photo credit: Watt Casey, Jr.
Coming off an extraordinary 2017, Rock n’ Roll Hall of Famer Steve Miller is excited to announce his Spring 2018 tour of Canada. He will also be playing an additional two dates in the upper American Midwest. The full itinerary is below with more dates to be added soon.
Joining Miller and his band on this tour will be special guest Peter Frampton.
“2017 was an amazingly beautiful, creative and rewarding music experience for our band and our audience,” says Miller. “The band and production crew are working on creating an even better concert experience for 2018 and plan on wading even deeper into the musical waters. Peter Frampton and I enjoyed last summer. There is so much to explore and we are looking forward to seeing our friends in Canada and the States soon.”
Frampton adds, “Having had such a fantastic tour together last summer, Steve and I decided to keep going this year! Jamming together each night during Steve’s set is one of my favorite moments of the evening. Can’t wait to get back out there.”
In September, Miller produced and personally directed the curation and creative process for two new, career-spanning Steve Miller Band Ultimate Hits collections (Capitol/Ume). Ultimate Hits is available in a 1CD and digital edition featuring 22 essential Steve Miller Band tracks, including three previously unreleased rarities, and in an expanded 2CD and digital deluxe edition with 40 tracks, including the acclaimed band’s top hits, live tracks, and eight previously unreleased recordings from the studio and the stage. Both editions are also available on 180-gram vinyl in 2LP and 4LP deluxe packages.
Steve Miller was a mainstay of the San Francisco music scene that upended American culture in the late ’60s. With albums like Children of the Future, Sailor and Brave New World, Miller perfected a psychedelic blues sound that drew on the deepest sources of American roots music and simultaneously articulated a compelling vision of what music-and society-could be in the years to come.
Then, in the ’70s, Miller crafted a brand of rock ‘n’ roll music that was polished, exciting and irresistible, and that has dominated radio through today. Hit followed hit in an endless flow: “The Joker,” “Livin’ in the USA,” “Take the Money and Run,” “Rock’n Me,” “Fly Like an Eagle,” “Jet Airliner,” “Jungle Love,” and “Abracadabra” among them. To this day, these songs are instantly recognizable when they come on the radio-and impossible not to sing along with.
Running through Miller’s catalogue is a combination of virtuosity and song craft along with melodic vocals and signature guitar riffs. His parents were jazz aficionados — Les Paul was his godfather — so as a budding guitarist and singer, Miller absorbed valuable lessons from their musical tradition. When the family moved to Texas, Miller deepened his education in the blues, meeting T-Bone Walker and learning to sing and play listening to him and Jimmy Reed. Miller then moved to Chicago where he played with Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Buddy Guy and Paul Butterfield.
The Steve Miller Band has played to more than 20 million people in the last 20 years. In addition to touring with his band, Miller is also contributing his time to serving on the visiting committee of the Department of Musical Instruments of New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art and as a board member of Jazz at Lincoln Center, where he curates and hosts shows at both institutions celebrating blues, jazz and early American music. From 2015 – 2017, Miller and guitar legend Jimmie Vaughan presented seven sold out shows at JALC: “Ma Rainey Meets Miles Davis,” “T Bone Walker – A Bridge From Blues to Jazz,” and, with along with harmonica virtuoso Charlie Musselwhite, “The Blues Triangle: Memphis, Texas and Chicago.”
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