Himself a highly rated Scottish singer-songwriter, Rab has been organising and is playing in "Bring It All Home" - Gerry Rafferty Remembered, which takes place at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall which is on as part of Celtic Connections this weekend (Sunday 22nd January) and Monday.
He is also playing his own show billed as “Rab Noakes and Friends” at the Concert Hall’s Strathclyde Suite on Tuesday January 31st, and the UCS 40th Anniversary Celebrations with Special Guests at the Old Fruitmarket on Sunday February 5th.
The show has Roddy Hart and the Lonesome Fire as the house band, with many musicians who played with Gerry also performing. Among those many others also lending their talents are The Proclaimers, Ron Sexsmith, Barbara Dickson, ex-Cream singer and bassist Jack Bruce and indie songstress Emma Pollock.
Rab will be singing on a couple of numbers, also providing backing vocals, and explained: “While I’ve been rehearsing with the band before the guests arrive I’ve been singing quite a lot of them, and it’s been a really enjoyable experience.
“They are great songs to sing. Many of them are so well constructed in terms of their melodic structure. Behind the chord structure Gerry’s great thing was chord sequences. He didn’t use any great fancy chords, but he had a very unique and singular way of putting chords together, and that’s what gives his songs all of that movement.
“Many of them, particularly the more rhythmic ones, once you get the band right and get a groove you just ride them if you like, like riding a horse.”
Friends for more than 40 years, Rab recalled: “Gerry was a big presence to be with. He was a force of nature, so things would happen when you were around him.
“There were many incidents. I was part of the incident that became Stuck in the Middle With You, at a showbiz party. I was there at a number of the events that formed bits of the Baker Street experience.
“Those were the slightly wilder times, but he was a great conversationalist as well. He was well read, and he was an inquisitive guy, Gerry.
“He didn’t let you off the hook; one thing that he didn’t like very much was lazy thinking, falling for perceived wisdom and perceived ideas, so being in conversation with him was a stimulating experience in that way because it made you think that he was thinking – and those will be the moments I treasure most of all, those private moments where we’d have hours together to put the world to rights, but hopefully in an in-depth and intelligent fashion.
- For more information on tickets for all the shows mentioned, visit celticconnections.com
