Well since I’ve been Steve Miller’s partner in harmony on and off for over 39 years, figure I’d weigh in on this one on the shirt tails of your comments here.
Leslie and Steve were tight. They dug each other. The double cut Les Paul Special with the psychedelic mint green paint job Leslie had commissioned was given to Steve as a gift. Glad you got to see them share a Bill. I saw Steve around that same time but it was just the trio with Lonnie Turner and Tim Davis. Steve played harmonica almost the whole show.
I will agree with you. After Your Saving Grace, there was a creative lull in Steve’s catalog. And the Joker actually pissed me off more than it rocked my plimsoul, but like you inferred, you couldn’t kill it with a stick. He gave up the Revolution for a wolf whistle! I get it.
Even Rockin Me appearing in 1977 didn’t get my attention while we were all diggin the funk and r&b.
But then there was Fly Like an Eagle. It crossed over and the renaissance of Miller began and he ruled the airwaves for a decade. I was fortunate enough to ride that wave when we did Abracadabra the album.
The title track was actually going to be thrown off the album but we kept working on it and Steve had another hit that Europe championed and the US played catch up and you couldn’t kill it with a stick.
Then came the compact disc in 87, Classic rock radio programming and he ruled once again.
Regardless of what our individual tastes in music may be, one fact remains. Long after we are gone and many golden era artists and their songs are forgotten, Steve Miller’s catalog will still be playing in space stations throughout the quadrant of this galaxy.
Kenny Lee Lewis
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Leslie West loved Valentines guitar work and we played House of the Rising Son every night in the Leslie West Band circa 1976... with ( future) Foreigner’s
Mick Jones holding down rhythm as Leslie shredded lead with his own blues.... great music in the hands of great talent...... some of us survive!
Marty Simon
( drummer)..
Toronto
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Producer, writer Jerry Goldstein gave me my first job in the music business, first selling posters on the road with artists he’d sign for rights that no one was paying them for. I then went on to sign and work with Zeppelin, Doors, Rolling Stones and fifty other monster acts, but it was Eric Burdon that I became very close friends with. No Animals or touring, Hilton lived in the downstairs basement apartment of Eric’s Laurel Canyon home.
After Eric hooked up with WAR (then the back-up band, The Night Shift for Deacon Jones off season revue show.
Eric immediately enlisted Hilton to become the guitar roadie and later production manager for Eric Burdon and WAR… then Eric after he split (a mistake) from WAR. I used to watch Hilton tuning and playing the guitars at pre-sound check set-up. I could feel his desire to be back out in front of a crowd and it bothered me to share his pain in silence.
He was a gentle, thoughtful soul who was dedicated to his craft and Eric. A good hang along with Eric’s longtime tour manager Terry McVey who passed quite a few years ago.
I’m glad that you thoughtfully honored Hilton. Boy oh boy, the fourth quarter can really stink at times.
Bruce Garfield
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Throughout this draftee's tour in Vietnam (1969-71), "We Gotta Get Out Of This Place" was THE nationwide theme song, the "automatic" encore of every performance by Vietnamese musicians playing to allied troops -- or else! Failure to oblige would incite a shower of beer, sometimes still in the can or bottle. Although many of these players neither spoke nor understood English, they all seemed to grasp the sentiments behind every band's most-requested song.
Second-most-requested? By the time this unwilling soldier arrived , Scott McKenzie's 1967 cover of John Phillips's "San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair)" was popular because of that city's proximity to Travis Air Force Base, where departing US personnel landed in "The World" -- dead or alive, alas.
Dave Wallace, Jr.
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Thank you for the great piece on Leslie West. I met Leslie in July of 1969 when I walked into a rehearsal room in Manhattan on my 1st day of being hired as road crew for a 3 week US tour to promote the album "Leslie West Mountain"
All I can remember is the physical image of the huge Jewish kid from Forest Hills with the tiny Les Paul smiling and asking me to go out for a food run and telling me he wanted a meat ball hero and a chocolate egg cream... an unknown language to my English brain but soon my daily ritual. The tour started at the Fillmore West where the band opened for Steve Miller and Albert King and Leslie told me the story of Bill Graham calling Leslie a f***ing psychedelic canary describing Leslie's outfit when Leslie's earlier band The Vagrants played the Fillmore East. After we played San Francisco, LA and Chicago we made our way to Bethel New York and the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. Our showtime was scheduled for a morning slot but our agent, Ron Terry pulled his trump card ( Jimi Hendrix) and we went on as the sun went down when a very loud rock band could score bigger and better with the audience. Leslie lived up to the moment and delivered a performance that the 500,000 who saw the band remembered and overnight the band became a headliner up and down I 95 including Leslie's hometown at the Fillmore East. Mountain went on to headline the Fillmore East for the next 2 years playing more times than any act except Dead. Not bad for the psychedelic canary from Queens !! One more trip down memory lane that will stay with me forever...April or May 1070 around 1 a.m. and I am hanging out in the rehearsal room where I have been staying in between tour dates...on the West Side in the warehouse district and when someone knocks you don't open the door... I look out of the 2nd floor window and see a Cadillac Fleetwood limousine and Leslie so I go down to the heavily locked door and Leslie says.."Mickey say hi to Jimi..." and out of the car comes Jimi Hendrix and they go upstairs to get guitars for a late night jam at Unganos club uptown...but first they sit at the end of my "bed" and noodle while I roll a few joints...thank you Leslie for that night and so many others...you had a great touch on that Junior and you were a truly funny man...( and my 3 week tour with Leslie lasted 3 years and kick started my 50 years plus career )
Mick Brigden
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Bob, thank you so very much for taking time to remember Hilton. I was hoping you would.
