“Pre-Top 40” Sailor?
Or “Top 40” Livin’ In The USA?
I never got pissed off at Miller like some folks did when Dylan went electric, but I sure liked the inventiveness of Sailor and still listen to it.
You?
Q
I’ve never heard Sailor. I’ll keep an eye out for it in the used vinyl racks.
There are a couple songs I like on the “Living In The USA” album. Most everything he did after that I can live without.
That’s a pretty odd differentiation, since “Living in the USA” was on the Sailor album.
I agree that there are two Steve Millers, but the clear demarcation point is Rock Love. After five pretty good albums, he did one really crappy one, then changed from an interesting musician to a purveyor of (sometimes plagiarized) crap.
His first five albums (Children of the Future, Sailor, Brave New World, Your Saving Grace, and Number 5) have some great songs on them, like “Living in the USA,” “Space Cowboy,” “Little Girl,” “Your Saving Grace,” “Going to Mexico,” and “Steve Miller’s Midnight Tango.”
After that – complete and utter mediocrity.
I don’t understand the question. “Living in the USA” is a song that appears on the album “Sailor.” It’s like asking which do you like better - “Sympathy for the Devil” or “Beggar’s Banquet.”
If you’re asking do I like the 60’s Steve Miller Band albums, “Children of the Future,” “Sailor,” and “Brave New World” better than the 70’s drek - “The Joker,” “Take the Money and Run,” “Fly Like an Eagle,” etc., the answer is an unqualified “yes!” Having Boz Scaggs as a band member and songwriter on those early albums greatly enhanced Steve Miller’s output.
eta, what Reality Chuck said!
I thought the question was clear wherever the song appeared. “Living…” was a departure from normal Steve Miller fare, in my opinion, and it marked a period that featured top 40 hits.
I think Living In The USA fitted pretty well in to Sailor. Like everyone else here, I go with the San Fransisco-first-seven-albums (I make it seven: Children… to Recall…) and later AOR stuff divide. Because he did do some wonderfully commercial songs in his early years, but they had grit, soul - whatever.
FWIW, I think that the Children Of The Future suite is a really beautiful piece of music, and the only American music that was psychedelic in the British sense - not surprising, perhaps, as it was recorded in England.
I like the “early” Steve Miller.
Capitol Records drew the line nicely with the Anthology album, which is sort of where I “discovered” him.
“The Joker” what where it started going “wrong”, IMHO. The commercial success must have been gratifying to him, but when he strayed from the blues and went for the mainstream pop-rock stuff, I lost interest. Gotta say, though, he was playing “Fly Like an Eagle” in concert quite a while before the album came out, and it was pretty amazing.
Why, oh why won’t they re-release “Recall The Beginning/Journey From Eden” on CD? 
Well, I suppose I’m gonna look like the heretic here, but I’ll 'fess up to liking the ‘later’ Steve Miller, the one that I grew up hearing on the radio. I saw him in concert twice, and while the crowd were drunken louts, the band was excellent. Also, Norton Buffalo is awesome, so Steve had that going for him.
All I can figure with the “Living in the USA”/Sailor issue is that the reference is to the compilation album Living in the USA, which has the title song, “Space Cowboy,” and “Your Saving Grace,” and several of the early Steve Miller songs, as well as some of the later crap. That makes a little more sense, but not not much more.
Which Steve Miller did Miles Davis call a “sorry-ass non-playing motherfucker” in his autobiography?
Probably the same one that called Miles an “alley-nigger”. :)*
Some of you musicologists may be able to tell us how closely Sailor followed on the heels of Sgt. Pepper.
I may be shooting “blanks” in my suppositions, but Miller intruiges me that way.
Q
- Need to point out that there is no cite reference other than what I read what Cicely Tyson once was quoted as saying.
Sailor itself was reissued under the title Living in the USA in 1971. The copy I had was shrinkwrapped together with a matching reissue of Children of the Future.
I’m pretty sure that’s what “threw” me, albeit these days, it doesn’t take a whole lot to "throw’ me off the track. (so to speak)
Sorry for the confusion, but according to the “discology” I found, Living In The USA follows the Sailor album.
Q
According the All Music Guide, Living In The USA was released in 1973.
So not a reissue of Sailor. Sailor was released in 1968.
If it’s the site that comes top of Google: it’s wrong. (See AMG, Wiki, RateYour Music et al)
Are you thinking of a 1968 doublepack reissue of Children and Sailor called Milestones? I remember buying it - and I’ve still got it.
Hey Nine, is that “Milestones” album mostly white with a small blue design? If so, I’ve got the same one.
It’s early Steve Miller all the way for me.
Appreciate the correction, NineToTheSky. I guess google isn’t as infallible as I thought