Roger Hodgson says, at one time, he loved the anonymity of being in Supertramp. Fast forward a few decades, and he’s left to rebuild a separate legacy — even as few people associate him with his own hit songs.
Hodgson, in a new talk with Acoustic Storm linked below, says he figured when he split with Supertramp that the brand would end then, too. After all, he’d been the creative spark that led to tracks like “The Logical Song,” “Breakfast in America,” “Give a Little Bit,” “Dreamer” and “Take the Long Way Home,” among others.
It didn’t work out that way, as fellow band co-founder Rick Davies continues on under the Supertramp banner, while Hodgson — despite having wrote nearly all of the band’s biggest hits — remains a largely anonymous presence.
[SOMETHING ELSE! REWIND: Roger Hodgson joined us to discuss his reinvigorated solo career, the highs and lows with Supertramp and a devastating hand injury that almost ended everything.]
“I realize that I am living with some choices that I made earlier in life,” Hodgson says. “In a way, I buried my own identity in Supertramp. I never thought that I would be leaving Supertramp, because Supertramp was so much my creation — and I never dreamt that Supertramp would continue without me. I didn’t even think that was possible.”
Hodgson eventually all but retired from music, having suffered a traumatic hand injury. He’d spend some two decades away. More recently, however, Hodgson has begun touring around the world again and, beginning last year, made a long-awaited series of concert stops in America — the first since he left Supertramp in early 1980s.
“It’s been difficult to go out, especially after 20 years of not touring, under the name Roger Hodgson — because, unless you are a diehard Supertramp fan, you really don’t know who Roger Hodgson is,” he admits. “We’ve had to do a lot to connect the dots.”
For updated Roger Hodgson tour dates, which include stops in the U.S., Switzerland, Australia, Germany and elsewhere, go here: http://www.rogerhodgson.com/documents/tour.html.
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Roger Hodgson concert is a must! He brings such a renewed energy to old Supertramp classics such as Give a Little Bit, Take the Long Way Home, Dreamer, Breakfast in America, School, It’s Raining Again, Hide in Your Shell, Fool’s Overture and Logical Song. His solo recordings our fantastic as well, with songs such as Only Because of You, In Jeapordy, Lovers in the Wind, London, You Make Me Love You, Along Came Mary, The More I Look, Love is a Thousand Times, Hungry and Open the Door. Besides a talented songwriter, he is a great musician in concert!
Roger is not the same performer of the old days with Supertramp, standing behind his guitar, microphone while others spoke. He offers himself to his audiences through personal stories, humorous antidotes, and the jolting; “Looking you directly in your eyes” and smiling, as if he is performing for you alone.
With many dates available and to be added to his 2013 tour, go, travel to feel his music. Be warned, you find yourself looking for the next concert closest to you, to see him again and again….
Loved the clip of Roger playing Breakfast in America with orchestra – I’m super excited to hear him play that one and my other favorites in Clearwater, FL for my birthday! There’s a little something about the musical experience he gives you, his songs captivate the soul and grasp the heart – it’s best described as a journey you’re taken along. No wonder people come from all corners of the world to see him! The aura, ambiance and acoustics feel indescribable – it’s truly magical and something else.
With every new interview, Roger Hodgson moves farther away from the facts about his time with Supertramp. The truth is that, although he was part of the band and wrote half the songs, he didn’t write their only hits, and the band moved on without him after 1983, as much as he hated it. Also, Roger did not found the band like he often implies and it wasn’t just his baby. It was originally Rick Davies’ band, and Roger joined it by audition. When Roger talks about the original Supertramp recordings of his songs, he makes it seem as if the fans only care about his voice, and that any contributions by the other band members are incidental and could have been played by anyone. Roger, it wasn’t just your songs or your voice – it was the magical synthesis of the entire group’s efforts. You may have had a vision of how you wanted the songs to sound, but your later live versions don’t sound as good as the original Supertramp versions, no matter how much you kid yourself and run down your former band mates.
