stealers wheel - stuck in the middle with you
The first time I was really affected by Gerry Rafferty’s music was in 1972 when I bought the Stealers Wheel album. I had just returned from a three-month tour of the USA with music writer Norman Jopling where we had conducted many interviews with a number of music business characters. The results of which had been published in a variety of music papers and magazines both in the US and at home in the UK. Among these interviews was a particularly memorable one with two of my personal heroes Jerry Leiber & Mike Stoller that took place in their impressive office suite in the penthouse on top of the Brill Building in New York. Our interview was conducted over a two-day period and covered the broad scope of their combined song writing and production career during the previous 22 years. During this time frame they had worked with many fairly obscure R&B artists and the Robins vocal quartet in Los Angeles. Discussions then focused on to their move to New York and Atlantic Records with the Coasters and their work with the Drifters, Joe Turner, Ben E King and several others on the labels impressive roster. And their further hits with Elvis Presley, Esther Phillips, Jerry Butler, the Dixie Cups and still many more. Recently Jerry & Mike had just completed producing the Stealers Wheel album. I had previously heard and been impressed by Stealers Wheel’s debut single ‘Late Again’ - but hadn’t made the Leiber/ Stoller connection at that time. They had signed a production deal with A&M Records in 1972 and began working with Stealers Wheel, whose initial album spawned ‘Stuck In The Middle With You’ that became a #6 US hit single in March ’73 reaching # 8 in the UK the following May. The twin talents of Gerry Rafferty & Joe Egan were considerable, they wrote and sang all the songs between them but it was Leiber & Stoller’s great production that gave Stealers Wheel that essential crisp introduction. ‘Stuck In The Middle…’ was later used by Quentin Tarantino for his soundtrack on ‘Reservoir Dogs’ in 1992 and got a lot more airplay as a result, introducing Rafferty to a new generation and young American bands began to cover other Stealers Wheel songs. The original Stealers Wheel album, though not the huge hit it deserved to be, sold very well and later became regarded as a classic.

steelers wheel

stealers wheel
Between them Gerry and Joe created their debut collection of individually and co-written songs on Stealers Wheel, a great album that is a fusion of rock music and contemporary urban blues vocals. This provided the opportunity to present their wry observations on the human condition through their own experience. From the first track and debut single ‘Late Again’, the subject of a domestic wrangle caused by the continued absence of the husband, proved a bit too abstract to engage the interest of the youth of the day – Rafferty & Egan set out on a journey that seemed beset with problems and self doubt. ‘Stuck In The Middle With You’ was stoned and a little paranoid in essence but timeless, a familiar combination that gave them their first big hit. The promotional video (made without Gerry and with Joe lip-syncing to his vocal) documented a dinner that Gerry & Joe attended with their management and record company executives at a London restaurant. This is probably the song that Stealers Wheel are best remembered for. Egan’s solo on his song ‘Another Meaning’, reveals disconnection and a struggle for understanding and ultimate peace of mind. The second song supplied by Joe was ‘I Get By’ that’s much in the same vein as ‘Sign On The Dotted Line’ (from Can I Have My Money Back) a somewhat defensive declaration of what he doesn’t want from the music biz. Rafferty’s next song ‘Outside Looking In’ could be taken as another complaint, or registration of disappointment, using the city/ country analogy. It’s a beautiful song about his attempts to get motivated and an expression of creative angst. It seems to me that listening to the lyrics of some of these songs now, Rafferty and Egan both seemed disenchanted by the opportunity that A&M had given them to record their first complete album together. Looking back I can’t quite see what they are complaining about. They had the services of Rock & Roll royalty Leiber & Stoller, great musicians and ample studio time and this is only their first album together – they had created no track record to shout about yet.

Gerry’s next two songs explore his skepticism of advice given (‘Johnny's Song’) and the long search for individuality, adopting different personas ‘Next To Me’ – perhaps he had been watching too much Ingmar Bergman, but once again L&S provided a superb production. Egan’s next two songs ‘José’ and ‘Get’s So Lonely’ have him going around in ever decreasing emotional circles resulting in alienation blues. Finally they combine to celebrate a positive with ‘You Put Something Better Inside Me’ a great mid tempo ballad that should have provided their second big hit - but didn’t. Rafferty and Egan were both great singer/ songwriters but combined they were really something special and Leiber & Stoller came up with a strong, clear musical platform to present the 10 well-constructed songs. As a debut this album laid out the possibilities and promise of a brand new chapter in rock music.

