Free Republic

The Scottish singer-songwriter best known for the hits 'Baker Street' and 'Stuck in the Middle With You,' died Tuesday, the Guardian reports. The 63-year-old was hospitalized in November 2010 with liver failure and had been ill ever since.

The Scottish singer-songwriter Gerry Rafferty, who has died aged 63 after a long illness, wrote the multimillion-selling hit Baker Street, which more than 30 years after its 1978 release still netted him an annual £80,000. At the end of the 1970s he did his best work, a series of richly resonant albums that gave no hint of their creator's inner troubles. Rafferty was born in Paisley, near Glasgow, an unwanted third son. His father, Joseph, was an Irish-born miner. His mother, Mary Skeffington, whose name would provide a Rafferty song title, dragged young Gerry round the streets on Saturday nights...