THE saxophone solo from Baker Street is one of the most iconic in popular music and yesterday the streets of Paisley rang with a mass rendition of it as 25 musicians played it in tribute to its creator, Gerry Rafferty.
The mass outdoor rendition at Paisley Cross was organised as a tribute to the late singer in the week he would have celebrated his 70th birthday. Paisley-born Rafferty died aged 63 in 2011, after a long illness.
The event was also a prelude to Paisley's bid to be UK City of Culture 2021 and was part-funded by the bid team. The bid is due to be lodged with the UK Government next week.
Rafferty's daughter, Martha, gave her backing. "My father was very proud of his Paisley roots and I am sure he would have been supportive of the town's UK City of Culture bid. To have so many people playing the Baker Street solo together in the town centre is a unique idea," she said.
One of Rafferty's albums – with Joe Egan in Stealers Wheel – is named after the town's notorious housing estate, Ferguslie Park.
The 2021 bid's director, Jean Cameron, said: "This event is a tribute to one of Paisley's best musical exports and a song known the world over.
"As well as marking what would have been Gerry's birthday it's also a great way to shine a spotlight on the town as we prepare to submit the bid, which will feature Paisley's incredible musical legacy."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel