Steve Miller Band: Sailor

I have to take back my previous comments about the Capitol CD transfer not being very good. I've just listened to the whole album - my equipment has improved since the last time I listened - and with a slight raising of the bass and treble it's just fine (though perhaps not from the original stereo master?). Apologies to whoever at Capitol did the transfer. (I suspect the U.S. LP had a little extra warmth and depth imparted by the old tubed (?) cutting chain. I've no idea when Capitol retired tubes; it's just a guess.)

Three questions.

1. How did they get the gorgeous reverb. Is that a real echo chamber (Olympic?)

2. What the heck are the lyrics to Dime a Dance Romance, esp. the line that sounds like (but can't really be) "Well hung, low slung, game 'o tegris"?

3. How did such a careful engineer as Glynn Johns live with that abrupt chop at the end of the fadeout on Dime a Dance Romance. (It must be that way on the tape, as it cuts off at the very same place on every version I've heard.)

The album holds up surprisingly well for me. It would probably be impossible to get it made today. Too (gloriously, humanly) sloppy!

 

LYRICS

Sailor is a great record, isn't it. In the book "The Record Producers", Glyn Johns talks quite a bit on this album. Miller had wanted to change the name of the band to Sailor and do a concept album a la Sgt. Pepper. Song For Our Ancestors, Dear Mary and Living In The USA were part of the original concept but the rest of it never got worked out, and Sailor ended up as just a bunch of songs without the original concept. But maybe this is what gives Sailor some of it's charm and unique qualities. Johns also mentions the recording of SFOA and that there were real fog horns he recorded at San Pedro harbour in LA, and the rest came from a sound effects library. He indicates he got that slow building 'organ' sound by taking an organ line and slowing it down half an octave, then halving that and so on over and over, just building it up, linking machines together.

 

What a great album, but the original Capitol pressings (of which I have a promo) are horrid, from the raspy 1st tracks to the MASSIVE inner groove distortion at the end. The CD was the 1st time I ever heard this LP decently.

 

Hi Steve,

Hear ya! I went from SS to tubes and from modern to vintage equipment and everything changed. Some of what i loved just ain't what it used to be, and some of what i thought was weak is actually very nice. Amazing how much of a difference new equipment can make!

BTW, i have this and other original Steve Miller cd releases and have been pleasantly surprised by the sound. The music is GREAT and the band is amazing!

-Jeffrey

 

Thanks for the reference, but unfortunately the lyrics I'm looking for are replaced with "??" - in fact I got some more lyrics than they did.

Tell me more about this book! Sounds fascinating.

I don't know if I had read that about building the organ chord before, but I do seem to remember playing the thing at 78 rpm and noticing how natural it sounded (not recommended on your precious LPs!) I can't remember why.

Actually I was too young to appreciate the track properly when I first got the record.

Too bad we didn't get more of the concept. Does "Overdrive" fit in there somewhere?

 

Hi Larry,

We seem to have interestingly differing perceptions. The LP was horrid in terms of noise, but other than that I thought the Capitol LPs sounded good.

Dime a Dance Romance had horrible inner groove distortion on my first copy only because it got played over and over and over and over and over and over on record players with ceramic and crystal cartridges, one of which tracked (if that's the right word!) at 14 grams. Life is better now! (You could hear the groove hiss build and build right before this track, evidence of the wear.)

 

The Record Producers was a fairly large sized soft cover book I picked up in the early 80's. Was published in England I believe. Not the usual Q&A thing you see today, but each producer basically takes you through their career and describes great/ not so great moments, with a lot of very interesting stories.

Off the top of my head it features:

Glyn Johns
Mickey Most
Phil Spector
Todd Rundgren
Bill Szymczyk
Richard Perry
Chris Thomas
George Martin
Tony Visconti
Roy Thomas Baker

The RTB segment is worth the price of the book; tales of car accidents, shootings, destroying studios, house fires, drum kits (Dennis Elliot of Foreigner) falling off the back of a truck onto a highway...

What's also great is you get a cross reference on artists who shared producers, like The Eagles, who come up in both Johns and Szymczyk features. Glyn goes to Bills house for dinner and plays him the finished On The Border album and Glyn wasn't too sure he liked it.

 

Another interesting book is Inside Tracks: A First-Hand History of Popular Music from the World's Greatest Record Producers and Engineers by Richard Bushkin. A few pages each from fifty or so producers and engineers based on interviews. Foreward by Brian Wilson. Read more about it HERE on Amazon. The book was published in 1999.

 

Wow. What a list!

Yes, I remember reading elsewhere about Bill playing Glyn(n?) some of his work on Eagles and Glynn making a polite suggestion or two, and Bill telling him where to put it. Of course that may not be quite how it went.

I like both of their production styles a lot, G.J. is one of my favorites; but I'm not sure Bill wasn't better suited to the Eagles.