Buddy recorded a track to match every mood

TO HIS loyal band of followers, Gerry Rafferty was bigger than Baker Street.

For four decades, the Paisley-born singer-songwriter penned some of the most poignant and personal tunes ever cut to disc.

Whether with folk-trio-cum-duo the Humblebums, as one half of 70s soft rock band Stealers Wheel or solo, his output left its mark on hundreds of thousands of music lovers.

Critics may argue that his creative light extinguished some time ago. Despite a sporadic string of inspired albums in the 80s, 90s and Noughties, culminating in the prophetic Life Goes On in 2009, Rafferty never reached the heady heights of that 1978 smash hit about a famous London street. Commercially, at least.

For this forty-something music fan, Rafferty was much, much more than a one-hit wonder.

Just starting high school and discovering music proper, my first record was by the enigmatic songwriter.

While my early-teen contemporaries were busy eulogising Roxy or Floyd, I would be air-guitaring to Baker Street or Night Owl, another top ten Rafferty hit of the time.

For the following 30-odd years, this particular Buddy's artistic outpourings provided the musical backdrop to my life, as clichd as that sounds.

Holiday drives, Walkman-wearing rambles, tearful times, moments of joy - for every occasion there was a Rafferty track to match the mood.

Now the great man has gone, aged 63. Taken long, long before his number should have come up. While his singer-songwriting peers - Van Morrison, Richard Thompson, Mark Knopfler with (whom Rafferty worked off and on) - soldier on, it's a case of what could have been.

His final outing, despite resurrecting a lot of older material, offered flashes of that musical genius.

Perhaps, this evening, there's more reason than ever to slip that cherished copy of City to City from its somewhat tattered sleeve, drop the needle and applaud one of the nation's true musical geniuses.

• Scotsman Deputy Business Editor Scott Reid is a lifelong Gerry Rafferty fan