Rick Davies

Richard Davies (22 July 1944 – 6 September 2025) was an English musician best known as founder, vocalist and keyboardist of the rock band Supertramp. Davies was the band's only constant member and wrote or co-wrote songs including "Bloody Well Right", "Goodbye Stranger", "My Kind of Lady", "Cannonball", and "I'm Beggin' You". He was known for his rhythmic blues piano solos, jazz-tinged progressive rock compositions and cynical lyrics.

Beginning with the band's debut album Supertramp in 1970, Davies shared lead vocals with songwriting partner Roger Hodgson until the latter's departure in 1983, at which point he became the group's sole lead vocalist. Davies's voice was deeper than Hodgson's, and he usually employed a raspy baritone which stood in stark contrast to his bandmate's tenor, but he occasionally sang in a falsetto which superficially resembled Hodgson's vocals, such as on "Goodbye Stranger" and "My Kind of Lady".

Richard Davies was born in Swindon, Wiltshire, on 22 July 1944, to Betty and Dick Davies. Betty was a hairdresser and ran a salon, and Dick was a merchant seaman, who died in 1973. Rick went to Sanford Street School and, according to his mother: "Music was the only thing he was any good at, at school."

Davies's first musical stirrings were at the age of eight, when his parents gave him a second-hand radiogram which included a few records left by the previous owner. Among them were Drummin' Man by drumming legend Gene Krupa which, in Davies's own words, "hit like a thunderbolt". "I must have played it 2,000 times," he said. "That was it." A friend of the family made Rick a makeshift drum kit out of a biscuit tin, and at the age of 12 he joined the British Railways Staff Association Brass and Silver Jubilee Band as a snare drummer. In an interview in 2002 he said: "As a kid, I used to hear the drums marching along the street in England, in my home town, when there was some kind of parade, and it was the most fantastic sound to me. Then, eventually, I got some drums and I took lessons. I was serious about it... I figured if I could do that – I mean a real drummer, read music and play with big bands, rock bands, classical, Latin, and know what I was going to do – I would be in demand and my life was set... Eventually, I started fiddling with the keyboards, and that seemed to go over better than my drumming, for some reason. So you've gotta go with what people react to." He never had lessons for keyboards but, according to his mother, "taught himself most of what he knows about music".

By 1959 Davies's attention had been captured by rock and roll, and he joined a band called Vince and the Vigilantes. In 1962, while studying in the Art Department at Swindon College, he formed his own band, called Rick's Blues, and was now playing a Hohner electric piano instead of drums. For a time the band included Gilbert O'Sullivan on drums; he was later best man at Davies's wedding. In a March 1972 interview, O'Sullivan said "Rick had originally taught me how to play the drums and piano – in fact, he taught me everything about music." When his father became ill, Davies disbanded Rick's Blues, left college, and took a job as a welder at Square D, a firm making industrial control products and systems, which had a factory on the Cheney Manor Trading Estate in Swindon. Any hopes of an artistic career were temporarily put on ice.

In 1966 Davies became the organist for the Lonely Ones (best known for being one of Noel Redding's first bands, though Redding had left by the time Davies joined), who later changed their name to the Joint and recorded the soundtracks for a number of German films. He later confessed that he lied about his abilities to get into the group, admitting he could not actually play the organ at the time. While the band was in Munich, Davies met Dutch millionaire Stanley August Miesegaes, who offered to fund him if he started a new group.

Davies decided to form a new band, and returned home from Switzerland to place an ad in the music magazine Melody Maker in August 1969. Roger Hodgson was auditioned and, despite their contrasting backgrounds – Davies's working-class upbringing and Hodgson's private school education – they struck up an instant rapport and began writing virtually all of their songs together. The band was initially called Daddy, but renamed Supertramp in January 1970.

Supertramp became one of the first acts to sign to the emerging UK branch of A&M Records and by the summer of 1970 they had recorded their first album, simply called Supertramp. Hodgson performed most of the lead vocals on this first effort, but by the time of their second album Indelibly Stamped Davies had stepped up as a singer, with Hodgson and him sharing lead vocal duties equally.