A star in the Hollywood Walk of Fame shines with focus on music encompassing three decades. With a string of mainly mid-70s hit singles, the songs became staples of classic rock radio, as well as several earlier acid rock albums. More importantly is this light hasn't dimmed well into the 21st century.
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Photo: Steve Miller Band Children Of The Future -
Capitol 2920.
Released June 1968. L-R top row. Tim Davis and Lonnie Turner.
Bottom Row. Jim Peterman, Steve Miller and Boz Skaggs.
Released June 1968. L-R top row. Tim Davis and Lonnie Turner.
Bottom Row. Jim Peterman, Steve Miller and Boz Skaggs.
Steve Miller Band: Call him the Gangster of Love. Call him Maurice. You can even call him the The Joker or Space Cowboy. Everybody knows that Steve Miller speaks the pompatus of love.
Steve Miller's career has encompassed two distinct stages: one of the top San Francisco blues-rockers during the late '60s and early '70s, and one of the top-selling pop/rock acts of the mid- to late '70s and early '80s with hits like "The Joker," "Fly Like an Eagle," "Rock'n Me," and "Abracadabra." The American rock band known as the Steve Miller Band formed in 1966 in San Francisco, California managed by Steve Miller on guitar and lead vocals. The Steve Miller Band’s Greatest Hits 1974-1978, released in 1978, sold over 13 million copies. They continued to produce more albums and in 2014, Steve Miller Band is still going strong touring with the rock band Journey.
1974 The Steve Miller Band were at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'The Joker', the group's first of three No.1's. In 1990, more than 16 years later, it reached No.1 in the UK singles chart after being used in "Great Deal", a Hugh Johnson-directed television advertisement for Levi's, thus holding the record for the longest gap between transatlantic chart-toppers.
Memories From the '70s...Songfacts: The line in this song, "I speak of the pompatus of love," has baffled listeners for some time. Greil Marcus provided the best explanation we've seen in a 2002 article for Los Angeles Magazine titled "In The Secret Country." The word "Pompatus" does exist in the Oxford English Dictionary, and it means "to act with pomp and splendor." Miller most likely heard the word on a song called "The Letter," which was recorded by the Los Angeles Doo-Wop group The Medallions in 1954. It was written by their lead singer Vernon Green, who was 16 at the time and crippled with polio. The song contained these lyrics:"Let me whisper sweet words of dismortality, and discuss the pompatus of love. Put it together and what do you have? Matrimony."The Pompatus Of Love is the name of a 1995 movie starring Jon Cryer, and Cryer tracked down Vernon Green to ask him about these lyrics. Green defined "Dismortality" as "Words of such secrecy they could only be spoken to the one you loved" and "Pompatus" as "A secret paper-doll fantasy figure who would be my everything and bear my children."
1981 It was reported that the White House had expanded its record library by including albums by Bob Dylan, Kiss and The Sex Pistols.
And the music goes on beating to the rhythm of the changing times...
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