Archive

40 Years Ago On This Day. ”Breakfast In America" - Supertramp. It was this week back in 1979 that this album took over the number one spot of the Billboard Top 100 Album chart. What is your favorite song from this masterpiece?

's cover photo

Supertramp Archive

's cover photo

A nice Interview in Switzerland in 1977, With The band playing around to the track “Loverboy” before hitting the stage to play “Give A Little Bit.”

Ricky & The Rockets Set List June 1st, 2019.

Timeline Photos

40 Years Ago: The Season of Summer and Supertramp – and a “Bad” vs. “Breakfast” Battle to Remember

Back in the day when MTV actually played music videos, we go way back to when Martha Quinn interviewed Dougie Thomson on her show.

Check out this old Interview with Rick Davies and John Helliwell in Switzerland. 1977.

John Anthony Helliwell 40 years ago, and Today.

BREAKFAST IN AMERICA 40 YEARS OLD TODAY PART 1. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE and MORE. By David Mendenhall Really? 40 years ago? Back in 1979, I was 15 years old, I am 55 now, it is still hard to believe. My experience with this album is still clear in my mind. Obviously there was great word of mouth that the next Supertramp album was going to be the big one, and if one really researches it, they would see the bigger promotional push that it received from their record company A&M. Bigger poster’s, Circular Cardboard posters, a 6 foot tall cardboard Libby complete with a cardboard shelf to hold some of the albums for sale. It was even featured in several episodes of the show WKRP. Stickers, button’s, and cups along with saucers were also part of what I recall as a perfect promotional tool. I still remember going to Tower Records at the Northgate Shopping Center in Fresno, CA with my money to go buy this album. I was fortunate that my Mother liked going to Kmart that anchored one side of the mall, and I would of course would walk to the other side of the mall where Tower was located. This mall was 40 miles away from our remote home in the foothills in Tollhouse, CA, so any chance I could, I would make the trip. I still remember being excited to purchase “Breakfast In America” with it’s promotional sticker in the shape of a menu choice with song titles listed on it instead of dish choices. Opening the album, I noticed the inside of the LP’s cardboard sleeve on the inside was completely orange. The labels were even personalized to show two different profiles of Libby. Playing the album for the first time was also quite an experience. Who remembers setting the needle on and hearing the first staccato strains of “Gone Hollywood”? One fact is, is that Rick Davies had a bit of trouble putting this song together and ended up writing “Oh Darling” in the middle of it. Next up of course was the big single, and still the biggest hit for Supertramp so far hitting #6 “The Logical Song” The Band knew that this one was going to be a hit even before it came out, and it sort of revisits themes that were found in the song “School” from “Crime Of The Century,” in fact I call “The Logical Song,” “School II” Goodbye Stranger was the second hit from this album and it made it to #15. At one time Supertramp was thinking of calling the album “Hello Stranger.” This song and perhaps “Poor Boy” from “Crisis? What Crisis?” show that Rick can really perform high falsetto notes, while it also showed Roger’s versatility when it came to a sparkling guitar solo to end the song. The title track “Breakfast In America” is the oldest song on this set, written when Roger was only 19 (more on that later) by the time this was released as a single, too many people already had the album! “Oh Darling” was written by Rick, and in my opinion should had been released as a single, this song closes out side one. “Take The Long Way Home” the third song released from this album was written by Roger and it reached #10 and is still to this day the first song played in Roger’s solo shows. “Lord, Is It Mine” also written by Roger is a deep personal song, and is still cited by Roger to be his personal favourite song that he wrote. “Another Nervous Wreck” written by Rick could have been a single release, had it not been for the fact that it was the flipside to “The Logical Song.” One fact that some people may have missed is that if their was a single released, Roger’s song would be on one side, and Rick’s would be on the other. “Casual Conversations” originally titled “You Never Listen Anyway”was also written by Rick and it could very well be about the frustrations he had when it came to verbalizing lyric’s and ideas with Roger. “Child Of Vision” was written by Roger, and what a way to end such a great album. This song perhaps is Roger’s way of dealing with his frustrations with Rick in a subconscious sort of way. This song along with “Fool’s Overture” from the previous LP “Even In The Quietest Moments” were really made for massive impact, and it hit the mark. A great piano solo by Rick really ties it all up rather neatly. Breakfast In America was certified gold only 11 days after its release. Whereas the “M” in A&M Records (Jerry Moss) really helped Supertramp when it came time to record “Crime Of The Century, it paid off big time for A&M as they were really struggling to make ends meet in 1979. The record company might have been real hungry for the album to come out, but they had to wait longer on its creation than any of their previous albums, 8 months to be exact. On May 31st after a sold out show at the Madison Square Garden in New York, Supertramp were presented with numerous “Gold” plaques at the Market Diner, which was several blocks from the venue. It was also time for Rick to pay a bet he had lost to Bob. Bob bet Rick that the album would get in to the top ten, In retrospect he should had quadrupled the bet, and bet the album would go to number one. Rick inscribed the framed bet of $100 by writing “You Better Not Spend It You Rat!.” Neither Bob or Rick could have predicted “Breakfast In America” going to number one, and for six weeks selling over 18 million copies.

