breakfast in america tour 1979

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1979 Breakfast in America Tour

The first official live album was recorded in this tour: " Supertramp Paris ", released in 1980.

Ten month tour. The tour took 52 tons of gear, 10 miles of cable, $5 millions worth of equipment and 40 man crew . Broke all previous concert attendance records in Europe and Canada, made front page headlines full of superlaives and solidified the band's reputation for spectacular rock shows.

NORTH AMERICA CITIES

Alburquerque Atlanta Bellingham Binghampton Boston Boulder Buffalo Chicago Cincinnati Cleveland Corvallis Detroit Fort Worth Fresno Green Bay Greensboro Houston Indianapolis Jacksonville Kansas City, MO Lakeland Largo Long Beach Los Angeles Madison Miami Milwaukee Nashville New Brunswick New Orleans New York City Norfolk Oakland Oklahoma City Philadelphia Phoenix Pittsburgh Portland Pullman Richmond Rochester St. Louis St. Paul San Antonio San Diego Seattle Spokane Toledo Tucson Tulsa Utica Calgary Edmonton Halifax Kitchener London, Ontario Moncton Montreal Ottawa Quebec City Toronto Vancouver Victoria Winnipeg

MARCH 16- Boulder, Colorado 18- St. Louis, MO 19- St. Louis, MO 20- Kansas City, MO 22- Milwaukee, Wisconsin 23- Milwaukee, WI 24- St. Paul, Minnesota 25- Madison, Wisconsin 27- Green Bay, Wisconsin 28- Chicago, Illinois

APRIL 3- Los Angeles, California - LA Forum 4- Los Angeles, California - LA Forum 5- Oakland, California 8- Tucson, Arizona 9- Phoenix, Arizona 11- San Diego Sports Arena 12- Fresno,California - Selland Arena 13- Fresno, California - Selland Arena 15- Spokane, Washington - Coliseum 16- Missoula, Montana - Adam Field House 18- Seattle, Washington - Coliseum 19- Portland, Oregon - Coliseum 20- Pullman, Washington - WSU Field House 22- Corvallis, Oregon - Gill Coliseum 30- Tulsa, Oklahoma

MAY 1 - Norman, Oklahoma 2 - Ft. Worth, Texas 3 - San Antonia, Texas - Arena 5 - Houston, Texas - Coliseum 7 - New Orleans, Louisiana 9 - Nashville, Tennessee 11 - Miami, Florida 12 - Fr. Meyers, Florida 13 - St. Petersburg, Florida 15 - Atlanta, Georgia - The Omni 16 - Greensboro, North Carolina 17 - Largo - Capitol Center 18 - New Brunswick, Nova Scotia 20 - Detroit, Michigan 21 - Buffalo, NY 23 - Boston, Mass. 24 - Boston, Mass 25 - Philadelphia, Pennsylvania - The Spectrum 26 - Rochester, NY 27 - Troy, NY 29 - Utica, NY 30 - Springfield Civic Center 31 - Madison Square Gardens, NY (Supertramp is presented with it’s first platinum record awards here)

JUNE 2- Cincinati, Ohio - Riverfront Stadium 3- Indianapolis, Indiana - Market Square Arena 4- Pittsburgh, Penn. - Civic Arena 6- Columbus, Ohio 8- Cleveland, Ohio - Richfield Coliseum 9- Birmingham, Alabama 10- Richmond, Virginia 11- Hampton, Virginia 18- Apple Valley

JULY 9- Winnipeg (Canada) 10- Winnipeg (Canada) 11- Winnipeg (Canada) 16- London (Canada) 19- Toronto - Exhibition Stadium 20- Toronto - Exhibition Stadium 21- Toronto - Exhibition Stadium 24- Montreal (Canada) 25- Montreal (Canada) 28- Ottawa (Canada) 30- Moncton (Canada) 31- Halifax (Canada)

AUGUST 5- Calgary (Canada) 7- Edmonton (Canada) 8- Edmonton (Canada) 10- Vancouver (Canada) 11- Canadian tour ends in Vancouver, British Columbia

EUROPEAN LEG

SEPTEMBER 30- Frankfurt

OCTOBER 1- Mannheim 3- Munich 4- Munich 5- Munich 7- Dortmund 8- Dortmund 10- Vienna 12- Cologne 13- Cologne 15- Rotterdam 16- Rotterdam 17- Rotterdam 19- Antwerp 21- Bremen 22- Bremen 25- Oslo 26- Stockholm 27- Gothenburg 30- London 31- London

NOVEMBER 1- London 2- London 4- Berlin 5- Berlin 8- Barcelona 9- Barcelona 10- Barcelona 12- Madrid 13- Madrid 15- Lisbon 16- Lisbon 19- Bordeaux 20- Avignon 21- Strasbourg 22- Lyon 23- Dijon 25- Nice 27- Nantes 29- Paris 30- Paris

DECEMBER 1- Paris 2- Paris 4- Stuttgart 5- stuttgart 8- Zurich 9- zurich

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The album was platinum in America within four months and contained four irresistible singles.

