title: Marco Rubio

text: On March 15, Rubio suspended his campaign after placing second in his own home state of Florida. Hours earlier, Rubio had expressed expectations for a Florida win, and said he would continue to campaign (in Utah) "irrespective of" that night's results. The result was that Rubio won 27.0% of the Florida vote, while Trump won 45.7% and all of Florida's delegates. The conclusion of the six March 15 contests (out of which Rubio won none) left Rubio with 169 delegates on the race to reach 1237, but Ted Cruz already had 411 and Trump 673. On March 17, Rubio ruled out runs for the vice-presidency, governorship of Florida and even reelection for his senate seat. He said only that he would be a "private citizen" by January 2017, leading to some media speculation of the termination of his political career.


title: Marco Rubio

text: On April 12, during an interview with Mark Levin, Rubio expressed his wishes that Republicans would nominate a conservative candidate, name-dropping Cruz. This was interpreted as an endorsement of Cruz, though Rubio clarified the following day that he had only been answering a question. Rubio would later explain his decision to not endorse Cruz being due to his belief that the endorsement would not significantly benefit him and a desire to let the election cycle play out. On April 22, Rubio said he was not interested in being the vice presidential candidate to any of the remaining GOP contenders. On May 16, Rubio posted several tweets in which he critiqued sources reporting that he despised the Senate and a "Washington Post" story that claimed he was unsure of his next move after his unsuccessful presidential bid, typing, "I have only said like 10000 times I will be a private citizen in January."


title: Marco Rubio

text: On May 18, after Trump expressed a willingness to meet with Kim Jong-un, Rubio said Kim was "not a stable person" and furthered that Trump was open to the meeting only due to inexperience with the North Korea leader. On May 26, Rubio told reporters that he was backing Trump due to his view that the presumptive nominee was a better choice than Hillary Clinton for the presidency and that as president, Trump would sign a repeal of the Affordable Care Act and replace the late Antonin Scalia with another conservative Supreme Court Justice. He also confirmed that he would be attending the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio, where he intended to release his pledged delegates to support Trump. On May 29, Rubio continued disavowing vice presidential speculation but indicated an interest in playing a role in Trump's campaign. On June 6, Rubio rebuked Trump's comments on Gonzalo P. Curiel, who Trump accused of being biased against him on the basis of his ethnicity, as "offensive" while speaking with reporters, advising that Trump should cease defending the remarks and defending the judge as "an American".


title: Marco Rubio

text: On July 6, Olivia Perez-Cubas, Rubio's Senate campaign spokeswoman, said he would not be attending the Republican National Convention due to planned campaigning on the days the convention was scheduled to take place.


title: Marco Rubio

text: During the Republican primary campaign in which Rubio and Donald Trump were opponents, Rubio criticized Trump, including, in February 2016, calling Trump a "con artist" and saying that Trump is "wholly unprepared to be president of the United States". In June 2016, after Trump became the presumptive GOP nominee, Rubio reaffirmed his February 2016 comments that we must not hand "the nuclear codes of the United States to an erratic individual". However, after Trump won the Republican Party's nomination, Rubio endorsed him on July 20, 2016. Following the October 7, 2016, Donald Trump "Access Hollywood" controversy, Rubio wrote that "Donald's comments were vulgar, egregious & impossible to justify. No one should ever talk about any woman in those terms, even in private." Rubio reaffirmed his support of Trump shortly thereafter. Two weeks later, at the annual "Calle Orange" street festival in downtown Orlando, he was booed off a stage by a mostly Latino crowd over his support for Trump.


title: Marco Rubio

text: As of early 2015, Rubio had a rating of 98.67 by the American Conservative Union, based on his lifetime voting record in the Senate. According to the "National Journal", in 2013 Rubio was the 17th most conservative senator. The Club for Growth gave Rubio ratings of 93 percent and 91 percent based on his voting record in 2014 and 2013 respectively, and he has a lifetime rating from the organization above 90 percent.


title: Marco Rubio

text: Rubio initially won his U.S. Senate seat with strong Tea Party backing, but his 2013 support for comprehensive immigration reform legislation led to a decline in their support for him. Rubio's stance on military, foreign policy, and national security issuessuch as his support for arming the Syrian rebels and for the NSAalienated some libertarian Tea Party activists.


title: Marco Rubio

text: Rubio supports balancing the federal budget, while prioritizing defense spending. He rejects the scientific consensus on climate change, which is that climate change is real, progressing, harmful, and primarily caused by humans, arguing that human activity does not play a major role and claiming that proposals to address climate change would be ineffective and economically harmful. He opposes the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) and has voted to repeal it. He opposes net neutrality, a policy that requires Internet service providers to treat data on the Internet the same regardless of its source or content. Early in his Senate tenure, Rubio was involved in bipartisan negotiations to provide a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants while implementing various measures to strengthen the U.S. border; the bill passed the Senate but was blocked by immigration hardliners in the House. Over time, Rubio distanced himself from his previous efforts to reach a compromise on immigration, and developed more hardline views on immigration, rejecting bipartisan immigration reform efforts in 2018.


title: Marco Rubio

text: Rubio is an outspoken opponent of abortion. He has said that he would ban it even in cases of rape and incest, but with exceptions if the mother's life is in danger.


title: Marco Rubio

text: Rubio has expressed caution about efforts to reduce penalties for drug crimes, saying that "too often" the conversation about criminal justice reform "starts and ends with drug policy". He has said that he would be open to legalizing non-psychoactive forms of cannabis for medical use, but otherwise opposes its legalization for recreational and medical purposes. Rubio has said that if elected president he would enforce federal law in states that have legalized cannabis.


title: Marco Rubio

text: Rubio supports setting corporate taxes at 25%, reforming the tax code, and capping economic regulations, and proposes to increase the social security retirement age based on longer life expectancy. He supports expanding public charter schools, opposes Common Core State Standards, and advocates closing the federal Department of Education.


title: Marco Rubio

text: Rubio supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq and military intervention in Libya. Rubio voiced support for a Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen against Houthi rebels. Regarding Iran, he supports tough sanctions, and scrapping the recent nuclear deal; on the Islamic State, he favors aiding local Sunni forces in Iraq and Syria. Rubio says that, because background checks cannot be done under present circumstances, the United States cannot accept more Syrian refugees. He supports working with allies to set up no-fly zones in Syria to protect civilians from Bashar al-Assad. He favors collection of bulk metadata for purposes of national security. He has said that gun control laws consistently fail to achieve their purpose. He is supportive of the Trans Pacific Partnership, saying that the U.S. risks being excluded from global trade unless it is more open to trade. He is wary of China regarding national security and human rights, and wants to boost the U.S. military presence in that region but hopes for greater economic growth as a result of trading with that country. He also believes the U.S. should support democracy, freedom, and true autonomy of the people of Hong Kong. On capital punishment, Rubio favors streamlining the appeals process.


title: Marco Rubio

text: Rubio condemned the genocide of the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar and called for a stronger response to the crisis. Rubio is a staunch supporter of Israel. He is a co-sponsor of a Senate resolution expressing objection to the UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which condemned Israeli settlement building in the occupied Palestinian territories as a violation of international law. Rubio condemned Turkey's wide-ranging crackdown on dissent following a failed July 2016 coup.


title: Marco Rubio

text: At a February 2018 CNN town hall event in the wake of the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, Rubio defended his record of accepting contributions from the National Rifle Association (NRA), saying, "The influence of these groups comes not from money. The influence comes from the millions of people that agree with the agenda, the millions of Americans that support the NRA."


title: Marco Rubio

text: In March 2018, Rubio defended the decision of the Trump administration to add a citizenship question to the 2020 census. Experts noted that the inclusion of such a question would likely result in severe undercounting of the population and faulty data, as undocumented immigrants would be less likely to respond to the census. Fellow Republican members of Congress from Florida, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, criticized the Trump administration's decision on the basis that it could lead to a faulty census and disadvantage Florida in terms of congressional apportionment and fund apportionment.


title: Marco Rubio

text: In July 2018, Rubio offered an amendment to a major congressional spending bill to potentially force companies that purchase real estate in cash to disclose their owners as "an attempt to root out criminals who use illicit funds and anonymous shell companies to buy homes".


title: Marco Rubio

text: On August 28, 2018, Rubio and 16 other members of Congress urged the United States to impose sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Act against Chinese officials who are responsible for human rights abuses against the Uyghur Muslim minority in Xinjiang.


title: Marco Rubio

text: Rubio opposed the Affordable Care Act ("Obamacare"). On April 27, 2020, the US Supreme Court voted 8–1 to defeat his attempt to undermine the Act.


title: Marco Rubio

text: In March 2016, Rubio opposed President Obama's nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court, saying, "I don't think we should be moving forward with a nominee in the last year of this president's term. I would say that even if it was a Republican president." In September 2020, Rubio applauded Trump's nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the court after Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, voting to confirm her on October 26, 86 days before the expiration of Trump's presidential term. No Democrat voted for her, nor did Maine's independent Angus King, Republican Susan Collins, or Vermont independent Bernie Sanders.


title: Marco Rubio

text: Rubio has a mixed relationship with Donald Trump. During the Republican primaries in the 2016 presidential election, they harshly criticized each other. But during Trump's presidency, Rubio "[supported] just about everything Trump said and did", according to the "Sun-Sentinel".


title: Marco Rubio

text: In May 2021, Rubio argued that "Wall Street must stop enabling Communist China" in "The American Prospect" and on his website. "Americans from across the political spectrum should feel emboldened by the growing bipartisan awakening to the threat that the CCP poses to American workers, families, and communities", he wrote. "As we deploy legislative solutions to tackle this challenge, Democrats must not allow our corporate and financial sectors’ leftward shift on social issues to blind them to the enormity of China as a geo-economic threat."


title: Marco Rubio

text: Rubio is a Roman Catholic and attends Catholic Mass at Church of the Little Flower in Coral Gables, Florida. He also previously attended Christ Fellowship, a Southern Baptist Church in West Kendall, Florida.


title: Marco Rubio

text: In 1998, Rubio married Jeanette Dousdebes, a former bank teller and Miami Dolphins cheerleader, in a Catholic ceremony at the Church of the Little Flower. They have four children. Rubio and his family live in West Miami, Florida.


title: Marco Rubio

text: As of 2018, according to OpenSecrets.org, Rubio's net worth was negative, owing more than $1.8 million.


title: Cardamom

text: Cardamom (), sometimes cardamon or cardamum, is a spice made from the seeds of several plants in the genera "Elettaria" and "Amomum" in the family Zingiberaceae. Both genera are native to the Indian subcontinent and Indonesia. They are recognized by their small seed pods: triangular in cross-section and spindle-shaped, with a thin, papery outer shell and small, black seeds; "Elettaria" pods are light green and smaller, while "Amomum" pods are larger and dark brown.


title: Cardamom

text: Species used for cardamom are native throughout tropical and subtropical Asia. The first references to cardamom are found in Sumer, and in the Ayurvedic literatures of India. Nowadays it is also cultivated in Guatemala, Malaysia, and Tanzania. The German coffee planter Oscar Majus Klöffer introduced Indian cardamom to cultivation in Guatemala before World War I; by 2000, that country had become the biggest producer and exporter of cardamom in the world, followed by India.


title: Cardamom

text: The word "cardamom" is derived from the Latin , which is the Latinisation of the Greek (), a compound of (, "cress") and (), which was probably the name for a kind of Indian spice plant.


title: Cardamom

text: The earliest attested form of the word signifying "cress" is the Mycenaean Greek , written in Linear B syllabic script, in the list of flavourings on the "Spice" tablets found among palace archives in the House of the Sphinxes in Mycenae.


title: Cardamom

text: The two types of cardamom, and , were distinguished in the fourth century BCE by Theophrastus. He reports that some people believed they came from Media, others from India.


title: Cardamom

text: Both forms of cardamom are used as flavourings and cooking spices in both food and drink, and as a medicine. "E. cardamomum" (green cardamom) is used as a spice, a masticatory, or is smoked.


title: Cardamom

text: Cardamom has a strong, unique taste, with an intensely aromatic, resinous fragrance. Black cardamom has a distinctly more smoky, though not bitter, aroma, with a coolness some consider similar to mint.


title: Cardamom

text: Green cardamom is one of the most expensive spices by weight, but little is needed to impart flavour. It is best stored in the pod, as exposed or ground seeds quickly lose their flavour. Grinding the pods and seeds together lowers both the quality and the price. For recipes requiring whole cardamom pods, a generally accepted equivalent is 10 pods equals teaspoons of ground cardamom.


title: Cardamom

text: Cardamom is a common ingredient in Indian cooking. It is also often used in baking in the Nordic countries, in particular in Sweden, Norway, and Finland, where it is used in traditional treats such as the Scandinavian Yule bread , the Swedish sweet bun, and Finnish sweet bread . In the Middle East, green cardamom powder is used as a spice for sweet dishes, as well as traditional flavouring in coffee and tea. Cardamom is used to a wide extent in savoury dishes. In some Middle Eastern countries, coffee and cardamom are often ground in a wooden mortar, a , and cooked together in a skillet, a , over wood or gas, to produce mixtures as much as 40% cardamom.


title: Cardamom

text: In Asia, both types of cardamom are widely used in both sweet and savory dishes, particularly in the south. Both are frequent components in spice mixes, such as Indian and Nepali masalas and Thai curry pastes. Green cardamom is often used in traditional Indian sweets and in "masala chai" (spiced tea). Both are also often used as a garnish in basmati rice and other dishes. Individual seeds are sometimes chewed and used in much the same way as chewing gum. It is used by confectionery giant Wrigley; its Eclipse Breeze Exotic Mint packaging indicates the product contains "cardamom to neutralize the toughest breath odors". It is also included in aromatic bitters, gin, and herbal teas.


title: Cardamom

text: In Korea, Tavoy cardamom ("Wurfbainia villosa" var. "xanthioides") and red cardamom ("Lanxangia tsao-ko") are used in tea called .


title: Cardamom

text: The content of seed essential oil is dependent on storage conditions, and may be as high as 8%. In the oil are found α-terpineol 45%, myrcene 27%, limonene 8%, menthone 6%, β-phellandrene 3%, 1,8-cineol 2%, sabinene 2% and heptane 2%. Other sources report 1,8-cineol (20 to 50%), α-terpenylacetate (30%), sabinene, limonene (2 to 14%), and borneol.


title: Cardamom

text: In the seeds of round cardamom from Java ("Wurfbainia compacta"), the content of essential oil is lower (2 to 4%), and the oil contains mainly 1,8-cineol (up to 70%) plus β-pinene (16%); furthermore, α-pinene, α-terpineol and humulene are found.


title: Cardamom

text: By the early 21st century, Guatemala became the largest producer of cardamom in the world, with an average annual yield between 25,000 and 29,000 tonnes. The plant was introduced there in 1914 by Oscar Majus Kloeffer, a German coffee planter. India, formerly the largest producer, since 2000 has been the second worldwide, generating around 15,000 tonnes annually.


title: Cardamom

text: Increased demand since the 1980s, principally from China, for both "A. villosum" and "A. tsao-ko", has been met by farmers living at higher altitudes in localized areas of China, Laos, and Vietnam, people typically isolated from many other markets.


title: Cardamom

text: Cardamom production began in ancient times, and has been referred to in ancient Sanskrit texts as . The Babylonians and Assyrians recognized the health benefits of the spice early on, and trade in cardamom opened up along land routes and by the interlinked Persian Gulf route controlled from Dilmun as early as the third millennium BCE Early Bronze Age, into western Asia and the Mediterranean world.


title: Cardamom

text: The ancient Greeks thought highly of cardamom, and the Greek physicians Dioscorides and Hippocrates wrote about its therapeutic properties, identifying it as a digestive aid. Due to demand in ancient Greece and Rome, the cardamom trade developed into a handsome luxury business; cardamom was one of the spices eligible for import tax in Alexandria in 126 CE. In medieval times, Venice became the principal importer of cardamom into the west, along with pepper, cloves and cinnamon, which was traded with merchants from the Levant with salt and meat products.


title: Cardamom

text: In China, "Amomum" was an important part of the economy during the Song Dynasty (960–1279). In 1150, the Arab geographer Muhammad al-Idrisi noted that cardamom was being imported to Aden, in Yemen, from India and China.


title: Cardamom

text: Later, in the 16th century, the Portuguese became involved in the trade, when it conquered the west coast of India, but the industry did not become of major interest on a wider scale to Europeans until the 19th century.


title: Cardamom

text: According to Nair (2011), in the years when India achieves a good crop, it is still less productive than Guatemala. Other notable producers include Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Thailand, and Vietnam.


title: Cardamom

text: Much production of cardamom in India is cultivated on private property or in areas which the government owns and leases out to farmers. Traditionally, small plots of land within the forests (called "eld-kandies") where the wild or acclimatised plant existed are cleared during February and March. The brushwood is cut down and burned, and the roots of powerful weeds torn up so as to free the soil. Soon after clearing, cardamom plants spring up all over the prepared plots, and then, if left alone for a couple of years, by that time the cardamom plants may have eight to ten leaves and reach in height. In the third year, they may be in height. In the following May–June the ground is again weeded, and by September to November a light crop is obtained. In the fourth year, weeding again occurs, and if the cardamoms are found growing nearer than apart, a few are transplanted to new positions. The plants bear for three or four years, and historically the life of each plantation was about eight or nine years. The seasons in Malabar are a little later than in Mysore, and according to some reports, a full crop may even be obtained in the third year. It was also believed that above , the cardamoms grown are of a better quality than below that altitude.


title: Cardamom

text: Plants may be raised from seed or by division of the rhizome. In about a year, the seedlings reach about in length, and are ready for transplantation. The flowering season is April to May, and after swelling in August and September, by the first half of October usually attain the desired degree of ripening. The crop is accordingly gathered in October and November, and in exceptionally moist weather, the harvest protracts into December. At the time of harvesting, the scapes or shoots bearing the clusters of fruits are broken off close to the stems and placed in baskets lined with fresh leaves. The fruits are spread out on carefully prepared floors, sometimes covered with mats, and are then exposed to the sun. Four or five days of careful drying and bleaching in the sun is usually enough, but in rainy weather, artificial heat drying is necessary, though the fruits suffer very greatly in colour when this course is resorted to, and in consequence sometimes bleached with steam and sulphurous vapour or with ritha nuts.


title: Cardamom

text: The industry is highly labor-intensive, and each hectare requires a high degree of maintenance throughout the year. Production constraints mentioned are recurring climate vagaries, the absence of regular re-plantation, and ecological conditions associated with deforestation.


title: Cardamom

text: In 1873 and 1874, Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) exported about each year. In 1877, Ceylon exported , in 1879, , and in the 1881–2 season, In 1903, of cardamom growing areas were owned by European planters. The produce of the Travancore plantations was given as , or just a little under that of Ceylon. The yield of the Mysore plantations was approximately , and the cultivation was mainly in Kadur district. The volume for 1903-4 stated the value of the cardamoms exported to have been Rs. 3,37,000 as compared with Rs. 4,16,000 the previous year. India, which ranks second in world production, recorded a decline of 6.7 percent in cardamom production for 2012–13, and projected a production decline of 30-40% in 2013–14, compared with the previous year due to unfavorable weather. In India, the state of Kerala is by far the most productive producer, with the districts of Idukki, Palakkad and Wynad being the principal producing areas. Given that a number of bureaucrats have personal interests in the industry, in India, several organisations have been set up to protect cardamom producers such as the Cardamom Growers Association (est. 1992) and the Kerala Cardamom Growers Association (est. 1974). Research in India's cardamom plantations began in the 1970s while Kizhekethil Chandy held the office of Chairman of the Cardamom Board. The Kerala Land Reforms Act imposed restrictions on the size of certain agricultural holdings per household to the benefit of cardamom producers.


title: Cardamom

text: In 1979–1980, Guatemala surpassed India in worldwide production. Guatemala cultivates "Elettaria cardamomum", which is native to the Malabar Coast of India. Alta Verapaz Department produces 70 percent of Guatemala's cardamom. Cardamom was introduced to Guatemala before World War I by the German coffee planter Oscar Majus Kloeffer. After World War II, production was increased to 13,000 to 14,000 tons annually.