Happy 69th Birthday to Roger Hodgson!

It was March 19, 1976 when Heart did their first show after “Dreamboat Annie” was released. It was none other than the Seattle Center Arena as the opener for Supertramp. #hearttimemachine Extra Credit if you know that Ann and Nancy supplied background vocals on two of Supertramp’s song’s from their LP “Famous Last Words.” "Put On Your Old Brown Shoes" and "C'est le bon"

BOB SIEBENBERG An excerpt from “The Best Seat in the House” The Autobiography of a Supertramp Drummer. When I was pretty small, for some reason, I became fascinated with the guy playing the drums. When I watched TV, like Lawrence Welk, my eyes and ears went straight to the drummer. It just looked fun and it seemed to be at the heart of everything I heard. We had this radio/record player about the size of a refrigerator in our living room. The question of ‘What Shall We Do with the Drunken Sailor?” was mind boggling. That got me thinking right away. What is that about? Another world, for sure. The first record I ever bought was “Ahab the Arab”. Then the album of the Gene Krupa story starring Sal Mineo. One day when I was in the fourth grade this guy came to the school and introduced all the instruments. At the end of the assembly we were invited up to the stage to check the instruments out. When it was my turn I just pointed to the snare drum, although I didn’t know that’s what it was called, and said I want to play that. Ok, great! I was in THE ORCHESTRA! It was all so unpremeditated. I was 7 in 1957. The first time I ever saw a real drum kit up close was at a place where my dad worked out in Burbank. Blackie Chambers was a friend of our family, going way back to when my dad was in the Navy in WW2. Blackie ran an operation out of his garage that cut sticky tape of all colors into all sizes. His son, named Mike, had a drum kit and it seemed to me he could really play. Mike was about 19. I had never seen anyone play drums in person before. I always bugged him to sit down and play. I noticed that Mike’s face would change when he played. He would get kind of a faraway look. It was like he was looking through things. Either that or no further than about a foot in front of his face, I couldn’t tell. I can still see it. And the sound. I thought my heart would pop. It was stirring…not in the way a marching band grabs you from far away and builds until it’s on top of you, and makes you want to join in, but it seemed to generate an energy. The kind of energy that is capable of taking you someplace else. I wanted to be able to do that. I wanted to go someplace else. I wanted to go to that place in my head. I was allowed to go in and play them when I went to work with my dad, which now turned into every day. My brother bought ‘See ya Later Alligator’ and ‘Rock Around the Clock’ on 78! It was great having an older brother. Not only were we pals, but he was into the stuff that kids older than me were into. He was more of the Elvis age group than me so he brought a lot of the current music into our house. I was aware of Elvis, although I was still a little young; I sensed the excitement amongst my brother and his friends. I loved ‘Teddy Bear’. I went and saw the movies and then the King Creole era killed me. Dixieland and Elvis! What a combo. I thought Hardheaded Woman was the greatest thing I had ever heard. I had a Sandy Nelson record that I wore out and learned to play the classic 'Let There Be Drums’ beat, and I would play it for hours. I was hooked now, no turning back. I also learned to swim in Blackie's pool. I was now 9 years old. By the time I got into Jr. High at Woodrow Wilson I was ready to be in the school band and orchestra. It helped me a little, just to play every day at school but I didn't really retain anything. I skated thru, not learning my rudiments. No five stroke rolls. No paradiddles. Later I would refer to them as big fuckingadealadiddles. It was an Easy “A” and these would be the only drum lessons I ever had. His name being Shapiro, first name Paul, and mine being Siebenberg, first name Bob, meant that we sat next to each other on the bench in front of our new locker on the very first day of 7th grade gym class. We became fast friends and would share a lot of life and adventure together. He would have the make out parties and everyone would dance and smooch to Johnny Mathis. His humor and intellect would challenge me over the years, and he is still my oldest friend. I learned so much from Paul. My introduction to the dialed voice when I make a call I learned from Paul and use it to this day. ‘Hello, this is Bob Siebenberg calling. May I speak with….’ He’s an attorney in Orange County now and lives in San Juan Capistrano. One of the things I’m most grateful to him for, along with his friendship, is taking me to a place just north of Laguna Beach called ’El Morro Beach Trailer Park.’ That part of the coast between Corona del Mar and Laguna Beach was still untouched. Between these two towns there was nothing but an old orange juice stand and a horse stable on one of the bluffs on the ocean side. Back then it was completely wide open. It’s now lined with hundreds of multi-million dollar monuments to success. It’s where I started surfing and developed my love for the ocean. We had friends who could drive and we would get off the freeway south and drive the last hour or so to the coast on Brookhurst or MacArthur Blvd. There would be nothing but orange groves, lemon groves, strawberry fields, and the occasional fruit stand. It would be the same on MacArthur except for this enormous cement structure in the middle of nowhere that was a Blimp hangar. No traffic lights except the occasional flashing red or yellow. At night we would turn off our headlights and you couldn’t see a dang thing. El Morro is a beautiful spot and Paul’s father, Haskell, had a trailer right on the beach. Paul and I would go there for all the school vacations, and a lot of the summer. There was a whole crew of kids there from all over, and lots of girls. Some of our friends from Glendale would come down and we’d all goof off and hitchhike everywhere. As I got older, if Paul wasn’t around I’d go anyway and sleep on somebody’s deck or under someone’s trailer. Chocolate milk and donuts for breakfast. What a life. I got drunk there for the first time and got high there for the first time. I also spent the whole night with a girl there for the first time. So, you can see this is an important spot to me. Back then the beach was wild and free. Thanks to Paul. And his dad, Haskell, and step mom Pat, who lived in Corona del Mar, and who woke up many a morning to find me sleeping behind the couch, unannounced, having arrived in the middle of the night off the bus from Glendale, or having hitch-hiked from somewhere else in the middle of the night. It was also during my junior high days that I met a kid named Harley Cannon, another big influence on my tree. He was a classic goof off kid and lived with what seemed like wealthy parents, who unknowingly subsidized a lot of our excursions to the beach. He also played the drums and had a classic Buddy Rich Model Rogers drum set. He could really play at that time too. Good soloist. He was taking drum lessons in Glendale at the local music store owned and operated by a legendary character to all of us named Dick Charles. Dick Charles was always cool to the kids like me hanging around staring at drums and stuff. I would sometimes wait for Harley to finish his drum lesson, and then we’d split and goof off together. On a few occasions I would meet and speak with his drum teacher when they came out. He got to know me as another young kid interested in the drums, and he seemed like a cool guy. Our paths would cross more than a few times as I got older and after he split from teaching. Spencer Dryden was his name, and he became the Jefferson Airplane’s drummer. He was the first guy I ever saw smoke a joint. He was a beatnik kind of guy, had longish hair before anyone else. He was rehearsing a band with my new friend Mickey Wells, who played guitar, and I would go along just to hang out and watch. I picked up a couple of nuances from him, musically and otherwise. Like him, I would always put my now empty trap case behind me for an ashtray and beer and ciggies. Along the way as I got older I would go to shows at the Fillmore to see him play, or at festivals, or Winterland in San Francisco, and for him it was always odd because there I was, this young kid out and about. He always remembered me and was always surprised to see me. After I had lived in London a few years he came over with the New Riders of the Purple Sage…and there I was! It was a chuckle and it kinda blew his head. I always managed to get around and seemed to be in the right place at the right time. I don’t know if he ever knew of my success or not. I know he passed fairly recently. THE EXPRESSIONS My first band In 1961, my brother Bill and his friends started going to see Dick Dale and the Del-Tones in Newport Beach at a place called the Rendezvous Ballroom. Bill came home with stories of great music and wild times. The surf thing was just a blip on the horizon, but Dick Dale and the Del-Tones were already getting everyone stoked locally. I was too young to go, but in my head I was already there. One day Bill said that a couple of his friends wanted to start a band, and he had told them I played drums. I was only eleven but they were willing to give it a whirl. So one Saturday, we organized a rehearsal in Ken Glastre’s garage up in Glenoaks Canyon. Jay Beasley was the other guy, and both he and Ken were about sixteen. I borrowed Mike Chambers’s drums and my dad took me to meet them. I barely knew how to set the drums up, but at last they were up. Ken had a really funky guitar, probably a Silvertone, which is cool now, but back then if you didn’t have a Fender it was Nowheresville. His amp was just a stereo tuner from the house, plugged into a speaker that was taped inside a piece of cardboard with a stick behind it to keep it tilted