admin

Steve Miller Band – Ultimate Hits (Deluxe Edition Remastered) (2017)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:26:30 minutes | 3,11 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

Ultimate Hits may be something of a misnomer for the title of this 2017 compilation. In either its single CD or double-disc incarnation, Ultimate Hits contains the biggest songs from the Steve Miller Band, but they’re surrounded by cuts that can’t be classified as hits or even singles. This is especially true of the flagship double-disc, which opens up with an old recording of Steve Miller meeting Les Paul as a child — a snippet that first surfaced on 1994’s triple-disc box set Steve Miller Band — followed by a live cut where Miller recounts the story for the crowd. Such sequencing suggests that Miller is more concerned with telling a narrative than presenting the nonstop party that the title Ultimate Hits suggests, and the first disc proves that to be true, offering an early airing of “The Joker” as a concession before unleashing a lot of latter-day live performances, including the only airing of the classic “Living in the U.S.A.” Hits start to roll out toward the end of the first disc and carry through until halfway through the second, when the record shifts into second gear to close out the set. Several singles are absent — “Your Cash Ain’t Nothin’ But Trash,” “Macho City,” “Wide River,” “Ya Ya,” “Circle of Love,” “Cool Magic” among them — which underscores that this Ultimate Hits is more of a career overview than a clearinghouse of familiar tunes. Listeners looking for just the hits should turn to 2003’s Young Hearts: Complete Greatest Hits — and, if they’re all right with missing “Abracadabra,” the 1978 LP Greatest Hits 1974-78 is the perfect distillation of Miller’s prime — because even in its single-disc incarnation, Ultimate Hits is too idiosyncratic for a casual fan. Instead, it’s for the listener who is a serious Steve Miller Band fan but doesn’t want to dig into the albums. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine

(more…)

Steve Miller Band – The Joker (1973/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 36:06 minutes | 826 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

Although Steve Miller had been slugging it out since the late 60’s as a blues-rock guitarist, it wasn’t until his 1973 release, “The Joker”, that he finally found his most marketable niche in radio friendly rock. Here Miller abandoned his edge and his rootsy sensibilities, and leaned toward a lighter, more melodic approach. This is typified in the title track, a shuffling groover with an infectiously hooky chorus that went on to become a monstrous smash, and something of a signature song for Miller.

While “The Joker” is the centerpiece of the album the be-bop ditty “Shu Ba Da Du Ma Ma Ma Ma,” the humorous “Your Cash Ain’t Nothin’ But Trash,” and the underrated Miller composition “Sugar Babe” are also noteworthy. “The Joker” is most interesting as a look at Miller in transition: it contains many of the elements that would go on to make him a superstar over the course of his next two releases, 1976’s “Fly Like An Eagle” and “77’s Books Of Dreams”.

(more…)

Steve Miller Band – Sailor (1968/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 34:39 minutes | 829 MB | Genre: Classic Rock, Blues Rock, Psychedelic Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

Long before Steve Miller discovered the art of writing great short pop songs with infectious guitar licks, he led a dynamite band that featured Boz Scaggs. This incandescent album was their last together and for the vast majority of Miller followers it remains the pinnacle. Sandwiched in between the band’s love for the blues and R&B with “Gangster Of Love” and “You’re So Fine” are great rock tracks such as “Living In The USA” and “Dime-A-Dance Romance.” The desert-island choice, however, is the imaginative instrumental “Song For Our Ancestors.” Close your eyes while listening to it and, without needing artificial stimulants, you can actually hear ferry boats entering the harbor, as captured in audio verite for the track.

Second album Sailor was produced by Glyn Johns at Wally Heider s Studio in Los Angeles, and released in October 1968. But this was the end of the five-man line-up, as Boz Scaggs and Jim Peterman left soon after. The album includes the classic opening instrumental Song For Our Ancestors , perennial concert favourite Living In The U.S.A. and three Boz Scaggs songs.

(more…)

Steve Miller Band – Rock Love (1971/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 38:13 minutes | 781 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

“Rock Love” is the American rock band The Steve Miller Band’s sixth studio album released in 1971. This album consists of blues-rock and psychedelic rock elements that are very different from all their previous albums thus giving them a newer sound. The album consists of three blues-rock tracks recorded live, including lengthy jam-style “Love Shock” which lasts nearly 12 minutes and includes an extensive drum solo, and four studio tracks.