title: Cardamom

text: In addition to Guatemala and India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Papua New Guinea and Tanzania are also significant growers of cardamom. The average annual income for a plantation-owning household in 1998 was US$3,408. Although the typical harvest requires over 210 days of labor per year, most cardamom farmers are better off than many other agricultural workers, and there are a significant number of those from the upper strata of society involved in the cultivation process. Increased demand since the 1980s, principally from China, for both "Wurfbainia villosa" and "Lanxangia tsao-ko", has provided a key source of income for poor farmers living at higher altitudes in localized areas of China, Laos, and Vietnam, people typically isolated from many other markets. Laos exports about 400 tonnes annually through Thailand according to the FAO.


title: Cardamom

text: Cardamom production's demand and supply patterns of trade are influenced by price movements, nationally and internationally, in 5 to 6-year cycles. Importing leaders mentioned are Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, while other significant importers include Germany, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Pakistan, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, the UK, and the former USSR. According to the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 80 percent of cardamom's total consumption occurs in the Middle East.


title: Cardamom

text: In the 19th century, Bombay and Madras were among the principal distributing ports of cardamom. India's exports to foreign countries increased during the early 20th century, particularly to the United Kingdom, followed by Arabia, Aden, Germany, Turkey, Japan, Persia and Egypt. However, some 95% of cardamom produced in India is for domestic purposes, and India is itself by far the most important consuming country for cardamoms in the world. India also imports cardamom from Sri Lanka. In 1903–1904, these imports came to , valued at Rs. 1,98,710. In contrast, Guatemala's local consumption is negligible, which supports the exportation of most of the cardamom that is produced. In the mid-1800s, Ceylon's cardamom was chiefly imported by Canada. After saffron and vanilla, cardamom is currently the third most expensive spice, and is used as a spice and flavouring for food and liqueurs and in medicine.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Gerald Rafferty (16 April 1947– 4 January 2011) was a Scottish singer, songwriter, musician, and record producer. He was a founding member of Stealers Wheel, whose biggest hit was "Stuck in the Middle with You" in 1973. His solo hits in the late 1970s included "Baker Street", "Right Down the Line", and "Night Owl".


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Rafferty was born into a working-class family in Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland. His mother taught him both Irish and Scottish folk songs when he was a boy; later, he was influenced by the music of the Beatles and Bob Dylan. He joined the folk-pop group the Humblebums (of which Billy Connolly was a member) in 1969. After they disbanded in 1971, he recorded his first solo album, "Can I Have My Money Back?". Rafferty and Joe Egan formed the group Stealers Wheel in 1972 and produced several hits, most notably "Stuck in the Middle with You" and "Star". In 1978, he recorded his second solo album, "City to City", which included "Baker Street", his most popular song. On 4 January 2011, then 63 years old, Rafferty died of liver failure.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Rafferty was born on 16 April 1947 into a working-class family of Irish Catholic origin in Underwood Lane in Paisley, a son and grandson of coal miners. A son of Joseph and Mary (Skeffington) Rafferty, he had two brothers, Jim and Joe (died 1988).


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Rafferty grew up in a council house in the town's Ferguslie Park, in Underwood Lane, and was educated at St Mirin's Academy. His Irish-born father, an alcoholic, was a miner and lorry driver who died when Rafferty was 16. Rafferty learned both Irish and Scottish folk songs as a boy. He recalled, "My father was Irish, so growing up in Paisley I was hearing all these songs when I was two or three. Songs like 'She Moves Through the Fair', which my mother sings beautifully. And a whole suite of Irish traditional songs and Scots traditional songs". Heavily influenced by folk music and the music of the Beatles and Bob Dylan, Rafferty started to write his own material.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Rafferty left St Mirin's Academy in 1963. He then worked in a butcher's shop, as a civil service clerk, and in a shoe shop. However, he explained in an interview, "But there was never anything else for me but music. I never intended making a career out of any of the jobs I did." On weekends he and a classmate, future Stealers Wheel collaborator Joe Egan, played in a local group named the Maverix, mainly covering chart songs by groups such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones. In the mid 1960s Rafferty earned money, for a time, busking on the London Underground. In 1966, Rafferty and Egan were members of the band the Fifth Column. The group released the single "Benjamin Day"/"There's Nobody Here" (Columbia 8068), but it was not a commercial success.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In 1969 Rafferty became the third member of a folk-pop group, the Humblebums, along with comedian Billy Connolly and Tam Harvey. Harvey left shortly afterwards, and Rafferty and Connolly continued as a duo, recording two more albums for Transatlantic Records. A 1970 appearance at the Royal Festival Hall, supporting Fotheringay with Nick Drake, earned a positive review from critic Karl Dallas, who noted that all three acts showed "promise rather than fulfilment", and observed that "Gerry Rafferty's songs have the sweet tenderness of Paul McCartney in his 'Yesterday' mood". In his own stand-up shows, Connolly has often recalled this period, telling how Rafferty made him laugh and describing the crazy things they did while on tour. Once Rafferty decided to look in the Berlin telephone directory to see if any Hitlers were listed.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: After the duo separated in 1971, Transatlantic owner Nathan Joseph signed Rafferty as a solo performer. Rafferty recorded his first solo album, "Can I Have My Money Back?", with Hugh Murphy, a staff producer working for the label. "Billboard" praised the album as "high-grade folk-rock", describing it as Rafferty's "finest work" to date: "His tunes are rich and memorable with an undeniable charm that will definitely see him into the album and very possibly singles charts soon". Yet although the album was a critical success, it did not enjoy commercial success. According to Rafferty's daughter Martha, it was around this time that her father discovered, by chance, Colin Wilson's classic book "The Outsider", about alienation and creativity, which became a huge influence both on his songwriting and his outlook on the world: "The ideas and references contained in that one book were to sustain and inspire him for the rest of his life." Rafferty later confirmed that alienation was the "persistent theme" of his songs; "To Each and Everyone", from "Can I Have My Money Back?", was an early example.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In 1972, having gained some airplay from his Signpost recording "Make You, Break You", Rafferty joined Egan to form Stealers Wheel and recorded three albums with the American songwriters and producers Leiber & Stoller. The group was beset by legal wranglings, but had a huge hit with "Stuck in the Middle with You", which earned critical acclaim as well as commercial success: a 1975 article in "Sounds" described it as "a sort of cross between white label Beatles and punk Dylan yet with a unique Celtic flavour that has marked all their work". Twenty years later, the song was used prominently in the 1992 movie "Reservoir Dogs"; Rafferty refused to grant permission for its re-release. Stealers Wheel also produced the lesser top 50 hits "Everyone's Agreed That Everything Will Turn Out Fine" followed by "Star", and there were further suggestions of Rafferty's growing alienation in tracks such as "Outside Looking In" and "Who Cares". The duo disbanded in 1975.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Legal issues after the break-up of Stealers Wheel meant that, for three years, Rafferty was unable to release any material. After the disputes were resolved in 1978, he recorded his second solo album, "City to City", with producer Hugh Murphy, which included the song with which he remains most identified, "Baker Street". According to Murphy, interviewed by "Billboard" in 1993, he and Rafferty had to beg the record label, United Artists, to release "Baker Street" as a single: "They actually said it was too good for the public." It was a good call: the single reached #3 in the UK and #2 in the US. The album sold over 5.5 million copies, toppling the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack in the US on 8 July 1978. Rafferty considered this his first proper taste of success, as he told "Melody Maker" the following year: "...all the records I've ever done before have been flops. Stealers Wheel was a flop. 'Can I Have My Money Back?' was a flop. The Humblebums were a flop... My life doesn't stand or fall by the amount of people who buy my records."


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: "Baker Street" featured a distinctive saxophone riff played by Raphael Ravenscroft, although the origins of the solo have been disputed. As the singer recalled in a 1988 interview with Colin Irwin: "When I wrote the song I saw that bit as an instrumental part but I didn't know what. We tried electric guitar but it sounded weak, and we tried other things and I think it was Hugh Murphy's suggestion that we tried saxophone."


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In a 2006 interview with "The Times", Ravenscroft recalled the episode differently, claiming he was presented with a song that contained "several gaps". "If you're asking me: 'Did Gerry hand me a piece of music to play?' then no, he didn't. In fact, most of what I played was an old blues riff." Ravenscroft, a session musician, was in the studio to record a brief soprano saxophone part and suggested that he record the now famous break using the alto saxophone he had in his car.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In his interview with Colin Irwin, Rafferty disputed this and said that Ravenscroft had been his second choice to play the saxophone solo, after Pete Zorn, who was unavailable: "The only confusion at the time that I didn’t enjoy too much was the fact that a lot of people believed that the line was written by Raphael Ravenscroft, the sax player, but it was my line. I sang it to him." When a remastered version of "City to City" was released in 2011, it included the original, electric guitar version of the song, confirming Rafferty's authorship of the riff. In the liner notes to the album, Rafferty's long-time friend and collaborator Rab Noakes commented: "Let's hope [the Baker Street demo] will, at last, silence all who keep on asserting that the saxophone player came up with the melody line. He didn't. He just blew what he was told by the person who did write it, Gerry Rafferty." Michael Gray, Rafferty's former manager, agreed: "The audible proof is there from the demos that Rafferty himself created the riff and placed it within the song's structure exactly where it ended up." Ravenscroft went on to play on Rafferty's next two albums.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: "Baker Street" remains a mainstay of soft-rock radio airplay and, in October 2010, it was recognised by the BMI for surpassing 5 million plays worldwide. "Stuck in the Middle With You" has received over 4 million plays worldwide, and "Right Down The Line" has had over 3 million plays. In a 2003 interview with "The Sun (Scotland)", Rafferty commented on how profitable his biggest song had been, stating: "Baker Street still makes me about £80,000 a year. It's been a huge earner for me. I must admit, I could live off that song alone". The "£80,000" figure has been widely repeated in newspaper articles ever since. Rafferty loathed the 1992 dance music cover version of "Baker Street" by Undercover, describing it as "dreadful, totally banal–it's a sad sign of the times". But it earned him another £1.5 million, selling around three million copies in Europe and America. He never let "Baker Street" be used for advertising, despite lucrative offers.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: "Right Down the Line" was the second single from "City to City". The song made No. 12 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart and No. 1 on the Hot Adult Contemporary Tracks charts in the US. It remained at the top of the adult contemporary chart for four non-consecutive weeks. The third single from the album, "Home and Dry", reached No. 28 in the US Top 40 in early 1979. One of the lesser-known songs from that time is "Big Change in the Weather" (the B-side of "Baker Street").