up. Jay’s set-up wasn’t much better, and it was just their two guitars and me. We struggled through whatever we could—“Tequila,” by the Champs, “Surf Beat,” and any other Dick Dale song they knew. I couldn’t manage a regular surf beat so I played everything as a kind of rumba. But we were chuffed—this was really fun. I couldn’t borrow Mike’s drums all the time, so after a while, I bought my first drum kit from a kid up the street for $250. They were Ludwigs, with one on the top, one on the floor, and a snare drum. They came with a ride cymbal and a hi-hat. There was a red light inside the bass drum that had a little switch to turn it on. Alright! They were hand-painted purple and I carried the hardware around in a blanket. I soon learned to take a rug everywhere I went; otherwise the bass drum would constantly slide away—real nightmare stuff. I wish I still had those drums. We practiced every weekend, mostly in Jay’s garage, which also had a small airplane in it, or at Ken’s. We had a friend who was the night security guard at a pet hospital, and we would set up in the waiting room. Eventually, we felt ready to play in front of people. Ken and Jay had bought new gear—Fender stuff—and Jay now played bass. We were ready, and we were . . . the Expressions. We played at parties and Christmas parties, at weddings, at civic dances, and for ourselves, setting up in the corner of someone’s living room or out by their pool. We appeared pretty regularly at the Chevy Chase Country Club in Glendale and at street dances. As our reputation grew, we would get hired to play at the Y hops at the local YWCA on Lexington. These dances were put on by the YWCA and alternated weekends for high school and junior high kids. The kids had to take off their shoes and dance in their socks . . . sock hops. Everybody was listening to Dick Dale and other surf and rock ’n roll instrumentals like “Sleepwalk,” and this is what we gave them. Everybody danced and had great time. We started playing at Glendale High School’s after game dances, and then at the after-game dances of other nearby high schools, like John Muir High School in Pasadena, Crescenta Valley High School, John Burroughs High School, and Burbank High School. We probably appeared at every Moose Hall, YMCA, Rotary Hall, Lions Club, Elks Lodge, church hall, roller rink, and gym in the Glendale area and beyond. I would always think, “Wow! People have heard me play all the way to Long Beach!” or wherever. We played just about every Friday and Saturday night. One time, at a Halloween dance at the Glendale Armory, it had been arranged that a guy named Bobby Sherman was going to come up and lip sync in front of us to his latest single. Whatta we care? His manager spent an hour before he came up handing out several hundred of Sherman’s new record to get the kids stoked for his arrival. The moment came for Bobby Sherman to mime his tune, but by the time we got halfway through, a barrage of records came flying back at the stage because it was such a load of crap. Señor Sherman exited stage left pronto and immediately left the building. Nevertheless, he had some radio fame after that in the mid to late sixties. I would somehow stuff my drums and Ken’s amp, guitar, and reverb into his little Fiat and off we’d go. Every night ended up at Pizza Pete’s on Glendale Avenue. We had probably made $10 or $15 bucks apiece. Not bad for a seventh grader. This was all pre-Beatles—1962 to 1963. We were just kids having a blast playing music. At this point I was thinking the best you could do would be getting a job in a hotel playing five or six nights a week. Sounded okay to me. What’s wrong with that? There were other bands around in these days. Names like the Continentals, and a really slick vato band called the Irridescents. All cool. People would rehearse in a garage, and the neighborhood would come hang out. Open the garage door and it was a party. Finally, I got to see Dick Dale and the Del-Tones. He had moved from the Rendezvous Ballroom to a place called Harmony Park in Anaheim. It was an old defunct train station next to the tracks. A snack bar ran about half the length along one side, and the stage—no more than three feet high—was at one end. I still wasn’t old enough but I would stand on my tip toes to make myself look taller at the ticket window where Dick Dale's dad took the money and give him my dollar fifty. I was in, and man, it was great. What a sound, and the place had that kind of atmosphere that felt dangerous. There were people from all over Southern Cal, and not just surfers. There were vato guys, football types, bad-asses, car guys, surfers, and the surfing fringe—and lots of great looking girls and the chaos that comes with all of that. Everybody danced, and everybody was older than me because I was just twelve. Dick Dale used to arrive in this bitchin’ black Corvette. One night, during the third set they were playing “Surfin’ Drums,” a mighty Bo Diddley groove, a guy in front of the stage started giving Dick Dale shit. Something