TS: The sax solo in 'Baker Street' vs. The guitar solo in 'Baker Street'

Agreed, even tho Gerry Rafferty is from my hometown - not that the song's bad or that Gerry actually played the sax himself

"In one column, I also 'revealed' that Bob Holness...had played the saxophone solo on Gerry Rafferty's 'Baker Street'. Quite why, out of all the fictitious items I invented, this one should have caught fast in the public's imagination, I have no idea. I have heard it reported back to me in pubs and at dinner parties...I have read it in national newspapers. I've even heard other people claim to have started the rumour. It's actually Rafael Ravenscroft. He also played the equally lounge-lizardy sax break on Hazel O'Connor's 'Say Goodbye'."
Stuart Maconie, Cider With Roadies, p199.
I preferred the one about Neil Tennant being a qualified rugby league referee.

The sax riff so wins this it's not even funny. Great guitar solo vs. THE ONLY LEGITIMATE USE FOR A SAX RIFF IN THE HISTORY OF ROCK MUSIC.

well that's not true. there's a little tune called infinity by guru 'guru' josh

I know, I was being hyperbolic. And only a minute or two after I posted, I remembered "Tequila".

Yeah, and the Coasters.

Isn't the sax bit the first thing you notice about this record? The melancholy story, pro forma (but good) rock guitar solo, etc., you don't pick up until later.

Is it just me or does anyone else momentarily confuse this song with Glen Frey's "You Belong to The City" every time they hear that opening sax solo?

"You Belong to The City" was quite obviously inspired by it/ripped it off.

this song = summer vacation at the beach in 1978, forever.

Ravenscroft has played on records by Pink Floyd, Marvin Gaye, Abba, Alvin Lee and many others.

The guitar solo in the song incorporates a motif inspired by a pair of seagulls accidentally trapped in the studio during recording.

sax riffs?

808 state, mate. Pacific.

OK, it's not exactly a sax.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgbGaYTkkPU

Cue my usual Jimmy Young "ar-har that was R.A.F. Ravenscroft you see" quote.

But big up to Scott Walker's regular guitarist Hugh Burns for the scalding guitar solo at the end.

as on "No Regrets" ?

Actual best uses for a saxophone in rock:

1) "New York's Alright If You Like" 'em from Fear
2) "LA Blues" from The Stooges
3) Choice bits from Third by The Soft Machine

But "Baker Street" is fantastic, can't believe it's not apparent to all, music theory concerns notwithstanding. "Baker Street" when it came out in 1978 sounded like just about nothing else being played on the radio, and it (to a certain degree) retains that freshness today. While it's easy to think of popular album rock tracks from the '70's that featured a saxophone, what's a lot harder to do is to think of one outside the three contexts of 1) rhythm and blues 2) more straight ahead blues and 3) retro old-time contexts.

Sure, "Can't You Hear Me Knocking" and "Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out" feature the sax, an at least the Stones tune is way better, but neither of them sounds anything at all like "Baker Street"

I don't want to make it sound as if I'm electing "Baker Street" to the pantheon inhabited by the Soft Machine or anything, but Mr. Rafferty's tune has something of a prog feel to it. In that sense it's both a little more ordinary and a little more of a record of 1974 than of 1978.

There is no sax solo in Baker Street...

Why I hate the Comic Book Guy stylings of ILM sometimes.

Yeah, but technically speaking, that's correct. The saxophone is, for all intents and purposes, the chorus of the song.

And for AM-radio listeners in 1978, there was no guitar solo. It was edited out of the single version.

Yeah, I get that, by definition, the sax part isn't a solo.

BUT WE ALL GOT THE GIST OF THE THREAD TITLE, DIDN'T WE?

Having now subjected myself to the Foo Fighters version and the Jars of Clay version on YouTube I hold this truth to be self-evident: duh, it is the sax riff that takes a good song and makes it such an instantly recognizable killer song. Forgot there even was a guitar solo until replaying the original version today.

Apparently the only place you can still get the single edit (short of buying the 45) is on the Good Will Hunting soundtrack. Wikipedia says that in addition to it being edited for time, it's also sped up a little. Listening to it and the LP version back to back, the single edit totally wins (and there's still a good portion of the guitar solo that remains).