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Supertramp were the masters of overnight success that took years. The British band were formed in 1969 and released their self-titled debut album the following year, gradually building a loyal following with their sophisticated rock sound.

Six years on, and with an evolved line-up, they had their first UK hit single with “Dreamer,” and first Top 10 success with its parent album Crime Of The Century. But on March 29, 1979, as they marked their tenth anniversary, their world truly changed with the release of Breakfast In America.

The band had set the scene for their elevation to album rock’s top division by meticulously building their transatlantic audience. Even In The Quietest Moments, released in April 1977, went gold in the US just three months later. That was just before its signature song “Give A Little Bit” made the Top 20 there, as they toured the country extensively. The album was also their best-selling to date in many other countries.

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But it was Breakfast In America, the group’s sixth LP release, that saw the songwriting partnership of Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson reach full commercial throttle. Advertised by the lead single “The Logical Song,” also released in March 1979, the Supertramp sound was now entirely at ease with its great crossover potential. In co-producing with Peter Henderson, the band created a sound that won over pop radio around the world. It was a hit on both FM and AM formats in the country that the album was, cannily, named after, and where they now made their home, in Los Angeles.

“The Logical Song” became the first of four irresistible singles from the set, hitting the Top 10 in both the UK and US. It also topped the charts in Canada and gave the LP the perfect launchpad. Breakfast In America was gold in the States by April 9 and platinum by May 9, even before its title track became a second consecutive Top 10 winner in their home country. On May 19, the album started an aggregate six-week at the US summit, also hitting No.1 in Norway, Austria, Canada, Australia, and France.

The subsequent singles “Goodbye Stranger” and “Take The Long Way Home” kept Supertramp on radios and turntables worldwide for the rest of the year, as the band’s tireless road work continued. Their show in late November at the Pavilion in Paris would be captured as a permanent record of that touring season, released as the live album Paris in 1980.

Listen to the best of Supertramp on  Apple Music  and  Spotify.

The echoes of Supertramp’s astonishing worldwide conquest with Breakfast In America continued to be heard. In May 1980, “The Logical Song” was named Best Song Musically and Lyrically at the 25 th annual Ivor Novello Awards in London. Then, in November 1984, the RIAA confirmed that the album had arrived at quadruple platinum status, for four million shipments, in the US alone.

“I always knew it was going to be a huge album,” Roger Hodgson told Melody Maker in 1979. “I knew our time had come and if it hadn’t happened, the big man in the sky was playing a trick on us. I felt that it had to happen, the mere fact that we had to struggle so long for it.”

Buy or stream Breakfast In America .

March 29, 2019 at 10:27 pm

40 years later still a masterful album. Not a bad song the LP. I was 7 years old when this album became the soundtrack of 1979 in my house. Along with Michael Jackson’s “Off The Wall”, and Kurtis Blow’s “The Breaks”. And of course Donna Summer’s “Bad Girls”. What a time to be a alive.

March 30, 2019 at 12:52 pm

This album still sounds great after 40 years. We are lucky that Roger Hodgson still is touring with a great 4 piece band and is celebrating the 40 year anniversary this year. Roger is sounding as great as ever and the band rivals the original Supertramp line-up. Many dates have been announced for the European leg of the tour and we in the US are awaiting upcoming announcements for shows here, as well as Canada. All the tour dates can be found on Roger’s website.

March 30, 2019 at 4:18 pm

Breakfast is a fine album, but not as epic as Crime, Crisis, and EITQM.

