Stealers Wheel weren’t just Gerry Rafferty’s backing band. Joe Egan, who has died, was his fellow front man and wrote many of their songs himself as well as co-writing their most famous hit Stuck in the Middle With You with Rafferty.
People who won’t have consciously known of his work will certainly have seen it (if they are of a certain age.) He contributed album covers to the work of both Billy Connolly and – his partner in the Humblebums – Gerry Rafferty, both in his time with Stealers Wheel and his solo work.
Indeed Rafferty wrote a song, Patrick, in Byrne’s honour. (In Byrne’s early days he used his father’s – and his own middle – name.)
It was as a playwright though that Byrne made most impact on the public consciousness, firstly with the stage play The Slab Boys, for which he drew on his experiences in the paint shop of a carpet maker’s, and subsequently with the TV series Tutti Frutti and Your Cheatin’ Heart of blessed memory.
Hie art work is distinctive. You can rarely mistake a Byrne painting for one by someone else.
The video below is illustrated with some of Byrne’s art works.
The Humblebums: Patrick
John Patrick Byrne: 6/1/1940 – 30/11/2023. So it goes.
I saw (again on the TV news) that well respected Scottish musician and song-writer Rab Noakes has died. Sadly he never achieved much commercial success for himself. His musical talent deserved much more.
I had heard of him as a musician but wasn’t aware of his wider appreciation in the music world outside Scotland till Lindisfarne covered his song Turn a Deaf Ear on their first album Nicely Out of Tune.
This is a version by Rab himself but for some reason this video repeats part of the song once it has finished.
Rab Noakes: Turn a Deaf Ear
Lindsifarne adapted the lyric to mention Rab himself.
Lindisfarne: Turn a Deaf Ear
Barbara Dickson also made a recording of Turn a Deaf Ear.
Early on Noakes had collaborated with Gerry Rafferty and indeed was a fellow member of Stealers Wheel in its earliest days. After Rafferty’s death Rab wrote this song for him.
Rab Noakes: No More Time
A great cover by Rab Noakes and Emma Pollock of Rafferty’s song Get it Right Next Time can be found here.
Robert (Rab) Noakes: 13/5/1947 – 11/11/2022. So it goes.
Just about everyone’s memories of Stealers Wheel start (and most people’s end) with Stuck in the Middle With You with the addition of, perhaps, Star, but the first time I encountered them was on the release of the eponymous LP and what I believe was their initial UK TV appearance where they performed the opening track Late Again. The blend of the voices of Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty was distinctive and different to anything else around at the time.
Late Again may be a little slow in tempo (some may even think it a dirge) but it stuck with me and I later bought the album.
This is perhaps my favourite Stealers Wheel track.
It was never released as a single as far as I know and came from the third Stealers Wheel album Right or Wrong. By the time it appeared the group had long since ceased to exist and both its leading lights, Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan, were no longer working together.
From the outside I would say that the lyric maybe says a lot about a West of Scotland RC upbringing.
The newpapers, television and radio have been full today with obituaries and tributes to Paisley born Gerry Rafferty who died yesterday.
His first well known appearances were with The Humblebums, a group of folk oriented musicians which included a certain Billy Connolly as a member.
When they split up Rafferty set out on his own for a while. Mary Skeffington, a song apparently about his mother, shows his folkiness at the time of his first solo LP, Can I Have My Money Back?, recorded before he joined the group where he had his first big success, Stealer’s Wheel, effectively a collaboration between Rafferty and Joe Egan.
The big hit, Stuck In The Middle With You, needs no introduction nor explanation but on that LP I liked more Rafferty’s quirkier song Benediction, a web friendly version of which unfortunately I cannot source. Also a hit was Star, said at the time to be a reflection of Rafferty’s fractured relationship with Connolly but in fact written by Egan. Any rift with Connolly was later repaired.
Stealer’s Wheel’s second LP was the unusually named Ferguslie Park, after a well known Paisley housing estate.
Rafferty’s biggest success came of course after the demise of Stealer’s Wheel when he resumed his solo career and recorded the LP City To City. There is barely a dud on there. My particular favourites are the title track, Mattie’s Rag and that fantastic ballad Whatever’s Written In Your Heart.
The blockbuster was Baker Street with its signature saxophone playing from Raphael Ravenscroft. (No. It wasn’t Bob Holness.) This recording was, as I recall, the first ever winner of a Brit Award for a single (though it may have been a similar award that was the Brits’ precursor.)
The two subsequent LPs Night Owl and Snakes And Ladders still saw Rafferty at the peak of his powers but a reluctance to tour and a shrinking from fame meant more big hits weren’t forthcoming.
[Edited to add:- Rafferty’s last brush with chart success came with his production work on The Proclaimers’ Letter From America (for an unusual take on which see here.) That recording’s final musical flourish – after the drawn-out “Lochaber no more” – seems to me to be pure Rafferty.]
A sad descent into alcoholism followed in his latter years.
Everyone will be featuring either Baker Street or Stuck In The Middle but I’m going with a song each from those latter two LPs where Rafferty was still in his pomp.
Gerry Rafferty: Get It Right Next Time
Gerry Rafferty: The Royal Mile (Sweet Darlin’)
I’ve just listened to Whatever’s Written In Your Heart again.
I can’t not put it in.
Gerry Rafferty: Whatever’s Written In Your Heart
Gerald (Gerry) Rafferty, 16/4/47-4/1/11. So it goes.
