Rick Davies, Supertramp co-founder and singer, dead at 81
Keyboardist co-wrote many of the pop-rock group's biggest songs, including 'Goodbye Stranger,' 'Breakfast in America,' and 'Bloody Well Right'
By Emily Zemler & Jason Newman
Rick Davies, the singer and keyboardist who as a founding member of prog-rock and pop group Supertramp penned some of the band’s most popular and enduring songs, died on Saturday at his home in Long Island. He was 81.
“The Supertramp Partnership is very sad to announce the death of Supertramp founder Rick Davies after a long illness,” the band wrote in a statement. “We had the privilege of knowing him, and playing with him for over 50 years. We offer our sincere condolences to Sue Davies.” The band noted that Davies had been battling multiple myeloma, a blood cancer, for over a decade.
“As co-writer, along with partner Roger Hodgson, he was the voice and pianist behind Supertramp’s most iconic songs, leaving an indelible mark on rock music history,” the band added on Facebook. “His soulful vocals and unmistakable touch on the Wurlitzer became the heartbeat of the bands’ sound. Beyond the stage, Rick was known for his warmth, resilience, and devotion to his wife Sue, with whom he shared over five decades. After facing serious health challenges, which kept him unable to continue touring as Supertramp, he enjoyed performing with his hometown buds as Ricky and the Rockets.”
Taking the name from the 1908 book The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp by Welsh author William Henry Davies, Davies founded the group in 1969 with guitarist Richard Palmer, drummer Robert Millar, and vocalist-bassist Roger Hodgson. They released their prog-heavy eponymous debut album and second album Indelibly Stamped in 1969 and 1970, respectively, to little fanfare.
But after retooling the group, Davies and Hodgson found their commercial breakthrough with 1974’s Crime of the Century featuring Davies-penned hits ‘Bloody Well Good’ and ‘Crime of the Century,’ among others. (The Hodgson-penned ‘Dreamer’ would also become one of the band’s biggest hits to date.)
Davies would go on to write some of the band’s most enduring tracks, including ‘Goodbye Stranger,’ ‘Cannonball,’ and ‘My Kind of Lady.’ Breakfast in America, the band’s sixth album, went quadruple platinum and won two Grammy Awards alongside an Album of the Year nomination.
Born in Swindon, Wiltshire west of London, in 1944, Davies originally gravitated towards the drums after finding an old Gene Krupa album. “That one hit me like a rocket. It was like water in the desert,” Davies told Pop Culture Classics in 1997. “On the radio in England in that era, all you heard was Vera Lynn and corny sort of stuff.” After switching to piano, “suddenly people were responding to me. That instrument just seemed right for me.”
He formed a band, Rick’s Blues, with future pop singer Gilbert O’Sullivan and later, the Lonely Ones, a band formed by future Jimi Hendrix Experience bassist Noel Redding. In 1969, Davies advertised for musicians to join him in a new band he was forming. Hodgson replied. After briefly performing as Daddy, the group renamed themselves Supertramp.
Despite the group’s success, Hodgson exited in 1983 to pursue a solo career. Even after leaving, Delicate Music, his company with Davies, continued to distribute the band’s publishing royalties until 2018, leading to several contentious disputes between the band members. In August, bassist Dougie Thomson, saxophonist John Helliwell, and drummer Bob Siebenberg won an appeal in court, reversing a California jury verdict that Davies’ company had the right to end their royalty agreement.
“Supertramp, for me, was a very good combination of musicians in the golden years,” Hodgson told Rolling Stone in 2012. “And Rick and I, that was a very interesting yin and yang polarity that really made for an interesting dynamic and often does.”
Supertramp continued to release music after Hodgson’s departure with Davies at the helm. The band released Brother Where You Bound in 1985, followed by Free as a Bird in 1987, before eventually disbanding. The group reunited in 1997 to tour and release two further albums. Supertramp announced an extensive tour in 2015, but were forced to cancel the run when Davies was diagnosed with multiple myeloma. “I’m sorry to disappoint everyone who has overwhelmingly supported the upcoming tour,” Davies wrote in a statement at the time. “Unfortunately my current health issues have derailed me and right now I need to focus all of my energy on getting well.”
In 2018, Davies acknowledged that it was unlikely Supertramp would ever perform again. After playing a show with Ricky and the Rockets, the musician said in a rare interview that playing live was difficult for him. “My intention was to play every six months or so, but with my health each concert is a very important effort for me,” he said. “And that’s why more than two years have passed between the previous one and this one.”
“Rick’s music and legacy continue to inspire many and bears testament to the fact that great songs never die, they live on,” Supertramp acknowledged in their statement.