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The similarity in vocal tones of Gerry and Joe, who had sang and written together for a number of years and obviously had an affinity though a background of shared experiences, sometimes made it quite difficult to tell their voices apart. But one has to assume that like Lennon and McCartney each of them sang lead on their own songs and they shared vocals on the co-written ones. The other three members of the band should have been Rab Noakes, bassist Ian Campbell and drummer Roger Brown but after initial negotiations with A&M broke down, they quit which left the duo desperate to find a new band. The new members eventually turned out to be Paul Pilnick (guitar), Rod Coombes (drums) and Tony Williams (bass). It’s this line up that are pictured on John ‘Patrick’ Byrne’s iconic cover. Despite all the problems, Stealers Wheel set a new benchmark for song writing in the early ‘70s Rock genre. Legend has it that Rafferty refused to tour the USA and his unwillingness to promote the album created big problems for the other group members. Their much maligned management struggled to cope with the sitution and then Gerry left the group. In a Scottish 2010 Documentary Egan said “I still don’t really know why he left you know, to be honest, we never spoke about it. He felt he had to do it at that particular time. But it wasn’t a good feeling to be left to continue, to fulfill contractual engagements and all that kind of stuff – it was a nightmare. But we got on with it”. Rafferty explained to ‘Rolling Stone’. "I'd got married, had a child, I was twenty-four, and one day it was like I'd been living in a dream for six or eight years and suddenly I woke up. It was a pretty scary kind of feeling. Perhaps I was on the edge of a nervous breakdown—that's how it felt, anyway. I just had to get away, away from groups, managers, record companies, the whole thing." Luther Grosvenor (lka Ariel Bender) was recruited and touring went ahead. Then Tony Williams quit and DeLisle Harper replaced him. However once ‘Stuck In The Middle...’ became a hit, Rafferty was persuaded to return. Stealers Wheel went into the top 50 US album chart and the single went on to sell over a million copies.

Looking back on the Leiber/ Stoller /Rafferty/ Egan partnership Mike Stoller later revealed “I think he (Rafferty) viewed us as the enemy – there was something very distasteful to him about us – what we represented to him, err… crassly commercial, what have you. Gerry was difficult to work with – he was difficult from the git go! and the band in general drank a great deal, there were cases of Brown Ale and there were a few cases of Scotch Whiskey in the studio to keep things rolling, I guess. And then of course pub hours, everybody ran out around the corner to the Thistle. God I remember it well, I spent a lot of hours there. We thought that most of what Joe & Gerry were doing with the accompaniment to their songs was pretty much jingy – jingy – jingy - jangy. I’m not putting it down, that’s what it was. We thought we could enhance that with some of our ideas – cowbells and coins between the strings of the piano, which made them play at a totally different pitch than the one that you might expect. Just using some elements of that could add a flavor to it, that it didn’t have to begin with. It took a long time. But in the end it was a wonderful result.” As a footnote Stoller added “As soon as it started to become successful and became a hit, he lost interest in it and was suspicious of it and no longer really liked it - because it was ‘commercial’.” When Bob Harris interviewed Leiber & Stoller on BBC TV’s ‘The Old Grey Whistle Test’ a short while later he asked them “And more recently you’ve been working with Stealers Wheel, how did that go?” Mike and Jerry looked at one another and said “Pass”. Due to Stealers Wheel’s elevated profile Trans Atlantic re-issued the ‘Coconut Tree/ Her Father Didn’t Like Me Anyway’ single in 1974.

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ferguslie park
By the time Leiber & Stoller embarked on the production of the second Stealers Wheel album Ferguslie Park, Egan & Rafferty were headlining a group of session musicians that did not perform in the band. Nine musicians were used - guitarists Joe Jammer and Bernie Holland with Gary Taylor (bass/ mini moog) and Andrew Steele (percussion), Peter Robinson (keyboards/ chimes), Chris Neale (harmonica), Chris Mercer and Steve Gregory (tenor sax) plus conductor/ arranger (strings) Richard Hewson. For the sessions, Stoller arranged the horns and played electric harpsichord and his wife Corky played the harp. This second album spawned two top 40 hit singles ‘Everything Will Turn Out Fine’ (UK #33 September ’73) and the Egan led ‘Star’ (UK #25/ US #29 January / March ’74) that was probably his take on Rafferty’s recent antics. Although tempted back by their first albums success Gerry still seemed the unwilling pop star – he didn’t want no fast car and he still didn’t want to tour with the group. Some of the songs on the album reflect the writers attitudes to what was going on around them ‘Good Businessman’ and ‘Nothing’s Gonna Change My Mind’. Despite the wrangles, the album was stunningly and consistently good throughout with wonderful songs like ‘Over My Head’, ‘Blind Faith’, ‘Back On My Feet Again’ and even Rafferty’s rerun of ‘Steamboat Row’ was an improvement on a great original. All contributions – the musicians, arrangements and production were top of the mark and that made this album a surprisingly diverse and highly entertaining body of music. While Ferguslie Park did not repeat even the medium commercial success of Stealers Wheel it did receive wider acclaim from the critics and had an altogether brighter upbeat outlook than their previous collection. CD versions issued later (including the Japanese release of 1989) only used the 2.56 mix version of Rafferty’s album highlight ‘Over My Head’ instead of the original vinyl album 3.57 track that contained another verse and is better because of it. As far as I can tell it’s just Rafferty singing but no digital version has yet been reissued. Gerry later explained his reasons for quitting this time as being “Too much politics in the band and between the band and management - everything seemed incredibly rushed and there was not enough rehearsal time. All the emphasis was on promotion, interviews and touring, leaving very little time to write the songs and create the music”. The 2004 remastered reissue of the British folk-rock act's second album includes one bonus track 'Everything Will Turn Out Fine' (7 inch edit) on Lemon.

