Invalid Link Removed Lovely story in Texas Monthly.
Couple chunks for preview:
"Growing up, I didn’t know any of the music Steve Miller made before or after his hit parade. He released his first album fifty years ago and his most recent one in 2011, but KZPS and The Bone mostly played songs from 1974 to 1978. As a result, I didn’t know that Mr. Steve had recorded a 1967 live LP with Chuck Berry. I hadn’t learned that Les Paul—the jazz-and-standards legend and co-inventor of the solid-body electric guitar—was his godfather and mentor. (Steve’s father, a doctor and recording equipment enthusiast, was the best man at Paul’s wedding—which was held in the Miller home—and Paul and his bride, Mary Ford, spent their honeymoon in Steve’s parents’ bedroom.) I had no idea that when Steve was about nine years old, T-Bone Walker—a guest at his parents’ house—taught him to play guitar behind his back. Or that he had been a major figure in the sixties San Francisco psych rock boom. Or that he had opened a few of Janis Joplin’s and Jimi Hendrix’s last shows. I didn’t know that he had the foresight to control his own publishing when that was an unusual thing to do; I didn’t know what publishing was. I didn’t understand what it took to do all of that stuff, and I didn’t know why he wanted to show me how to do any of it, either."
Another one:
"All at once, the crowd lights faded, a Jetsons synth panned across the speakers, and the band walked onstage. They always start with a hit, and tonight it was “Jungle Love.” The fans set down their hot dogs and started to dance, and I remembered something Steve had said on the plane. To a lot of Steve Miller Band fans, the seventies hits are like “chocolate cake.” They’re warm and pleasurable comfort food, reminiscent of a Summer of ’76 picnic. They’re rock without the chaos, the blues without the pain, an America with the freedom of an endless road trip. And although Steve laid down roots in Chicago blues clubs, went out on a limb in the San Francisco psychedelic rock explosion, and has even played jazz at Lincoln Center, the ticketholders mostly want that classic rock."
And a personal observation: For much of my early musical life, I played with people whose credo was "I'm never gonna sell out!" I, on the other hand, was always trying to sell out, I just had no goddam clue how to do it. Now at least I know what I would have been shooting for: "Chocolate cake."
Couple chunks for preview:
"Growing up, I didn’t know any of the music Steve Miller made before or after his hit parade. He released his first album fifty years ago and his most recent one in 2011, but KZPS and The Bone mostly played songs from 1974 to 1978. As a result, I didn’t know that Mr. Steve had recorded a 1967 live LP with Chuck Berry. I hadn’t learned that Les Paul—the jazz-and-standards legend and co-inventor of the solid-body electric guitar—was his godfather and mentor. (Steve’s father, a doctor and recording equipment enthusiast, was the best man at Paul’s wedding—which was held in the Miller home—and Paul and his bride, Mary Ford, spent their honeymoon in Steve’s parents’ bedroom.) I had no idea that when Steve was about nine years old, T-Bone Walker—a guest at his parents’ house—taught him to play guitar behind his back. Or that he had been a major figure in the sixties San Francisco psych rock boom. Or that he had opened a few of Janis Joplin’s and Jimi Hendrix’s last shows. I didn’t know that he had the foresight to control his own publishing when that was an unusual thing to do; I didn’t know what publishing was. I didn’t understand what it took to do all of that stuff, and I didn’t know why he wanted to show me how to do any of it, either."
Another one:
"All at once, the crowd lights faded, a Jetsons synth panned across the speakers, and the band walked onstage. They always start with a hit, and tonight it was “Jungle Love.” The fans set down their hot dogs and started to dance, and I remembered something Steve had said on the plane. To a lot of Steve Miller Band fans, the seventies hits are like “chocolate cake.” They’re warm and pleasurable comfort food, reminiscent of a Summer of ’76 picnic. They’re rock without the chaos, the blues without the pain, an America with the freedom of an endless road trip. And although Steve laid down roots in Chicago blues clubs, went out on a limb in the San Francisco psychedelic rock explosion, and has even played jazz at Lincoln Center, the ticketholders mostly want that classic rock."
And a personal observation: For much of my early musical life, I played with people whose credo was "I'm never gonna sell out!" I, on the other hand, was always trying to sell out, I just had no goddam clue how to do it. Now at least I know what I would have been shooting for: "Chocolate cake."
