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.