Steve “Mr. Blues” Miller - Hammond Player Extraordinaire
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. Musicians
who have been a part of
Groove Monsters: David Fiester – Guitar Austin Pettit – Guitar Calvin - Bass Mark Gleason – Bass Bill Hoffman – Drums Mike Wright – Drums Kenny Cohen - Saxophone Ron Textiera – Keyboards Derek Costello – Keyboards
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Stephen
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.