Turntable Tuesday

Turntable Tuesday! The album this week is Steve Miller’s “Living in the 20th Century.”

December 29, 2020

It’s Turntable Tuesday…because life is too short not to listen to great music! Turn that TV OFF and listen to some music on your local speaker! As we wind down a pandemic year that will leave a mark in world history as a dark time let’s trim the wicks on the lanterns, turn ’em up, and throw a log on the fire. Crank up the amplifiers nice and loud to let the neighbors know you are living a little. A new year is only days away and hope is on the horizon. It’s Turntable Tuesday!

The cover of the 1986 album release “Living in the 20th Century” by Steve Miller. This piano stool the album is resting on is from the early 20th century and I rescued this three legged beauty from a very dusty box on a shelf in an antique store where it was for sale…in pieces. You can see the wood split in the photo where the stool was repaired better than new by a family of professional furniture restorers aka Ted Keaton in Greensboro, North Carolina. Ted and his sons have brought several of these 100 year old piano stools back to life for me over the years. He rocks.

If you would like to listen to my companion podcast you can listen here or subscribe for free on any of the streaming services you use. My podcast is easily searchable on any streaming service where you get your podcasts by searching “Andrew Talbert.” Look for the World Wide Music Media logo. Before you listen to this episode my apologies to Australia for my terrible pronunciation of the word didgeridoo also spelled didjeridu which makes more sense to me. Once I finished the podcast I was reciting this word over and over until I got it. For the rest of the details you will have to listen to this episode!

Steve Miller. The first recollection I have of hearing his music was from a Capital Records cassette tape in 1973. At that point I had seen the eight track versions of “The Joker” in stores but I had the cassette as I never owned an eight track tape player. Now I know they were very fashionable in their day but I always liked a cassette as I thought the design of the tape housing was smarter and sometimes the tape even sounded better especially if you were recording it yourself on the latest metal coated tapes coming out of Japan. The first version I heard was the commercial release pictured below and my cassette player was not very high fidelity at that time! It took until about 1976 for me to acquire some secondhand audio gear and then I could make my own higher quality audio recordings to tape from vinyl. I kept upgrading my audio systems and in the 1980’s I moved up to a Nakamichi CR7A tape deck which I still have today. In fact my machine was upgraded from belt drive after I purchased it to direct drive by the Nakamichi California engineers at no charge. I could write a whole blog post about that audio journey. Let’s just say I am a huge fan of the Nakamichi company and I once wrote them a hand-written thank you letter for their amazing customer service. https://www.nakamichi-usa.com/about-us

The 1973 cassette version of Steve Miller’s “The Joker.” It was the first time I listened to Steve Miller. You could buy these tapes at many gas stations where they would be found in a spinning rack on the counter or under glass counters near the cash register. It wasn’t long until I had the vinyl version of this one and all of the Steve Miller Band albums. Every one of them from the beginning to now.
The track list from the album cover of “Living in the 20th Century.”

I am going to talk through the track list and talk about the artists on my companion podcast. I have a story or two to share about the talent playing on this record.

Speaking of talent you have the core group of musicians working with some special guests to make this recording sound great. This is one awesome record and a good way to crank up the volume and end a tough year of living the pandemic blues lifestyle.
The record sleeve of the vinyl. This is why I really love vinyl. Visual art and music. There really is nothing better…well maybe one or two things but you know what I mean.
I have seen Steve Miller and many of the musicians on this album perform many times through the years. This photo was one of several I captured in 2017 at one of the two Steve Miller shows I attended that year.
One of three Jimmy Reed songs covered on this album “Caress Me Baby” is one of my favorites. It is a very simple lyric with some smooth guitar work. Steve Miller takes the classic Jimmy Reed song and makes it his on this album. I used to keep this track on my favorite play list when it was released as I bought this album as it was released for sale. “Baby, baby, baby, this album is full of love songs old and new with some old songs made new.
At almost 28 minutes this short movie features some of the best tracks of Steve Miller’s “Living in the 20th Century.” I enjoyed every minute of it. “It’s like trout fishing” as Steve Miller says. “It’s all in the presentation.”

I suggest you go buy a copy of this album and do a deep dive into the tracks. As I have said I bought this album as it released and I think I listened to it at home and on my daily commutes until I knew every note of the record. This album never got the press of some of the Steve Miller music collection but this album is among my favorites of his entire collection. That statement likely is derived from my love of blues and rock and roll music. With talent and production you can generate a great product but in the end it all comes down to getting the product in the ears of the listener. As Muddy Waters once said “The Blues had a baby and it was called Rock and Roll.”

Until next time I’ll see you, down the road.