Well, in Al's case, it was specifically that the Year of the Cat album was was produced by Alan Parsons, who engineered Dark Side of the Moon. Parsons was very fond of saxophone solos, both on albums he produced for other artists and for his own group the Alan Parsons Project.

Although Rafferty's album was self-produced with his creative partner Hugh Murphy, the sound they were going for was clearly in the same stylistic ballpark.