Robbie Stewart

December 23, 2020 at 11:59 pm

I’ve been listening to Supertramp’s Breakfest In America on and off since I first bought this album on vinyl back in 1979 when it was first released. It has always been a great album over the years and one that actually got me looking into Supertramp’s back catalogue and discovering songs like “School,” “Bloody Well Right,” and of course “Give A Little Bit.” I actually used to hear “Give A Little Bit” at night when I’d pick up WLS AM 890 back in 1976, but I never associated it with Roger Hodgeson or Supertramp until after “Breakfest In America” came out. Remember, we didn’t have Internet or even MTV back in those days. It was either Radio, Dick Clark’s American Bandstand on Saturdays, or Midnight Special on Friday nights. I’ve since gone on to having further copies of this album first on CD in 1984 when Mobile Fidelity Sound Labs re-issued it as part of their Original Master Recording series. As a cassettee 1991 after I joined the Columbia House Tape Club, and last but not least as a standard CD A&M Records pressing in 1995 as part of their Audio Masters Plus series. Because I had to move so many times, some of my copies have now been lost, so I’m mostly relying on You Tube for streaming at the moment. I’m glad to see that Roger Hodgeson has been finally been allowing more of his songs on You Tube with Covid-19 going on. So Roger, if you just happen to be reading this, thank you very much. And yes, this longtime fan knows you wrote them and NOT Rick Davies since you sung lead vocals on them. So, I’m not fooled by Rick Davies trying to do concerts under the Supertramp banner and performing your songs without your approval and neither are other fans either. Don’t worry, dude!! We know!!!

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When Supertramp Blew Up With ‘Breakfast in America’

Supertramp managed to score a few hit singles and albums during the mid-to-late '70s after toiling in obscurity with their earliest releases – but they were only a warm-up for their sixth album.

Released in March 29, 1979, Breakfast in America  found the band moving away from the more serious, prog-influenced fare that anchored records like 1974's Crime of the Century  and 1977's Even in the Quietest Moments  in favor of a more concise, radio-friendly approach that often emphasized the tongue-in-cheek humor of bandleaders Rick Davies and Roger Hodgson.

"The songs on this album were chosen because we really wanted to get a feeling of fun and warmth across," Hodgson told Melody Maker later in 1979. "I think we felt that we had done three pretty serious albums, and it was about time we showed the lighter side of ourselves."

But that didn't mean Breakfast in America was all laughs. In fact, the LP was nearly titled Hello Stranger , due to a preponderance of songs about relationships broken by a lack of communication. It was a subject Davies and Hodgson knew well, given how poorly they were getting along during the sessions.

Their songwriting partnership had long been the basis of the band's music, bbut y the time Breakfast in America  got started, they hadn't actually written together in years. As they admitted during a 1977 NME interview, Supertramp existed in a state of delicate detente.

"A few of the songs really lent themselves to two people talking to each other and at each other," Hodgson later told Hi-Fi News & Record Review . "I could be putting down Rick's way of thinking, and he could be challenging my way of seeing life. We were thinking of making that the theme. ... We weren't communicating very well through this album."

Their problems were personal as well as musical. Hodgson admitted to being put off by the presence of Davies' wife (who'd become the band's manager) on the road: "It has split us two up a lot, and because we're the core of Supertramp it splits the band up as well. She's an amazing lady and fits in really well. But it does tend to cut Rick off from the rest of us.

"There's rarely any hostile vibes because of that," Hodgson added, "but as a band it doesn't feel like a complete unit. It's very seldom that all five of us are actually together socializing or talking about things."

In truth, they wouldn't necessarily have had much to talk about anyway. Hodgson underwent a spiritual awakening during the '70s, and Davies wasn't shy about expressing his disdain for the way those themes surfaced in songs like "Babaji" and "Lord Is It Mine." "Personally, I decry it," he told NME . "I'd sooner remain anonymous than become religious. I might fight with Roger on this next album about that. ... It's not right. You've got people in the band who couldn't give a damn."

Listen to Supertramp Perform 'The Logical Song'

Ultimately, the duo ended up retreating to largely separate corners while writing Breakfast in America . "If I look at a song of Roger's and I think it's wrong, I've got to be really 100 percent there to fight that," Davies told NME . "Usually I just don't have the energy to, because I see it blowing up into a huge misunderstanding."

Rather than expressing their dissatisfaction openly, the erstwhile partners channeled their estrangement into tracks like " Casual Conversations ," which includes the lines "It doesn't matter what I say / You never listen anyway" and "Imagination's all I have / But even then, you say it's bad / Just can't see why we disagree."

According to Hodgson, their rift may have started as far back as 1972, when Davies refused to take LSD with him. "The result of me tripping was that I had my mind open to all kinds of stuff that he didn't," Hodgson later told Melody Maker . "That created a barrier, because we couldn't share the experience. LSD is a very strange drug. It started my education again ... totally. It lets you see life in a totally different aspect, and allows you to free yourself of everything you've been conditioned to for your entire life. It really showed me my potential for growth."