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: The lyrics of "Baker Street" reflected Rafferty's disenchantment with certain elements of the music industry. This was elaborated on by music journalist Paul Gambaccini for BBC World News:.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: His next album, "Night Owl", also did well. Guitarist Richard Thompson helped by performing on the track "Take The Money and Run", and the title track was a UK No. 5 hit in 1979. "Days Gone Down" reached No. 17 in the US. The follow-up single "Get It Right Next Time" made the UK and US Top 40.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Subsequent albums, such as "Snakes and Ladders" (1980), "Sleepwalking" (1982), and "North and South" (1988), fared less well, perhaps due partly to Rafferty's longstanding reluctance to perform live, with which he felt uncomfortable.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In 1980, Rafferty and Murphy produced a record for Richard and Linda Thompson; though never released, it eventually evolved into their album "Shoot Out the Lights".


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: The 1982 album "Sleepwalking" saw Rafferty taking a very different approach to his work. Christopher Neil replaced Hugh Murphy, Rafferty's usual producer, introducing synthesisers and drum machines that give the album a harder, less acoustic sound, and apparently eschewing the richly detailed arrangements notable on Rafferty's three previous records. According to Murphy, interviewed a decade later: "Gerry had made three albums on the trot and I think he was pretty jaded at that time and feeling the pressure and he just thought, 'Well, I'll try another tack,' which is understandable". Instead of a cover painting and hand-lettering by John 'Patrick' Byrne, who had illustrated every previous Rafferty and Stealers Wheel album, "Sleepwalking" featured a simple, stark photograph of an empty road stretching to the sky. There was change too in the songs. The deeply introspective lyrics of "Sleepwalking" suggest Rafferty found success far from glamorous: tracks like "Standing at the Gates", "Change of Heart", and "The Right Moment" suggest the singer was exhausted, burnt-out, and desperately seeking a new direction – and continued his long-running theme of alienation. Liner notes for the compilation album "Right Down the Line" (prepared with Rafferty's close co-operation) confirmed this several years later, noting the singer was now "finding himself at the crossroads and looking to replace the treadmill with a new dimension in his life".


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Rafferty sang the Mark Knopfler-penned song "The Way It Always Starts" (1983) on the soundtrack of the film "Local Hero".


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Also in 1983, Rafferty announced his intention to take a break and devote more time to his family: "It dawned on me that since Baker Street I had been touring the world, travelling everywhere and seeing nowhere. Whatever I do in the future, it's at my own pace, on my own terms."


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Based at 16th-century Tye Farm in Hartfield, near the Kent-Sussex border, Rafferty installed electric gates to protect his privacy, built a recording studio, and worked largely by himself or with Murphy. In 1987, Rafferty and Murphy co-produced The Proclaimers first UK hit single "Letter from America".


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: According to his former wife Carla, who discouraged visitors: "He was just stalling for time. Maybe some new project would suddenly happen, but I knew he'd crossed the line as far as the record business went." His next album, "North and South", was released in 1988. In an interview that year with Colin Irwin to promote the album, Rafferty mentioned that he was interested in doing more production work and writing film soundtracks, and even floated the idea of writing a musical about the life of Robert Louis Stevenson. Reviews of the album were mixed. In "The Times", critic David Sinclair was particularly scathing: "On North and South, it sounds as if he has thumbed a lift up the road to a mock-Texan bar somewhere in his native Scotland. There is a mid-Atlantic blandness lurking behind the rococo roots veneer."


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In the early 1990s, Rafferty recorded a cover version of the Bob Dylan song "The Times They Are a-Changin'" with Barbara Dickson, who had contributed backing vocals to both "City to City" and "Night Owl". The track appeared on Dickson's albums "Don't Think Twice It's All Right" (1992) and "The Barbara Dickson Collection" (2006).


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Rafferty released two further albums in the 1990s in what musician Tom Robinson later described as "a major return to form". "On a Wing and a Prayer" (1992) reunited him with his Stealers Wheel partner Egan on several tracks. It included three tracks co-written with Rafferty's brother Jim, also a singer-songwriter, who had been signed to Decca Records in the 1970s. Rafferty recorded a new version of his Humblebums song "Her Father Didn't Like Me Anyway" on the album "Over My Head" (1994). These were the last two records Rafferty produced with Hugh Murphy, who died in 1998. According to guitarist Hugh Burns, Murphy's death was "a great blow to Gerry" and marked the end of a creative partnership that had lasted almost 30 years.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: By the end of the 1990s, new technology enabled Rafferty to distance himself even further from the conventional approach of the music industry and work entirely on his own terms. Now based in London, he employed sound engineer Giles Twigg to assemble a Digidesign mobile recording studio and, with Twigg's help, recorded the album "Another World" in London, Scotland, Barbados, France, and Italy with collaborators from previous albums, including Hugh Burns, Mark Knopfler, Kenny Craddock, and Mo Foster. Through his company Icon Music, Rafferty promoted and sold the album independently on a website created specifically for the purpose.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: "Another World", released in 2000, was originally available only via direct order from his website, but since 2003 has been available on the Hypertension label. "Another World", almost an esoteric work, also with the assistance of Mark Knopfler and Egan, featured an album cover illustrated by John 'Patrick' Byrne, who also illustrated the covers for "Can I Have My Money Back?", "City to City", "Night Owl", and "Snakes and Ladders", and all three Stealers Wheel albums. Byrne was also responsible for one of Rafferty's most prized possessions: a hand-painted Martin acoustic guitar bearing his portrait and the name 'Gerry Rafferty', which features in many photographs of the singer.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: "Another World" marked a new departure for the singer. As he explained in a press release heralding the new record in November 2000: "My heart and soul have gone into this album, and by releasing it in this way my creative influence has not been diluted in any way." Finally, thanks to the Internet, it seemed Rafferty no longer needed the music industry: technology was allowing him to put his music directly in the hands of an appreciative audience. Rafferty felt he had matured as an artist, as he told the "Evening Standard" at the time of the release: "At my time of life, I don't want to be talking to 23-year-old record executives who are just trying to sell their products to 19-year-olds. I'm older and my audience is older. They'll know where to find me." In the same interview, he said that the entire record had been made for approximately £200,000, with half spent on travel, the recording system costing £75,000, and the website and marketing adding £25,000.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Rafferty maintained his enthusiasm for this new approach to recording for the next three years. In a blog posting dated 31 March 2004 he wrote: "Let's get back to music: after all that's the only reason that this website has been set up." Another posting announced that Rafferty would begin to release music regularly as free downloads: "In reality, Gerry could put a new track out every two weeks or so. We will keep you informed of developments as they happen." Only a handful of tracks were ever released, however, and the website eventually closed down without any explanation.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: During November 2009, Rafferty released what would be his final album, "Life Goes On". This was again on the Hypertension music label. Featuring 18 tracks, the album contains six new recordings, covers of Christmas carols, plus also some traditional songs that had previously been available on the Gerry Rafferty website. The remaining tracks are remastered tracks from his previous three albums.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Rafferty's death in January 2011 rekindled interest in the singer's work. His daughter Martha relaunched Rafferty's old website, gerryrafferty.com, with a full discography, rare photos, and new artwork by John 'Patrick' Byrne. She portrayed her father as an autodidact with an "incredibly strong work ethic" and passion for books ("There were literally whole walls of book shelves at home and he'd read every single word. Mainly philosophy, art, religion, psychology and many a biography.").


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In September 2011, EMI issued a remastered collector's edition of "City to City" featuring previously unheard demo versions of "Baker Street", "Mattie's Rag", "City to City", and other tracks from the album.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Other artists continue to be inspired by Rafferty's work. In 2012, Cuillin Recordings issued "Paisley Spin", a remix of three tracks from "Can I Have My Money Back?" by Celtic fusion artist Martyn Bennett. Bonnie Raitt recorded a reggae treatment of "Right Down the Line" for her "Slipstream" album released 10 April 2012. Barbara Dickson released a tribute album of 13 Rafferty songs, "To Each and Everyone: The Songs of Gerry Rafferty", in September 2013, including cover versions of "Baker Street", "The Ark", and "Steamboat Row".


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: On 3 September 2021 Parlophone UK released "Rest In Blue" an album on which Martha Rafferty completed a project started by her father from demos left by Rafferty. The collection of blues, rock, and folk demos had been planned for a new album before his death.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Rafferty drew a clear distinction between the artistic integrity of a musician, on the one hand, and the music industry's need to create celebrities and sell products, on the other. In an interview with Colin Irwin in 1988, he said: "There's a thin line between being a songwriter and a singer and being a personality... If you feel uncomfortable with it you shouldn't do it. It's not for me – there are too many inherent contradictions." Two decades later, speaking to the press after Rafferty's funeral, Charlie Reid of The Proclaimers confirmed Rafferty's dislike of celebrity: "He was not entirely comfortable with fame. Even more so than most people who work in this business, he saw it as not a good thing." Reid believed Rafferty was fundamentally unsuited to the pressures of celebrity: "He struck me as a very, very sensitive man and for someone like that, fame was probably not appropriate." Billy Connolly agrees that Rafferty had different priorities: "I wanted success and fame and I got it, to a degree. Gerry wanted respect. He wanted his talent to be respected. He wanted his songs to be respected. And he certainly got that."


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Generally an autobiographical writer, Rafferty returned to this theme often, in the lyrics of Stealers Wheel songs such as "Stuck in the Middle With You" and "Good Businessman", and later solo tracks like "Take the Money and Run" (from "Night Owl"), "Welcome to Hollywood" (from "Snakes and Ladders"), and "Sleepwalking" (from the album of the same name). The liner notes to the compilation album "Right Down the Line", written by Jerry Gilbert with Rafferty's close co-operation, note his consistent refusal to tour the United States and "generally 'play the industry game'." It was ironic that Rafferty—a lover and collector of religious icons, who would later name one of his publishing companies "Icon Music"—was also an iconoclast. According to Michael Gray, Rafferty's personal manager at the height of his success, he turned down many opportunities to work with other artists: "... he retained a healthy scepticism not just about the music industry but about society, money and politics in general. His background was soaked in Scottish socialism and poverty, his mind sharp and his personality acerbic, and he wasn't going to be dazzled by the glamour of success."


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Rafferty never changed his mind about the music business; if anything, his views hardened. In 2000, he told the "Paisley Daily Express" that the second Stealers Wheel album, released in 1974, had been named "Ferguslie Park", after a deprived area of Paisley, "to get as far away as possible from all the bullshit of the music industry in London." Monsignor John Tormey, celebrating Rafferty's funeral mass, suggested the singer's attitude to fame was an indication of his spiritual integrity: "He always searched for a more authentic way to live his life, shunning the outward trappings of celebrity so that he might live as he chose to live his life."


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In 1965, 18-year-old Rafferty met 15-year-old Carla Ventilla, an apprentice hairdresser from an Italian family in Clydebank, at a dancehall—a story he later recounted in the song "Shipyard Town" on "North and South". They married in 1970 and lived in Scotland with their daughter, Martha Mary, before moving to the south of England in the late 1970s, where they divided their time between their farm near the Kent–Sussex border and a home in Hampstead, London. Rafferty's lengthy commutes from London to Scotland inspired some songs on the album "City to City" (including the title track and "Mattie's Rag", which recounted his delight at being reunited with his daughter), while the later move south inspired "The Garden of England" (from the album "Snakes and Ladders") and some songs on "North and South". Rafferty and Ventilla divorced in 1990.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: After the completion of "Another World" in 2000, Rafferty planned to move back to Scotland and bought Eaglestone House, "a substantial listed 1860s mansion" in the Highland village of Strathpeffer, although he sold the property two years later and never actually moved in.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Rafferty enjoyed alcohol from a young age, and early songs, such as "One Drink Down", "Baker Street", and "Night Owl", freely mention the subject. According to Michael Gray, the singer's personal manager in the early 1980s: "It never occurred to me in all the time I knew him that he was heading for alcoholism. Maybe I should have realised, but I didn't. I'm unsure whether he did." As the 1980s progressed, Rafferty's growing drinking problem placed his marriage under impossible strain and his wife divorced him in 1990, though they remained close. In the late 1980s, Rafferty had told journalist Colin Irwin "I was always very conscious about keeping a low profile because that's the way I like to go about it. And I don't plan to be in the public eye too much now either."


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In 1995, Rafferty was deeply affected by the death of his older brother Joseph, an event from which family and friends said he never fully recovered.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In the last decade of his life, having taken pains to shun the fame and celebrity that accompanied his musical achievements, Rafferty found himself making headlines once again as he struggled with alcoholism and depression and the increasingly erratic behaviour they spawned. While the news stories focused on Rafferty's binges, they revealed nothing of the impact on his family and friends. His girlfriend Enzina Fuschini said she "felt that he was under some sort of evil spell. He felt crippled by it... I saw a man in despair". According to Rafferty's ex-wife Carla: "There was no hope. I would never have left him if there'd been a glimmer of a chance of him recovering."


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In 2008, Rafferty moved away from California and briefly rented a home in Ireland, where his drinking soon became a problem again. In July that year, he flew to London, where he stayed in the five-star Westbury Hotel in Mayfair and began a four-day drinking binge during which he extensively damaged his room. Speaking to "The Independent" newspaper later, the hotel's director commented: "It was such a shame. In person, Mr Rafferty was a really nice man, he kept himself to himself and didn't bother the other guests but he was clearly on a downward spiral. He was in self-destruct mode."


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: There were conflicting reports about what happened next. The newspaper "Scotland on Sunday" reported that Rafferty had been asked to leave the hotel and had then checked himself into St Thomas' Hospital suffering from a chronic liver condition, brought on by heavy drinking. The same report claimed that on 1 August 2008, Rafferty had disappeared, leaving his belongings behind, and that the hospital had filed a missing persons report. No such missing persons report existed.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: On 17 February 2009, "The Guardian" reported that Rafferty was in hiding in the south of England, being cared for by a friend. Subsequently, Rafferty's spokesperson Paul Charles told "The Independent" that he had been in touch with Rafferty a fortnight previously and that he was alive and well but had no plans to either record or tour. This was contradicted by a report in "The Daily Telegraph" on the following day, which quoted a statement his solicitors made to Channel 4 News: "Contrary to reports, Gerry is extremely well and has been living in Tuscany for the last six months... he continues to compose and record new songs and music... and he hopes to release a new album of his most recent work in the summer of this year [2009]." The album, titled "Life Goes On", was released in November 2009.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: After leaving St Thomas' Hospital, and while claiming he was in Tuscany, he was moving from one London hotel to another. During this time, he met Enzina Fuschini, an Italian artist living in Dorset. Rafferty and Fuschini rented a large home together in Upton, near Poole. Fuschini claims she cared for the singer during 2009 and tried to help him overcome his alcoholism, and that he proposed to her at the Ritz Hotel in Paris on Christmas Eve that year.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In November 2010, Rafferty was admitted to the Royal Bournemouth Hospital where he was put on a life-support machine and treated for multiple organ failure. After being taken off life support, Rafferty rallied for a short time, and doctors thought that he might recover. Rafferty died of liver failure at the home of his daughter Martha in Stroud, Gloucestershire, on 4 January 2011, at the age of 63.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: A requiem mass was held for Rafferty at St Mirin's Cathedral in his native town of Paisley on 21 January 2011. The mass was streamed live over the Internet. Politicians in attendance were the First Minister of Scotland Alex Salmond MSP, Wendy Alexander MSP, Hugh Henry MSP, and Robin Harper MSP. The musicians present included Craig and Charlie Reid of The Proclaimers, former bandmates Joe Egan and Rab Noakes, Barbara Dickson, and Graham Lyle. The eulogy was given by Rafferty's longtime friend John Byrne. His remains were then cremated at the Woodside Crematorium in Paisley and his ashes scattered on Iona. He is survived by his daughter, granddaughter Celia, and brother Jim.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In October 2011, newspapers reported that Rafferty's immediate family were the beneficiaries of his £1.25 million estate. Rafferty had apparently not changed his will after meeting Enzina Fuschini in 2008 and left her nothing. It was later reported that Fuschini had lost her case and £75,000 legal costs were awarded against her.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Newspapers printed lengthy obituaries for the singer; in "The Guardian", Michael Gray charted Rafferty's long downward spiral into alcoholism, while a full-page obituary in "The Times" summarised his career more positively: "As well as being a singer of considerable talent who at one time had the pop world at his feet, Gerry Rafferty was also a consummate songwriter, blessed with sensitivity and an enviable melodic flair that at its best recalled Paul McCartney."


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: Other entertainers also paid tribute to Rafferty, with comedian and ex-bandmate Billy Connolly calling him "a hugely talented songwriter and singer who will be greatly missed" and musician Tom Robinson saying, "His early work with Stealers Wheel was an inspiration to a whole generation of songwriters in the 70s, including me." Speaking after the funeral, Charlie Reid of The Proclaimers said: "I think Gerry Rafferty was one of the few people who really successfully straddled the worlds of both folk and popular music. He did it really well and he was respected in both camps." Barbara Dickson also paid tribute to her friend, whom she described as a "luminous, glorious Scottish musician". Finbar Furey, who knew Rafferty for over 40 years, said he "was in a different league completely. He didn't know how good he was. He was one of the most talented musicians and singers I ever knew but he completely underestimated his own talent. He was a very humble man."


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: The reaction of younger artists suggests Rafferty's music has also inspired a new generation of fans. Shortly after news of the singer's death, Lily Allen tweeted the message "Rest in Peace Gerry x" with a video link to the song "Right Down the Line", reputedly one of her favourite music tracks. Electropop star Elly Jackson described "Right Down the Line" as "my favourite track of all time. It makes me think of home, nostalgia and happiness."


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In November 2012, Rafferty's hometown of Paisley paid tribute to the singer by naming a street in the Shortroods area "Gerry Rafferty Drive". Gordon Laurie, director of the housing association behind the project, commented: "It is a fitting tribute to a brilliant musician who lives on through his music."


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In January 2013, BBC Radio 2 re-broadcast their 2012 programme "Bring It All Home – Gerry Rafferty Remembered", which had been recorded live at Celtic Connections in Glasgow and was presented by Ricky Ross. Contributing artists included his friend Rab Noakes, The Proclaimers, Barbara Dickson, Ron Sexsmith, Jack Bruce, Paul Brady, Emma Pollock, James Vincent McMorrow and Betsy Cook. Rafferty's guitarist Hugh Burns, multi-instrumentalist and saxophonist Mel Collins, were also featured.


title: Gerry Rafferty

text: In October 2013, Peter Cameron released a biography of Rafferty entitled "Stuck in the Middle with Gerry Rafferty", published by the independent publisher Linn.


title: Action-adventure game

text: The action-adventure genre is a video game hybrid genre that combines core elements from both the action game and adventure game genres.


title: Action-adventure game

text: Typically, pure adventure games have situational problems for the player to solve to complete a storyline, involving very little to no action. If there is action, it is generally confined to isolated instances. Pure action games have gameplay based on real-time interactions that challenges the player's reflexes and eye–hand coordination. Action-adventure games combine these genres by engaging both reflexes and eye–hand coordination and problem-solving skills.


title: Action-adventure game

text: An action adventure game can be defined as a game with a mix of elements from an action game and an adventure game, especially crucial elements like puzzles. Action-adventures require many of the same physical skills as action games, but also offer a storyline, numerous characters, an inventory system, dialogue, and other features of adventure games. They are faster-paced than pure adventure games, because they include both physical and conceptual challenges. Action-adventure games normally include a combination of complex story elements, which are displayed for players using audio and video. The story is heavily reliant upon the player character's movement, which triggers story events and thus affects the flow of the game. Some examples of action-adventure games include "The Legend of Zelda", "God of War", and "Tomb Raider" series.


