<\/p>\n
Rick Davies, who with his partner Roger Hodgson co-founded the British rock group Supertramp and served as one of its two lead singers, died Saturday in East Hampton, N.Y. He was 81.<\/p>\n
His death was announced in a statement<\/a> on Supertramp\u2019s website, which said Davies battled multiple myeloma for more than a decade. The statement described Davies as \u201cthe voice and pianist behind Supertramp\u2019s most iconic songs\u201d and said his \u201csoulful vocals and unmistakable touch on the Wurlitzer\u201d formed the \u201cheartbeat\u201d of the band\u2019s sound.<\/p>\n Davies\u2019 keyboard playing was perhaps best showcased in Supertramp\u2019s \u201cGoodbye Stranger,\u201d a Top 20 pop hit about an unrepentant drifter that helped drive the band\u2019s 1979 album \u201cBreakfast in America\u201d to quadruple-platinum sales in the United States and a Grammy nomination for album of the year. In 1999, the director Paul Thomas Anderson memorably used \u201cGoodbye Stranger\u201d to soundtrack a dramatic scene<\/a> starring William H. Macy in the movie \u201cMagnolia.\u201d<\/p>\n Davies was born in 1944 in Swindon, England, and fell in love with music after hearing Gene Krupa\u2019s \u201cDrummin\u2019 Man,\u201d according to Supertramp\u2019s statement. In college he played in a short-lived band with Gilbert O\u2019Sullivan; he formed Supertramp (which was first called Daddy) after Hodgson responded to an ad he\u2019d placed in England\u2019s Melody Maker in 1969.<\/p>\n Supertramp released its self-titled debut in 1970 and released a follow-up the next year; neither garnered much interest. (Rolling Stone called the band\u2019s early prog-rock work \u201crhythmically underfed\u201d and \u201clyrically facile.\u201d) Yet Supertramp scored a hit with the funky \u201cBloody Well Right,\u201d which Davies wrote for 1974\u2019s \u201cCrime of the Century\u201d LP and which prominently featured his electric piano.<\/p>\n Among the other hits that followed were \u201cGive a Little Bit\u201d and \u201cThe Logical Song\u201d \u2014 both of which have more than 500 million streams on Spotify \u2014 as well as \u201cBreakfast in America,\u201d \u201cTake the Long Way Home\u201d and \u201cIt\u2019s Raining Again.\u201d Despite the band\u2019s success, Hodgson quit Supertramp after 1982\u2019s \u201cFamous Last Words\u201d album. He later told<\/a> The Times that the group \u201cbecame stagnant, and I personally just couldn\u2019t grow anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n Davies carried on without Hodgson, recording and touring intermittently under the Supertramp name until the early 2010s. When his health prevented him from going on the road, he played close to home on Long Island with a group called Ricky and the Rockets. Davies\u2019 survivors include his wife, Sue Davies, who also managed his career.<\/p>\n