- Included among the Record Descriptions of Favorite Albums (Part 1).
- The debut album by the Steve Miller Band, Children of the Future is equal parts psychedelic rock and blues rock, and part confident and tentative.
The Steve Miller Band – Children of the Future (1968): The debut album by the Steve Miller Band, Children of the Future is equal parts psychedelic rock and blues rock, and also, I suppose, equal parts confident and somewhat tentative. I didn’t realize that the weird blobs on the album cover formed the edges of the letters in the album title Children of the Future until I saw them in a small black-and-white photograph. There are some fine songs on this album, such as the title track “Children of the Future”, “In My First Mind”, “Baby’s Calling Me Home”, and “Steppin’ Stone” (not the Monkees hit). The Steve Miller Band continued along this vein for several more albums, peaking with their second album that is entirely self-assured, Sailor (1968), which is a long-time favorite – I don’t think I had been in college even a full month when a friend played that record for me at his apartment one memorable night.
Later, the Steve Miller Band went in more of a pop direction while retaining their basic blues-rock sound and scored numerous big hits like “The Joker”, “Fly Like an Eagle”, “Take the Money and Run”, “Jet Airliner”, “Jungle Love”, and “Abracadabra”. In 2016, Steve Miller was admitted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, while making some untoward public griping. That is to say, Steve Miller joined the Hall of Fame, as opposed to the Steve Miller Band, though I am not sure how you can separate the two. Although the lead singer for the Steve Miller Band in their early years, Boz Scaggs had a successful solo career, if Steve Miller ever made any records apart from the Steve Miller Band, I sure haven’t heard about it. I have my own beefs about the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, mainly that only the obvious choices have been brought in for the most part. Additionally, Smokey Robinson was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame many years before his band the Miracles was admitted, and that really was an oversight. Steve Miller’s complaints were more like, where are my extra tickets, and how about tix for my band, although he did leaven his comments by saying that women are under-represented in the Hall of Fame. Among the inductions that I have noticed over the years, Steve Miller is definitely not an obvious choice; and I am surprised that he didn’t meekly accept the honor rather than make a spectacle of himself.