about this guy’s girlfriend. Dick took off his guitar while the band continued, and he and the guy headed outside. About fifteen minutes later Dick came back looking pretty disheveled. He strapped on his guitar, kicked in his sound, and it was total liftoff! The other guy never came back—Dick had kicked his ass and told him to fuck off. I would stand in front of the stage and just watch. No dancing for me yet. This scene was definitely what made me want to be in a band, be a musician. Up until then I was hooked, but now I was totally convinced. Two guitars, bass, drums, sax, and piano—it killed. The piano player would do a great dance routine, standing up and playing piano, and the sax, guitar and bass player would be doing their steps in unison. Dick Dale would be hunched over his white Strat absolutely focused on his trademark double picking thing and that sound. Man! The place would be rockin’. And then a huge fight would erupt. One night I’m in the men’s room taking a leak and this kinda vato guy says to me, “Hey man, who you fighting for? Downey or Santa Fe Springs?” I didn’t want to say the wrong thing and get my ass kicked right there, so I said, “Uh, I’m fighting for the best side!” He leaned closer and whispered, “Then you’re fightin’ for Santa Fe Springs.” I wanted nothing to do with this. When the fight broke out it was vicious, but the band played on. It was an early lesson in stage etiquette: just keep playing. Serious aggro down front? Guitars down, mic stands up. I would go to Harmony Park every Friday night I wasn’t playing. I would walk to the corner of Garfield and Verdugo Rd. in Glendale and get picked up by Billy Doherty and Mickey Wells. Sometimes a girl named Nancy Todd would be in the car. They were a lot older than me. Sometimes a guy named Jay Scatchard would drive. Sometimes I would go with Ken Glastre. I always found a ride. Most of these people will return in this tale later on. As The Expressions started to play more, we were occasionally joined by a kid named Mickey Wells. Harley Cannon had introduced us. He was born in Ilford, England, and I don’t remember what brought his family to the States. He was known around town and had a Fender Dual Showman and a Strat. He would play rhythm guitar with us, and the deal was he would let Ken use his Dual Showman to play lead guitar, while Mickey played rhythm with Ken’s Showman. This was the era of wearing a tie and sports coat to play in. Pretty snappy. We graduated with the times to wearing madras Bermuda shorts with blue T-shirts and blue tennies. Really snappy. We were getting booked for frat parties at USC and UCLA, but no forays into Hollywood yet. It was still all parties and dances. The Expressions continued with their usual gigs, and then BANG! . . . The Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1964. I watched their first appearance at Christina Brink’s house and she went bananas. I thought, What? This is not Dick Dale! What is this? It both excited and unnerved me. I wasn’t sure I liked it. At school the Beatles were all anyone talked about. The girls flipped out, most of the guys could care less, and my music pals and I were perplexed. Talk about a life-changing experience. I’m fourteen and in ninth grade, the perfect age for all this. It was now the swinging sixties. Soon Dick Dale would leave Harmony Park to play in the Aragon Ballroom on a pier in Santa Monica, but the vibe wasn’t the same, it had lost something. There were lots of clubs where we could see live music, like the Ice House in Glendale. The Ash Grove on Santa Monica Boulevard had a really good house band called the Rising Sons, with Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee came through a couple of times. I saw Albert King there and Flatt and Scruggs, John Hammond, and Clarence White with the White Brothers amongst others. Some of the old blues guys occasionally came through, and Ken and I would go to these places and hear some amazing musicians. Other venues were beginning to open with different kinds of music and we’d always try to go. Ken was the real thing as a guitar player. He was always keen to go see whoever was coming through and lucky for me because he drove. Sometimes I would go hear music with my beach pal Greg Armstrong. We went to see Bo Diddley at the Troubadour, on Santa Monica Boulevard, almost every night when he was playing there for two weeks. If we were on our way back from the beach, we’d go in really grubby—Panama hats and huarache sandals and drank hot apple cider with a cinnamon stick. Bo Diddley was tremendous. He’d get an incredible groove going and then tell some mysterious story over it. Sometimes the band would chuckle at inside jokes. A few years later, I would meet Bo Diddley at his home in the San Fernando Valley. His whole band slept in the garage/studio. We sat around while he told us some wild and wicked stories about himself and laughed over a bottle of isopropyl alcohol labeled “head cleaner”. [Used for cleaning recording machine heads]

40 years ago, Supertramp began their most successful tour ever in support of their album “Breakfast In America” at the Balch Field House in Boulder Colorado.

THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY CELEBRATION OF THE BREAKFAST IN AMERICA ALBUM CONTINUES - FIRST TOUR ANNOUNCEMENT FOR 2020! Join Supetramp’s Roger Hodgson on his first-ever Rock Legends Cruise February 27-March 2. Come Rock the Waves with us next year! With departure and arrival port of Fort Lauderdale, Florida and a port of call in Grand Cayman, this once in a lifetime experience of a cruise and seeing Roger performing his enduring classic hit songs is absolutely not to be missed. Book today at https://rocklegendscruise.com or by phone 888-666-1499. Share this incredible news today! More tour dates still to come for this year. See details for all 2019 announced dates on the Events tab here on the page or directly at https://www.Facebook.com/RogerHodgson/events. Roger on Tour - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMLNeSbtVN0 #Supertramp #RockLegendsCruise #BreakfastinAmericaWorldTour

A short version of Roger Hodgson’s very first single “Mr. Boyd” released before he joined Supertramp. Besides Roger on this we have: Reginald Dwight (Elton John) on piano Caleb Quayle on guitar & Nigel Olsson On Drums

Happy Birthday to John Anthony Helliwell!

Someone asked me if there was a billboard for “Crime Of The Century” and the answer was Yes!

Supertramp Archive

A Billboard for “Breakfast In America” above the old A&M lot. 1979.

A woman named “Georgia” was in line to get autograph’s for Buckcherry at this year’s NAMM in Anaheim and was wearing Roger’s “Breakfast In America” T-shirt that she had bought recently at the Humphrey’s By The Bay Show in San Diego found herself a little surprised when I gave her my own personal copy of “Open The Door” that was autographed by Roger.

Hello! I shouldn’t have to say this but here it goes: No name calling on this page! That goes for calling some of the band or group members names. I did not set this page up for that type of trash. This page is about Supertramp, not insults. And why we are at it: No Political type posts either! I will delete it, just as I did the insults.