Anyway, "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick," end of debate.

Raphael Ravenscroft, sax player on Gerry Rafferty's Baker Street, dies at 60

Yeah, sad.

I read a little bit earlier that said when he went in for the Rafferty session, Baker Street was already recorded but had these empty spots leftover for a saxophone part. Rafferty didn't have any suggestions on how to fill it, so Ravenscroft just launched into this old blues figure and BAM the rest is history.

wiki:

Rafferty claimed he wrote the hook with the original intention that it be sung. Ravenscroft said differently, saying he was presented with a song that contained "several gaps". "In fact, most of what I played was an old blues riff," stated Ravenscroft. "If you're asking me: 'Did Gerry hand me a piece of music to play?' then no, he didn't."[10] However, the 2011 reissue of City To City included the demo of Baker Street which included the saxophone part played on electric guitar by Rafferty. A very similar sax line, however, was originally played by saxophonist Steve Marcus for a song called "Half A Heart", credited to vibraphonist Gary Burton,[11] that appeared on Marcus' 1968 album Tomorrow Never Knows.

Ravenscroft, a session musician, was in the studio to record a brief soprano saxophone part and suggested that he record the now-famous break using the alto saxophone he had in his car.[6] The part led to what became known as "the 'Baker Street' phenomenon", a resurgence in the sales of saxophones and their use in mainstream pop music and television advertising.[9]

In January 2011, radio presenter Simon Lederman revealed that Ravenscroft himself thought the solo was out of tune. When asked during a live radio interview on BBC London 94.9, "What do you think when you hear [the sax solo] now?" Ravenscroft replied, "I'm irritated because it's out of tune; yeah it's flat; by enough of a degree that it irritates me at best" and admitted he was "gutted" when he heard it played back. He added that he had not been able to re-record the take as he was not involved when the song was mixed.

The single version was produced using the tape of the album version sped up slightly, so as to raise the tempo and thus be more radio-friendly. This also had the result of raising the key by a half tone.
Urban myths

According to one story, Ravenscroft received no payment for a song that earned Rafferty an income of £80,000 per annum; a cheque for £27 given to Ravenscroft bounced and was framed on the wall of his solicitor.[10] The bouncing cheque story was denied, however, by Ravenscroft on the Simon Mayo Drivetime show on BBC Radio 2 on 9 February 2012.[citation needed]

The saxophone riff was also the subject of another urban myth in the UK, created in the 1980s by British writer and broadcaster Stuart Maconie.[1] As one of the spoof facts invented for the regular "Would You Believe It?" section in the NME, Maconie falsely claimed that British radio and television presenter Bob Holness had played the saxophone part on the recording.[1] Later, the claim was widely repeated.[12][13]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kxG4U_1uv0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bcXRkMs0fs

wow, that clave is terrible there

BBC Soul Music episode on the making of "Baker Street." Worth a listen.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01b9jp0

"Baker Street" when it came out in 1978 sounded like just about nothing else being played on the radio, and it (to a certain degree) retains that freshness today.

this is otm. when i first glanced the tracklisting to the Good Will Hunting soundtrack, i was like how does "BAKER STREET" fit into this? but you listen to it in that context and it does sound modern/fresh. though i'd add it's all about the VERSES.

Baker Street is a very well done production. It's got that smoothe 70s studio sound with that electric piano and the additional latin percussion which keeps things moving during the breakdowns. Underneath that soft synth giving a totally different texture to the raw guitar and the uber sax riff, during the musical breaks. That smoothe jazzy underpinning then works so well when it breaks down with the laid back vocals. That laid back smoothe to the riffy crunch is definitely one of those birth of the power ballad moments that many have tried to ape but few ever really pulled off nearly as well.

Is this not the most famous sax solo in rock and roll? What could challenge it?

well Careless Whisper would like a word

Isn't the sax solo in Careless Whispers kind of proto-vaporwave tho?

if you’re gonna call Baker Street “rock” the field is wide open

xp try playing it at 1/8th speed.

Nothing in music more perfectly simultaneously inhabits the realms of both “awful” and “fantastic” than the sax solo in Baker Street.