On paper, it looks like a recipe for disaster, but Davies and Hodgson managed to bring out the best in one another with Breakfast in America . Some fans might have been disappointed by the lack of an extended number like the 11-minute "Fool's Overture," which closed out Even in the Quietest Moments , but the new songs benefited from a more streamlined approach, with arrangements whose extraneous bits were excised during a lengthy recording process that sprawled across six months, two studios, and two rounds of demos.

Co-producer Peter Henderson later insisted that he saw no evidence of a rift between Davies and Hodgson, possibly because music was the one thing they could still share.

"We have a strange relationship," Hodgson told Melody Maker . "It's always been a strange one. We're both oddballs, and we've never been able to communicate too much on a verbal level. There's a very deep bond, but it's definitely mostly on a musical level. When there's just the two of us playing together, there's an incredible empathy. His down-to-earth way of writing, which is very rock 'n' roll, balances out my lighter, melodic style."

That certainly proved to be the case with Breakfast in America , which wove bluesier, Wurlitzer-laced Davies numbers like "Gone Hollywood" and "Goodbye Stranger" between future Hodgson hits like "The Logical Song" and the title track.

The overall effect was surprisingly, satisfyingly cohesive – and eminently well-suited to Top 40 radio, where the band enjoyed a run of four hit singles that included the Top 10 smashes "The Logical Song" and " Take the Long Way Home ." The album quickly rose to the top of Billboard 's album chart, where it stayed throughout much of the summer of 1979.

Listen to Supertramp Perform 'Goodbye Stranger'

For Hodgson, the record's huge success was nothing more than the culmination of a plan. "I always knew it was going to be a huge album," he told Melody Maker . "I knew our time had come and if it hadn't happened, the big man in the sky was playing a trick on us. I felt that it had to happen, the mere fact that we had to struggle so long for it."

All of that success was inevitably followed by yet another lengthy Supertramp tour. They played to healthy crowds and enjoyed solid reviews, but returning to the road didn't help the fraying bonds between Hodgson and Davies – or make it any easier to pen material for the next record.

"I think we're going to have to use the time a little more creatively than just endless tours, because that will kill us in the end," Davies told Melody Maker . "The five songs that I did on Breakfast  are the only things that I've done in three years. I can't think straight when we're on the road. I'm just thinking about where we're going next. ... It's down to, can we survive without being around each other so much? Can we all exist within our own little worlds and then come back together as Supertramp?"

The answer to that question turned out to be "yes ... sort of." Hodgson remained in the fold for the band's next studio release, 1982's Famous Last Words , but he and Davies found themselves staring across an even greater creative divide. Hodgson soon left the group to pursue a solo career.

Both he and Supertramp recorded sporadically over the ensuing decades, but their few attempts to broker a reunion have all ended in failure. It a continued source of frustration for fans who point to Breakfast in America as proof that the band's classic lineup was more than the sum of its parts.

That's a notion Hodgson disagreed with as early as 1977, when he told NME: " I haven't reached my zenith. But maybe the band has."

Hodgson didn't appear to feel any differently while weighing in on the topic two years later during the Breakfast in America tour: "Rick and I are really starved of musical growth. We've climbed to the top of the mountain. Now what do we do? Most bands just stay at the top and sing the same old songs, but that means nothing to us.

"We really feel like we've got to grow," Hodgson added. "The band will stay together as long as it's growing. If it's reached a peak, we might as well find other musicians and do something else."

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The crime of the century? Why a 1979 Halifax Supertramp concert was cancelled

'this was just devastating. you know, my heroes were supposed to be coming,' fan rick tarkka says.

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Rick Tarkka was at his home in Lawrencetown, N.S., on the morning of July 31, 1979, when he heard some crushing news on the radio.

The dial was tuned to Halifax station C100 and it was revealed that rock group Supertramp's sold-out show scheduled for that evening at Halifax Metro Centre was cancelled due to threats against the band.

"This was just devastating," said Tarkka, who was 15 at the time. "You know, my heroes were supposed to be coming."

The cancellation even managed to attract the attention of The New York Daily News.

At the time, Supertramp was one of the hottest bands on the planet.

Their  Breakfast in America  album had come out just months before and they toured across North America and Europe in support of it. Tracks from that album such as  The Logical Song ,  Goodbye Stranger  and  Breakfast in America  became classic rock staples.

