Steve Miller

About

From Wikipedia:

Steven Haworth Miller (born October 5, 1943) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter, known as leader of the Steve Miller Band. He began his career in blues and blues rock and evolved to a more pop-oriented sound during the mid-1970s through the early 1980s, releasing popular singles and albums. Miller was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016.

In 1969, Paul McCartney contributed to “My Dark Hour“, a song written by Steve Miller and performed by the Steve Miller Band. Twenty six years after that first contribution, Steve Miller was again in the studio with Paul McCartney, to participate to the recording of the “Flaming Pie” album :

I know Paul McCartney played on your early song My Dark Hour, but how did you end up playing on his Flaming Pie
album in 1997?

Miller: Linda (McCartney) called up one day from Bermuda or someplace and said, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘Just sitting here reading a book. How you been? I haven’t talked to you in a while.’ She said, ‘Paul’s working on this album, and we’d really like you to sing harmony on it.’ I said, ‘Come on over; I’ve got a studio.’ They showed up and spent a couple of weeks here. Then I flew over to his studio for 10 days and played some guitar. When we played together in 1969 we really did some pretty interesting work. I don’t think Paul had played with very many people. I don’t think he had a very broad range of people he felt comfortable working with. And we were really comfortable. We were just kicking out the jams. He was playing drums; I was playing guitar. That’s the way we start our stuff. On his stuff he had some basic tracks and wanted harmony.

You worked together in ’69 during the filming of Let It Be – so are those the Beatles guitars, drums, we hear on that song?

Miller: Yeah. It was an amazing time. I was sitting in the studio watching them do the vocal overdubs. They had all the gear set up, and Ringo and John didn’t show up. We just started screwing around. Paul was there. George came out and jammed a little bit but he wasn’t much of a jammer, really, but Paul was.

Steve Miller interviewed by Mark Brow

With all his fame and talent and everything he’s accomplished beside, there was something about playing with Paul that reminded me very much of playing with Boz [Scaggs] in high school, and I had my young band and we used to sing four-part harmony and singing all these blues tunes.

Steve Miller, talking about working with Paul McCartney on “Flaming Pie”, from the Flaming Pie Archive Collection, 2020

Last updated on October 10, 2020