JerryChicken

Possibly the best thing that Gerry Rafferty ever did/has done although the pool of choice is fairly limited, and yes its one of those annoying videos where someone posts a series of pictures to the music but it could be worse, it could be a moving image of Mr Rafferty who has never been entirely photogenic.

I bought his "City to City" album when it was released in 1978 and for that summer it was anthemic, turn on a rado anywhere at any time and you'd hear "Baker Street", the albums huge hit single, so much so that by the end of the year we were all bored to tears with it and in any case, I'd worn out the cassette tape that I played in the van on my endless trips to and from Newcastle.

"Don't Speak of my Heart" comes from another, less well known album "On a Wing and a Prayer" and because its less well known I know nothing about it except for the fact that this track is one of the finer examples of the genre of music that goes under the heading "good love gone bad".

And in other news...

Gerry Rafferty was of course a significant member of the band "Stealers Wheel" but the other significant part of that band, Joe Egan, has by far the better singing voice and in 1979 released an album of his own "Back on the Road" - it is fooking brilliant and is probably not available in a record shop near you, I have it on a cassette tape which is barely audible now and it is my lifes ambition to find it in a junk shop somewhere on CD so that I may preserve its memory, Joe Egan faded from the pop scene with no solo record sales to speak of, save the one that I bought, and his talent was never exploited again.

In the middle of that string of still photos above there are some very nice paintings, by someone of whom I know nought, maybe I should find out but I suspect that it may be the same person who painted the iconic album sleeves for Mr Rafferty, a chap who goes by the name (I am reliably informed) of John Byrne.

And finally,

The appearance of Billy Connolly towards the end of the sequence of photos relates to the fact that he and Rafferty were once in a band called "the Humblebums", based in Glasgow they had a limited success outside of that city and did not record anything of note, in the words of my showbiz cousin, "they were big in their dreams and publicity".

And that, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the end of this Gerry Rafferty news bulliten.

I wish I knew where my Joe Egan cassette was, I wish we'd filed things away when we moved instead of just throwing the boxes in to the garage, where they remain to this day.