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However Gerry did join Joe when they appeared on UK TV promoting Ferguslie Park as a duo playing to an inanimate German audience but Rafferty soon took his leave again. Stealers Wheel toured and made TV appearances sans Gerry, where once again Joe lip-synched his leads and the road band did the best they could without him. Rafferty’s major contribution to Stealers Wheel came through his song writing and studio work. John Patrick Byrne came up with yet another superb cover that was an expanded version of the image taken from Rafferty’s acoustic guitar, which he had previously painted with Gerry curled around the top of the hole. John reversed that image and made a few changes adding a portrait of Joe, Angus the bull, some knotty typography and a Holbein guitar creating yet another masterpiece.

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right or wrong
This time there was no album sale success to tempt Rafferty back as Ferguslie Park just scraped into the Billboard Chart at #200 but he did eventually return after Stealers Wheel had been absent for months and many journalists and fans had already written them off. But a few kept the faith, Roy Carr of the NME wrote “Stealers Wheel are proving themselves to be superior in every conceivable way to any of their competitors – that’s of course, if they have any !” and A&M used his quote on their press ads for the album. Leiber & Stoller had not been involved in any part of the Stealers Wheel story except as the producers of their first two albums and by the time it came around to their third - Right Or Wrong in 1975, disagreements between Egan & Rafferty spilled over to Leiber & Stoller, who were scheduled to produce it and Mentor Williams became the bands final producer. Joe, who was somewhat in awe of L&S said “They really made us feel at ease and were great to work with – I thought anyway”. All the songs but one were written by the duo on Stealers Wheels swansong that began with the very Catholic ‘Benediction’ a mid tempo hymn featuring plenty of Hugh Burns’ excellent guitar work. In a 2011 documentary Billy Connolly reminisced that he and Gerry had a common interest in hymns and often sang them on their way to the Humblebums gigs. It’s the albums longest track and one of the strongest. ‘Found My Way To You’ a piano driven rock over strings item features a twin vocal lead and became their second single from this set. It contains punchy drumming from Andy Steele and plenty of Chris Mercer’s wailing sax. ‘Home From Home’ is an easy on the ear melodic duet over a sensitive production. Though Williams’ production falls woefully short of their previous two albums in places, it does provide the duo with a generally solid base from which to launch this slightly uneven album. These troubled sessions rumbled on with the two artists clashing with each other and/ or their management, who naturally still wanted them to tour as a band. Despite these problems the final album was surprisingly good. Other highlights include a new beginning ballad ‘This Morning’ with Joe’s wistful lead, who also sang most of ‘Wishbone’ (that could have become a KFC commercial) and the workaday blues ‘Monday Morning’. ‘Don't Get Me Wrong’ the Rafferty written and performed song has an Irish flavour relating daily and nightly relationship struggles with memorable violin sections. Finally the best track of all ‘Right Or Wrong’ on which Gerry and Joe take turns analyzing the breakdown with a great double-up-tempo gear change halfway through leaves the listener wishing for more of similar. This album showed a little more cautious optimisum, was less ironic, there was less detectable hostility and not so many reflections on the dubious delights of fame.

steelers
While the album was in post-production a disaster occurred that was to have a series of knock on effects. Their management company went bankrupt leaving Rafferty & Egan broke and up to their eyes in contractual problems and legal issues that would take them years to resolve. So the duo split before Right Or Wrong was even issued and this tipped the whole Stealers Wheel fiasco into complete disaster. Two singles ‘Right Or Wrong’ and ‘Found My Way To You’ were issued by A&M but with no band to promote them they soon disappeared. So there were no hit singles popping up to show listeners the way this time, or that there was even a third album available. The record company’s indecision over the issue of the album delayed its release. Byrne had produced a stunning portrait of the duo which for some inexplicable reason A&M decided not to use and opted for a couple of drab photos and Johns superb artwork was relegated to an inside sleeve. It took Egan & Rafferty 3 years before they could disentangle and continue with their solo careers. During this time neither singer was able to issue any new recordings. For Rafferty it was the last straw, for him there would be no more groups, he decided to go it alone and take full control of his own destiny. Over the next 3 years Gerry would spend his time travelling between Glasgow and London. He spent a lot of time sitting around in lawyer’s offices and on the train but he wasn’t idle, during this time he created some of his finest songs for his new solo project City To City. Both singers went on to create and record great music but it was Gerry Rafferty who had the more enduring international success.

Since their breakup in 1975 several compilations of Stealers Wheel’s music have appeared down the years including Stuck In The Middle With You < 18 (Spectrum Audio /88), Best Of Stealers Wheel < 14 (Connoisseur /90), Stuck In The Middle With You < 12 (A&M /91), Gerry Rafferty & Stealers Wheel < 18 (A&M /97) and Late Again – The Hits Collection < 18 (Rotation /01). But it wasn’t until 2004 that Lemon reissued the three Stealers Wheels albums on CD as recorded. However Ferguslie Park had been issued on CD in Japan in 1989. (peter burns)

acknowledgements
Scottish BBC TV Documentary - Gerry Rafferty – Right Down The Line by Valerie Lyon