Stealers Wheel - Everyone’s Agreed...

Looks like Stealers Wheel is still distributed by Universal, Gerry Rafferty is now on Warner as part of the
Parlophone split. Universal seems happy enough just licensing "Stuck in the Middle" on a million compilations. You
can buy MP3s of the three Stealers Wheel albums, but from what I've determined as of this writing, neither version of
"Everything" is on the Ferguslie Park MP3 album.

C J Brown wrote: I see a three CD set on Amazon - Stealer's Wheel & Rafferty stuff. Includes Everyone's Agreed. I suppose not the 45 version? But would like to know for sure if anyone knows.

CJ, I presume you're referring to the Universal Holland Collected 3-CD set. Sorry to say, it has the same "Everything Will Turn Out Fine" found elsewhere, not the 1973 45.

OTOH, it does have the 1974 45 version of "You Put Something Better Inside Of Me" with the drunken horn player (or at least it always sounded like that.) The Intervention Records reissue of the Stealers Wheel album also contains the later 45 version. Seems the original LP version was only on the 1972 LP.   

Yah Shure - thanks for the clarification on set titled Collected. Sorry I left that name out of my post. Sounds like there is good and bad on that set. Might go for Collected anyway and hope it is not a brick wall monster.

eriejwg wrote: I haven't followed all of the posts so excuse if I ask what's already been discussed or ask silly questions. 1) Could the masters for Stuck In The Middle and Everyone's Agreed be lost? 2) Since they were on A&M, where are all of the label's masters stored? 3) Would it be a licensing issue? Would Gerry Rafferty's estate own the license?

John, I can help with these questions since I've now
worked over the last few years with these very questions
we face as a reissue label. So from 1 - 3:

1) No, I don't think any masters are lost. Universal has
all the A&M master tapes, with the exception of Herb
Alpert. I'm sure Herb took his own tapes when A&M was
sold.
2) I'd assume that the bulk of the original tapes are
stored at Iron Mountain. When we've asked for things that
hadn't been touched in a long time, that's usually where
they go looking.
3) RE: Licensing... that's a difficult question. Two
things are possible. One, is that their material is at
Universal under "artist consent". That means anything you
ask for has to go to whoever reps the artist, OR to the
artist themselves - and require special permission to be
used, and that includes what version you want to use.
We've run into that quite a few times. When you are lucky
you get a "yes". Maybe someone already asked for the
single of "Everyone's Agreed..." and been turned down.

The second and just-as-likely possibility is that whoever
has produced the past comps didn't even know to ask for a
different version of the song and just took whatever they
got by simply asking for the title. They simply don't do
any home-work on anything nor does it even cross their
mind what a collector might want.
There's no way to know right now which of the above is
true.

MM