OH BROTHER

JIM RAFFERTY Don’t Talk Back

First issued in 1978, Don’t Talk Back, by Jim Rafferty, elder brother of Gerry Rafferty of Baker Street and Stealers Wheel fame, was a hugely impressive singer/songwriter debut. But with the perception in the media that Rafferty was using his brother’s reputation to further his own musical ambitions, an unfair blow was dealt to the album’s commercial trajectory.

“Nothing could hardly have been further from the truth,” affirms Rafferty today. “I had begun tentatively writing songs in my mid-teens while Gerry was still at school.” Not only that, but the senior Rafferty had secured a record deal before his brother signed to United Artists. And several of the musicians that appeared on Don’t Talk Back were later used by Gerry for his City To City album. Gerry would also produce seven of the 10 tracks on Don’t Talk Back.

Rafferty had come from an art school background (his artistic endeavours continue to this day) and, having been roused by his younger sibling’s success with Stealers Wheel, he began forging a solo career. Reaching the quarter finals of the American Song Festival with his song, Bitter Harvest, in 1975 gave him further encouragement.

Soon after, Rafferty was at Sound Techniques Studio in Chelsea, with English producer Alan Harris helming the desk for the recording of his debut, as part of a deal Rafferty had signed with Tony Visconti’s production company, with a view to it being placed with one of the major labels. But the album, which was mixed by Harris and Rafferty, and for which Visconti also contributed bass to one track and backing vocals to another, ended up shelved. Then fate stepped in: “Sometime later down the line my thenmanager Michael Mcdonagh was appointed Head of Public Relations at Decca, and as a condition of his appointment suggested that my album be released by Decca,” recalls Rafferty.

“I was then duly signed to the company and decided that I would rerecord much of the material on the album and asked Gerry if he might co-produce with myself and his longtime recording engineer Mike Day. Set up in Decca’s Studio 2 in West Hampstead, we decided to use many of the musicians with whom I had previously worked in the Visconti period including Hugh Burns, Graham Preskett, and drummer Henry Spinetti [the latter trio would be hired for the City To City sessions]. And Gerry and I also got to sing together on several of the tracks.”

With the album in the can and ready for release, Rafferty was advised to form a band to tour in support of the album. But just like his younger sibling, Rafferty preferred the studio environment to performing live. And with a new addition to his young family in the form of son Dominic, Rafferty remained steadfast. “I took the decision that I wasn’t really interested in that side of the music business and enjoyed the process of writing and recording rather more,” he explains.

(Don’t Let Another) Good Day Go By was issued on 26 May 1978, the only single from the album. It would go on to peak at No 50 in the UK.

This led to an invitation to perform the song on Top Of The Pops. “Where in general artists would mime to the original track, it was suggested that I should perform the song live in the studio with the resident orchestra and backing singers,” Rafferty recalls, “which turned out to be the undoing of my chart chances, given that we had toiled in the recording studio to produce a stylishly crafted artefact, only to be given 10 minutes or so prior to broadcast to run through the track with the resident musicians and singers, who, despite being professional in every other respect, were utterly unsuited to the task of recreating what we had spent several days carefully crafting in the studio. Which kind of put paid to any further chart potential the song possessed.”

While the lack of touring didn’t help matters, Rafferty has other theories as to why Don’t Talk Back struggled to achieve any kind of upward commercial curve: “One part of the reason the album failed to take was the advent of punk in the UK, heralding a generational change in listening tastes,” he says. “In broad terms the style of music that had begun with The Beatles was now seen as yesterday’s thing. Gerry, having already established a reputation among record buyers, suffered far less from the advent of punk, having had the earlier success of Stealers Wheel behind him.

“I went on subsequently to record another album for Decca, Solid

Logic, which was co-produced by the extremely talented Martin Levan, who later went on to become Andrew Lloyd Webber’s sound designer for all his worldwide productions, and a joy to work with. Again, I secured the services of guitarist Hugh Burns, and Gerry appeared the evening following his Ivor Novello Award for Baker Street to provide backing vocals on several tracks. But that’s a story for another time…”

Joe Matera