Sailor

SAILOR
 
 
Sailor  is the second studio album by American rock group The Steve Miller Band, released in October 1968 by Capitol Records.  Like The Steve Miller Band’s previous album, Children of the Future, Sailor was produced by Glyn Johns.  It was the last Steve Miller Band album to feature contributions by original members Boz Scaggs and Jim Peterman.  Scaggs went on to a successful solo career.  The album features a psychedelic blues rock sound.  Tracks “Living in the U.S.A.” and “Quicksilver Girl” later received additional notice when the former was covered in 1969 by Wilmer & the Dukes and the latter was included in the popular 1984 movie The Big Chill.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 

One of my most memorable musical moments in college was when a friend introduced a roomful of us to Sailor (1968), the second album by Steve Miller Band.  The opening track, “Song for Our Ancestors” is a lingering psychedelic rock instrumental that features frequent blasts from a foghorn, a sound that has fascinated me since I was a little boy.  I acquired several of their albums over the years, including their first album, Children of the Future.  I had no idea what the weird blobs on the cover were until I saw a small black and white photo of the gatefold album cover and realized that they blocked off the edges of letters spelling out the album name, “Children of the Future”.  

 

Perhaps to acquaint his new listeners with their earlier work, the opening verse of the song “The Joker” – “Some people call me the space cowboy / Yeah! Some call me the gangster of love / Some people call me Maurice / ’Cause I speak of the pompatus of love” – cited songs and lyrics from their previous albums; “Gangster of Love” for instance is on the Sailor album.  

 

(June 2014)