Guitarist/singer-songwriter/bandleader and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Steve Miller has opened up his archive of recordings for the first time to present a 3-CD + 1-DVD boxed set. Welcome to the Vault, which arrived on October 11 via Sailor/Capitol/UMe, covers Miller’s six-decade career in 52 audio tracks, pairing a number of greatest hits and classics with 38 previously unreleased recordings, including demos, rehearsals, outtakes, vintage concert performances and five newly uncovered original Steve Miller Band songs recorded in the 1960s and 1970s.
Listen to a live version of “Space Cowboy” from the collection
The DVD includes a live video performance playing with his friend, the legendary Les Paul.
Watch them play “C.C. Rider” in 1990
Listen to a new song, “Say Wow!,” recorded in 1973
The accompanying DVD collects 21 live performances, among them rare TV appearances and concert videos.
[Also available is Selections From the Vault, a 13-track edition on a single CD.]
Listen to an alternate version of “Jet Airliner” from Welcome to the Vault
Welcome to the Vault is accompanied by a 100-page hardbound book of photos, memorabilia and artifacts from Miller’s personal collection, as well as an exclusive 9,000-word essay by journalist David Fricke.
Scroll down for link to order Welcome to the Vault.
Watch the trailer for Welcome to the Vault
Welcome to the Vault opens in 1969 with the Steve Miller Band covering Little Walter’s “Blues With a Feeling” at the Fillmore West in San Francisco, a previously unreleased 10-minute track. It includes “Super Shuffle,” recorded live at 1967’s Monterey Pop Festival followed by such previously unreleased tracks as an early version of “Going to Mexico” (originally found on 1970’s Number 5) as well as solo acoustic takes on Brave New World’s “Kow Kow Calculator” and “Seasons,” recorded on the road in 1973.
The sessions for 1976’s Fly Like an Eagle and 1977’s Book of Dreams are captured via alternate takes including “Fly Like an Eagle” as a 12-minute work-in-progress suite.
Listen to an early version of “Fly Like an Eagle”
Welcome to the Vault further includes a number of alternate version of Steve Miller Band tracks, mostly recorded prior to their commercial releases, and a recent big band reinterpretation of “Take the Money and Run” featuring fellow Texas guitar hero Jimmie Vaughan, recorded live at New York’s Jazz at Lincoln Center, where Miller is involved as a performer, educator and curator focusing on blues music.
Listen to an alternate version of “Rock’N Me”
Covers of blues songs by Willie Dixon, Robert Johnson and Otis Rush are included, as well as country and R&B tracks such as Roy Acuff’s “Freight Train Blues” and Mickey and Sylvia’s classic “Love Is Strange.” A 1990 version of Jimmy Reed’s “I Wanna Be Loved” features guitar innovator Les Paul, recorded during his famed Monday night residency at New York City’s Fat Tuesday’s.
Related: Our September 2019 concert review of the Steve Miller Band
Welcome to the Vault closes with a pair of landmark tracks also released here for the first time that include Texas blues guitar legend T-Bone Walker performing his 1952 hit, “Lollie Lou,” on a tape made the year before in the Miller Family living room by Steve’s father George, a passionate jazz and blues fan and home recording enthusiast. The collection finishes more than 60 years later with Miller himself performing “Lollie Lou” at “T-Bone Walker: A Bridge from Blues to Jazz,” the December 2016 tribute concert curated by Miller at Jazz at Lincoln Center.
Related: Our interview with Steve Miller
The Welcome to the Vault DVD features 21 incredible live performances, including rare footage from 1967’s Monterey Pop Festival, a Dutch TV filmed performance of the Fillmore West from 1970, a 43-minute September 1973 concert at New York’s Palace Theater broadcast on Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert (unseen since the ‘70s), an ABC In Concert performance with James Cotton (1974), a performance of “Abracadabra” from Michigan’s Pine Knob from that album tour in 1982, and selections from Austin City Limits (2011), as well as Miller’s intimate 1990 performance with Les Paul at New York City’s Fat Tuesday’s.
Watch the live performance of his #1 hit, “Abracadabra”
See the complete track listing and hear many more tracks below.
