The Space Cowboy replays his greatest hits
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He’s a joker, a space cowboy and a master of the radio hook.
Steve Miller is also a yakker. Name the topic — guitar innovator Les Paul (who is his godfather), his late grandfather in Forest Lake, Minn., the Steve Miller Band’s rhythm section (bassist Billy Peterson and drummer Gordy Knudtson) — and the affable Milwaukeeborn guitarist, 64, will give you an earful.
His latest obsession is the blues — he’s making a new album of old blues and R&B songs.
“We cut 40 tracks, some originals and a bunch of Lightnin’ Hopkins, Junior Parker, Bobby Blue Bland, Jimmie Vaughan, Elmore James, James Cotton, Rosco Gordon, Robert Johnson, Slim Harpo, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells,” said Miller, who started his professional career in the Chicago blues scene in the mid-1960s but now lives in Idaho, where he talked by phone.
“I was up till 4:30 this morning working on segues. I think there’s actually two albums of material. It came off great. We had Andy Johns as engineer; he did like all the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin records. I don’t have a working title. Maybe ‘Guitarzilla.’ I’m not sure yet.”
Nor does Miller know when the album will be released. His longtime label, Capitol Records, was recently bought by an English firm that, in his words, specializes in waste management, gas stations and hotels. The album will feature the band’s new second vocalist, Sonny Charles, formerly of the 1960s R&B outfit the Checkmates Ltd. “He is a phenomenal soul singer but he’s an even better blues singer,” said Miller.
But we wanted Miller to talk about his own old songs:
“Abracadabra” (1982)
“I wrote it on a gut-string guitar. It was a little catchy instrumental piece. I wrote a series of horrible lyrics that were so hooky that you couldn’t get them out of your mind. I recorded it and finished it and, at the very last second, I pulled it off of an album. I thought: ‘This song isn’t ready; these lyrics suck.’ I had it for three years and I was in Sun Valley, Idaho, skiing one day. Diana Ross came zooming by me and fell down in front of me. I went over to help her up, and about eight bodyguards show up immediately. I went home and wondered: ‘What would the Supremes do with this track?’ Then I write ‘Abracadabra’ in 15 minutes. So it took three years and 15 minutes to write.”
“The Joker” (1973) “It started more as a piece of music, and I started getting this
line and that line, and finished it off at a party at about 2 o’clock in the morning. I had no idea it was a hit. I was surprised. It was my first real hit.”
“Fly Like an Eagle” (1977)
“It took years to develop. It was a jam song for a long time. We were out playing in ballrooms and psychedelic dungeons and places with mirrored balls and light shows where there weren’t any spotlights on the band. It was sort of developed in the dark of the light show.
“I worked on it and worked on it and it kept getting better and better. I had to completely record it three times — recorded, mixed, EQ’d (equalized). It didn’t have the magic on it. It took me a long time to get the right combination of guys in the studio and a new synthesizer — that I did all those sound effects on — that made it feel like it did when we were playing it with the light show. I’m the kind of a guy who will take a good idea and nurse it for years.
“I remember being really bored to death when I sang the ‘tick-tock do-do, do-dos.’ When it was finally finished, I was really thrilled. It’s probably our best piece of music. It’s a huge, spontaneous number and we really have a lot of fun with it (in concert). We never really know what’s going to happen when we play it. I’m very proud of that one.”
“Space Cowboy” (1969)
“It was just a toss-off. Fifteen minutes of yuck, yuck, yuck. Then I hated it and wanted to take it off the record. And my engineers and the guys in the room were going, ‘Are you crazy? It’s a great song.’ I very reluctantly put it on the record. And 40 years later, I’m the space cowboy.”
