Supertramp

It’s the Fall Fundraising Drive! We are counting down your favorite album opening tracks! #646 Supertramp from Crime of the Century with "School" You Power KEXP! Donate Now: www.kexp.org The band was originally called Daddy, but they changed it at the suggestion of their original guitarist Richard Palmer, who got the name from a 1910 book by the Welsh author W.H. Davies called The Autobiography of a Super Tramp. Supertramp formed in London when Rick Davies broke up his band The Joint and placed an ad in a UK music paper looking for musicians to form a band. The group was financed by a Dutch millionaire named Sam Miesegaes, who put up the money after seeing Davies play in The Joint. Davies and Hodgson did all the songwriting, and even though they wrote most of their songs separately, they agreed to share composer credit on all the songs, just like Lennon/McCartney or Jagger/Richards. Like the Lennon/McCartney arrangement, whoever wrote the song sang lead. tinyurl.com

Though he no longer recalls precisely where or when “Give a Little Bit” was written, songwriter Roger Hodgson explains, “I’ve always known that love is what I long for, what I want, what I believe we’re here to learn, ultimately.” : www.mixonline.com

Roger Hodgson co-founded Supertramp in 1969 with Rick Davies and was the driving force behind what fans call the 14 golden years of the band. He wrote, sang, and arranged the enduring rock standards that made Supertramp a worldwide phenomenon. "'Give a Little Bit' has a wonderful message that makes people light up and I get them to sing with me. It really has a message that is very eternal and is needed even more today than it was when I wrote it when I was 19.” ~ Roger Hodgson Check out a live performance of 'Give a Little Bit' here: youtu.be

Happy 80th Birthday to Rick Davies of Supertramp, born on this day in 1944!

Supertramp singer/guitarist Roger Hodgson wrote this song when he was a teenager, but didn't record it until much later. It was about five years between when he wrote the song and when he brought it to the band. He explained: "I think it's a great song. I didn't realize it was when I first wrote it. It actually took me six years before I even brought it to the band. But I wrote it I think around 1970. That time, the late '60s, early '70s, was a very idealistic time, one of hope, a lot of peace and love and the dream of the '60s was still very alive and maturing, if you like. The Beatles had put out 'All You Need Is Love' a year prior to that. I believed in love - it was always for love - and just felt that was the most important thing in life.

Thanks for the suggestion, Peter!

"Supertramps' fifth album, Even in the Quietest Moments, in 1977, left an indelible mark in listeners’ ears, due in large part to Hodgson’s uplifting, magical hit single, “Give a Little Bit.” Roger Hodgson, co-founder of Supertramp, "explains, 'I’ve always known that love is what I long for, what I want, what I believe we’re here to learn, ultimately.' And as the love chant of the ’60s was fading, he says, 'Maybe it was an answer—‘Oh, just give a little bit.’” www.rogerhodgson.com

Roger Hodgson co-founded Supertramp in 1969 with Rick Davies and was the driving force behind what fans call the 14 golden years of the band. He wrote, sang, and arranged the enduring rock standards that made Supertramp a worldwide phenomenon. "'Give a Little Bit' has a wonderful message that makes people light up and I get them to sing with me. It really has a message that is very eternal and is needed even more today than it was when I wrote it when I was 19.” ~ Roger Hodgson Check out a live performance of 'Give a Little Bit' here: youtu.be We’re celebrating 50 years of KEXP with tracks from 1977! kexp.org/50/