Rock Love

Album review

Steve Miller and his Band did have a life before The Joker, which made them immortal in 1973 (and which later returned in a famous advert for jeans in the 1990s). But that life had its ups and downs. Take, for example, the first double-length best of collection, modestly entitled Anthology, which came out in 1972, shortly after this rather odd Rock Love. Out of action for a few months following a serious motorcycle accident, Miller had his record label market a string of studio offcuts and live recordings so as to keep the pot boiling until he was back in business. But this stop-gap album is a much less random selection than it might seem. A former student of the godfather Les Paul, the famous creator of the Gibson which bears his name, Miller possessed a fine reputation for guitar technique, but he never managed to reproduce such brilliance in any of his subsequent five albums.

With a new, pared-down team, he set about exploring new horizons, while refining his "U-rated" blues close to the Allman Brothers (Love Shock) or the Clapton of Derek and the Dominos. To be sure, this album doesn't have as much rock to it as one might be led to believe by the title, which is taken from a live recording of a vigorous rendition of Love Shock, marked by the shadow of Jimi Hendrix, or the fun Let Me Serve You, which has something about it that suggests that Miller never got the chance to file off its rough edges. But he seems absolutely at home in the folk-rock groove, and one could imagine numbers like Rock Love, Harbor Lights  being the work of a hypothetical Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young & Miller outfit: and the same goes for Deliverance, a long jam where the "gangster of love" shines on acoustic guitar. With the notable presence of Ross Valory (who would go on to found Journey) on bass, this ephemeral iteration of the always-unstable Steve Miller Band holds up very respectfully, especially on the spellbinding Blues Without Blame. Finally exhumed and digitally optimised, Rock Love certainly deserves a warmer welcome than the rather frosty reception it got the first time around. © Jean-Pierre Sabouret/Qobuz