Over the decades, Scottish musicians have made countless albums that have stood the test of time. To launch a new series, On the Record: A look back at Scotland’s cult albums, we revisit Stealers Wheel's much-loved Ferguslie Park, from 1973.

THE liner notes on a 2004 reissue of Stealers Wheel’s second album, Ferguslie Park, asserts that it remains one of the great albums of the Seventies. If so, it is in pretty exalted company, the Seventies being the decade that also gave us Dark Side of the Moon, Blood on The Tracks, Raw Power, Who’s Next, Court and Spark, Never Mind the Bollocks, Sticky Fingers, Led Zeppelin IV, Horses, London Calling, Hotel California, Rumours, Born to Run, and so much more.

Or is it more the case, as The Herald said in 2011 after the death of Gerry Rafferty, that this 1973 album, the work of Rafferty and Joe Egan, was “without a doubt one of the finest Scottish albums of the last 30 years”?

Whatever its status, there is no disputing the fact that Ferguslie Park is a great album, beautifully crafted and highly melodic.

The songwriting duties on its dozen tracks – total running-time, a shade over 39 minutes – are evenly divided, with Egan and Rafferty each writing four songs and the remaining four tracks being co-writes. Highlights range from Rafferty’s plaintive Over My Head and Steamboat Row to Egan’s Star and Nothin’s Gonna Change my Mind, and the jointly-composed Wheelin’. But really, there are very few weak points. There’s some excellent musicianship on offer, too. To borrow the title of another Rafferty composition here, What More Could You Want?

Stealer's WheelStealer's Wheel (Image: FREE)

Egan was in no doubt as to its qualities, telling Melody Maker’s Rob Partridge in January 1974: “We believe this a progression from the first album, well-balanced and sustained. “It reflects all our influences, there’s a lot of rock, some country and all the rest. It’s the best thing we’ve done. But there’s still a ridiculous amount of material we’ve yet to record. We’ve written a whole load of songs and it’s really difficult to keep up with it all. All we need now is a producer – and we’ve got a couple of guys in mind. You haven’t heard anything yet.”

The Stealers Wheel story, already well documented, was widely revisited last week when news broke that Egan had died, aged 77, on July 6. Rafferty himself died in 2011, aged 63.

A brief recap: Egan and Rafferty were both from Paisley and attended the same schools. They got together in their late teens, when both were making their way as musicians.

“Something sparked off between Joe and myself immediately because we’d both been keen on the Everly Bros, and we could sing quite well together”, Rafferty said in a 1975 interview with Jerry Gilbert for Zigzag magazine.

The two played side-by-side at weekends for two years in a local band, the Mavericks, before Rafferty joined The Humblebums alongside Billy Connolly and Tam Harvey. Harvey departed, the trio became a duo, and found a fair degree of success.

As Gilbert recounts in that Zigzag interview, Rafferty’s songwriting prowess when he was working with Connolly prompted some people to refer to him as the new McCartney. “Right, there was all of that”, Rafferty responded. “I think there was in some ways – at least there was in Britain and amongst the music press and so on. I personally never felt any different although it was lovely to get that kind of reaction to the first songs that appeared on record”.

In time, The Humblebums went their separate ways and Rafferty reunited with his old friend, Egan, while making his debut solo album, Can I Have My Money Back?

As for Stealers Wheel, the story is anything but straightforward, with numerous comings and goings, but they recorded, for the A&M label, a fine album, Stealers Wheel. It was produced by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, the legendary writing and production duo who wrote among a remarkable array of classic songs, Hound Dog and Jailhouse Rock for Elvis Presley.

The album contained Stuck in the Middle With You, a hit on both sides of the Atlantic (it went to number two in the US charts, and Paul Simon, no less, declared that it was the best pop song he had heard in a long time). “You’ve probably discovered by now that ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’, the single you thought was the best Dylan record since 1966, is actually by an English group named Stealers Wheel”, Bud Scoppa wrote in Rolling Stone in May 1973, broadening the definition of ‘English’ slightly.

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Rafferty left shortly thereafter but rejoined in time for Ferguslie Park, which was recorded at the Island studios in London, with a number of esteemed session musicians. It was produced by Stoller, despite there having been friction between Rafferty/Egan and Leiber/Stoller during the making of the previous album.

It’s possible to detect on Ferguslie Park some scepticism over aspects of the music business and the sometimes fleeting nature of fame. The opening track, the sardonic Good Businessman, sets the tone: “Got to get back to the telephone/ Make some money from a complete unknown ... I ain’t in this business to be friends with you/That’s why I’m a good businessman”.

The next track, Star, by Egan, asks of someone who is evidently proud to have made it: “After all you’ve been through/Tell me what will you do/ When you find yourself back on the shelf”.

In a January 1974 review in Rolling Stone, however, Harold Bronson is dismissive: “There’s an air of despair about the project and an unpleasantly invective- laden look at the whole rock-star syndrome” (it’s worth pointing out, however, that most other critics at the time were a lot kinder).

Scottish music historian Brian Hogg was closer to the mark, some twenty years later, when he observed: “the set’s melodious charms did not disguise the irony of its lyrical content, some particularly apparent in the bittersweet ‘Star’”.

Ferguslie Park, a half-century on from its making, is a joy to listen to. The spine-tingling moment when Egan’s vocals are joined by Rafferty’s on Star; the soaring, multi-tracked chorus of “Wheelin’, Dealing, Stealing, Wheelin’” on Wheelin’, the third track, which segues perfectly into Egan’s Waltz (You Know It Makes Sense); Rafferty’s gorgeous Over My Head, surely one of his finest early songs; the resigned way in which Egan and Rafferty sing “I’d rather go on living like a rolling stone” on the former’s Nothin’s Gonna Change My Mind; Rafferty’s nostalgic Steamboat Row, which he’d originally recorded for The Humblebums album, Open Up the Door. Throughout Ferguslie Park, there are lovely harmonies, while Stoller’s production is sympathetic and tasteful.

For all its strengths Ferguslie Park was, sadly, not a commercial success, and for various reasons there would be only one further Stealers Wheel studio album – Right or Wrong, released in 1975.

Rafferty embarked on a solo career, with his second solo project, City to City, selling exceptionally well, home to such classic songs as Baker Street and Whatever’s Written in Your Heart. Egan for his part released a fine solo album, Out of Nowhere, in 1979, and another, Map, a few years later.

Ferguslie Park is well worth a listen, whether on CD or via one of the streaming services. “Another superb, cohesive and melodic album”, is Colin Larkin’s admiring verdict in the Virgin Encyclopedia of Seventies Music, and that seems about right.

Critic David Laing, writing in Let It Rock magazine in 1975, was another astute admirer. “The characteristic Stealers Wheel sound makes its impact through the contrast between the solo voice and the harmonies”, he wrote. “The lead singing is button-holing, arresting: ‘Like A Rolling Stone’ or ‘Help’. And when your attention has been held by that high, demanding voice, they hit you with perfectly- pitched exhilarating harmonies that wash over you: tension and relaxation. Irresistible”.

* Listen to our essential playlist on Spotify. And tell us what you think of Ferguslie Park – and the tracks we have chosen for the playlist.

Next week: Hats, by Blue Nile.