Supertramp Revisits Their Live Peak With Revamped ‘Paris’ Album

Despite some acrimony that’s divided the members of Supertramp in recent years, the group’s John Helliwell is happy that what was arguably the band’s peak moment has been revisited with the new Live in Paris ’79.

“It’s always been, like, a cornerstone of our career,” Helliwell tells UCR via Zoom from his home in England. Not a strict reissue of the 1980 concert album Paris, the new release features recordings from different nights of Supertramp’s stand at the 8,000-seat Pavillion de Paris — Dec. 1-2 rather than the Nov. 29 concert on Paris — and represents the entire concerts, with two songs, “Downstream” and “Child of Vision,” that were not on Paris.

The shows came towards the end of Supertramp’s world tour in support of 1979’s Breakfast In America, a four-times platinum, chat-topping smash whose hits — “The Logical Song,” “Goodbye Stranger” and “Take the Long Way Home” — vaulted the group’s status.

Read More: How Supertramp Blew Up With ‘Breakfast in America’

“I think this new version is maybe a bit more refined, in a way,” says Helliwell, who keeps a framed proof of artist Cindy Marsh’s Paris cover illustration on the wall of his office. “It was near the end of the tour and we were really well-oiled by that time and playing well, and we made a good recordings. We’d had a really interesting time in Paris over about six or seven years; we’d gone from playing to about five people (at the Bataclan) to doing four nights at the Pavillion de Paris. We enjoyed ourselves there. It was a good, excitable crowd, and they got us going, and we made some good tapes.”

Released Sept. 26, 1980, Paris followed Breakfast in America‘s No. 1 showing by hitting No. 8 on the Billboard 200 and going gold. It’s one of only three Supertramp albums to reach the Top 10 in America.

Hear Supertramp Perform ‘You Started Laughing’

The Paris stand also represents the last stand for Supertramp’s classic quintet lineup, which also included singer-keyboardist Rick Davies, singer-guitarist-keyboardist Roger Hodgson, bassist Dougie Thomson and drummer Bob Siebenberg. The band toured with two additional musicians in support of 1982’s …Famous Last Words, and Hodgson departed in 1983 due to creative differences, primarily with Davies.

“As Rick and Roger were growing older there was a bit more of a rift between their outlooks,” Helliwell explains, adding that, “at the time we thought Roger’s leaving was a bit silly. He could’ve done his solo stuff and still done stuff with the group. It was kind of…I wouldn’t say bloody minded, but maybe he was misdirected. I don’t know, really, but he just went off and did his own thing, with no heed for the consequences of that.”

Supertramp, meanwhile, continued for another four studio albums after that and came to a halt in 2015, when Davies’ battle with multiple myeloma caused the cancellation of a planned tour.

Lawsuits Have Fractured Supertramp in Recent Years

Then in 2018 Helliwell, Thomson and Siebenberg sued Hodgson and Davies over publishing royalties. Davis settled out of court while Hodgson prevailed last year in his separate case, and Helliwell acknowledges that there are still hard feelings over the issue.

“There’s kind of a difference between Rick and Roger as songwriters, and a difference now between the rest of the band and the songwriters — particularly with the rest of the band and Roger,” Helliwell explains. “It’s a shame because it’s a great legacy that we all were involved with. But that’s life in the end, maybe.”

Helliwell does not expect that Supertramp’s vaults will yield much more in the future. “We’re very sparse on extras that crop up from other people during recording. We made very few of those,” he notes, adding that live recordings — such as the ones that popped up on reissues of 1974’s Crime of the Century and Breakfast in America, which included songs from Paris, London and Miami — are the most likely material available.

Davies, who lives on Long Island, has resurfaced to play occasionally gigs, while Helliwell — who served as Supertramp’s onstage emcee “because nobody else wanted to” — remains the most active of the Supertramp gang. He’s released a solo album, Ever Open Door, during 2020 and has also recorded with onetime Pat Metheny Group drummer Paul Wertico and Leslie Mandoki’s Soulmates. Helliwell also leads the Super Big Tramp Band, an 18-piece ensemble that will be releasing a self-titled album in April featuring instrumental arrangements of Supertramp songs.

“I do bits and pieces,” says Helliwell, who’s also expecting to do some live performing this year. At 80, however, he adds that “I might retire this year. I want to stop at the top of my playing ability. I haven’t gone over the crest of the hill yet, but I don’t want g over the crest and be on the downward slope and have people who come to see me play, in whatever context, say, ‘Oh, he used to be good.’ I’d rather stop at the top.”