When Roger quit Supertramp in 1983, he was quoted in Rolling Stone (April 27, 1983) as stating that one of the main reasons was due to his enthusiastic use of LSD. (He tries to gloss over this fact now.) Also, he gave numerous interviews at the time about how he had literally hundreds of songs waiting to be recorded, and working within Supertramp was stifling him. If he had that many new songs, why has he only put out 31 new songs over five CD’s (two of them live collections) since 1984 – count them up. Roger’s story is that he quit recording in the mid-80’s to raise a family, but maybe there just aren’t that many new songs in him after all. If he does have some new songs, I wish he’d record them. I’d happily buy them, and put them in my collection with all the other Supertamp music, and not in a separate Roger Hodgson location. Because Roger, you’ll always be lumped in with Supertramp on my ipod.
Roger constantly complains that when Supertramp tours, they play a few of his songs. Well, they may have been his babies, but to true fans, they are Supertramp songs. Granted, they don’t sound as good when the new singers perform them, but it’s still Rick and Bob and John playing their original parts, and that’s nearly as good.
Hodgson tries to take credit for everything that Supertramp did when he was a member, as if he were the sole creator of the band, the driving force behind all the songs, the band’s success, and even their sound and instrumentation choices. Once he brought the songs to the band, they ceased to be just Roger Hodgson material anymore.
For example: Roger Hodgson may have written “Child of Vision”, but what makes it truly great is Rick’s extended piano jam and eventual participation by John’s sax in the second half of the song. Even the first part, with Roger singing, wouldn’t be the same without Rick’s answer to Roger’s questions. What about “Take the Long Way Home”? The best part is the back-and-forth between the harmonica and sax in the instrumental middle of the song. Thanks, Roger, for writing the song, but it’s just a framework to hang what everyone in the band brought to it, and not just your unique voice.
The band usually only plays three of Roger’s songs live in concert, “Breakfast in America”, “Take the Long Way Home”, and “The Logical Song.” Granted, Roger can sing them better than the new guys, but it’s still great to hear John’s solos and the rest of the band rocking. Roger ought to do Rick’s “Another Man’s Woman” or “Rudy”. No, wait – he doesn’t have the skill to do that.
I’d always given credit to each player in Supertramp for coming up with his own solo work. For instance, I thought that John decided how to play his sax solos, and then the band would take the best version for the final recording. To hear Roger tell it, he personally heard every note from every instrument in his head first, and then he showed up and told the rest of the band how to play it, note for note. It was as if any session sax player could be hired off the street, instead of John giving his own interpretation to the songs. If I were a member of Supertramp, I would be irate at the way my contributions are being diminished and demeaned.
Roger’s argument is that the songs are deeply personal, and that every part of them, even the arrangements played by the rest of the band, were created by him. If that’s that case, then what’s to stop Roger from claiming that Supertramp can’t use other portions of songs in concert – Not just Roger Hodgson compositions, but instrumental solos that Roger created as well? For example, the incredible guitar solo at the end of “Goodbye Stranger” seems to be pure Roger. If he did improvise that on his own, by his way of thinking it is a part of him, and every time someone else plays that solo with those particular notes in concert, they’re stealing that from him too. At what point will he realize that he was in a BAND, and his contributions – from the greatest song to the smallest instrumental segment – became part of the band’s body of work and legacy, and wasn’t his anymore.
One only has to track down a few informal interviews with people such as Bob Siebenburg to realize that Rick Davies has bent over backwards to try and work with Roger over the years, especially relating to Roger joining the Supertramp tour a few years ago. Roger’s irrational demands were what prevented anything from eventually happening, no matter how much he tries to say something different anytime he can corner a reporter. I think that Rick Davies deserves a medal: He quietly takes the high road while Roger mouths off constantly and keeps playing the same old songs instead of recording and performing some of the hundreds of new songs that he’s claimed to have written over the last thirty-plus years.
Oh, and one other thing: Roger, you’re in your sixties. Get rid of the Jesus haircut.
@Gary Nice job.
Wow! Nailed it! It seems like anytime Roger can corner a reporter, he tells the same old story about how he’s been mistreated, with an even measure of how he’s the most beloved gentle love-dripping guy around. In fact, he’s turned into a bitter gray hack, trotting out the same dozen tired OLD songs at whatever casino or amusement park will take him. If he’s not careful, that’s how he’s going to be remembered.
What he needs to do is record some new music of his own, and then make peace with the rest of Supertramp – and he’d better hurry, because they’re all getting up there! – and then make a NEW Supertramp record, and then go on one last reunion tour to cement his legacy. That would be gracious and triumphant, and it would get him off this wheezy track that he’s on now. Is everybody listening? Are you listening, Roger?