title: Action-adventure game

text: When a game stops being an adventure game and becomes an action game is a matter of interpretation. There are quite a few disagreements in the community and in the media over what actually constitutes an action-adventure game. One definition of the term "action-adventure" may be '"An action/adventure game is a game that has enough action in it not to be called an adventure game, but not enough action to be called an action game." In some cases an action game with puzzles will be classified as an action-adventure game, but if these puzzles are quite simple they might be classified as an action game. Others see action games as a pure genre, while an action-adventure is an action game that includes situational problem-solving. Adventure gamers may also be purists, rejecting any game that makes use of physical challenges or time pressure. Regardless, the action-adventure label is prominent in articles over the internet and media. The term "action-adventure" is usually substituted for a particular subgenre due to its wide scope.


title: Action-adventure game

text: Although action-adventure games are diverse and difficult to classify, there are some distinct subgenres. Popular subgenres include:


title: Action-adventure game

text: Grand Theft Auto clone, is a subgenre of open world action-adventure video games in the third-person perspective. They are characterized by their likeness to the "Grand Theft Auto" series in either gameplay, or overall design. In these types of open world games, players may find and use a variety of vehicles and weapons while roaming freely in an open world setting.


title: Action-adventure game

text: Metroidvania; a portmanteau of "Metroid" and "Castlevania", sometimes referred to as "search action", is used to describe games in this genre that generally are based on two-dimensional platformers. They emphasize both exploration and puzzle-solving with traditional platform gameplay.


title: Action-adventure game

text: Stealth games, emphasize avoiding detection by enemies rather than engaging them in direct combat, leading to a greater emphasis on exploration and puzzle-solving than other types of action games.


title: Action-adventure game

text: Survival horror, emphasize "inventory management" and making sure the player has enough ammunition and recovery items to "survive" the horror setting. This is a thematic genre with diverse gameplay, so not all survival horror games share all the features. The "Resident Evil" franchise popularized this subgenre.


title: Action-adventure game

text: Action-adventure games are faster-paced than pure adventure games, and include physical as well as conceptual challenges where the story is enacted rather than narrated. While motion-based, often reflexive, actions are required, the gameplay still follows a number of adventure game genre tropes (gathering items, exploration of and interaction with one's environment, often including an overworld connecting areas of importance, and puzzle-solving). While the controls are arcade-style (character movement, few action commands) there is an ultimate goal beyond a high score. In most action-adventure games, the player controls a single avatar as the protagonist. This type of game is often quite similar to role-playing video games.


title: Action-adventure game

text: They are distinct from graphic adventures, which sometimes have free-moving central characters, but also a ×wider variety of commands and fewer or no action game elements and are distinct too from text adventures, characterized by many different commands introduced by the user via a complex text parser and no free-moving character. While they share general gameplay dynamics, action-adventures vary widely in the design of their viewpoints, including bird's eye, side-scrolling, first-person, third-person, over-the-shoulder, or even a 3/4 isometric view.


title: Action-adventure game

text: Many action-adventure games simulate a conversation through a conversation tree. When the player encounters a non-player character, they are allowed to select a choice of what to say. The NPC gives a scripted response to the player, and the game offers the player several new ways to respond.


title: Action-adventure game

text: Due to the action-adventure subgenre's broad and inclusive nature, it causes some players to have difficulty finishing a particular game. Companies have devised ways to give the player help, such as offering clues or allowing the player to skip puzzles to compensate for this lack of ability.


title: Action-adventure game

text: Brett Weiss cites Atari's "Superman" (1979) as an action-adventure game, with "Retro Gamer" crediting it as the "first to utilize multiple screens as playing area". Mark J.P. Wolf credits "Adventure" (1980) for the Atari VCS as the earliest-known action-adventure game. The game involves exploring a 2D environment, finding and using items which each have prescribed abilities, and fighting dragons in real-time like in an action game. Muse Software's "Castle Wolfenstein" (1981) was another early action-adventure game, merging exploration, combat, stealth, and maze game elements, drawing inspiration from arcade shoot 'em ups and maze games (such as maze-shooter "Berzerk") and war films (such as "The Guns of Navarone").


title: Action-adventure game

text: According to "Wizardry" developer Roe R. Adams, early action-adventure games "were basically arcade games done in a fantasy" setting. "Tutankham", debuted by Konami in January 1982, was an action-adventure released for arcades. It combined maze, shoot 'em up, puzzle-solving and adventure elements, with a 1983 review by "Computer and Video Games" magazine calling it "the first game that effectively combined the elements of an adventure game with frenetic shoot 'em up gameplay." It inspired the similar "Time Bandit" (1983). "Action Quest", released in May 1982, blended puzzle elements of adventure games into a joystick-controlled, arcade-style action game, which surprised reviewers at the time.


title: Action-adventure game

text: While noting some similarities to "Adventure", IGN argues that "The Legend of Zelda" (1986) by Nintendo "helped to establish a new subgenre of action-adventure", becoming a success due to how it combined elements from different genres to create a compelling hybrid, including exploration, adventure-style inventory puzzles, an action component, a monetary system, and simplified RPG-style level building without the experience points. "The Legend of Zelda" series was the most prolific action-adventure game franchise through to the 2000s. Roe R. Adams also cited the arcade-style side-scrolling fantasy games "Castlevania" (1986), "Trojan" (1986) and "Wizards & Warriors" (1987) as early examples of action-adventure games.


title: Action-adventure game

text: Games like "Brain Breaker" (1985), "Xanadu" (1985), "Metroid" (1986) and "Vampire Killer" (1986) combined a side-scrolling platformer format with adventure exploration, creating the Metroidvania platform-adventure subgenre. Similarly, games like "005" (1981), "Castle Wolfenstein" and "Metal Gear" (1987) combined action-adventure exploration with stealth mechanics, laying the foundations for the stealth game subgenre, which would later be popularized in 1998 with the releases of "Metal Gear Solid", "", and "".


title: Action-adventure game

text: The cinematic platformer "Prince of Persia" (1989) featured action-adventure elements, inspiring games such as "Another World" (1991) and "Flashback" (1992). "Alone in the Dark" (1992) used 3D graphics, which would later be popularized by "Resident Evil" (1996) and "Tomb Raider" (1996). "Resident Evil" in particular created the survival horror subgenre, inspiring titles such as "Silent Hill" (1999) and "Fatal Frame" (2001).


title: Action-adventure game

text: Action-adventure games have gone on to become more popular than the pure adventure games and pure platform games that inspired them. Recent examples include Uncharted franchise and , and Tunic (2022).


title: BMW B58

text: The BMW B58 is a turbocharged straight-six engine, which began production in 2015. The B58 replaced the N55 and was launched in the F30 340i.


title: BMW B58

text: The B58 is part of BMW's new modular engine family, each engine using a displacement of per cylinder, following the B38 and B48 engine.


title: BMW B58

text: The B58 engine was named to Ward's World's 10 Best Engines 4 times, in 2016 (installed in the 340i), 2017 (M240i), 2019 (X5) and 2020(M340i).


title: BMW B58

text: Compared with its BMW N55 predecessor, the B58 features a 20% increase in boost pressure, a closed-deck engine block design, an increase in compression ratio to 11.0:1 and a slight increase in displacement from with added weight of .


title: BMW B58

text: The turbocharger is a twin-scroll design, for more efficient power delivery with less turbo lag and more power than a conventional single turbocharger, as well as for weight and space saving benefits. The intercooler - a water-to-air design - is integrated into the intake plenum, to reduce the volume of air between the turbocharger and the cylinders.


title: BMW B58

text: As per the N55, the B58 also features direct fuel injection, variable valve timing (called double Vanos by BMW), and variable valve lift (called Valvetronic by BMW). The redline remains at 7,000 rpm, the bore and the stroke is .


title: BMW B58

text: The B58 also features an engine-mounted heat encapsulation system to reduce engine wear and emissions during start-up.


title: BMW B58

text: For durability and longevity, the rotating assembly has a forged steel crankshaft and forged connecting rods.


title: BMW B58

text: As a part of BMW's new modular engine family, the crankcase is a completely new design identical to the B57 diesel version, engineered as both a gasoline and diesel engine in one common part. The closed deck crankcase is equipped with a completely new structure which can be identified by a complex array of ribs on the exhaust and intake side and an additional reinforcement frame on the oil pump side.


title: BMW B58

text: The engine was revised in 2018, dubbed "B58TU", with notable changes and improvements. The fuel system was updated with 75% increased pressure with updated high pressure fuel pump and injectors, a new particulate filter in the catalytic converter, a new one-part timing chain as opposed to the earlier two-part, and new separate cooling circuits for the cylinder head and crankcase. For weight savings, the crankcase wall thickness and forged crankshaft were optimized, and the exhaust manifold was integrated into the cylinder head housing.


title: BMW B58

text: The S58 engine is the high-performance version of the B58 engine. It was introduced in the F97 X3 M and F98 X4 M, marking the first time a stand-alone M model was produced for the X3 and X4.


title: BMW B58

text: The S58 features twin mono-scroll turbochargers, a compression ratio of 9:3:1, a redline at 7,200 rpm with the bore and the stroke at . It also features a forged chrome molybdenum heat-treated steel crankshaft, plus forged steel connecting rods and pistons. The pistons are forged by Mahle and feature their proprietary anti-friction coating.


title: BMW B58

text: Like the B58, the S58 also features direct fuel injection, variable valve timing (called double Vanos by BMW), and variable valve lift (called Valvetronic by BMW).


