Rafferty was born on 16 April 1947 into a working-class family of Irish Catholic origin in Underwood Lane in Paisley,[1] a son and grandson of coal miners.

A 1970 appearance at the Royal Festival Hall, supporting Fotheringay with Nick Drake, earned a positive review from critic Karl Dallas, who noted that all three acts showed "promise rather than fulfilment", and observed that "Gerry Rafferty's songs have the sweet tenderness of Paul McCartney in his 'Yesterday' mood".

The group was beset by legal wranglings, but had a huge hit with "Stuck in the Middle with You", which earned critical acclaim as well as commercial success: a 1975 article in Sounds described it as "a sort of cross between white label Beatles and punk Dylan yet with a unique Celtic flavour that has marked all their work".

[16] Stealers Wheel also produced the lesser top 50 hits "Everyone's Agreed That Everything Will Turn Out Fine" followed by "Star", and there were further suggestions of Rafferty's growing alienation in tracks such as "Outside Looking In" and "Who Cares".

According to Murphy, interviewed by Billboard in 1993, he and Rafferty had to beg the record label, United Artists, to release "Baker Street" as a single: "They actually said it was too good for the public.

In the liner notes to the album, Rafferty's long-time friend and collaborator Rab Noakes commented: Let's hope [the Baker Street demo] will, at last, silence all who keep on asserting that the saxophone player came up with the melody line.

"[3][4] Rafferty loathed the 1992 dance music cover version of "Baker Street" by Undercover, describing it as "dreadful, totally banal–it's a sad sign of the times".

[citation needed] Subsequent albums, such as Snakes and Ladders (1980), Sleepwalking (1982), and North and South (1988), fared less well, perhaps due partly to Rafferty's longstanding reluctance to perform live, with which he felt uncomfortable.

According to Murphy, interviewed a decade later: "Gerry had made three albums on the trot and I think he was pretty jaded at that time and feeling the pressure and he just thought, 'Well, I'll try another tack,' which is understandable".

[11] Instead of a cover painting and hand-lettering by John Patrick Byrne, who had illustrated every previous Rafferty and Stealers Wheel album, Sleepwalking featured a simple, stark photograph of an empty road stretching to the sky.

"[35] Based at 16th-century[36] Tye Farm in Hartfield, near the Kent-Sussex border, Rafferty installed electric gates to protect his privacy, built a recording studio, and worked largely by himself[37] or with Murphy.

In The Times, critic David Sinclair was particularly scathing: "On North and South, it sounds as if he has thumbed a lift up the road to a mock-Texan bar somewhere in his native Scotland.

According to guitarist Hugh Burns, Murphy's death was "a great blow to Gerry"[42] and marked the end of a creative partnership that had lasted almost 30 years.

[citation needed] By the end of the 1990s, new technology enabled Rafferty to distance himself even further from the conventional approach of the music industry and work entirely on his own terms.

Another posting announced that Rafferty would begin to release music regularly as free downloads: "In reality, Gerry could put a new track out every two weeks or so.

Featuring 18 tracks, the album contains six new recordings, covers of Christmas carols, plus also some traditional songs that had previously been available on the Gerry Rafferty website.

"[42] Generally an autobiographical writer,[7] Rafferty returned to this theme often, in the lyrics of Stealers Wheel songs such as "Stuck in the Middle With You" and "Good Businessman", and later solo tracks like "Take the Money and Run" (from Night Owl), "Welcome to Hollywood" (from Snakes and Ladders), and "Sleepwalking" (from the album of the same name).

[33] According to Michael Gray, Rafferty's personal manager at the height of his success, he turned down many opportunities to work with other artists:[38] "... he retained a healthy scepticism not just about the music industry but about society, money and politics in general.

"[52] In 1965, 18-year-old Rafferty met 15-year-old Carla Ventilla, an apprentice hairdresser from an Italian family in Clydebank, at a dancehall—a story he later recounted in the song "Shipyard Town" on North and South.

They married in 1970 and lived in Scotland with their daughter, Martha Mary, before moving to the south of England in the late 1970s,[20] where they divided their time between their farm near the Kent–Sussex border and a home in Hampstead, London.

[59] Rafferty enjoyed alcohol from a young age,[20][37][42][60] and early songs, such as "One Drink Down", "Baker Street", and "Night Owl", freely mention the subject.

[60] In the last decade of his life, having taken pains to shun the fame and celebrity that accompanied his musical achievements, Rafferty found himself making headlines once again as he struggled with alcoholism and depression and the increasingly erratic behaviour they spawned.

[38] In July that year, he flew to London, where he stayed in the five-star Westbury Hotel in Mayfair and began a four-day drinking binge during which he extensively damaged his room.

The newspaper Scotland on Sunday reported that Rafferty had been asked to leave the hotel and had then checked himself into St Thomas' Hospital suffering from a chronic liver condition, brought on by heavy drinking.

The musicians present included Craig and Charlie Reid of The Proclaimers, former bandmates Joe Egan and Rab Noakes, Barbara Dickson, and Graham Lyle.

[73] Newspapers printed lengthy obituaries for the singer; in The Guardian, Michael Gray charted Rafferty's long downward spiral into alcoholism,[38] while a full-page obituary in The Times summarised his career more positively: "As well as being a singer of considerable talent who at one time had the pop world at his feet, Gerry Rafferty was also a consummate songwriter, blessed with sensitivity and an enviable melodic flair that at its best recalled Paul McCartney.

"[75] Speaking after the funeral, Charlie Reid of The Proclaimers said: "I think Gerry Rafferty was one of the few people who really successfully straddled the worlds of both folk and popular music.

"[76] Shortly after news of the singer's death, Lily Allen tweeted the message "Rest in Peace Gerry x" with a video link to the song "Right Down the Line", reputedly one of her favourite music tracks.

"[78] In January 2013, BBC Radio 2 re-broadcast their 2012 programme "Bring It All Home – Gerry Rafferty Remembered", which had been recorded live at Celtic Connections in Glasgow and was presented by Ricky Ross.

Contributing artists included his friend Rab Noakes, The Proclaimers, Barbara Dickson, Ron Sexsmith, Jack Bruce, Paul Brady, Emma Pollock, James Vincent McMorrow and Betsy Cook.