Too young to work, Tarkka had spent the summer looking forward to the show, counting down the days until it happened. His dad had bought two tickets and Tarkka was going to attend the show with a friend.

"We didn't have the internet in those days, so you would just speculate on, 'What's the show going to be like? Oh, I heard rumours that they play this, are they going to play that?'" he said.

Tarkka wasn't the only person disappointed.

Paul Taylor of New Glasgow, N.S., was supposed to work at the show as a roadie. Then 17, he left home at 6 a.m. and arrived in Halifax around 8 a.m.

When he showed up at the arena to report for work, he was told the concert had been cancelled.

"I said, 'Gee, I just came from New Glasgow to work for the show,'" said Taylor, who later spent part of his career in the music business as a lighting designer and director.

He recalls seeing a distraught concert promoter in the background. "Ten-thousand ticket sales just went out the door," said Taylor.

Annapolis Valley resident Phil Vogler planned to drive to Halifax for the show, but heard the news before departing.

"I can't use the words I want to use, but I was mad," said Vogler. "I was disappointed."

At the time, rumours swirled about the reason for the cancellation. Vogler remembers hearing there was a threat from the IRA, while Tarkka remembers it being described as a bomb threat.

"Not that people don't have conspiracy theories now, but there was people who were making all kinds of stuff up there thinking, 'The album broke bigger than they thought, I think they're probably going to be playing in Philadelphia,'" said Tarkka.

Rock and roll mystery: Here's why Supertramp didn't play in Halifax in 1979

Why the concert was cancelled.

The truth is someone called A&M Records in Toronto, which was Supertramp's record company in Canada, and made death threats.

Group manager David Margeson told the Canadian Press that "a guy from Halifax" called in a threat, saying things like "we'll blow you away" and "the only true artists are dead."

"It was the first time we've ever run into threats," said Margeson. "It freaked us out somewhat."

The decision to cancel the show was made by the band members on the day of the show, saxophonist John Helliwell told CBC News in an email.

"We took a vote when we were in Moncton N.B., and the consensus was to cancel, due to the dramatic nature of the threats, which were only made known to the musicians on that day," he said.

For fans who missed the Halifax show, the band put out a live album in 1980 that was recorded on the Breakfast in America tour.

Supertramp returned to play a show in Halifax in 1985. By then, Roger Hodgson, who sang on hits such as  Dreamer ,  Breakfast in America  and Give a Little Bit , had departed the band.

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Breakfast In America by Supertramp

Album Reviews 1979 Albums , 2014 Reviews , Album Reviews by Ric Albano , British Artists , Classic Rock Review Album of the Year , Roger Hodgson , Supertramp 1

Buy Breakfast In America

While Supertramp started as a purely progressive rock act in 1970, their mid seventies albums started to inch towards more pop/rock song craft. Released in early 1977, Even In the Quietest Moments , which contained the group’s first worldwide Top 40 hit “Give a Little Bit”. After that album’s release, the band decided to permanently relocate to America’s west coast and each member found fresh influence in the prolific pop music culture which was booming in late seventies Los Angeles.

Prior to the extended recording sessions, the group recorded a couple of demo sessions to sort out the best material. Originally, Davies and Hogdson were planning on doing a concept album, which would examine their conflicting personalities and world views called “Hello Stranger”. However, the group eventually decided on abandoning this concept and focusing more on the songs they considered more fun to perform. In this light, the album’s title was changed to reflect the bouncy, upbeat song introduced by Hodgson. Along with producer Peter Henderson , the group forged a fantastic sound for the album by focusing more on capture and performance than mixing and mastering techniques. This process took months and was only completed when the December 1978 deadline arrived.

Breakfast in America is bookended by two dramatic and theatrical extended tracks which give a sense of the group’s earlier work. “Gone Hollywood” starts with long fade of carnival-like piano before strongly breaking in as a duet of Davies and Hodgson harmonized vocals. After two short verses, a long middle section starts with a subtle but haunting saxophone lead by John Helliwell before Davies takes over lead vocals and tension slowly builds with rhythmic accents of the consistent piano arpeggio. After a climatic Hodson-led section, the song returns to a final verse and concludes with an optimistic musical outro.

