Obituary: 1970s rock star 'was a sweet and gentle soul'

Another act, Stealers Wheel, released three albums during their brief lifespan - Stealers Wheel (1972), Ferguslie Park (1973), and Right or Wrong (1975). Despite the often sublime songwriting on display, the albums’ UK chart placings were modest, even if the first album peaked at number 50 in the US Billboard charts.

The duo of Gerry Rafferty and Joe Egan, however, also released three singles that charted on both sides of the Atlantic: Stuck in The Middle With You, Everything Will Turn Out Fine, and the gorgeous, Egan-penned Star. The band appeared on TV’s Old Grey Whistle Test and recorded a number of sessions for Radio 1 DJ John Peel.

Stealers Wheel broke up in 1975, and various legal issues prevented Egan or Rafferty from releasing any new solo music for another three years. Rafferty re-emerged in 1978 with his second solo album, City to City. He would have been delighted if it sold 50,000 copies; instead, it achieved some 5.5 million sales worldwide, bolstered by the presence of such classic tracks as Baker Street. Egan, for his part, showcased his abilities on a solo album, Out of Nowhere, in 1979. It was a splendid piece of work - the title track, Back on the Road, Freeze, and No Time for Sorrow are particularly good - but, like its successor, Map (1981), it was not a commercial success.

Rafferty died in 2011, and now Egan’s death, at the age of 77, has been reported by Rafferty’s daughter, Martha, on the Gerry Rafferty page on Facebook. “Very sad news that the other half of Stealers Wheel, Joe Egan, passed away peacefully yesterday afternoon [July 6] with his nearest and dearest around him”, she wrote. “I will always remember him as a sweet and gentle soul”.

Joseph Egan was born into an Irish Catholic family in Paisley on October 16, 1946. He and Rafferty were pupils at, first, St Mary’s Primary School then St Mirin’s Academy. “I knew [Gerry] from way back … but we didn’t really come into contact until the music thing came along”, Egan said in 2011. I was in a band and I got Gerry in to do rhythm guitar and some singing. We were both into harmony stuff like the Everly Brothers and the Beatles and then formed another band called the Mavericks”.

Rafferty himself, in an interview with music journalist Jerry Gilbert, quoted in Brian Hogg’s book The History of Scottish Rock and Pop, remembered: “[Egan] was singing in a band called The Censors, who only played at weekends. They needed a rhythm guitarist and vocalist so I filled that space. Something sparked off between Joe and myself because we’d both been keen on the Everly Brothers and we could sing quite well together”.

Read more

• How Gerry Rafferty went 'sober and unafraid' to meet his maker

• We have lost 'the finest Scots singer of our generation'

• Tributes as Stealers Wheel co-founder Joe Egan dies aged 77

The Mavericks in time evolved into the Fifth Column, which recorded a single for EMI in 1966. When the Fifth Column broke up, Egan took on what Hogg describes as a “day-job” while Rafferty became part of the Humblebums alongside Billy Connolly and Tam Harvey, his songwriting abilities having greatly impressed Connolly.  When Harvey was let go by Connolly, the Humblebums continued as a duo with some success until 1971.

Connolly embarked on a solo career and Rafferty, in time, found himself in Stealers Wheel alongside Egan and a cast of other musicians. “Joe and I struck up the most amazing relationship”, Rafferty once told the Paisley Daily Express. “There really was something special between us. The blend of our voices was astonishing”.

Constant changes meant that Stealers Wheel’s line-up resembled a game of musical chairs but the three studio albums they made – particularly Ferguslie Park – have never dated. Their best-known song, Stuck in the Middle with You, was used to startling effect by Quentin Tarantino for his feature-length debut, Reservoir Dogs, in 1992.

Egan was among those who paid tribute to Rafferty upon news of his death in 2011. “I always liked Gerry’s stuff and thought we had a nice thing together in terms of songwriting and harmonies”, he told journalist and broadcaster Billy Sloan. “His sense of melody was probably second to none”. Rafferty, he added, “wanted to go his own way”, and Stealers Wheel’s time came to an end. “I would have preferred to work as a team because that’s the way I am but Gerry had other stuff to sort out and that meant going out on his own.”

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The two stayed in touch for years afterwards, with frequent phone conversations that lasted two or three hours. In later life Egan and his wife Sylvia ran a music publishing company in Paisley.

A couple of years ago singer/songwriter Ian Connor, who lives in Innellan, Argyll, had the “pleasure of meeting and sitting with Joe” at the home of a mutual friend. Together, they played some of Egan’s songs. Connor told the Herald: “Close friends of ours in the village had introduced us to their friends who live in Paisley, who, as it happens, were friends with Joe and Sylvia, who lived opposite them in the same street. Our Paisley friends knew that I was a long-time fan of Stealers Wheel and that I subsequently recognized the massive contribution made to their music by Joe, and fell in love with his solo work.

“Back on the Road instantly became one of my favourite songs. I always include it in my song list when performing, introducing so many people to his music. My meeting Joe, and chatting and singing with him, had such an effect on me that I went straight home and wrote a song, to add to my list of self-penned material. He gave me a different insight to writing a song.

“Joe also gave me a sneak listen to an unfinished song he was working on”, Connor added. “I have met, or been in the presence of, many celebrities, but none had the profound effect on me that Joe had. Incidentally, I treasure his autograph on my old Martin guitar”.