(more…)

Steve Miller Band – Recall The Beginning…A Journey From Eden (1972/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 29:41 minutes | 612 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

Seventh album Recall The Beginning… A Journey From Eden was produced by SMB occasional keyboard player and co-writer Ben Sidran, and released in March 1972. The album featured another new line-up, with longstanding bassist Gerald Johnson appearing for the first time. Bed Sidran and Jim Keltner guest on keyboards and drums, and arranging legend Nick DeCaro handles the horns and strings.

The album features Enter Maurice (referred to in The Joker ) as well as the six-minute absolute classic Journey From Eden.

(more…)

Steve Miller Band – Number 5 (1970/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 35:05 minutes | 752 MB | Genre: Classic Rock, Blues Rock, Psychedelic Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

Released in the summer of 1970, Number 5 was the fifth LP by the Steve Miller Band in just over two years. While it compares favorably to its immediate predecessor, Your Saving Grace, it is not quite up to the consistent excellence of the potent Brave New World from the previous summer. However, it does have a fair share of delights, especially the opening triumvirate of “Good Morning,” “I Love You,” and “Going to the Country.” These selections, and all of side one, have a distinctly more rural feel than did previous recordings, due perhaps to the fact that the tracks were recorded in Nashville. Charlie McCoy contributes harmonica to several of these cuts, and Buddy Spicher plays fiddle on “Going to the Country,” while Bobby Thompson adds banjo to “Tokin’s.” Side two is more uneven, with the lead-off mid-tempo rocker “Going to Mexico” serving as a conclusion to the first side’s thematic coherence, and the closing “Never Kill Another Man” a string-laden ballad. Sandwiched between them are three experimental-sounding pieces, seasoned with sound effects, buried vocals, and semi-political themes. Although it couldn’t have been predicted at the time, Number 5 represented the end of an era for Steve Miller and bandmates, and subsequent albums would sound nothing like this first batch of great recordings.

(more…)

Steve Miller Band – Living In The 20th Century (Remastered) (1986/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 36:10 minutes | 812 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

The 14th studio album from the Steve Miller Band was released in 1986 and featuring a guest appearance by saxophonist Kenny G. It includes the hit “I Want to Make the World Turn Around”, which spent six weeks at the top of the Album Rock Tracks chart in the U.S.A.

(more…)

Steve Miller Band – Live! Breaking Ground August 3, 1977 (2021)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:17:41 minutes | 1,62 GB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © UME Direct

Guitarist, multi-platinum-selling singer-songwriter, bandleader, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, and Songwriters Hall of Fame electee Steve Miller has dug deep into his archives and found an unreleased, full-length concert recording, Steve Miller Band Live! Breaking Ground: August 3, 1977.

(more…)

Steve Miller Band – Let Your Hair Down (2011/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 30:47 minutes | 644 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

Let Your Hair Down is a follow-up to Steve Miller’s Bingo! from 2010, and the tracks for this new release were recorded at the same sessions at George Lucas’ Skywalker Ranch studio with Andy Johns engineering and co-producing, and like Bingo!, Let Your Hair Down finds Miller re-exploring his Chicago blues roots. Miller and his band have always included a few old blues numbers in their concerts, so these are road-tested gems that are obviously close to Miller’s heart and soul, and they include the last recordings of Miller’s longtime collaborator (and harmonica whiz) Norton Buffalo, who died of lung cancer in 2009 shortly after these sessions. Miller has always had the ability to adapt blues forms into his pop work, but this outing, like Bingo!, is a full-fledged blues record, not a pop one, and fans of his classic rock should be aware that Miller, although his lead guitar work is everywhere here, doesn’t do all of the singing, with Sonny Charles and others handling lead vocals on some of the cuts. That said, Let Your Hair Down feels like a more realized snapshot of Miller’s blues adaptations than even the highly admired Bingo! was, and although it’s difficult to imagine the blues being exactly joyous, there is a passionate joy in these time-tested grooves, and it’s obvious both of these albums have been a labor of love for Miller and his band. Miller doesn’t pop-style these cuts up, either – this is the blues as he sees it, and thankfully he’s as sly and charming as ever here. Highlights include a delightfully tense version of Muddy Waters’ “Can’t Be Satisfied,” a grooved-out take on Rosco Gordon’s “Just a Little Bit,” a Jimmy Reed cover, “Close Together,” fine takes on Willie Dixon’s “Pretty Thing” and “Love the Life I Live,” and a visit to Robert Johnson territory with “Sweet Home Chicago.” The next obvious step would be for someone to package Let Your Hair Down and Bingo! together in a single package, because both albums work as complementary bookends. AllMusic Review by Steve Leggett

(more…)

Steve Miller Band – Italian X Rays (Remastered) (1984/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 37:23 minutes | 822 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

Steve Miller Band’s 13th studio album, released in 1984, contains the single “Who Do You Love” and “Out of The Night” which were co-written by Steve Miller and Tim Davis.

