Steve Miller: No Joker

There's no denying the success of The Steve Miller Band as a mainstream pop/rock band. They were one of the most popular bands of the mid 70's with songs like The Joker, Fly Like an Eagle, Rockin' Me Baby, and others. Indeed SMB was churning out hit tunes well into the 80's. I am certainly not arguing with Steve's success but I must say I much prefer his earlier San Francisco blues/psychedelic rocker period of the late 60's and early 70's to what came later.

Miller was born in Milwaukee the son of a pathologist who was friends with the likes of Charlie Mingus, T-Bone Walker, and Les Paul who taught young Steve some guitar chords and let him sit in on a session. Miller then formed a blues band called the Marksmen at age 12 with his friend Boz Scaggs. After stints at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Denmark in Copenhagen, Miller moved to Chicago in 1964 to get involved in the local blues scene. There he found himself jamming with Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, and Paul Butterfield. During these years, Miller honed his guitar skills moving from Chicago to New York to Dallas, finally ending up in San Francisco where he then formed the first incarnation of the Steve Miller Blues Band featuring guitarist James "Curly" Cooke, bassist Lonnie Turner, and drummer Tim Davis. In 1967 Steve's childhood friend Boz Scaggs moved to San Francisco and replaced Cooke in time to play the Monterrey Pop Festival. Capitol Records was so impressed with their performance, it signed the group as the Steve Miller Band.

Shortly afterwards, the band flew to London to record their first album Children of The Future, adding Ben Sidran on keyboards. It was praised by critics and received some airplay on FM radio. The album established Miller's early style as a blues-rocker influenced but not overpowered by psychedelia. The follow-up album Sailor, is considered by many critics to be Miller's best early effort. In fact the first two albums played in succession could really be consider a double album in their cohesiveness. Several great albums followed: Brave New World, Your Saving Grace, and Number 5. While Miller remained a popular artist, pop radio failed to pick up on any of his material at this time, even though tracks like "Space Cowboy" and "Brave New World" had become FM rock staples. The next effort, Rock Love, a partially live album was panned by critics for having poor material. Miller followed it with Recall the Beginning: A Journey from Eden in 1972. Though Eden did not meet with much commercial success it did return to a more laid back version of the psychedelic blues that had been the hallmark of Miller's earlier albums.

Not long after Journey From Eden's release, Miller broke his neck in a car accident and developed hepatitis. His recuperation put him out of commission for most of 1972 and early 1973. It was during this period that he began reinventing himself as a blues-influenced pop/rocker, writing compact, melodic, catchy tunes. This approach was introduced on his 1973 LP, The Joker which became an instant success and ushered in the second and more popular phase of Steve Miller's career.

The Dylan Masterpieces

Most every long-time fan has their "personal favorite" Bob Dylan albums. With such a large catalog of music to draw from, spanning nearly fifty years, it is a hard decision to make. In listening to him since the late 60's, the three that I consider his masterworks are "The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan", "Blonde on Blonde", and "Blood on the Tracks". They are, in my estimation, his most brilliant and cohesive bodies of work.

The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan: Released May, 1963
Unlike his first album "Bob Dylan" which contained only two original songs, eleven of Freewheelin's thirteen songs were written by Dylan himself. Recorded over the course of the year prior to it's release in May '63, Dylan's songwriting development and proliferation were moving at an extraordinary pace. Events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, the escalation of the Civil Rights Movement and sharing an apartment in New York with his girlfriend Suze Rotolo were making his songs much more topical and political. Freewheelin' debuted one of Dylan's most famous songs, "Blowin' in the Wind" as well as the epic "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall". The latter became an anthem to the threat of nuclear holocaust which was so ominous in the early sixties. Other songs done in this vein include "Masters of War" and the comically tragic "Talkin' World War III Blues". Dylan was just as poignant concerning love and heartbreak with songs like "Don't Think Twice It's Alright", and "Girl From The North Country" which is Dylan's rewrite of the traditional English ballad "Scarborough Fair". "Oxford Town" gives an account of the injustice at the University of Mississippi a year earlier when U.S. Air Force veteran James Meredith became the first black student to enroll there. When Meredith first tried to attend classes at the school, a number of Mississippians pledged to keep the university segregated, including the state governor himself. Dylan's version of "Corrina, Corrina", a non-original 12 bar country blues tune also borrows lyrics from Robert Johnson's "Stones in My Passway". The album ends with "I Shall Be Free", a rewrite of Leadbelly's "We Shall Be Free". At the end of such a monumental piece of work, it is a welcomed comical rant about the culture of the day including J.F.K., Marlyn Monroe, Willy Mays, Sophia Loren, Martin Luther King and even "greasy kid's stuff".