I've produced Beatles & British Invasion themed concerts in Syracuse & Liverpool NY since 2004. Gerry Marsden RIP was here in 2007, and Hilton in 2016. By popular demand, I brought him back in April 2017....and again, an hour west to the Geneva NY Opera House in October 2017 for a Lennon birthday concert.
Each time, myself and 2 pro level musicians backed HV on "It's My Life", "We Gotta", and of course, "House". It was the honor of a lifetime to sing "House" along with Hilton's perfectly-toned riff on his Gretsch Tennessean.
It's quite possibly the last time he played his riff with a band in public, before his health issues kicked in (which I'll keep private, in respect).
In Geneva, he was in very bad pain...but didn't say a word about it at all. Just like the two previous shows, he happily signed items and took photos with fans afterwards, smiling and thumbs ups.
But, the most poignant "Hilton moment" each time, was his solo acoustic version of Lennon's "Working Class Hero". Before playing, he explained his connection to the song, as his teenage life was similar to John's. Losing his mother early...an emotionally absent father...the cruel British school teachers.
As he played this gem (ironically, in a waltz fashion in A minor, like "House"), Hilton allowed himself to be vulnerable. You could hear his voice shaking with emotion. And with that, the audience connected so that you could both hear a pin drop, and then seconds later loud roars at the "til you're so fuckin' crazy" line. Standing O's.
And he used my acoustic guitar for it. I'll never sell it. After "House", he said in the northern Brit dialect, "aye lad, ya gave Eric ah roon foor his mooney!" A greater gift, I could not ask for.
Paul Davie
BeatleCuse - Executive Producer
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With my band, Colorway, I was lucky enough to get to open for
The Yardbirds on three separate occasions at the Iron Horse Music Hall in Northampton, MA (my adopted hometown for almost 30 years). And at every soundcheck, sitting in the same chair near the stage, would be a silver-haired gent. Yep, it was Hilton Valentine. Him and Jim McCarty (original drummer for the Yardbirds) were buddies, of course, and Hilton lived somewhere in Connecticut, so he'd make the trip up for their shows.
I was lucky enough to get to tell him how much his opening riff on "House Of The Rising Sun" meant to me as a kid learning guitar way back in the early 80s. I'm sure I was one of many but it still made him smile and thank me for saying so. We exchanged pleasantries at the next two shows we did with The Yardbirds.
At the third show together the incredible Johnny A had been replaced with a "new" guitarist named Godfrey Townsend (John Entwistle/Jack Bruce/Denny Laine) and I sort of joked around after our sound check was done and said, "Hey there, so . . . you're the *new* guy, eh?" and they all laughed. I mean, the band does have a bit of a track record.
Hilton piped up from his chair and pointed to me and said, "be careful, lad, you might be next . . . "
That was a funny, awkward, and unforgettable moment.
My mom taught me at a very young age that if you get the chance, thank the people who inspired you, however big or small. Let them know they made a difference in your life.
I'm glad I took her advice.
Thanks, Hilton. Rest in peace.
F Alex Johnson
Kyoto, Japan
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Hilton was a really nice chap and was always underestimated
But thank you for telling everyone
I will miss him and his skiffle
Nice stuff bob until you talk about our age. Or mine
Peter Noone
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Well put, Bob - I always loved the Animals; but “we’re next”? Nope. My guitar-player died a year ago tomorrow. Our own mortality usually starts truly getting into our faces with the death of a parent (eldest son/father? I’m still not over it after 14 years); but your own original band mate? Whatever the rifts and complications over the years...we’re here. Right here, right now. Not “next”.
Best,
Hugo Burnham
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