As I mentioned recently here, I was a huge fan of "The Midnight Special" back in the 70s. And one of the bands that frequently appeared on the show was REO Speedwagon, which played an enjoyable brand of power pop, raking in multiple gold and platinum records with songs like “Can’t Fight This Feeling,” “Keep On Loving You,” “Take It on the Run,” and “Time for Me to Fly.”
Gary Richrath, their lead guitar player, owned the stage when they played, clearly competing with lead singer Kevin Cronin for the audience's attention. He was young, good looking, talented, and a bit cocky ("I'm a burner on the guitar. I know I'm a burner," he said in his Guitar Player magazine interview at the time). But mostly, he was accessible: he was the guitar star I could actually imagine becoming (unlike Jimi Hendrix or Jimmy Page, for instance). He was not a giant, but he inspired me. I could see myself doing what he did.
Sadly, Richrath had serious problems with alcohol, which eventually got him fired from the band. What followed was a long, slow decline, and five years ago, on 13 September 2015, he died at age 65 from a lifetime's worth of abuse, his musical talent (and his signature '59 sunburst Les Paul) long gone. Photos and performance videos from the end of his life are just heartbreaking.
We all know about the "27 Club," the long list of musicians who have died at age 27 from drug overdoses and suicide: Brian Jones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse, and others. And their stories are uniformly tragic.
But perhaps worse are the stories of those troubled artists who don't die young, because sometimes drugs and alcohol take decades to kill you, carving you up slowly, inexorably, and you are powerless to stop it. As an old saying goes, "A man takes a drink, then the drink takes a drink, and then the drink takes a man."
After "Stuck in the Middle with You," Gerry Rafferty again hit it big with "Baker Street," which still gets a remarkable amount of radio play. The lyrics to that song include the following --
Winding your way down on Baker Street
Light in your head and dead on your feet
Well, another crazy day
You'll drink the night away
And forget about everything . . .
He's got this dream about buying some land
He's gonna give up the booze and the one-night stands
And then he'll settle down
In some quiet little town
And forget about everything
But Rafferty's descent into the final stages of his disease was hardly quiet. It was headline news in the UK as he destroyed a series of hotel rooms, including urinating and defecating on the floors. He died of multiple organ failure at age 63.
Given my own history with drugs and alcohol, I am grateful, of course, that I have somehow been spared both of these fates, that I am neither in the 27 Club nor killing myself slowly and horribly over the long haul like Richrath or Rafferty. But if I am being honest, I must confess that their deaths don't make me sad anymore, just angry, just pissed off at both the culture and acquaintances that supported such excesses and their failure to get help. What a stupid fucking waste.
Let me try to end here on a better note. I invite you to watch the video below to see Richrath at the top of his game, doing what he did so well, in a joyful performance of "Roll with the Changes" from "The Midnight Special." If you are in a hurry, you can fast-forward to the 3:50 mark to hear him strut his stuff.