Steve Miller (musician) - The Steve Miller Band

The Steve Miller Band

In 1967, he formed the Steve Miller Band (at first called The Steve Miller Blues Band), with Miller also handling vocals. Billed as The Miller Band, they backed Chuck Berry on his Live at Fillmore Auditorium album released that year. In 1968, they released an album, Children of the Future, the first in a series of discs rooted solidly in the psychedelic blues style that then dominated the San Francisco scene. Writing in Crawdaddy!, Peter Knobler called the album "a triple moment of experience, knowledge, inspiration". Boz Scaggs rejoined Miller for this album and the next one, before starting his solo career.

The group followed the release of their second album, Sailor, with the albums Brave New World, Your Saving Grace and Number 5. These first five albums performed respectably on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart but failed to yield a major hit single; the highest charted single being "Livin' in the USA" from Sailor. Songs from this period are also featured in a portion of the double album compilation Anthology, which includes a guest appearance on bass guitar, drums and backing vocals by Paul McCartney on the songs "Celebration" and "My Dark Hour."

In this first period Miller established his personae of the "Gangster of Love" (from Sailor) and the "Space Cowboy" (from Brave New World), which were reused in later works. In 1972, Miller recorded the album Recall the Beginning...A Journey from Eden, in which a third persona, "Maurice," was introduced in the tune "Enter Maurice."

In 1973, The Joker marked the start of the second phase of Miller's career: this work was less hard-rock oriented and simpler in composition. The album received significant radio airplay, which helped the title track reach number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. The single also hit No 1 on the UK Singles Chart in September 1990 after it was used for a television commercial.

Miller followed up with Fly Like an Eagle in 1976, and Book of Dreams in 1977. (The songs for both had been recorded at the same time, and released over two single albums rather than one double-album.) This pair of albums represented the peak of Miller's commercial career, both reaching the top echelons of the album charts and spawning a lengthy series of hit singles, including "Fly Like An Eagle", "Rock'n Me", "Take the Money and Run", "Jet Airliner" and "Jungle Love". The Steve Miller Band co-headlined a major stadium tour with The Eagles in 1978.