May 27, 2022 —– Chart #145
Have you seen us on Facebook? CLICK HERE to like our page. Today we go to 1973 and a song all of you will recognize. “The Joker” is a song by the Steve Miller Band from their 1973 album The Joker. Released as a single in October 1973, the song topped the US Billboard Hot 100 in early 1974 and reached the top 20 in Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands. More than 16 years later, in September 1990, “The Joker” reached number one on the UK Singles Chart for two weeks after being used in “Great Deal”, a Hugh Johnson-directed television advertisement for Levi’s, thus holding the record for the longest gap between transatlantic chart-toppers. This reissue of “The Joker” also topped the Irish Singles Chart, the New Zealand Singles Chart, the Dutch National Top 100, and the Dutch Top 40.
The song’s accompaniment is borrowed heavily from the song “Soul Sister” by Allen Toussaint. During the song, Steve Miller references The Clovers’ 1954 song “Lovey Dovey” when he sings “You’re the cutest thing that I ever did see / Really love your peaches, wanna shake your tree / Lovey dovey, lovey dovey, lovey dovey all the time”. The song is noted for its wolf whistle played on a slide guitar after the “lovey dovey” parts and the “some people call me Maurice” part.
It is one of two Steve Miller Band songs that feature the nonce word “pompatus”. The first line of the lyrics is a reference to the song “Space Cowboy” from Miller’s Brave New World album. The following lines refer to two other songs: “Gangster of Love” from Sailor and “Enter Maurice” from Recall the Beginning…A Journey from Eden. The line “some people call me Maurice / ‘Cause I speak of the pompatus of love” was written after Miller heard the song “The Letter” by The Medallions. In “The Letter”, writer Vernon Green made up the word puppetutes, meaning a paper-doll erotic fantasy figure; however, Miller misheard the word and wrote pompatus instead.
The Steve Miller Band is an American rock band formed in 1966 in San Francisco, California. The band is led by Steve Miller on guitar and lead vocals. The group had a string of mid- to late-1970s hit singles that are staples of classic rock, as well as several earlier psychedelic rock albums. Miller left his first band to move to San Francisco and form the Steve Miller Blues Band. Shortly after Harvey Kornspan negotiated the band’s contract with Capitol Records in 1967, the band shortened its name to the Steve Miller Band. In February 1968, the band recorded its debut album, Children of the Future. It went on to produce the albums Sailor, Brave New World, Your Saving Grace, Number 5, Rock Love, Fly Like an Eagle, Book of Dreams, among others. The band’s Greatest Hits 1974–78, released in 1978, sold over 13 million copies. In 2016, Steve Miller was inducted as a solo artist in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Live performance on Midnight Special: https://youtu.be/Qd5ag754UAQ
2016 solo acoustic performance: https://youtu.be/fZY2JYxms_s
Keep rockin my friends,
Stan