Their highest sales levels were in Canada, where they had two diamond-certified (ten-times platinum) albums (Crime of the Century and Breakfast in America), and their only number 1 singles anywhere ("The Logical Song" and "Dreamer").

[9] In 1969 Stanley "Sam" August Miesegaes, a Dutch millionaire, ceased providing financial support to a band called The Joint, as he was disappointed with them.

He offered Swindon-born keyboardist Rick Davies, a former bandmate of Irish singer-songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan, whose talent he felt had been "bogged down" by the group,[10] an opportunity to form his own band with Miesegaes's financial backing.

Davies was working class and fiercely devoted to blues and jazz, while Hodgson had gone straight from English private school to the music business and was fond of pop.

[13][14] The group, having dubbed themselves "Daddy",[15] after several months of rehearsal at a country house in West Hythe, Kent, flew to Munich for a series of concerts at the P. N.

2 February 1950 – d. 22 July 2024),[18][19] and to avoid confusion with "Daddy Longlegs",[16] at Palmer's suggestion, the band changed its name to "Supertramp", a moniker inspired by The Autobiography of a Super-Tramp by William Henry Davies.

[20] In April 1970 Supertramp, while back in Munich, returned the favour to their friend Haro Senft by contributing music to his next film, Purgatory [de] (a.k.a.

[16] Dave Winthrop (flute and saxophone, vocals) had first auditioned for the group in March 1970 but did not join until July, just before the release of the first record.

[23] For the next album, Indelibly Stamped, released in June 1971 in both the UK and US, Frank Farrell (bass, keyboards, backing vocals) joined, while Hodgson switched to guitar and Davies served as a second lead singer.

[16] After Farrell's departure in the spring of 1972, 20-year-old bassist Nick South (from Alexis Korner's band) came in for a temporary stint until Dougie Thomson (from The Alan Bown Set) joined in July.

In the summer of 1973 more auditions to replace the departed Curry and Winthrop started and introduced Bob Siebenberg, initially credited as Bob C. Benberg, and another Alan Bown alumnus, John Helliwell adding saxophone, other woodwinds, occasional keyboards, synthesizers, backing vocals, completing the lineup in the summer of 1973.

Hodgson would also begin introducing compositions featuring keyboards, particularly the Wurlitzer electric piano, in the band in addition to guitar.

For the last two months of completing the album, Hodgson parked a camper outside of the studio to work diligently on mixing, with brief periods of rest in between.

[27] A worldwide tour followed in 1983, in which the band was joined by two additional musicians on stage, former Alice Cooper and Queen player Fred Mandel (guitar, keyboards, synthesizers, backing vocals) and Scott Page (sax, guitar, horns, backing vocals), and Hodgson announced he would not be continuing with the band once the tour finished in September 1983.

Hodgson has stated that his departure was motivated by a desire to spend more time with his family and make solo recordings and that there were never any real personal or professional problems between him and Davies, as some people thought.

[29] It included the Top 30 hit single "Cannonball", along with the title track, a 16-minute exposition on Cold War themes highlighted by guitar solos from Pink Floyd's David Gilmour.

In addition to their shift towards less commercially oriented material, the band members decided to drop all of Hodgson's compositions from their setlist in order to further establish an identity separate from him.

[46] The band's 1988 touring lineup was almost the same as it had been in '85/'86, but with Brad Cole returning in place of Scott Page and percussionist Steve Reid instead of guitarist Carl Verheyen.

"[47] On 14 April 1993 at the Beverly Hills Hilton, for a special dinner honoring Jerry Moss, co-founder of A&M Records,[48] Hodgson, Davies and Helliwell (together with Jeff Daniel) appeared to perform "The Logical Song" and "Goodbye Stranger".

But disagreements over management prompted them to part ways once again soon after, with both songs eventually appearing, sans Hodgson, on Supertramp's next release in 1997.

[49] In 1996 Davies re-formed Supertramp with Helliwell, Siebenberg and guitarist/keyboardist/vocalist Mark Hart, who was new to the official lineup but had prominently contributed to Free as a Bird and to the group's tours from 1985 to 1988.

Their 1985–86 guitarist, Carl Verheyen, returned as well, along with new bassist Cliff Hugo, horn player Lee Thornburg and former America percussionist Tom Walsh (who was replaced for the band's 1997 tour by Bob Siebenberg's son Jesse, who would also go on to contribute guitar, keyboards and vocals), bringing the band up to an eight-man lineup.

[44] The result of this reunion was Some Things Never Change, a new studio album released in March 1997 that echoed the earlier Supertramp sound[44][50] and reached number 74 in the UK.

[46] Davies has never publicly alluded to such an agreement, and former member Dougie Thomson (who retired from performing to move into music publishing) commented "Nobody except Rick and Roger were privy to that conversation.

[54] In 2008, it was announced that Supertramp's music would be featured in the film adaptation of Irvine Welsh's best-selling novel Ecstasy: Three Tales of Chemical Romance.

[62] Supertramp played what turned out to be its last concert on 15 November 2012 in Madrid, during a private event at the IFEMA fairgrounds, which coincidentally a few years before had used 'From Now On' in its advertising commercials.

The show, that was held in front of several thousand people, lasted about eighty minutes and the set list was a shortened version of the one used on the '70–10' tour.

On 25 January 2015 at Cirque Royal in Brussels, Belgium, Hodgson continued his "Breakfast in America World Tour" with a European leg concluding 7 September 2015 at Tempodrom in Berlin, Germany and the North American leg of the tour extending from November in Tarrytown, New York, concluding on 13 December in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

[64] On 4 August 2015, however, the band announced that the tour was cancelled due to health issues affecting Rick Davies, who had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma and required aggressive treatment to combat the disease.

[65][66][67][68][69] In late August 2018, Davies gave an interview in which he expressed that, for the most part, he has overcome his health problems and enjoys playing music again, something he could not do in 2016, when he was under medical treatment.