Jethro Tull and the Steve Miller Band have a lot in common. They both started out as distinctive, exciting units, and they both discovered formulas that worked and flogged them half to death. They are both units led by incredible egomaniacs who have been responsible for a great turnover in personnel. They’ve both worn out their welcome on my turntable long ago, and they’ve both issued two-record retrospectives in ornate, even baroque packaging.
Jethro Tull is the band with, in my estimation, far less to offer, and, surprisingly, they’ve come up with the better of the two packages. Comprised mostly of old singles and album cuts, Living In The Past has more strong stuff on it than any album since Stand Up. Such Tull classics as “Love Story,” “Sweet Dream” and “Witch’s Promise” are made available on (legitimate) LP for the first time. Even the live side, which I had held out no great hopes for, contains some socko piano cadenza-ing by John Evan on “By Kind Permission Of.” But that’s the only cut that wasn’t written by Ian Anderson, and, despite what many people think (including Anderson, I’m afraid), Ian Anderson isn’t Jethro Tull. And, because he has been singlehandedly running the group for a couple of years now, since he seems to think that a melody is necessarily nothing but a pentatonic scale sung in triplets followed by a little flute frippery, all of the post-’69 cuts here (and on other Tull albums) are unremittingly dull and monotonous. But for those of us who are still living in the past with Tull, this is not a half-bad album. Lotsa pix of Ian, too. (Shudder.)
Steve Miller must have had as many bands as John Mayall by now. Although he has always recorded his stuff under the title “Steve Miller Band,” it’s hardly a secret that his best stuff has been at least co-written by others, and he’s always needed expert help to make his albums sound decent. In fact, after listening to Children Of The Future, I thought that Miller must be the keyboard man, because the piano/organ work (by Jim Peterman, as it turned out) held the whole album together.
Anthology, subtitled “The Best of the Steve Miller Band,” is neither representative, as an anthology should be, nor the best of the Steve Miller Band. For my money, the best of Miller is his first two albums, Children Of The Future and Sailor (both available from Capitol in a 2-for-the-price-of-one pack) and his remarkable collaboration with Nicky Hopkins, Your Saving Grace. The rest of his stuff ranges from Marin County pastoral bullshit to Jimi Hendrix-imitation bullshit. Miller’s inconsistency is due mainly, I think, to his inability to keep a band together long enough so that there is a group sound. Still, there have been moments when everything jelled, and they have been wonderful moments indeed. Unfortunately, there are very few of them on Anthology.
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