Blonde on Blonde: Released May, 1966
Many believe Blonde on Blonde to be the first significant double album in rock history. Released in 1966, it preceded the Beatles' double "White Album" by over two years. It is also perceived by many critics as being the best album of Dylan's career. A year earlier in 1965 the Byrds had recorded Dylan's "Mr. Tambourine Man" with electric 12 string guitar, bass, and drums along with some haunting three part harmony vocals. It was a major hit and was labeled with the term "folk rock". Dylan himself had already gone electric with his two previous albums "Bringin' It All Back Home" and "Highway 61 Revisited" which included his biggest single "Like a Rolling Stone". In fact he was actually booed while performing some of the electric songs from these albums at the Newport Folk festival that year. For Dylan, it was not so much the so called folk rock sound he was looking for but rather a more bluesy feeling to compliment the more personal and sometimes cryptic songs he was now writing. This sound is what evolved and was best captured on his next album.
At the end of his 1965 tour Dylan decided to take his backing band the Hawks (later know simply as "The Band"), into Columbia Studios in New York. There they recorded a handful of songs but nothing really gelled. Sensing a need for a change of venue, Dylan decided to take the advice of session guitarist Charlie McCoy and scheduled sessions at Columbia's Music Row Studios in Nashville. Dylan brought along Jamie Robbie Robertson of the Hawks and Al Kooper who played organ on Highway 61 from New York. He also hired several top Nashville session musicians including McCoy. Recording began in February of 1966. The change of scenery worked and the songs began to flow with Dylan writing several in the studio during the sessions.
Blonde on Blonde kicks off with "Rainy Day Women No. 12 & 35" which includes the phrase "but I would not feel so all alone...everybody must get stoned!" "Visions of Johanna" is consider to be one of Dylan's greatest songs. At seven and one half minutes long, it's meaning has been interpreted in many ways with Dylan himself referring to it as his favorite song on the album capturing that "thin, wild mercury sound". "I Want You" is thought to be a song about Anita Pallenberg, at the time, the girlfriend of Brian Jones of the Rolling Stones who was a friend of Dylan's. "Just Like A Woman", arguably the most commercial track on the album, was released as a single featuring Dylan with the Nashville session players. "4th Time Around" is widely considered a response to "Norwegian Wood" the first Beatles track where the lyrics are seen as being more important than the melody and show an obvious Dylan influence. At over eleven minutes long "Sad Eyed Lady of the Lowlands" takes up the entire fourth side of the original double LP. Dylan is said to have written it for his wife Sara and acknowledges this in the song "Sara" from the "Desire" album.
A month after the release of Blonde on Blonde, Dylan suffered a near-fatal motorcycle accident and withdrew from public life for several years. During this period Dylan worked with the Hawks in a house in upstate New York recording and developing songs which would later become known as the "Basement Tapes", the most famous bootleg album in rock history.

Blood on the Tracks: Release January, 1975
Blood on the Tracks marked Dylan's return to Columbia Records after doing two albums with David Geffen's Asylum records. The content of it's material is generally thought to be the direct result of Dylan's personal turmoil over the breakup with his wife Sara. The songs would certainly support this theory though Dylan insists it is not the case. All ten songs on the album were originally recorded at Columbia's New York studios. After Dylan played the acetates for his brother David Zimmerman, it was decided that five would be re-recorded. David arraigned for studio time in Minneapolis and booked some local musicians for the sessions. The Minneapolis remakes are as follows: "Tangled Up In Blue", "You're a Big Girl Now", "Idiot Wind", "Lily, Rosemary, and the Jack of Hearts", and "If You See Her Say Hello". This collection of New York songs as well as the revamped Minneapolis songs were what was released as the official album in January of 1975.
Though widely labeled as his "confessional" album, Dylan insists these are not songs of his personal pain. In an interview discussing the album's ongoing popularity and stature as one of his greatest, Dylan stated "A lot of people tell me they enjoy that album. It's hard for me to relate to that. I mean, it, you know, people enjoying that type of pain, you know?"

You can also find great outtakes and alternate versions of the songs on these albums on the following CDs.
Bob Dylan: The Bootleg Series, Vols. 1-3 : Rare And Unreleased, 1961-1991
Bob Dylan: Biograph Boxed Set

Little Feat Skin It Back DVD: The Rock and Roll Doctor Returns

In the annals of Rock and Roll history, no one can compare to Lowell George. That's not to suggest he has no equals but his musical genius was like no one else's. Growing up in Hollywood, he worked his way through several bands before landing a gig with Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention in the late 60's. After conflicts arose, Zappa told George he would be better off starting his own band. That band became Little Feat including Bill Payne on keyboards (who had auditioned for the Mothers but had not joined), Mothers' bassist Roy Estrada, and drummer Richie Hayward from George's previous band "The Factory". Lack of commercial success of their first two albums, caused the band to split up, with Estrada leaving to join Captain Beefheart's Magic Band. In 1972 Little Feat reformed, with bassist Kenny Gradney replacing Estrada. With George on slide guitar, the band also added a second guitarist Paul Barrere (who had known George since their teen years), along with percussionist Sam Clayton.

This lineup of players lasted from 1973 to 1979. This group of top notch musicians really gelled and developed a sound like no other. Call it perhaps the Allman Brothers Band meets the Mothers of Invention. A delightful mix of brilliant slide guitar, a New Orleans Jazz\Funk gumbo, and some Georgia sunshine thrown in for good measure. This is in fact the lineup that appears on the wonderful DVD "Skin It Back" a live show filmed in Germany in July 1977 for the concert series "Rockpalast". Released in September 2009, this is the same concert that was available a few years back, but with more video clarity, better sound and outtakes from the rehearsals before the show. In August 1977 Little Feat recorded a live album from gigs at The Rainbow Theater in London and Lisner Auditorium in Washington, DC. The album titled "Waiting For Columbus" is considered by many rock music critics to be one of the best live rock albums of all time. This video from the same tour captures the band on film at their zenith and is the perfect visual companion to the album.

For the "Feat-O-Philes" it's filled with classics. Skin it Back, Fatman in the Bathtub, Dixie Chicken, Tripe Face Boogie, Willin' and several more. The performances are superb with the whole band playing at the top of their game. The bonus rehearsal tracks are a great added feature as well with two more versions of Fatman and the great tune Rock 'N' Roll Doctor which didn't make the concert footage.

Tragically, Lowell George died in 1979. The Feat still perform and are still a great band. With Lowell George at the helm however, as this video will attest to, they were one of the greatest bands in Rock and Roll.

Check out this priceless video clip of Lowell George backstage demonstrating his slide technique and giving a nod to fellow slide guitar master Ry Cooder. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7oPHLzEc3Q The impromptu harmony vocals from the surrounding band members are incredible. Long live the Rock and Roll Doctor!