Search Results for "Chicago"

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 – Abracadabra (Remastered) (1982/2019)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 37:30 minutes | 841 MB | Genre: Rock
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Steve Miller – Owned

The Steve Miller Band were the hottest thing on American radio, and in record stores, in the late summer of 1982. Their album Abracadadra, released in May that year, was on its way to platinum sales in the US alone, and about to start a six-week run at No. 3 on The Billboard 200. On 4 September, the ace guitarist and his band were the kings of pop too, as the infectious title track from the album climbed to No. 1 on the Hot 100.

The song, written by Miller and co-produced by him with the band’s drummer Gary Mallaber, was a prime example of how the axeman from Milwaukee had mastered the art of creating excellent album rock with an ear for the commercial single. It was a combination that had worked brilliantly on two previous No. 1 US pop singles for the outfit, with 1973’s ‘The Joker’ and ‘Rock’n Me’ in 1976. “What’s expected of me is short tunes,” he told Rolling Stone, perhaps with an edge of frustration. “They just want that four-minute fix.”

After ‘Abracadabra’ climbed to the top, history was reversed: ‘Rock’n Me’ had gone to the top of the American chart by unseating Chicago’s ‘If You Leave Me Now.’ Now, the new hit was succeeded at No. 1 by the same band’s ‘Hard To Say I’m Sorry.’

‘Abracadabra’ had two non-consecutive weeks at the summit, becoming a gold single, and also hit No. 1 in Australia, Austria, Canada, Sweden and Switzerland. It reached No. 2 in the UK, becoming the band’s only top ten hit there in July 1982, held off the top only by Captain Sensible’s ‘Happy Talk’ and then Irene Cara’s ‘Fame.’ The Abracadabra album also became their only top ten LP in the UK, spending three consecutive weeks at No. 10.

(more…)