(more…)

Steve Miller Band – Fly Like An Eagle (1976/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 38:12 minutes | 763 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

It took the Steve Miller Band eight years and nine albums before they finally hit the big time. They got a taste of it in 1973 when the title track to The Joker reached No. 1. But Fly Like an Eagle, which was released in April 1976, took Miller and his group to a whole new level.

Miller forsook his love of the blues for this and its sister project Book Of Dreams. In turning to mainstream pop/rock he became a huge star and developed the knack of delivering high-quality three-minute songs that were perfect for FM radio.

The album is linked by Miller’s fascination with electronic sounds, sandwiched between the irresistible title track, the Bonnie and Clyde tale of ‘Take The Money And Run’, the irritatingly simple ‘Rock ‘n’ Me’ and the subdued ‘The Window’, with its quirky lyric ‘ask my baby what she wants to be, she says a monkey in a tree’. His baby replies ‘there’s nothing greater than love’, true enough. After all, it was Miller who rhymed ‘northern California’ with ‘girls are warm yeah’.

(more…)

Steve Miller Band – Circle Of Love (Remastered) (1981/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 33:05 minutes | 697 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

A recording artist since 1968, Miller made eight albums for Capitol, culminating with “The Joker”, before releasing the multi-million selling “Fly Like An Eagle” and “Book Of Dreams” albums in 1976 and 1977.

Originally released in November 1981, “Circle Of Love” features the hit singles “Heart Like A Wheel” and “Circle Of Love”, and also the sixteen minute “Macho City”. Taking up all of the album’s second side, this political work became a New York loft party favourite.

(more…)

Steve Miller Band – Children Of The Future (1968/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 38:17 minutes | 878 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

“Children of the Future” is the Steve Miller Band’s debut album released in 1968 and now is celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2018. This band is known to combine elements from the blues and psychedelic rock while this album, in particular, explores themes about the British blues revival in its musicianship.

(more…)

Steve Miller Band – Brave New World (1969/2018)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 29:54 minutes | 716 MB | Genre: Classic Rock, Blues Rock, Psychedelic Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

1969’s “Brave New World” is the album that not only fully integrates the blues-rock stomp and hazy trippiness of “Children Of The Future” and “Sailor”, but also adds a newfound pop gloss. Indeed, elements of this album would reappear throughout Miller’s stratospherically successful mid-’70s commercial heyday: the slyly humorous centerpiece rocker “Space Cowboy” was name-checked on “The Joker,” and the main riff of “My Dark Hour” (a studio collaboration between Miller and Paul McCartney) would later reappear as the intro to the huge hit “Fly Like An Eagle.” Brave New World also benefits heavily from the contributions of famed British keyboardist Nicky Hopkins. Acid rockers like “Can’t You Hear Your Daddy’s Heartbeat” and “Got Love ‘Cause You Need It” are wisely kept to the 2:30 mark, saving them from getting bogged down in the monotonous jamming that ruined so many albums of the period, while forward-looking experiments like the noise-rock interludes on the title track give the album a freshness that belies its recording date.

(more…)

Steve Miller Band – Book Of Dreams (Remastered) (1977/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 37:54 minutes | 815 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

A recording artist since 1968, Miller made eight albums for Capitol, culminating with “The Joker”, before recording the multi-million selling “Fly Like An Eagle” in 1976.

In May 1977, Steve followed this up with the album “Book Of Dreams”, another multi-million seller all around the world. The album was recorded at the same sessions as “Fly Like An Eagle” and features the hit singles “Jet Airliner”, “Jungle Love” and “Swingtown”.

The album starts off with “Threshold”, a minute-long, pure synth-effect track which almost sounds like a distant air patrol alarm and acts as defacto into for “Jet Airliner” (in fact, most classic radio stations play these songs together). “Jet Airliner” was composed by Paul Pena for his album in 1973, but when that artist encountered label problems the album and song went unreleased. The song was presented to Miller by a former band mate and Miller developed it using a variation of Eric Clapton’s guitar riff on Cream’s version of “Crossroads”. This method of using a synth-heavy piece to introduce a proper song was commonplace with Miller during this era as he did the exact same thing to start off Fly Like An Eagle and uses this method again later on Book of Dreams with “Electro Lux Imbroglio” and “Sacrifice”.

(more…)