GERRY RAFFERTY

Who Knows What The Day Will Bring? The Complete Transatlantic Recordings 1969–71 CHERRY RED 8/10

The Scottish singer-songwriter’s early work collected

‘Transatlantic’ is right, although the lounges of Sunset Strip must have felt a world away from Paisley when Gerry Rafferty first joined Billy Connolly in The Humblebums in 1969. But as evinced by this 2CD compilation of Rafferty’s contributions to two Humblebums records – ’69’s The New Humblebums and ’70’s Open Up The Door– and his 1971 solo debut, Can I Have My Money Back? (plus superfluous, largely instrumental outtakes), Rafferty was always California dreaming. On CD1’S Humblebums material, Rafferty brings a courtly feel, midway between Dylan, Scott Walker and Mccartney’s early solo records, to Connolly’s semi-comic folk. Flutes and lutes decorate “Junk”-like beauties “Look Over The Hill And Far Away” and “Her Father Didn’t Like Me Anyway”, but hints of the Americana to come are already creeping into Civil War banjo lament “Blood And Glory”, the honkytonk “Steamboat Row” and “Shoeshine Boy”, a pre-billy Joel boogie about a bootscrubber saving for wild weekends. By …Money Back? – with the original version of the sublime Simon & Garfunkel homage “Mary Skeffington” restored – we’re really cooking on Nashville gas. “New Street Blues”, “Didn’t I?”, “Make You, Break You” and music industry satire “Sign On The Dotted Line” all kick silvered sawdust from their boot heels, while “Long Way Round”, initially Rafferty’s “Jealous Guy”, becomes a proto-eagles billow. Add a plethora of downbeat drunk songs set in dusky whisky dives, and plush Beach Boys harmonies, and Stealers Wheel seem ready to roll.

Extras: 5/10. Instrumental outtakes.