“The Logical Song” is a brilliant song lyrically, melodically, and especially musically by Hodgson. The album’s first single, the song reached the Top 10 is several countries and became the group’s most successful hit. The song is highlighted by the later progressions, including the brighter piano notes under Helliwell’s first sax lead and the outro led by the bass riff of Dougie Thompson under the second sax solo. Lyrically, Hodgson critiques the structured education system and society’s unbalanced focus on true knowledge. The dynamics of the Wurlitzer piano are on full display during “Goodbye Stranger”, Davies’ ode to rock groupies. Beyond anything else, this song has exceptionally great sonic aesthetics with some cool guitar textures by Hodgson, including a cool rock outro with a refined guitar lead.

The album’s title song was written by Hodgson while still a teen in the late sixties. “Breakfast in America” is almost frivolous in subject matter, but quite powerful musically with an interesting, English band march beneath the contemporary rock vocals. The song was a hit in the UK but failed to chart in the States. The side one close “Oh Darling” is an unheralded romantic ballad where Davies uses expert chord progressions and diminishment to perfectly set the beautifully melancholy mood. Hodgson makes his own significant contributions, starting textured electric guitar riffs and acoustic accents to compliment the Wurli piano and vocals perfectly, and climaxing with the closing vocal duet that builds to a crescendo before nicely fading out.

“You know I get so weary from the battles in this life and there’s many times it seems that you’re the only hope in sight…”

Next come a couple of tracks by Davies. “Just Another Nervous Wreck” is a building pop/rock song about the struggle of the everyman. It starts with an animated electric piano and vocals and builds with many traditional rock elements including a fine harmonized guitar lead and chorus vocals, before the strong, climatic outro with Davies’s vocals becoming ever more desperate and strained. “Casual Conversations” takes the opposite approach to the previous track, as a short, jazzy, mellow tune. Cool piano carries this along, with not much movement elsewhere, just a guide cymbal beat by drummer Bob Siebenberg . “Child of Vision” closes things out as a seven-plus minute track with an epic feel. Employing some newer musical styles and elements, the track is Helliwell’s only partial songwriting credit on the album and it ends with a long piano solo with a improvised feel. This ending, unfortunately, seems mainly there to take up some time and “run out the clock”, which makes for a less than satisfying conclusion to this otherwise flawless album.

Breakfast in America won two Grammy Awards in 1980, and topped the album charts in several countries, including France where it became the biggest-selling English language album of all time. The group followed the album with a 120-date world tour which broke concert attendance records in Europe and Canada. In 1980, the band released the double live album Paris , another huge success worldwide. The group did not follow up Breakfast in America with another studio release until Famous Last Words was released in late 1982, nearly four years later. Although that album was a commercial success, the subsequent tour led to Hodgson’s departure from the group, breaking up the classic lineup of Supertramp.

Part of Classic Rock Review’s celebration of 1979 albums.

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I don’t feel at all they were running out the clock on the piano solo at the end of “child of vision”. In fact I actually find it riveting.

He plays it so well, so subtly. To me it is a master class (as well as just totally satisfying) to hear him start in with just a few notes, a few diads, and repeat, taking good time to let it sink in, then adding a little, let that simmer, add a little more until towards the end he is going strong and rhythmically as well as tone wise with much more intricate and interesting patterns.

I get a thrill out of it every time, how it builds. Music isn’t about finishing quickly as possible, no superfluous notes, etc. this isn’t building a car on an assembly line.

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• July 19, 1979 Setlist

Supertramp Setlist at CNE Stadium, Toronto, ON, Canada

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• School Play Video
• From Now On Play Video
• Gone Hollywood Play Video
• Bloody Well Right Play Video
• Breakfast in America Play Video
• Goodbye Stranger Play Video
• Sister Moonshine Play Video
• Hide in Your Shell Play Video
• Oh Darling Play Video
• Asylum Play Video
• Even in the Quietest Moments Play Video
• The Logical Song Play Video
• Child of Vision Play Video
• Give a Little Bit Play Video
• Dreamer Play Video
• Rudy Play Video
• Take the Long Way Home Play Video
• Fool's Overture Play Video
• Crime of the Century Play Video

Edits and Comments

6 activities (last edit by fusaka , 17 Apr 2015, 17:47 Etc/UTC )

Songs on Albums

• Breakfast in America
• Child of Vision
• Gone Hollywood
• Goodbye Stranger
• Take the Long Way Home
• The Logical Song
• Bloody Well Right
• Crime of the Century
• Hide in Your Shell
• Even in the Quietest Moments
• Fool's Overture
• From Now On
• Give a Little Bit
• Sister Moonshine

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How hit album ‘Breakfast In America’ proved Supertramp’s undoing

Having emerged thanks to funding from a dutch millionaire, the british group recorded classics that are still radio regulars today, but fell apart at their zenith amid clashes between their two lead members.

