(2021) Steve Miller Band – Live! Breaking Ground: August 3, 1977


Review:
Following the 2019 box set Welcome to the Vault, Steve Miller has dipped into his archives once again for a new release. Live! Breaking Ground: August 3, 1977, a seventeen-song set, chronicles The Steve Miller Band as they transitioned from playing small venues such as theatres and ballrooms to arenas and stadiums. 1973’s The Joker yielded the chart-topping title track while the band took their music to the next level with 1976’s Fly Like an Eagle. The quadruple-platinum LP boasted the hit title track (No. 2 on the Hot 100) as well as “Rock’n Me” (No. 1) and “Take the Money and Run” (No. 11). The SMB’s most recent album at the time of the concert, May 1977’s Book of Dreams, continued the winning streak with “Jet Airliner,” “Swingtown,” and “Jungle Love.” Audiences were growing bigger with each successive album, and so was the sound of the band. The concert was recorded at Landover, Maryland’s Capital Centre (built in 1973, demolished in 2002) on multi-track tape and newly mixed and mastered for this release by Miller and his longtime collaborator, engineer Kent Hertz.  The concert featured Miller on guitar, harmonica and lead vocals supported by Norton Buffalo on harmonica and background vocals, Lonnie Turner on bass, Gary Mallaber on drums, David Denny on guitar and background vocals, Greg Douglass on guitar, and Byron Allred on keyboards. “This show from August of 1977 at the Cap Center in Landover, Maryland, captures the band right at the peak after The Joker, and in the middle of Fly Like an Eagle and Book of Dreams, a stream of hits,” Miller commented in the press release.  “We decided to call it Breaking Ground because that’s exactly what we were doing.”  The CD and LP offer new liner notes by David Fricke who writes, “Breaking Ground captures the Steve Miller Band on stage in one of their biggest years, 1977. They were at a perfect crossroads of psychedelic zeal and progressive, popcraft while staying true to Miller’s first love, the blues.”





Tracklist:
01.Living in the U.S.A. (Live)
02.Space Cowboy (Live)
03.Shu Ba Da Du Ma Ma Ma Ma (Live)
04.Come On in My Kitchen (Live)
05.Wild Mountain Honey (Live)
06.The Window/Winter Time (Live)
07.The Stake (Live)
08.Mercury Blues (Live)
09.Serenade (Live)
10.Take The Money And Run (Live)
11.Jet Airliner (Live)
12.Space Intro (Live)
13.Fly Like An Eagle (Live)
14.Rock’n Me (Live)
15.The Joker (Live)
16.Seasons (Live)
17.So Long Blues (Live)


Media Report:
Genre: rock
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec, 16-bit PCM
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits