Saying Goodbye to Rick Davies of Supertramp

I wrote about Supertramp’s Breakfast in America eleven years ago and later included it in my list of all-time favorites, along with the band’s album, Crisis? What Crisis?  In my summary of those two inclusions, I wrote:

I can’t overstate how important this band was to the young version of me, insecure and creative, the youngest child of separated parents. Hodgson’s lyrics were the empathetic voice I craved, though I can’t say for sure that I understood them all at the time. Listening to Supertramp nearly forty years on, the band’s output still holds up. I’ve always loved the juxtaposition of Davies’s and Hodgson’s respective oeuvres, one cynical and cranky, one spiritual and nurturing, and together they were greater than the sum of their parts. 

Rick Davies died a few days ago, and as important as some of Hodgson’s lyrics were to me as a youth, it was Davies’s piano skills that attracted much of my attention, as I moved beyond the Michael Aaron piano books I’d been trudging through for years and started to explore playing songs that I loved. When I was twelve, I purchased the manuscript book of Crime of the Century, and I studied those songs with curiosity, amazement and confusion, unable to play some of the licks to my satisfaction. Easiest among the lot was the title track, and for a brief period I played the song in the living room of classmates Jon and Scott Wittkopf, who added drums and guitar to the mix. It was my first foray into playing with a group, and it jumpstarted my excitement to be in a band as I dreamed of music stardom.  

My brother soon encouraged me to learn “Another Man’s Woman,” a piano tour-de-force that begins with a terrific percussive groove and culminates with an equally terrific solo, and I managed to do a fair job of replicating it by ear rather than a manuscript. Soon to follow were songs like “Asylum,” “Just Another Nervous Wreck,” and “From Now On.” This band was inspiring!

But for any pianist, it was “Bloody Well Right” that set the standard, with Davies’s extended blues-based Wurlizer solo instantly recognizable. I must say that I fumbled through it as a child, only kinda-sorta achieving the spirit of the solo if not the actual notes. It wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I finally sat down and transcribed the solo note for note, slowing the tune down to identify some of the faster runs, and even today it’s an intro that break out from time to time.

Beyond the obvious piano chops of Rick Davies, his sonically-edged compositions helped to compensate for Hodgson’s sweeter side. Davies basically played Lennon to Hodgson’s McCartney, or Amy Ray to Emily Saliers of Indigo Girls, offering a bit of cynicism and realism to the philosophical Hodgson. I thought that Davies really hit his stride on Breakfast in America and Famous Last Words…, the final Supertramp albums before Hodgson left the band. I loved songs like “Gone Hollywood,” “Oh Darling,” “Just Another Nervous Wreck,” “Put on Your Old Brown Shoes,” and “Waiting So Long.” They may not have been hits, but they helped elevate the Supertramp releases into satisfying listening experiences, making them “complete” albums, and not just some filler songs amongst a few of Hodgson’s hits.

I got to see Rick Davies twice: once at Alpine Valley in 1983, and then two years later at MECCA in Milwaukee. For the latter show, I was excited that Davies would have more of a chance to shine as the only songwriter left in the band. Unfortunately, the setlist was lacking, as was Davies’ ability to hold an audience. It was decent, but it was clear that Supertramp missed Hodgson. Unfortunately, they would never play together again.

It was just two weeks ago that Hodgson lost a publishing royalty appeal between him and the rest of the band. A sad way to end the legacy of a great band.

Archie Bunker and the Pentatonic Scale

Cooking in the kitchen the other day, I began humming the theme song to the classic 70s sitcom All in the Family, “Those Were the Days.” (TV theme songs constantly pop up in my head – they were good tunes!). In short order I recognized that nearly the entire song is comprised of the major pentatonic scale. Not until the B section, as Carroll O’Connor pines for the days when “girls were girls and men were men,” is the 7th of the scale introduced. Good stuff! It reminded me of my first introduction to the pentatonic scale as a child, when my sister taught me how to play a version of “Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater” using only the black keys of our piano. I didn’t know at the time that the five keys made up a pentatonic scale, but in retrospect I probably became innately familiar with the scale’s sound.  

Years later, when I played baritone horn in my school’s band, one of my favorite pieces was “Variations of a Korean Folk Song” by John Barnes Chance, a ubiquitous piece among band circles at the time. Nearly the entire composition’s melody uses a pentatonic scale, and the impact of the song’s climax is probably heightened because the melody is played over a low brass line that finally introduces the 7th and 4th degrees of the scale, surprising the listener who by that point has grown accustomed to hearing only the five notes of the pentatonic scale. Really lovely.  

Traditional Chinese music utilizes the pentatonic scale, something American composer Alan Menken tapped into when composing songs for the Disney film, Mulan. The A section of the opening track, “Honor to us All,” is comprised solely of the pentatonic scale.

When I was a junior in high school, after I’d saved up my dishwashing money and skipped my high school’s homecoming dance to purchase by buddy’s older brother’s Peavey T40 bass guitar, I learned the familiar beginning notes to “My Girl,” the Temptations classic. Not only does the opening guitar riff use the pentatonic scale, the melody of the entire tune is comprised of only five notes.

Somewhere along the line my piano teacher Fred Tesch taught me the blues scale, and probably even intimated its association with the pentatonic scale, but it wasn’t until I was older that I truly understood the relationship. When I first learned the intro to Supertramp’s “Bloody Well Right,” it finally sunk in that the blues scale is essentially a major pentatonic scale starting on the 6th degree (which is simply called a minor pentatonic scale), plus one additional “blue” note. When Supertramp pianist Rick Davies plays his fabulous intro on the Wurlitzer, he’s primarily jamming on a G blues scale, though the song is in B-flat. The same technique is employed in Stevie Wonder’s “Sir Duke.” When I doubled the riff in my horn band years ago, I was well aware that I was doing the same thing Rick Davies had done in Supertramp: playing a major key’s relative minor blues scale (in this case a G-sharp blues scale, though the song is in the key of B).

Over the years, I dutifully took note, and even now when I’m soloing, I’m hopelessly tied to the pentatonic scale (I’m a pretty good keyboard player, but creative soloing is not exactly my forte).

Irving Berlin is famous for (among composing many great songs) preferring to play the black keys of a piano, and he had a transposing piano built so that he could always play in the key of F sharp.  Here he is demonstrating the invention.

It would be wrong to conclude that Berlin only played the black keys – far from it – but it’s nice to know that as the younger me was pounding out “Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater,” I was playing the notes that Berlin favored. Not a bad way to begin a musical journey.