In the annals of rock history , Supertramp tend to be relegated to secondary status. They were enormously successful, selling millions of records and playing before packed-out crowds at huge venues, even during the years when they released fewer albums. However, they’re rarely in the conversation when it comes to listing the very best; the music media certainly doesn’t afford them the same importance as contemporaries such as Genesis, Yes, King Crimson, and Emerson, Lake and Palmer. Supertramp are viewed as the ultimate guilty pleasure, a band people enjoy privately without admitting as much publicly. This appears somewhat unfair. Their 1979 album Breakfast In America was their greatest success, a collection of optimistic, stylish songs crafted amid an atmosphere of internal tension — one that descended into downright discord during the group’s subsequent, triumphant tour. “That tour had a damaging effect on relationships within the band, both as musicians and as people,” Dougie Thomson, the bassist in Supertramp’s classic line-up, says. “By the end of the tour, we’d only be together for the two hours that we were on stage.”

If you turn the radio to one of the hundreds of classic rock stations out there today, half an hour won’t go by before one of Supertramp’s songs comes on. It could be Give A Little Bit , The Logical Song , School , Dreamer , It’s Raining Again or any one of a number of others. “I don’t remember a single day in my life when I haven’t listened to Supertramp,” says Abel Fuentes, one of the major experts on the British band. Fuentes has written a comprehensive history of the group, Tramp’s Footprints , a 750-page tome featuring interviews with around 90 people. Everyone connected to Supertramp has their say in the book. “Many critics and musicians praised the three progressive albums they put out in the mid-1970s [ Crime of the Century , Crisis? What Crisis? and Even in the Quietest Moments ], but after their overwhelming success with Breakfast in America , the same people accused them of becoming a pop band that was only interested in commercial gain,” Fuentes says. “What’s more, the fact that they moved to the United States and were a group that kept such a low profile, avoiding the scandals that the period’s rock stars regularly became embroiled in, also led the media to completely forget about them in their home country.”

Supertramp defy all the rock clichés. With no single, identifiable front man, they were anti-stars who didn’t fit the roguish profile of other groups. This was the 70s, when bands-behaving-badly became the norm. “We weren’t pop stars with bad habits who sought the spotlight,” says Bob Siebenberg, Supertramp’s drummer. “The journalists that followed us were after scandals, but we always disappointed them. They could only write about our music.” Going right back to the very start, the group’s story is a distinctive one. That we’re talking about them today is thanks to the money put up by a Dutch patron called Stanley August Miesegaes, a multimillionaire who fell in love with Rick Davies’ music and financed the group during the most difficult time — its beginnings. Sam, as he was known, turned off the tap in 1972, after the band had released two albums, 1970′s Supertramp and 1971′s Indelibly Stamped , which proved their least significant records. The group hit rock bottom when Sam dropped them. Neither of their discs had sold many copies, and now their patron had left, taking his checkbook with him. They were done for, it seemed.

However, it was a low ebb that spurred them on to show what they were made of. The band’s two driving forces, Davies and Roger Hodgson, focused on composition, and began to work magic. The release of the 1974 album Crime Of The Century — a disc many believe is their best — proved the turning point. “It had tracks that were simple and sophisticated at the same time,” Fuentes says. “In the face of the extravagant sounds that dominated the period, it was a breath of fresh air. What’s more, its production was so crystal clear that, five decades later, the record is still often used to test out all kinds of sound systems.”

Neither Davies nor Hodgson were anxious to take the lead in concerts: they would each perform at one end of the stage, leaving the humorous John Helliwell, the man responsible for the band’s characteristic saxophone sounds, to act as master of ceremonies. Internally, however, Davies and Hodgson were not on the same page. “They are two completely different people, polar opposites,” Thomson says. Davies is pragmatic, a realist, cynical, working class and a carnivore; Hodgson is spiritual, an idealist, romantic, middle-class and a vegetarian. Although the pair would sign their songs jointly as part of a Lennon/McCartney -style agreement, each composed on his own. Davies’ songs carried a clear rhythm and blues influence; Hodgson’s were more poppy and commercial, and were notable for his high-pitched tone of voice. Both sang and played the keyboard (Hodgson was also a guitarist).