Steve Miller Band 2019 Tour Dates (Buy tickets here and here)
Dec 27 – Tulsa, OK – River Spirit Casino
Dec 28 – Durant, OK – Grand Theater
Welcome to the Vault Track Listing
CD 1:
1. Blues with a Feeling (Live) (1969) *
2. Don’t Let Nobody Turn You Around – Alternate Version (1969) *
3. Super Shuffle (Live) (1967) **
4. It Hurts Me Too (Feat. Steve Miller Band) (Live) (1967)
5. Industrial Military Complex Hex – Alternate Version (1970) *
6. Living in the USA (1968)
7. Kow Kow Calculator – Alternate Version (1973) *
8. Going to Mexico – Alternate Version (1966) *
9. Quicksilver Girl – Alternate Version (1968) *
10. Jackson-Kent Blues – Alternate Version (1970) *
11. Crossroads (Live) (1973) *
12. Hesitation Blues (1972) **
13. Seasons – Alternate Version (1973) *
14. Say Wow! (1973) **
15. Never Kill Another Man – Alternate Version (Live) (1971) *
Listen to the Steve Miller Band tackle “Crossroads,” in a previously unreleased 1973 performance
CD 2:
1. The Gangster is Back (Live) (1971)
2. Space Cowboy – Instrumental Version (1969) *
3. Space Cowboy – Alternate Version (Live) (1973) *
4. The Joker (1973)
5. The Lovin’ Cup (1973)
6. Killing Floor (1975) *
7. Evil (Live) (1973)
8. Echoplex Blues (1973) **
9. Rock’n Me – Alternate Version 1 (1976) *
10. Rock’n Me – Alternate Version 2 (1976) *
11. Tain’t it the Truth (1976) *
12. Freight Train Blues (1976) *
13. True Fine Love – Alternate Version (1975) *
14. The Stake – Alternate Version (1976) *
15. My Babe – Alternate Version (1982) *
16. That’s the Way It’s Got to Be (1974) **
17. Double Trouble (1992) *
18. Love is Strange (1974) *
19. All Your Love (I Miss Loving) – Alternate Version (1992) *
Listen to the playful, previously unreleased song, “That’s the Way It’s Got to Be”
CD 3:
1. I Wanna Be Loved (Live) (1990) *
2. Fly Like an Eagle – Alternate Version (1974) *
3. Space Intro (1976)
4. Fly Like an Eagle (1976)
5. The Window – Alternate Version (1974) *
6. Mercury Blues – Alternate Version (1975) *
7. Jet Airliner – Alternate Version (1976) *
8. Take the Money and Run (1976)
9. Dance, Dance, Dance (1976)
10. Swingtown – Alternate Version (1976) *
11. Winter Time (1977)
12. Who Do You Love? (1984)
13. Abracadabra (1982)
14. Macho City – Short Version (1981)
15. Take the Money and Run – Alternate Version (Live) (2016) *
16. Bizzy’s Blue Tango* (2004)
17. Lollie Lou (T-Bone Walker) (Live) (1951) *
18. Lollie Lou (Steve Miller) (Live) (2016) *
* PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED RECORDING
** PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED SONG
DVD:
Monterey International Pop Festival – 1967
– Mercury Blues
– Super Shuffle
The Fillmore West – Dutch TV Show El Dorado (Pik-In) – 1970
– Kow Kow Calculator
– Space Cowboy
Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert – 1973
– Star Spangled Banner
– Living in the USA
– Space Cowboy
– Mary Lou
– Shu Ba Da Du Ma Ma Ma Ma
– The Gangster is Back
– The Joker
– Come on in My Kitchen
– Seasons
– Fly Like an Eagle
– Living in the USA (Reprise)
ABC In Concert with James Cotton – 1974
– Just a Little Bit
Pine Knob, Michigan – 1982
– Abracadabra
Steve Miller and Les Paul at Fat Tuesday’s – 1990
– I Wanna be Loved
– C.C. Rider
Live from Austin City Limits – 2011
– Fly Like an Eagle
– Living in the USA
