Gerry Rafferty - Clowns to the Left, Jokers to the Right: 1970-1982

1997 collection on Raven featuring 21 tracks from the singer/ songwriter's most profitable & productive period, 1970-1982. 75 minutes of cuts from The Humblegums, Stealer'sWheel & his solo albums in the '70s. Includes 'Stuck In The Middle With You', 'Baker Street', 'Right Down The Line', 'Night Owl', 'Can I Have My Money Back?', 'Get It Right The Next Time', etc. The full title is 'Clowns To The Left, Jokers To The Right 1970-1982'. Album Description

You have to take what's available

This is a decent representation of Rafferty's work from his early folk duo,The Humblebums (partnered with Billy Connolly, no less) to his early 80's solo work and the wonderful "Baker Street." There are a number of quality tunes here and the chatty liner notes proved to be an interesting retrospective of Rafferty's career, but as another reviewer noted, this package is lacking some key songs. At least try to collect all the singles from the time period. I am ofetn disappointed by the lack of completeness with these greatest hits sets, but sometimes you have to take what's available. February 22, 2006

Magnificent Gerry Rafferty complilation!

This Gerry Rafferty compilation is everything it should be and more! It has his work with The Humblegums, Stealer's Wheel and his solo work! It is the most comprehensive compilation of Gerry Rafferty that you can get, to date. The sound is great and you couldn't ask for better, in a compilation, really. This is a must for Gerry Rafferty/70's pop/rock fans! October 4, 2005

Baker Street is excellent.

My comments regard only the song "Baker Street" from this record.
Of course I love Baker Street. There is a lot going on in that track, sophisticated and excellent. Comparing it with the (obscenely bad) Foo Fighters cover shows both the weaknesses of the Fighters' arrangement as well as the talent, polish, intelligence, and diligence of Rafferty's producer.

I personally don't like solo sax much and so it doesn't touch me as much as it seems to touch others, but even so I can see that the sax intro and other sax parts are electrifying. I respect this production choice because for so many people the sax is the only part of the song they identify and according to some reviews the sax bought most of that copious radio air-time in 1978. On the other hand, it's a shame to see this overstated sound overshadow the rest of the beautiful song in peoples' minds.

The swooping guitars are awesome and yet subtle and fill a crucial spot in the intro melody. The guitar solo is masterful. Much of the time in the solo is taken up with only a few sustained and repeated notes and the bulk of the solo is made up of bends, trills, swoops, dives, and inventive tremelos. Each note of the minimal note count speaks out to us in important ways. It reminds me of lyrics that say volumes with only a few words. It's one of my all time favorite guitar solos.

The two featured analog synthesizer sounds are way cool. The synth during the verse sounds like falling leaves or water. The bass synth sound that counterpoints the vocal during the chorous, again, is inventive: an interesting, unusual sound, delightful instrumental melodic counterpoint to the vocal, a melodic sound in this region of the bass territory is also unusual in pop. You usually have the bass drum and the bass guitar in the bass region and that's about it. This synth sound and melody is something like a `cello line, lending an orchestral feel while still using pop instruments.

The lyrics to Baker Street are good, but I wouldn't say great. They give an overall impression of loneliness, futility and yearning for something better in the future. What's there is good but it's not great because the song does not tell a complete story. The "City to City" album from which this song is taken is a concept album and every lyric addresses these issues of loneliness and itinerant living on the road. Considering the entire album's lyrics as a whole pushes them up a notch as ambitious, intelligent, very good, and maybe you could consider the whole as a complete story. They fall short of something blisteringly great like "Eleanor Rigby" (The Beatles) or "She Always a Woman" or "AllenTown" (Billy Joel).

Regarding the Foo Fighters' cover version: The Foo Fighters skip the swooping guitars during the intro melody and you can hear it as dead space, causing a drop in intensity there resulting in an undesirable volume pumping effect. The Fighters copy the guitar solo note for note, what's the point? We've heard that already, and much better, so why bother? Granted I'm not that familiar with post 1989 Pearl Jam clone musical styles so I might be missing something, but to me the Fighters' guitar version of the sax intro melody is just plain wrong. The rhythm is wrong and corny, the accents are in the wrong place, and the guitar sound is so anemic when compared to the sax. Why would a band of the Fighters' stature cover a song anyway? The whole thing is just wrong.
May 10, 2005

A great collection of songs from a great artist!

Being a Gerry Rafferty fan, this is a great collection of songs from a great artist. However, I wished there would have been more songs from his "North and South" and "Snakes and Ladders" albums. Better yet, I wished they could be rerealsed to Cd. Thanks for the great music, Gerry! August 5, 2003

Missing some key songs!

It seems that many of these "best of" compilations always leave out one or two of an artists hits and replace them with some forgetable deep track. I don't understand what they are thinking when they do this. This collection is more guilty of this than most. They left off 3 top 40 hits - Star (Stealers Wheel), Home & Dry and Days Gone Down - and the album classic City to City! Gerry and Stealers Wheel only had a total of 7 top 40 hits and they leave off nearly half of them!?! Come on now, somebody wasn't paying attention when they put this collection together!
September 20, 2002

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