InvestorsHub Logo
Boards
News
Market Data
Markets
Discover
Discover
Subscribe Login/Register
S&P 500
5,108.92
(
0.18%
)
US TECH 100
17,256.00
(
0.09%
)
Dow Jones
38,302.67
(
0.16%
)
Brent Oil
87.50
(
-0.21%
)
Bitcoin
62,968.57
(
-0.05%
)
Post# of 1767
Next 10
Reply Private New
Public Reply Private Reply New Post
Keep Last Read
Replies (1) Keep Next 10 Report Keyboard Shortcuts
Replies (1) Next 10 Prev Next

Colt1861Navy

Send PM Follow Ignore
Followers 3
Posts 10516
Boards Moderated 3
Alias Born 03/07/2001

Colt1861Navy

Member Level

Re: Colt1861Navy post# 845

Wednesday, 07/10/2002 12:10:08 AM

Wednesday, July 10, 2002 12:10:08 AM

Post# of 1767
Rock 'n' Roll Artists A-Z...Stealers Wheel

http://members.aol.com/pop1rock1/stealers.html

http://www.collecting-tull.com/TullTree/StealersWheel.html

http://www.redstone-tech.com/gerry/index.htm

Although remembered today primarily for one or two songs, Stealers Wheel in its own time bid fair to become Britain's answer to Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Only the chronic instability of their line-up stood in their way after a promising start.
Gerry Rafferty (b. Paisley, Scotland, Apr. 16, 1946) and Joe Egan (b. 1946) had first met at school in Paisley when they were teenagers. Rafferty had seen three years of success as a member of the Humblebums before they split up, and he'd started a solo recording career that was still-born with the commercial failure of his album Can I Have My Money Back? (Transatlantic, 1971). He'd employed Egan as a vocalist on the album, along with Roger Brown. Rafferty and Egan became the core of Stealers Wheel, playing guitar and keyboards, although their real talent lay in their voices, which meshed about as well as any duo this side of Graham Nash and David Crosby-Brown joined, and Rab Noakes (guitar, vocals) and Ian Campbell (bass) came aboard in 1972. That line-up, however, lasted only a few months. By the time Stealers Wheel was signed to A&M later that year, Brown, Noakes, and Campbell were gone, replaced by guitarist Paul Pilnick, bassist Tony Williams, and drummer Rod Coombes (ex-Juicy Lucy and future Strawbs alumnus). This band, slapped together at the last moment for the recording of their debut album in 1972, proved a winning combination working behind Rafferty's and Egan's voices. The self-titled Stealers Wheel album, produced by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, was a critical and commercial success, yielding the hit "Stuck In The Middle With You" (top 10 in America and the UK). Even this success had its acrimonious side. Rafferty had quit the band by the time Stealers Wheel was released, replaced by Spooky Tooth's Luther Grosvenor, who stayed with the groupon tour for much of 1973. Delisle Harper also came in for the touring version of the band, replacing Tony Williams. With a viable performing unit backing it, the Stealers Wheel album began selling and made No. 50 in America, while "Stuck In The Middle With You" became a million selling single.

As all of that was happening, the group's management persuaded Rafferty to come back-whereupon Grosvenor, Combes, and Pilnick left. Having been through a dizzying series of changes in the previous year, Stealers Wheel essentially ended up following a strategy-employed for very different reasons-that paralleled Walter Becker and Donald Fagen in the American band Steely Dan (funny, the similarity in the names, too). Egan and Rafferty became Stealers Wheel, officially a duo with backing musicians employed as needed in the studio and on tour.

There was pressure for more hits. "Everyone Agreed That Everything Will Turn Out Fine" was a modest chart success, the mid-tempo, leisurely paced "Star" somewhat more widely heard, cracking into the top 30 on both sides of the Atlantic. A second album, Ferguslie Park (named for a district in Paisley), completed with session players as per the duo's plan, barely cracked the top 200 LPs in America (although it was somewhat more popular than that number would indicate, among college students), and that would lead to a poisonous internal situation for the duo, as the pressure on them became even greater. In fact, the record was first rate, made up of lively, melodic, inventive pop-rock songs.

The commercial failure of the second album created a level of tension that all but destroyed the partnership between Egan and Rafferty. Coupled with the departure of Leiber and Stoller, who were having business problems of their own, and the inability of the duo to agree on a complement of studio musicians to help with the next album, Stealers Wheel disappeared for 18 months. Ironically, the contractually mandated final album, Right Or Wrong, that emerged at that time came out a good deal more right than anyone could have predicted, given the circumstances of its recording. The group had ceased to exist by the time it was in stores.

The break-up of Stealers Wheel blighted Rafferty's and Egan's careers for the next three years, as legal disputes with their respective managements prevent either man from recording. After these problems were settled, Egan made a pair of albums for the European-based Ariola label. Rafferty, in the meantime, emerged as a recording star with a mega-hit in 1978 in the form of "Baker Street" and the album City To City.

Stealers Wheel disappeared after 1975, its name and identity retired forever by its two owners (although, ironically, Rafferty did an album in the mid-1990's, Over My Head, on which he re-invented several Stealers Wheel-era song that he'd co-written with Egan. He and Egan have both made records that refer in lyrics to the troubled history of Stealers Wheel, immortalizing their acrimonious history even as at least three best-of European collections of Stealers Wheel material immortalize their music, and "Stuck In The Middle With You" remains a popular '70s oldie, revived most recently on the soundtrack of Quentin Tarantino's movie Reservoir Dogs, and was recut by the Jeff Healy Band.

