Rick Davies, the founder and lead singer of the British rock band Supertramp, who co-wrote some of its biggest hits and lent a biting, world-weary tone to its music, died on Saturday. He was 81.
Mr. Davies had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a form of blood cancer, more than a decade ago, the band said on its website. He was “the voice and pianist behind Supertramp’s most iconic songs, leaving an indelible mark on rock music history,” the band said.
Formed in 1969, Supertramp achieved a commercial breakthrough in 1974 with its album “Crime of the Century,” and went on to become one of the most popular British groups of the 1970s and 1980s. The album’s hit song, “Bloody Well Right,” opened with Mr. Davies on the Wurlitzer electric piano, and his use of the Wurlitzer became a defining feature of the group’s sound.
Supertramp’s hits included “Goodbye Stranger,” “The Logical Song” and “It’s Raining Again.” In 1979, it released the album “Breakfast in America,” which topped charts worldwide and sold over 18 million copies, according to the band’s website.
In contrast to his bandmate Roger Hodgson’s softer tenor voice, Mr. Davies’s sound had a snarling, almost nasal quality that could be both sensitive and dramatic. Mr. Hodgson left the band in 1983 to pursue a solo career.
Mr. Davies was born in Swindon, England, in 1944. His love of music started in childhood, when he found an old Gene Krupa album, the band said in its statement. Drawn toward jazz, blues and the pianist Ray Charles, Mr. Davies started playing drums and then taught himself to play piano.
“Suddenly people were responding to me,” he told the site Pop Culture Classics in an interview in 1997. “That instrument just seemed right for me.”
Supertramp canceled a European tour in 2015 because of Mr. Davies’s cancer treatment. In more recent years, even as Mr. Davies’s health challenges kept him from touring globally, he performed as part of the band Ricky and the Rockets.
Several covers of Mr. Davies’s songs rose up the charts in the 2000s. Supertramp’s hit song “Give a Little Bit,” from its 1977 album “Even in the Quietest Moments,” was covered by the American rock band Goo Goo Dolls in 2004, and the song peaked at No. 37 on the Billboard Hot 100. That same year, Gym Class Heroes sampled “Breakfast in America” in their song “Cupid’s Chokehold,” which hit No. 4 on the chart.
Mr. Davies is survived by his wife, Sue Davies.
Jenny Gross is a reporter for The Times covering breaking news and other topics.
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