Is this important? No.
Is it interesting? To about 6 people reading this.
Do I like crap like this? You betcha.
The origin of the iconic, if not annoying, sax line in the opening of Gerry Rafferty’s song Baker Street has always been debated. (Don’t get me wrong, I love the song, but the sax part is actually too strong, to the point of it upstaging the entire thing.)
The sax player, Raphael Ravenscroft, claims he came up with it. But this is either foggy memory or an outright lie.
A demo surfaced and Rafferty clearly wrote the sax part into the song.
But hold on.
Did Rafferty write that line, or did he steal it?
Listen to this, recorded in 1968.
I hate to give a link to The Atlantic, but the author tracked down the composer of the song that sounds like it’s been ripped off. There’s a new wrinkle.
Too much Sax and Violins?
He’s accused of Saxual Violins.
No, you’re right on this one. The sax is too strong next to Rafferty’s vocals and the pace of the sax passages are too strident and fight with both the tempo of the vocals and even the song’s sentiment.
Close, but no cigar. The sax opening to Half a Heart is not the same as that on Baker Street.
Great song. But no way that was the most Iconic Sax riff. That belongs to Clarence Clemons at 1:50 in the link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3t9SfrfDZM
Yes, the song is melancholy and wistful, and the sax is a sharp knife, too present, not at all romantic or nostalgic.
It comes in like it’s from another song… maybe that Bob Seger song with the equally annoying sax.
What song is that?
Then again, it is hard to argue with success, Baker Street was one of the more memorable songs in an otherwise pretty unremarkable decade, music-wise.
on The Road Again.
The 1970s is an unremarkable decade of music?
Tomorrow Never Knows. Hmmm, that’s a Beatles tune isn’t it?
Oops, That was the album. Turn the Page was the song.
“This song makes me think of the Summer of 1978. Just graduated high school and was getting ready to head off to college. Nice memories.” (Thanks, Jack.)
– – –
That was me, in ’78, in my 68 Dodge dart convertible.
http://wxrt.cbslocal.com/2013/08/13/10-of-the-most-memorable-sax-solos-in-rock/
What other consider to be in the ‘best of’ re sax lines.
The contretemps of the pianissimo diocletian is the delugian versace which accentuates, rather than detractorates, from the subtle miasmic pro-forma gettyburg … in a heuristic sense, of course.
My opinion on saxophone – put a sock in it.
The sax solo is self indulgent. But, thats, kind of the point of the song?
Jimmy Fallon said that C3PO was a cross between a saxophone and a crash-test dummy…
At least it’s not pure crap like everything that the no-talent bum from New Jersey they call Bruce Springsteen put out!
Try Paul Desmond, Timmy Cappello, or Dick Parry …
huh?
I just laid the tracks on top of one another.
Same tempo, same lick.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akgEx0Zue70&feature=youtu.be
Debbie Boone, The Bee Gees, Andy Gibb……’My Sharonna’, ‘The Way We Were’, ….Linda McCartney & Wings, Tony Orlando & Dawn…. (& that’s just some of the Billboard top 20 hits of the 70’s)
rebuttal from Dennis Leary…. “…I can sue Dan Fogelberg for making me into a pussy in the mid-70’s? Is that possible, huh? Huh? “Your Honor, between him and James Taylor, I didn’t get a blow job ’till I was twenty-seven years old.” …..& …. “And you know what Hell is, folks. It’s Andy Gibb, singing “Shadow Dancing,” for eons and eons. And you have to wear orange plaid bell bottoms and sit next to the Bay City Rollers. “How you guys doing? This is gonna suck!”
(just messin’ with ya, Fur…. 😉 )
That kinda reminds me of this one:
https://youtu.be/-cHB3Rbz1OI?t=44
?
Easy for YOU to say, Revrum Al…
?
I don’t know or care where the sax part came from. I’m just happy to see Steve Marcus mentioned. Excellent musician and a nice guy to boot.
I saw Steve with Larry Coryell’s band in the early 70s. Steve played soprano sax for the entire concert, he didn’t take out his tenor. I also saw Steve perform with Buddy Rich’s big band and Buddy’s sextet – the latter at Buddy’s nightclub in NYC. I got to speak with Steve during the gig at Buddy’s Place. He was a great saxophonist and a true gentleman.
You guys are too deep, I just like the song.
You don’t focus on the shit in any era, because every era would suck.
Year Of The Cat
Al Stewart
Great sax and song…
Should be tonight’s soothie.
Damn, that’s clever!
Exactly!
Music thread. So I’m micro-hijacking it. Want to know what album is in Coronas’ gravatar? (older IOTW members might remember.) It’s this one…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lcunlTkGst4
Oops, dinna mean for the vid to implant.
Mongo Santamaria (Watermelon Man) told me that Santana stole from him and his group. There is much of the same sounds in both artists’ works so I have little doubt.
We saw Mongo at the London House just before it closed it’s doors and our table was right at the base of the small stage so we spoke some during breaks.
I will have to say it sounds like a rip off to me …but I can’t jump on the bandwagon on this one. that particular sax riff is haunting as well as sexy. but that’s just me i guess.
I wonder if someone else also stole from him. It’s the first few bars of Steve Marcus’Half a Heart, before the sax even enters. I’ve heard that many times in another composition, but cannot remember in which composition.
I was a kid working in a dry cleaners in the middle of summer 1978. No AC and plenty of hot steam. The radio in the place was tuned to an awful top 40 station and the lead break in this song was like a little oasis in the day.
Duanne Allman died in ’71….nuff said
Yeah, and Top Gun totally ripped off the Red Flag movie. But, lets face it, the Red Flag movie does kind of suck.
And I like William DeVane…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bcXRkMs0fs
Original demo Baker Street sans sax
I’m more of a Jr. Walker – Shotgun kind of sax fan. But the two examples do appear to be very close to the same. I think, in the end, whoever has the best lawyer wins.
Surfing USA was a note-for-note copy of Sweet Little Sixteen. That didn’t happen by accident.
As a side note ( note, heheheh!), the guitar solo at the end of that tune STILL gives me goosebumps. Classic guitar solo.
Wow! Sounds Arabesque!