Stealers Wheel / Gerry Rafferty

Stealers Wheel is a Scottish folk rock/rock band formed in Paisley, Renfrewshire in 1972 by former school friends Joe Egan and Gerry Rafferty. The band broke up in 1975 and was re-formed in 2008.

Rafferty and Egan first met when they were teenagers in Paisley and they became the core of Stealers Wheel. In the early 1970s, the band was considered to be the British version of American folk/rock supergroup Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. They were initially joined by Roger Brown, Rab Noakes and Ian Campbell in 1972. However, that line-up only lasted a few months and by the time the band were signed to A&M Records later that same year, Brown, Noakes and Campbell had been replaced by Paul Pilnick, Tony Williams and Rod Coombes. This line-up recorded their eponymous debut album, Stealers Wheel and was produced by the influential American songwriters and producers Leiber & Stoller. The album was a critical and commercial success reaching number fifty in the US album charts, with their hit single "Stuck in the Middle", coming from the album

Stuck in the Middle



Gerry Rafferty (born Gerald Rafferty, 16 April 1947, in Paisley) is a Scottish singer and songwriter. He is the son of a Scottish mother and an Irish father.

In his early years, Gerry Rafferty earned money busking(Playing for tips) on the London Underground. Poetically, his biggest hit "Baker Street" was about busking at a tube station. After working with Billy Connolly in a band called the Humblebums, he recorded a first solo album, Can I Have My Money Back. In 1972 Rafferty and his old school friend Joe Egan formed Stealers Wheel, a group beset by legal wranglings, but did have a huge hit "Stuck in the Middle With You" (made famous for a new generation in the movie Reservoir Dogs) and the smaller top 40 hit "Star" ten months later. The duo disbanded in 1975. In 1978, Gerry Rafferty cut a solo album, City to City, which included the song with which he remains most identified, "Baker Street".

Baker Street



Another song from the City to City album, "Right Down the Line," also continues to receive copious radio airplay.

Right Down The Line



Get it Right Next Time



The newspaper Scotland on Sunday' reported that Rafferty was asked to leave the Westbury Hotel in London during July 2008. This report stated that the hotel manager had claimed that other residents were distressed by his habit of relieving himself in various corners of the hotel and that his suite was also in a disgraceful and unusable condition. He then checked himself into St Thomas' Hospital suffering from a chronic liver condition. 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, however this was refuted by the Metropolitan Police who stated that no such missing persons report existed.

After unconfirmed sightings and unauthenticated reports that he was in contact with his family, on 17 February 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 newspaper that he had been in touch with Rafferty two weeks previously and that he was alive and well but had no plans to either record or tour. This was then contradicted by a further report in The Daily Telegraph on the following day which quoted from a statement by his solicitors issued 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