Rick Davies (1944 - 2025)

Last week Rick Davies died at the age of 81. He was world famous for being one of the singers, keyboardists and composers of Supertramp, the English band that is now lumped in mostly with symphonic rock, but was so much more. He was part of one of the best bands of the 1970s, that mostly due to an as tragic as it was definite split with co-everything Roger Hodgson, never got to enjoy to grow old successfully and gracefully. The band could not truly exist without Hodgson.

I had not intended to write anything, simply because I would always wind up with his counterpart in the band. His songs are, at least for me, the best. Until I realised that I would sell Davies rather short. Together they made light and dark, day and night. The band's best two albums, 'Crime Of The Century' and 'Breakfast In America', are so good because of that division. Without the one there is no other, as everything after the split has proven abundantly, with the exception of that one Roger Hodgson single from the mid 80s. It is good to be reminded of this and a little contemplation did. The songs work together and make each other shine.

What surprised me this week is that Rick Davies and the two Dutch singers who died recently, actors and comedians and ex husband and wife, Gerard Cox (1940) and Joke Bruijs (1952) were roughly the same generation. For some reason I always took them for being of my parents' generation, which logically they could not have been, but it felt that way. All three died within days of each other. Cox and Bruijs, both from Rotterdam-South were honoured with an applause in the local football stadium yesterday evening. I can only wonder if something similar was organised for Davies, despite being far more famous, at least at some point in time. I doubt it.

It's time to play those albums once again and buy 'Crisis. What Crisis? soon. I still haven't got that album.

Wout de Natris - van der Borght