STEALERS WHEEL The A&M Years

CAROLINE 7/10 Complete works three-disc boxset from troubled 1970s Scottish folk-rockers The choice of Leiber & Stoller to produce Stealers Wheel’s 1972 debut was on the surface a bizarre juxtaposition, yet it proved to be an inspired combination, particularly on the Dylan pastiche “Stuck In The Middle With You”. By the time the song had made the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic, Gerry Rafferty had quit, but chart success persuaded him to return to record two further albums with songwriting partner Joe Egan. Sadly nothing could quite match the peerless folk-pop of their debut. “Steamboat Row”, the best song on 1974’s Ferguslie Park, was a re-tread of a composition Rafferty had recorded with Billy Connolly in The Humblebums, and by the time 1975’s Right Or Wrong was released he had quit again after falling out catastrophically with Egan. The legal dispute that ensued left Rafferty unable to record for three years before he returned to find solo stardom with 1978’s “Baker Street”. Yet amid the acrimony and disappointment, Stealers Wheel created a corpus of minor classics that makes them far more than one-hit wonders. Extras: 4/10. Disappointingly few – the 31 tracks from the original trio of albums are augmented by just three bonus tracks from a 1972 BBC Radio 1 session.