Newly Remastered by Steve Miller and Kent Hertz

The career of Steve Miller and the various incarnations of his band runs parallel with the development of classic American rock music. Texan born Miller migrated to California to play hard electric blues with Barry Goldberg before catching the prevailing psychedelic trend in Los Angeles and San Francisco. The Steve Miller Band were pretty much an instant success, partly because they were tighter and more proficient than most of the jam rambling competition. Miller's first albums are masterpieces of the emergent acid rock movement, but they also rely on a cool bedrock of blues structure and some wildly innovative electronic treatments.

After cutting his teeth backing Chuck Berry, Miller and Co. won a landmark contract with Capitol and having recruited Boz Scaggs to join his rhythm section the troupe decamped to London to record their debut Children of the Future at Olympic Studios in early 1968 with Glyn Johns at the helm. At this point the Steve Miller Band was a democracy of sorts with Jim Peterman's atmospheric keyboards underpinning Tim Davis's drums and vocals and Lonnie Turner's super funky bass. The SMB took a psych rock blueprint and ran riot on the title track, "The Beauty Of Time Is That It's Snowing (Psychedelic B.B.)" and the trippy "In My First Mind." However their R&B roots also shine through on Scaggs' moody ballad "Baby's Callin' Me Home" and Buster Brown's rolling "Fanny Mae." As debuts go this is immaculate and fully deserves reappraisal. 

2018 marks 50 years since the Steve Miller Band's first two Capitol Records albums were released in 1968, and to commemorate the golden anniversary Miller and Capitol/UMe present remastered reissues of the legendary group's first nine studio albums.