And then came Breakfast In America , Supertramp’s seismically successful album. In 1979, no other disc could be heard more frequently; only The Wall , by Pink Floyd, and Off The Wall , by Michael Jackson, equaled the record in popularity. Some critics, however, took aim at the album as too commercial. “We had decided to record songs that were simple and could have a commercial impact,” Davies says in Tramp’s Footprints . “The pop side of things had always been a part of Supertramp, but perhaps it had been overlooked because of the comparisons that experts made between us and groups like Genesis and Pink Floyd . Sometimes we joked that if we needed to be more commercial, we wouldn’t find that very hard.” All the optimism with which the album filled its listeners was in stark contrast to the bad atmosphere that pervaded the studio during recording.

Davies opposed the inclusion of Hodgson’s song Lord Is It Mine , citing its “spiritual character.” He lost the battle. Hodgson had radicalized his way of life: conversations with him were dominated by talk of the soul, yoga, and communes. He began to get on the rest of the group’s nerves. The reasons for the break-up of Supertramp’s classic line-up were “Roger’s spiritualism and egocentricity,” Helliwell tells this newspaper, adding, “Roger did not appreciate the contributions of Bob, Dougie and me.” Davies wrote Casual Conversations as a criticism of Hodgson: “It talks about Roger and me unsuccessfully trying to communicate with each other — we had a lot of comings-together.” Hodgson responded with Child of Vision . “I wrote that song as a criticism of the materialistic way of life in America, but in truth it was directed at Rick,” he says in Fuentes’ book. “We were completely different. It was becoming difficult to work together.” The Breakfast In America album tour was a huge success, but when the fans left the arenas, the fault lines within the group were becoming more and more pronounced.

While the rest of the band travelled by air, Hodgson took to a caravan, accompanied by his partner. Davies even banned anyone from smoking weed in his presence, in a clear attack on Hodgson. In Tramp’s Footprints , Hodgson says “something died in the group” after the Breakfast In America tour: “I had the impression that Supertramp was disintegrating. In those concerts, I felt like an actor performing the same part night after night. We had become slaves to a huge production.”

The group released a live album (the wildly successful Paris in 1980), followed that up with a studio disc, 1982′s Famous Last Words , and went on tour after that. However, Hodgson had already told his fellow band members of his intention to leave. He did so in 1983. For many, that was the moment Supertramp ended, even though the group, led by Davies, continued performing and recording albums. They didn’t attract the same success as the band’s earlier work. When Hodgson departed, a verbal agreement was reached: he would allow the group to carry on using the name Supertramp, as long as they didn’t play any of his songs. That meant doing away with some of their most popular tracks: the likes of School , Breakfast In America , The Logical Song and Give a Little Bit . Hodgson would perform them on his own, and Supertramp would focus on Davies’ work. The pact held for a few years, until Davies grew tired of fans calling for the group to play Hodgson’s songs during concerts.

Describing his reaction to hearing Supertramp play his songs as a member of the crowd, Hodgson has said: “I was devastated — I felt sick. Even my son Andrew, who was with me, started to cry. I couldn’t understand how Rick could use all these songs of mine when he had so many good songs.” Over the years, there have been as many as three attempts to bring the band’s classic line-up back together again, but they have always been scuppered by age-old frictions. Fuentes points the finger at the group’s “deplorable” management. “Rick Davies’ wife took over in 1983,” he says. “At no point has she ever tried to keep the band’s name alive. While other legendary groups from the 70s have brought out all types of old recordings despite being inactive, that kind of material is conspicuous by its absence when it comes to Supertramp.”

In 2005, Thomson, Siebenberg and Helliwell took Davies to court in a bid to force him to share control over the rights to the band’s catalogue from their heyday, 1974 to 1983. They won. Despite clashing with them in the courtroom, Davies then unexpectedly got together with Siebenberg and Helliwell years later, and they went on tour as Supertramp. Hodgson, meanwhile, carried on recording discs and touring without his former band-mates. Asked by this newspaper whether he believes Supertramp’s classic line-up will ever reform, Thomson says he doesn’t think it’s likely. “The first 10 years were really great, but I think too many negative things happened after that which would have made it very difficult to go back,” he explains. “Better to stay with the memories of the good times.”

Today, Supertramp’s two most prominent members are in retirement as major live performers. Hodgson, 73, canceled a planned 2020 tour because of the pandemic and hasn’t been seen on stage since. After recovering from a cancer diagnosis in 2015, Davies, 78, performs two or three times a year in a bar in Long Island, New York, where he lives. He plays old-style blues and the odd Supertramp song. Now, though, he avoids any tracks written by Hodgson, the frenemy with whom he started a band that has never stopped having an audience.

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