Listen: Star / Stealers Wheel
Star / Stealers Wheel

I could always handle folky acoustic stuff more if it came out of the UK. Probably just my prejudice.

Stealers Wheel had a few big singles, but they were so overplayed it became hard to revisit them for decades, or listen to their albums even. I did own the first few for a while but don’t recall giving them much of a chance.

‘Star’ seemed to get more airplay than sales justified, but not so much that the record was spoiled like ‘Stuck In The Middle With You’. I’ve only started listening to that one again as of recent.

‘Star’ was played a bunch during the early fall of ’73 on Radio 1. Despite what seems to be an intentional American West Coast sound, the single still reeks of a rundown old palais in Blackpool or somewhere wonderfully as drab, which is all good.