History Source: UBL, Bruce Eder

Original Group
Joe Egan : Vocals,Keyboard (1973-1975)
Gerry Rafferty : Vocals, Guitar (1973-1975)
Paul Pilnick : Lead Guitar (1973)
Tony Williams : Bass (1973)
Rod Coombes : Drums (1973)

Later Members
Joe Egan : Vocals,Keyboard (1973-1975)
Gerry Rafferty : Vocals, Guitar (1973-1975)
Joe Jammer : Guitar (1974-1975)
Andrew Steele : Drum (1974-1975)
Gerry Taylor : Bass (1974-1975)
Benie Holland : Guitar (1975)
Dave Wintour : Bass (1975)

Conceived originally as sort-of-Scotland's equivalent to Crosby Stills Nash & Young. Stealers Wheel were one of the few genuinely melodious, and ultimately enduring bands of their era. Highly acclaimed critically, the world settled line up sadly led to their demise. In fact they epitomize the lost-missed opportunity syndrome: catalogue of dissent., inner friction, musical differences, and all the rest of it (man)riddled their short life. And although they certainly enjoyed more than a mere modicum of commercial success (notably in the US) and bequeathed a legacy of three hugely enjoyable albums before main man Gerry Rafferty went on to even greater solo success later in the decade, you can't help but feel a little disappointed that they never fulfilled their potential as a band.
Their roots go all the way back to The Humblebums, a late 60's trio of Scottish folkies comprising Rafferty, Billy Connolly, and Tam Harvey who cut a couple of successful albums for Transatlantic. Following the bums split in 1971. Rafferty released a solo album 'Can I have Money Back' and the following year formed the original Stealers Wheel from the nucleus of the musicians employed on his solo outing, including most notably Joe Egan (a former school chum of Rafferty's) plus Rab Noakes (guitar/vocals) and Roger Brown (vocals) to which bassist Ian Campell was added. But by the time the group had signed with A&M, Noakes, Brown and Cambell had left, their places being taken by guitarist Paul Pilnick (formerly with The Big Three) , Tony Williams (bass), and Rod Coombes (drums) - and it was this revised line-up featuring Rafferty and Egan as joint lead vocalists, playing guitars and keyboards respectively, which cut their eponymously titled debut album in 1973. Produced by erstwhile legendary 50's veterans Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller, the album received ecstatic reviews - but true form there were hassles. Rafferty had left the band prior to it's release, being replaced by ex-Spooky Tooth Luther Grosvenor and at the same time Williams was replaced by Delisle Harper.

Ironically the album started to move, eventually peaking at #50 in the US. The singles dawn from it 'Stuck in the middle of you' began pealing up airplay and started to climb, reaching #6 in the US and #8 in the UK (selling well over a million copies in the process) by which time Rafferty had been persuaded to rejoin - but at the cost of Pilnick, Coombes. Grosvenor and Harper: Henceforth Rafferty and Egan elected to continue as a Dou, augmenting both sessions and live appearances with session man.

They registered a small hit with 'Everyone's agreed that everything will turn out fine' (#33 UK;#49 US) later that same year and scored again with 'Star' (#25 UK;#29 US) in '74 - which trailered the marvelous 'FERGUSLIE PARK' set (named after a district in Rafferty & Egan's native Paisley) which made #181 in the US. With their critical stock at something of a peak they looked set to clean up: however, disappointment at the second albums' sales caused further tensions - and it somehow all contrived to go wrong. They'd finally fallen out irrevocably with Leiber & Stoller; were suffering severe managerial problems, could not find a settled line-up, and Rafferty and Egan were barely speaking to one another ! Consequently their third album 'RIGHT OR WRONG' (Produced by Mentor William) took 18-month to see the light of day, by which time they'd effectively ceased trading. Ironically, it remains a fine epitaph to Stealers Wheel, being at least as good as its predecessors, and giving absolutely no indications that it had been recorded in anything less than idyllic circumstances.

Further protracted contractual and managerial hassles prevented either Rafferty or Egan from recording for three years. Egan eventually squeezed out a couple of unspectacular albums for Ariola(which duly sank without a trace)- whereas his former cohort had re-emerged in spectacular style in 1978 on United Artists with the remarkable, multi-platinum 'City to City' album which topped the US charts and yielded the worldwide smash 'Baker Street'. Rafferty continued to score heavily (particularly in the US) into the 80's with 'Night Owl'; 'Snakes and Ladders';' Sleepwalking'; around 1990 'North & South'; continued to register hit singles; and further broadened his horizons, enjoying success as a producer with the young Scottish duo The Proclaimer in the late 80's.

By Roger Dopson (May 1990)
From The Best Of Stealers Wheel Album

Discography and Compilations

http://www.redstone-tech.com/gerry/stealers_wheel_compilations.htm

Some Lyrics

http://members.aol.com/pop1rock1/lyrics2.html

http://www.execpc.com/~suden/stuck_middle.html



http://www.investorshub.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=1066
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=1124
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=1148
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=1142
Public Reply Private Reply New Post
Keep Last Read
Replies (1) Keep Last Read Next 10 Report Keyboard Shortcuts
Replies (1) Next 10 Prev Next

Join the InvestorsHub Community

Register for free to join our community of investors and share your ideas. You will also get access to streaming quotes, interactive charts, trades, portfolio, live options flow and more tools.

Sign Up