Steven
Alan Miller was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on November 8th,
1942. Known to us as Steve Miller, not to be confused with
the other Steve Miller from “ Fly Like An Eagle”
fame. To his loving fans, Steve is Mr. Blues, Cocoa Beach
Slim, Terrazzo Burns... the man who used to tear it up on
his Hammond B-3 organ with the rockin’ Blues band
“The Groove Monsters”.... but that is only recent
folklore.
A long
time ago... “a little while back” our Steve
Miller began piano lessons at the age of 6 but quit after
a few weeks, A couple years later he tried his hand at the
accordian and at the age of 13 he turned pro playing Polkas
and Country music with “The Town Rangers”, at
the age of 14, he stepped onto the stage at Carnegie Hall
in New York City with his accordian slung over his shoulders.
He placed 40th out of 200 playing the Concerto in “A”
by Pietro Diero in that years national talent contest. There
was no looking back after that. !
Steve’s
father was a Dixieland Jazz drummer and his mom liked Gospel
& piano music. There was always music in the Miller
home. Steve grew up listening to the sounds of Krupa, Cole,
Charmichael, Jordan and other popular bands of the era.
As the hairs began sprouting out his chin and rock n roll
took over the airwaves, Steve traded in his accordian, picked
up a piano and began touring with “The Cell Block
7” playing county fairs and such. Soon thereafter
he joined “The Bopcats” and played more prestigous
rooms such as the Cedar Rapids Danceland Ballroom and The
Surf Ballroom where Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Richie
Valens were headed when their light plane crashed in a snow
storm.
1961
saw Steve heed the call of the wild west, West Long Beach,
California that is. There he hooked up with former Bopcat
bassist Kenny Thompson, drummer Jim Gordon, Clarence Hicks,
Gene Conners who went on to play with Ray Charles and a
few others. A year later he returned to Iowa with a whole
new sound and joined up with “Tito Mambo and The Prophets”.
Their first road gig brought them to New Bedford Massachusets
in 1963 where Steve bought his first Hammond Organ M-103.
1963 was also the year Trent Miller (later to be known as
Automatic Slim) Steve and Janets only child was born and
Tito meet his demise finding himself on the wrong end of
a gun during a card game dispute with a club owner in Newport,
RI.
Back
in Iowa, Steve and the remaining members giged around in
mostly black night clubs playing the popular covers by Wilson
Pickett, B.B. King, Howlin’ Wolf, Little Milton, James
Brown and others. This is where Steve first meet Earl Hooker
in 1964 and The Prophets evolved into the “Lynn County
Blues Band”, naming themselves after the county in
which Cedar Rapids was situated. 1965-1968 were the years
Steve hung at “ Mother’s Blues Club” in
Chicago, often jamming there with Otis Rush. Big John’s,
in old town, was where he would go to jam with Magic Sam,
Luther Johnson, James Cotton, Muddy Waters, Luther Tucker
and many other blues dignitaries. This was also the time
period that the Lynn County Blues band put out the albums
“ Till The Break of Day” and “Fever Shot”.
As
the National Guard turned the streets of Chicago into a
military zone and Martin Luther King was cut down at Memphis,
Steve headed for the most happening music in the world San
F rancisco, the land of Peace, Free Love and I ain’t
gunna tell ya what else! During the next 6 years Steve’s
career advanced considerably as he became a regular at the
Fillmore, S.F.’s hottest rock venue.., recorded with
Earl Hooker “Hooker & Steve” and released
his own feature album on the Philips label entitled “
Steven Miller.” Steve was part of the infamous 1969
Flying Bear Medicine Show which was a two week concert tour
of Mercury Records most important acts which concluded with
an all day jam session in Martin County at the foot of Mount
Tamalpais which Mercury recorded and released. At that show
Steve performed with Buddy Miles & musicians from “The
McCoys”, “Sir Douglas Quintet”, “Shades
of Joy”, “Group Therapy” and other notables.
From
there Steve went on to become a featured artist in The Elvin
Bishop band playing the organ and piano, vocals and composing
songs. During this stint Steve recorded 3 albums with Elvin
“ The Elvin Bishop Group” and “ Feelin
It”, both on the Filmore label and “Rock My
Soul” on Epic.
Clifton
Chenier sought out Elvin & Steve’s talents which
you can hear on his 1974 Arhoolie records release entitled
“ Outwest with Elvin Bishop and Steve Miller”.
Steve also tickled the black and whites on a Gideon &
Power release entitled” I gotta be me”, a Bell
Records / Columbia Pictures release.
1974
was the year Steve, Janet and Trent, now 11 years old, retired
to a farm back in Iowa. But not for long. “ Rolling
Stone Magazine” printed a Steve Miller interview in
their December 5th 1974 issue, which Joe Dan Petty a member
of the Allman Brothers band saw and asked Steve to come
on down to Macon, Ga. to audition for a spot in his band
“Grinder Switch”. This led to a 5 year stint
with the “Switch” on Capricorn records and life
on the “bros” Juliette Georgia farm. Dickey
Betts and Butch Trucks were also living there at that time.
Steve’s front porch is pictured on Allman Brothers
“ Brothers and Sisters” album.
Since moving to Florida in 1981, Steve along with Dru Lombar
formed and played in "Dr. Hector and The Groove Injectors",
He then went on to form the guitar driven hard rock n blues
band “The Groove Monsters” and then "The
Winos For Peace", a more roots blues and R & B
effort featuring Steve on keys and vocals. In 1994 Steve
and Tinsley Ellis laid down some tracks on a Chicago Bob
Nelson album “Goin’ Back to Boguloosa”
recorded at King Snake records in Sanford, Florida. Since
1996 Steve enjoyed a stint playing with "Cookie and
The Vagrantz", playing what he loves the most roots
blues... Steve Miller style. 1999 he reformed “The
Wino’s for Peace” and the band just "oozes
the blues". The new band consist of Bruce Johnson on
harmonica, Mike Tolnay, bassist extrodinaire, and drummer
Joe Luley on the pots and pans.
We’ve left out alot about Steve’s career but
we wanted to give ya’ll a broad overview of his musical
chronology. It should suffice to say that over the past
40 years Steve has played, recorded and toured with many
rock and blues greats. He has been on approx. 50 albums
spanning many genre’s of music.
