OFF: Turner & Yorn (was NIK: Appearance at WC2002?)

[K Henderson]

DP says...

>After checking the reference book, yeah, it looks like he was pretty much a
>session hack.  Russ Ballard, Gerry Rafferty, stuff like that.  He even
>played on the Raphael Ravenscroft album! (Not that I've actually heard any
>of that stuff.)

Funny...I just went to allmusicguide.com to look up Raphael and this is what
I found....so P. Zorn *could* have been famous!  :)

Of course, R.R. is more notable to me for his association with Pink Floyd
and Robert Plant, although I was well aware he played on Baker Street.

Grakkl (FAA)

Raphael Ravenscroft has played saxophone (and sometimes French horn and
winds) for artists ranging from Marvin Gaye to Pink Floyd, but he will likely be
remembered best for just one song -- Gerry Rafferty's late '70s mega-hit "Baker
Street," on which he played what was probably the most well-known saxophone
part in an entire decade of popular music. Ironically, his work on that session
came about by sheer chance. Gerry Rafferty had written "Baker Street" with the
long instrumental break in mind, but without a specific instrument to play
it, and he and producer Hugh Murphy experimented with different sounds before
Murphy suggested a sax -- their first choice for the session was, however, was
Pete Zorn, a British session musician who had played with Andy Bown and
other artists. Zorn was no longer playing much sax and suggested a list of other
players, and Raphael Ravenscroft's name was distinctive enough to get him the
call. Ravenscroft turned the break into a long, moody vignette that just hung
there on the radio, and was as responsible as the song's lead guitar part and
melody for making it into an international hit, and Rafferty into a star.