Rick Davies, co-founder, singer and songwriter of the British rock band Supertramp, has died at the age of 81 after a long battle with cancer, the band announced Monday.
Davies, who co-wrote many of the band’s biggest hits with Roger Hodgson, died Saturday from multiple myeloma, a type of blood cancer he had fought for more than a decade.
Supertramp, founded in 1969, produced classics including “The Logical Song,” “Goodbye Stranger,” “Take the Long Way Home,” and “Give a Little Bit.” Their 1979 album “Breakfast in America” sold over 18 million copies, topped charts in the US and Canada, and won two Grammys.
The band described Davies as the “voice and pianist behind Supertramp’s most iconic songs” whose soulful vocals and signature Wurlitzer sound shaped their music.
Born in Swindon, England in 1944, Davies revived Supertramp in 1996 after it disbanded in 1988, with the group performing for the last time in Madrid in 2012.