Oldies But Goodies » Discussions » Steve Miller Band - The Joker (1973)

Bez
Steve Miller Band - The Joker (1973)

Steve Miller's classic song was first released in October 1973 and it was a smash hit in the USA, but it did nothing in the UK at first. However, in 1990 it was used in a TV commercial and that stimulated a new interest in the song, propelling it to the top of the UK charts some 17 years after it first scored in its home territory.

  • Steve is from Dallas, where he and Boz Scaggs were high school classmates and band mates. I saw a free show that Miller did in Austin a few years ago with Sheryl Crow. He did all of his hits, plus a bunch of great blues covers. 

    Posted August 5, 2016
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  • Bez

    I read it somewhere when I was about 15 that Boz Scaggs was once a member of the Steve Miller Band. I bought Boz's single "Lido Shuffle" when I was 15 and I still love it now. It was about then that I read about his musical past in NME (or one of the other music papers). I wasn't surprised, I already had Steve Miller's single "Rock 'n' Me" in my collection by then. I didn't get "The Joker" on a single until the 1980s, and it still hadn't been a hit in the UK until it was revived on some TV commercial in 1990. It was unusual to see a record I'd already had for several years getting to number one in 1990, although it wasn't the only golden oldie to top the charts that year. The Righteous Brothers' timeless "Unchained Melody" became a massive success as a reissue that year after it was revived in the utterly awful but inexplicably popular movie "Ghost". I can think of better reasons for a reissued oldie to become a smash hit all over again. Lol:)

    Sheryl Crow is a good singer as well, so I would have enjoyed that show in Austin had I been there. :)

    Posted August 5, 2016
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  • Women just LOVED Ghost. The saying was that if you really wanted to get laid, take her to see Ghost and there would be a puddle where she sat after it was over.

    Posted August 5, 2016
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  • Bez

    There isn't a woman I dislike enough to inflict that dreadful dreck on her, not even that one who lied to me about her birthday. I've never heard that saying you mentioned. Out of the women I asked about that movie, only a few of them actually did like that movie. None of the women whose houses I have visited had it in their video collections as far as I can remember - unless it was a guilty pleasure that they kept hidden in a cupboard lest visitors saw it. Lol:)

    Posted August 5, 2016
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  • Patrick Swayze grew up in Houston. His mother was a dance teacher and he was always in one of her classes, almost always the only boy. He later said that he probably had sex with at least 50 of his mom's students, growing up. He was always a talented dancer, which is how he broke into show business. Being a straight male dancer who was allowed to put his hands on his partner's crotch was like having the keys to the city. Very few women ever said no to him. 

    Posted August 5, 2016
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  • Bez

    Funny, I don't remember that many women having a thing about him. I could probably think of about 100 other actors whom women mentioned more than him. I can see how being the only boy in those dance classes might have something to do with his popularity, but oddly it doesn't seem to have reflected in the women among my social circle. I can't really explain it any more than this.

    Posted August 5, 2016
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  • Its a stoner song. I loved this song as a teen. The US has a pretty big popculture of stoners and hippie stoner music. This, strangely enough, is a stoner hippie song. Its not sxactly Steve Miller band genre per se.
    Posted August 7, 2016
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  • Stoner hippie song?  I don't recall that specific genre. Of course that may be because I was stoned. Are there non-stoner hippie songs? ;=) If Steve Miller read your post, he would want some of what you're smoking.

    Posted August 7, 2016
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  • Bez

    LOL:)

    Posted August 7, 2016
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