspection ("Dreamer", "School", "Fool's Overture", "The Logical Song"). But Hodgson felt constrained by the arrangement and left the band after the tour for their next album, ...Famous Last Words... (1982) which contained the Top 20 hit "It's Raining Again" and the Top 40 hit "My Kind of Lady". Hodgson immediately began a solo career after leaving the band in 1983, with his biggest hit being "Had A Dream (Sleeping With the Enemy)" from his first solo effort In the Eye of the Storm, in 1984.

The Davies-led Supertramp soldiered on, releasing Brother Where You Bound the same year. This included a Top 30 hit single, "Cannonball", along with the title track, a 16-minute McCarthyist diatribe highlighted by guitar solos by Pink Floyd's David Gilmour and the album reached #21 on the US charts. 1987's Free as a Bird included more straightforward Davies rockers, including "I'm Beggin' You", which reached Number 1 on the US dance charts, a curious accomplishment for an "art rock" band.

Supertramp and Hodgson releases have been smaller and less frequent in the 1990s and beyond. Early 2002 saw the release of another album, Slow Motion.

Perhaps the most prominent release in that time was the band's Some Things Never Change, a polished effort which echoed the earlier Supertramp sound, featuring Davies, Helliwell, Siebenberg, and Crowded House's Mark Hart as a replacement for Hodgson.

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Trivia

The name of the band was taken from W. H. Davies' 1908 novel The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp.

Australian rock journalist and critic Toby Creswell named them as "probably the worst rock and roll group" in his 2005 compendium 1001 songs.

Chris McCandless used the pseudonym "Alexander Supertramp" during his fatal journey through Alaska, which is the subject matter of Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer.

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