title: BMW B58

text: As opposed to the B58, the S58 features a slightly smaller displacement, increased bore, decreased stroke, and larger valves. Compression is decreased to 9.3:1 from 11.0:1. The S58 favors top-end power and has a higher redline of 7,200 RPM.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: The pascal (symbol: Pa) is the unit of pressure in the International System of Units (SI), and is also used to quantify internal pressure, stress, Young's modulus, and ultimate tensile strength. The unit, named after Blaise Pascal, is defined as one newton per square metre and is equivalent to 10 barye (Ba) in the CGS system. The unit of measurement called standard atmosphere (atm) is defined as 101,325 Pa.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: Common multiple units of the pascal are the hectopascal (1 hPa = 100 Pa), which is equal to one millibar, and the kilopascal (1 kPa = 1000 Pa), which is equal to one centibar.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: Meteorological observations typically report atmospheric pressure in hectopascals per the recommendation of the World Meteorological Organization, thus a standard atmosphere (atm) or typical sea-level air pressure is about 1013 hPa. Reports in the United States typically use inches of mercury or millibars (hectopascals). In Canada these reports are given in kilopascals.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: The unit is named after Blaise Pascal, noted for his contributions to hydrodynamics and hydrostatics, and experiments with a barometer. The name pascal was adopted for the SI unit newton per square metre (N/m) by the 14th General Conference on Weights and Measures in 1971.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: One pascal is the pressure exerted by a force of magnitude one newton perpendicularly upon an area of one square metre.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: The unit of measurement called an atmosphere or a standard atmosphere (atm) is . This value is often used as a reference pressure and specified as such in some national and international standards, such as the International Organization for Standardization's ISO 2787 (pneumatic tools and compressors), ISO 2533 (aerospace) and ISO 5024 (petroleum). In contrast, International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) recommends the use of 100 kPa as a standard pressure when reporting the properties of substances.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: Unicode has dedicated code-points and in the CJK Compatibility block, but these exist only for backward-compatibility with some older ideographic character-sets and are therefore deprecated.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: The pascal (Pa) or kilopascal (kPa) as a unit of pressure measurement is widely used throughout the world and has largely replaced the pounds per square inch (psi) unit, except in some countries that still use the imperial measurement system or the US customary system, including the United States.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: Geophysicists use the gigapascal (GPa) in measuring or calculating tectonic stresses and pressures within the Earth.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: Medical elastography measures tissue stiffness non-invasively with ultrasound or magnetic resonance imaging, and often displays the Young's modulus or shear modulus of tissue in kilopascals.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: In materials science and engineering, the pascal measures the stiffness, tensile strength and compressive strength of materials. In engineering the megapascal (MPa) is the preferred unit for these uses, because the pascal represents a very small quantity.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: The pascal is also equivalent to the SI unit of energy density, the joule per cubic metre. This applies not only to the thermodynamics of pressurised gases, but also to the energy density of electric, magnetic, and gravitational fields.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: The pascal is used to measure sound pressure. Loudness is the subjective experience of sound pressure and is measured as a sound pressure level (SPL) on a logarithmic scale of the sound pressure relative to some reference pressure. For sound in air, a pressure of 20 μPa is considered to be at the threshold of hearing for humans and is a common reference pressure, so that its SPL is zero.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: In medicine, blood pressure is measured in millimeters of mercury (mmHg, very close to one Torr). The normal adult blood pressure is less than 120 mmHg systolic BP (SBP) and less than 80 mmHg diastolic BP (DBP). Convert mmHg to SI units as follows: 1 mmHg = 0.13332 kPa. Hence normal blood pressure in SI units is less than 16.0 kPa SBP and less than 10.7 kPa DBP. These values are similar to the pressure of water column of average human height; so pressure has to be measured on arm roughly at the level of the heart.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: The units of atmospheric pressure commonly used in meteorology were formerly the bar, which was close to the average air pressure on Earth, and the millibar. Since the introduction of SI units, meteorologists generally measure pressures in hectopascals (hPa) unit, equal to 100 pascals or 1 millibar. Exceptions include Canada, which uses kilopascals (kPa). In many other fields of science, prefixes that are a power of 1000 are preferred, which excludes the hectopascal from use.


title: Pascal (unit)

text: Many countries also use millibars. In practically all other fields, the kilopascal (1000 pascals) is used instead.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: Yakuza, also known as is a Japanese video game franchise created, owned and published by Sega. The franchise incorporates elements of the action-adventure, beat 'em up, and role-playing genres.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: The storyline premise for each franchise installment is typically a crime drama, with plot lines inspired by yakuza films and pre-millennial Japanese crime dramas. The most frequently featured protagonist is Kazuma Kiryu, a reformed yakuza associated with the Kanto-based Tojo Clan. While Kiryu often finds himself working with the leaders of the Tojo Clan to thwart conspiracies aimed against them, the primary theme of the series is his desire to leave the yakuza for good and start over by raising orphans and trying to assimilate into civilian life. The gameplay of "Yakuza" has the player controlling Kiryu (or another character, depending on the title) in an open world where he can fight random groups of punks and gangsters, take on side missions and activities to earn experience and money, learn new moves from non-player characters (NPCs), eat and drink at various restaurants, visit hostess and cabaret clubs, craft items, and engage in a variety of mini games such as golfing, bowling, batting cages, video arcades, karaoke, and gambling games including poker, blackjack, Cee-lo, and "Koi-Koi".


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: The franchise has become a commercial and critical success, and as of 2021, Sega has reported that the video game series has sold a combined total of 19.8 million units in physical and digital sales since its debut in 2005. Strong sales of the games in its original Japanese market has led to the franchise's expansion to other media, including film adaptations.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: The "Yakuza" game series is set primarily in the fictional district of Kamurochō (神室町), which is based on Kabukichō, an actual red-light district of Tokyo. Other actual locations reproduced in the game series include Dotonbori and Shinsekai, Osaka (as "Sotenbori" and "Shinseicho" in-game, respectively, for "Yakuza 2", "5" and "0"); and the surrounding downtown area of Naha, Okinawa (as "Downtown Ryukyu" in "Yakuza 3"); Nakasu, Fukuoka (as "Nagasugai" in "Yakuza 5"); Susukino, Hokkaido (as "Tsukimino" in "Yakuza 5"); the Nishiki district of Sakae, Nagoya (as "Kineicho" in "Yakuza 5"); Onomichi, Hiroshima (in "Yakuza 6"); and Isezakichō, Yokohama (as "Isezaki Ijincho" in "Yakuza: Like a Dragon").


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: The appearances of the in-game districts and towns are based on their contemporary actual locations from the year each game came out, and are often renovated and remodeled in newer games. However, specific stores and buildings are often different or carry fictionalized branding compared to their real life counterparts, replacing them with real-life product placements or plot-important locations.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: The primary protagonist of the "Yakuza" franchise is Kazuma Kiryu, who is playable in every numbered entry of the main video game series through "". Some games, such as "Yakuza 4" and "Yakuza 5", feature multiple playable characters, with players switching between them at predetermined points in the story. Ichiban Kasuga became the new lead character of the main series games beginning with "Yakuza: Like a Dragon", with up to six of his companions available as playable characters during combat sequences, though Kiryu appeared in a non-playable capacity and became playable again in subsequent installments.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: Other characters have appeared as the protagonists of various spin-off titles. The samurai-era titles "Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan!" and "Ryū ga Gotoku Ishin!" are based around fictionalized versions of historical figures Miyamoto Musashi and Sakamoto Ryōma respectively, both of whom are modeled after Kiryu. The "Kurohyō: Ryū ga Gotoku" subseries features its own protagonist, street punk Tatsuya Ukyo, while the "Judgment" subseries follows private detective Takayuki Yagami. "", a video game adaptation of the manga franchise "Fist of the North Star" by Buronson and Tetsuo Hara, features some thematic links to the "Like a Dragon" franchise, with many of its characters like Kenshiro voiced by the same voice actors who play recurring characters in the main series games.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: All "Yakuza" games feature a mixture of combat, story and exploration. The main character randomly encounters foes on their path, triggering combat. In fights, the player character uses hand-to-hand combat, using combos, grabs, throws and finishing moves, and some games allow the player character to select from and use multiple fighting styles. Players can also grab nearby objects on the street to beat the enemies. Despite the emphasis on hand-to-hand combat, weapons can be obtained and used by grabbing weapons dropped by the enemies or purchasing them from weapon shops. Some characters, such as Goro Majima and Tatsuo Shinada, have fighting styles centered around their trademark weapons, which have infinite durability. Winning some of these battles can result in obtaining money or items which can be sold or used to purchase equipment or a variety of items in shops, gamble, or play mini-games. Battles end quicker by finishing the enemies using powerful moves called Heat Actions, which require the filling of the 'Heat Gauge' to become usable. Some of these tend to include quick time events. As the player character fights, they gain experience points that can be used to increase their stats and become a stronger fighter. The seventh installment in the series, "Yakuza: Like a Dragon", includes a new battle system where the player character recruits party members to fight alongside them in turn-based role-playing game battles against enemies, and to play alongside them in mini-games. Due to its success, Sega has confirmed that future titles will continue to use turn-based gameplay, while the "Judgment" series will retain the action gameplay of earlier titles. However there is no solid plan, the type of gameplay is chosen depending on what is considered to be best suited for the story.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: The series has a high number of sub-stories, which are side missions that often complement the main story. These give the player extra experience. There are many mini-games, series entry "" featured a total number of 24 different minigames. The games range from activities like bowling, darts, and arcade games, to much more complex ones, like professions, which can take a number of hours over the course of several sessions to complete. Examples include:


