Joe Egan, who co-founded and co-fronted the Scottish band Stealers Wheel together with Gerry Rafferty, has died at age 77. The group was finest identified for its hit “Caught within the Center with You.”
Egan’s passing was reported on the late Rafferty’s Fb web page, which is run by his daughter Martha: “Very unhappy information that the opposite half of Stealers Wheel, Joe Egan, handed away peacefully yesterday afternoon [July 6th] together with his nearest and dearest round him. I’ll all the time keep in mind him as a candy and mild soul. Might he relaxation in peace.”
Stealers Wheel have been fashioned by Egan and Rafferty in 1972, with the 2 sharing lead vocal duties. They scored an instantaneous hit with “Caught within the Center with You” off their self-titled debut, launched later that very same 12 months.
The music, which options Rafferty on lead vocals and Egan on harmonies, was co-written by the 2 musicians, hitting No. 6 on the Billboard Scorching 100 chart.
In 1992, “Caught within the Center with You” gained new fame because it soundtracked an iconic and extremely disturbing scene in Quentin Tarantino’s Reservoir Canines, by which Michael Madsen’s character Mr. Blonde sings alongside to the tune and dances as he tortures a police officer.
Rafferty had left Stealers Wheel by the point the band launched its debut album, however quickly returned as “Caught within the Center with You” took off on the charts. The group launched two extra albums — 1973’s Ferguslie Park and 1975’s Proper or Incorrect — earlier than breaking apart in 1975. Neither of these LPs achieved nice business success, though the band did rating a modest hit with Ferguslie Park‘s “Star,” written and sung by Egan.
Stealers Wheel briefly reunited in 2008, albeit with out Rafferty or Egan. Rafferty, who went on to a profitable solo profession within the late ’70s and ’80s, died on the age of 63 in 2011 of liver failure.