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: A recurring superboss known as Amon appears in most of the games. Depending on the title, there may be more than one. For example, "Yakuza 5" features an Amon for each playable character, including an idol version for Haruka to face off against.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: The series originated from creator Toshihiro Nagoshi's desire to design a game that would tell the way of life of the yakuza. Nagoshi initially struggled to greenlight the project. Portrayals of the Japanese underworld were common in manga and movies, but not in video games. Toshihiro Nagoshi brought his story for "Yakuza" to scenario supervisor Hase Seishu two years before the game started development. Seishu had been a video game player since the days of "Space Invaders", but over the past four or five years he had lost interest, as he was less concerned with 3D visuals and gameplay than he was with story. "Yakuza" caught his attention though, and he decided to accept the project even though it came at the busiest point of his professional writing career. Touching upon the game's name, Nagoshi revealed that it was his idea: the original Japanese name "Ryū ga Gotoku" translates to "Like a Dragon", as Nagoshi felt that dragons have a strong image about them, and that when players sample it, they would, as the title suggests, get a feel for the strength and manliness of the main character.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: Sega's leadership was hesitant about the perceived limited appeal, but eventually approved the development of the project. Sony and CERO were initially disapproving about the depiction of violence and adult material, though Sony eventually showed interest in the prospect of the game after Nagoshi persevered.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: The three "Yakuza" original soundtrack albums are composed by Hidenori Shoji, Hideki Sakamoto "et alii" and are published by Wave Master. Additional soundtrack features songs from Japanese artists Crazy Ken Band, Zeebra, Ketsumeishi and Eikichi Yazawa.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: The game's original voice actors are Japanese celebrities who encompass voice actors, singers, "tarento", film or TV series actors, radio or television celebrities. Cabaret girls and alike characters have featured models, gravure idols and adult actresses as voice actresses and likenesses. Since the 2008 spin-off "Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan!", the game series' main characters have their face modeled in 3D after their voice actors. As in the "Virtua Fighter" series, Western main and minor characters do not speak in Japanese, but rather in English. Minor Chinese and Korean characters also often speak their native tongues.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: The first game in the series to be released to the United States and PAL regions was dubbed in English. However, due to criticism of the English voice acting, each subsequent Western release through "Yakuza 6" retained the original Japanese voice acting. Later spinoff titles such as "Fist of the North Star: Lost Paradise" and "Judgment" have featured dual language voiceover support. 2020's "Yakuza: Like A Dragon" marks the series' first mainline entry to receive an English dub since the release of the original.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: The PlayStation 3 installments' realistic character design is based on Cyberware 3D scanner, Softimage XSI 6.5 3D models and Sega's Magical V-Engine.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: When the series was internationalized and localized to fit the Western market several changes occurred. For example, the names of several characters (Shintaro Kazama is Shintaro Fuma, Akira Nishikiyama is Akira Nishiki, Futoshi Shimano is Futo Shimano, Sai no Hanaya is Kage). Prior to 2022, the series was renamed to "Yakuza" outside of Japan, although the seventh entry used its original name as a subtitle. Following the reveal of three titles at RGG Summit 2022, Sega confirmed plans to rebrand the series as "Like a Dragon" to more closely align with the original Japanese title.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: "Yakuza 4" adjusted several of these localisation changes, following criticism of the previous games, and in particular the content excised from the Western release of "Yakuza 3". Producer Noguchi noted that there was an attempt to "bring a more complete localization that was more faithful to the source material". This included reversing several name changes. In addition, some conventions were changed; in previous Western localisations, protagonist Kazuma Kiryu had been referred to primarily by his given name. Beginning in "Yakuza 4", he is referred to primarily by his family name, Kiryu, which more closely reflects the original dialogue.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: , the "Yakuza" series includes eight main games, released in chronological order (with the exception of the prequel "Yakuza 0"), with each new installment following the events of the previous title. There are also several spin-off titles. One, "Kenzan!", relates Kazuma Kiryu's supposed ancestor, historic figure Miyamoto Musashi from the 16th and 17th centuries; another, "Dead Souls", follows a zombie invasion of Kamurocho, the primary setting for the series; a PlayStation Portable spinoff series, "Kurohyō", is about a teenage street fighter from Kamurocho that ends up in a fight where he kills a Tojo clan yakuza.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: With the exception of the "Kurohyō: Ryū ga Gotoku" titles, which were developed by Syn Sophia, all games were developed by Sega's CS1 R&D team, later renamed Ryū ga Gotoku Studio.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: The storytelling of the series is inspired by yakuza films, one of the most popular cinematic genres in Japan. The stories of the first two games in the series were supervised by novelist Hase Seishu, a writer of yakuza crime fiction. The main story in each game is presented in chapters, much like Kinji Fukasaku's classic yakuza movie "Sympathy for the Underdog" and is expanded upon with around a hundred subplots per game. The depth this provides leads to the series having a large cast of characters, including many which recur in minor roles.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: The first franchise spin-off, "Ryū ga Gotoku Kenzan!" is set in Kyoto during the Edo period, in 1605, and follows the life of legendary swordsman Miyamoto Musashi. The game was released in Japan and Asia on March 6, 2008.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: Formerly known under the working title "Project K", "" is a spin-off that follows Tatsuya Ukyo, a street punk who gets into trouble with the Tojo Clan after accidentally killing one of their captains. Co-developed by Syn Sophia, it was released in Japan on September 22, 2010 for the PlayStation Portable. A sequel, "Kurohyō 2: Ryū ga Gotoku Ashura hen", was released in Japan on March 22, 2012.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: "", known as "Ryū ga Gotoku Of The End" in Japan, is a non-canon story set during a zombie outbreak in Kamurocho. It was initially scheduled for Japanese release on March 17, 2011, but the release was delayed to June 9, 2011 following the Tohoku earthquake on March 11, 2011. The game was later released in the west in March 2012.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: "Ryū ga Gotoku Ishin!" is a spin-off set during Japan's Bakumatsu period (between 1853 and 1867) that follows the adventures of samurai Sakamoto Ryōma. It was released in Japan on PlayStation 3 and as a launch title for PlayStation 4 on February 22, 2014.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: "", known in Japan as "Hokuto ga Gotoku", is a spin-off for the PlayStation 4, based on the manga series "Fist of the North Star". The game was released in Japan on February 22, 2018, and worldwide on October 2, 2018. This is the first "Yakuza" title since "Yakuza" to release with an English dub, and the first overall with dual audio options. Kazuma Kiryu appears as an equippable DLC skin, while other "Yakuza" characters make minor cameo appearances.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: "Ryu ga Gotoku Online" is a free-to-play spin-off released on Android, iOS, and PC on November 21, 2018. The game features both Kazuma Kiryu and new protagonist Ichiban Kasuga.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: "Judgment", known in Japan as "Judge Eyes: Shinigami no Yuigon", is a legal thriller set in the same world as "Yakuza", and follows private detective Takayuki Yagami, who investigates a serial murder case in Kamurocho. It stars Japanese actor Takuya Kimura. Sega released a demo of "Judgment" on the Japanese PlayStation Network. The game employs a fighting system similar to the one from "Yakuza 0" where players can change into different styles. Additionally, it features an investigation mode where the player has to find traces of the criminal. It was released for PlayStation 4 on December 13, 2018, with a Western release following in June 2019. A sequel, "Lost Judgment", was released worldwide in September 2021 for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. Both games in the Judgment series were released on Steam on September 14, 2022.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: "Streets of Kamurocho" is a side scrolling beat 'em up minigame inspired by the "Streets of Rage" series, featuring characters from the "Like a Dragon" franchise. The minigame was developed by Empty Clip Studios and was available on Windows via Steam between October 17–19 and November 13–16, 2020, as part of Sega's 60th anniversary celebration.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: A high-definition remaster of the first two games in the series was released in Japan on November 1, 2012 for PlayStation 3. The high-definition remaster was ported to Wii U and released in Japan on August 8, 2013 under the title "Ryū ga Gotoku 1&2 HD for Wii U". Both versions of the compilation were only released in Japan.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: "Yakuza Kiwami", a remake of "Yakuza", was released in Japan on January 21, 2016 for PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4; the PS4 version received a Western release in August 2017. The two versions were the top two best-selling games in Japan during their release week, selling 103,256 copies for PlayStation 4 and 60,427 for PlayStation 3. The game was later released for Windows on February 19, 2019, and for Xbox One on April 22, 2020.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: "Yakuza Kiwami 2", a remake of "Yakuza 2", was released for the PlayStation 4 on December 7, 2017 in Japan, and in North America and Europe on August 28, 2018. The game runs on the Dragon Engine, which was previously used in "Yakuza 6: The Song of Life". The remake also adds new story chapters that feature Goro Majima as a playable character, continuing stories of his that were previously established in "Yakuza 0". "Kiwami 2" was released for Windows on May 9, 2019, and for Xbox One on July 30, 2020.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: A compilation re-release, titled "The Yakuza Remastered Collection", was announced and released digitally in English-speaking territories on August 20, 2019 for the PlayStation 4. The collection contains the remastered versions of "Yakuza 3", "Yakuza 4" and "Yakuza 5", which were released in Japan individually between 2018 and 2019. The remasters feature re-translated game scripts and include most content removed from the original English releases, though some content was removed from all versions, such as a set of missions in "Yakuza 3" featuring a transphobic character depiction. At the time of the collection's launch, only "Yakuza 3" was available; "Yakuza 4" was released on October 29, 2019 and "Yakuza 5" was released on February 11, 2020. A physical release containing all three games was released alongside "Yakuza 5" with a collectible PlayStation 3 styled case for "Yakuza 5", which came out digitally in the west. "The Yakuza Remastered Collection" was released for Xbox One and Windows on January 28, 2021.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: The "Yakuza" franchise includes various types of merchandise and adaptations outside of the video games. This includes a direct-to-video movie, a feature film, original soundtracks, official guides, Kamutai Magazines (pre-order campaign limited book) and other licensed products such as Cropped Heads long tee shirts and parkas based on main characters tattoos, limited edition PlayStation 3 console packs, Kubrick toys and action figures manufactured by Maitan.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: For the Japanese and Asian market releases of the original game in 2005, Sega created a pre-order campaign limited bonus item called "Kamutai Magazine", a full-color magazine which was a travel guide to the fictional in-game location of Kamurocho. The first book was a monography dedicated to the game with Mai, a sub-scenario female character, as the cover girl. This character's physical aspect was inspired by its voice actor, Mihiro, a Japanese adult video idol.


title: Yakuza (franchise)

text: Many of the new "Yakuza" series games since have included a new "Kamutai Magazine" issue as a preorder bonus in Japan, featuring a voice actress as cover girl. Hence this December 2005 issue was followed by a December 2006 issue (cover girl is Japanese AV idol Nana Natsume), a March 2008 issue (cover girl is Taiwanese model Yinling of Joytoy) and a February 2009 issue (cover girls are Shizuka Mutou, Sayaka Araki and Rina Sakurai). The fifth issue was bundled with "Ryu Ga Gotoku 4" and released in March 2010.