Monday, January 30, 2012

Frankie Miller : The Very best Of ... 1993

Frankie Miller was born November 2, 1949, in Glasgow, Scotland . He began singing with local bands beginning in 1967, in a style influenced by American soul singers like Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and Otis Redding. After a few years, he moved to the more fertile music scene in London, where he soon met ex-Procol Harum guitarist Robin Trower in the summer of 1971.

Impressed with Miller's talents as a raw soul belter in the vein of a Rod Stewart or Joe Cocker, Trower offered him a job as lead vocalist of his new band Jude. It wasn't to be Miller's big break, though. Internal conflicts split the group apart by the following year, and Miller returned to the London pub rock circuit.

Upon returning to England, Miller assembled a Stax-style backing band , dubbed simply the Frankie Miller Band , featuring guitarist Henry McCullough, keyboardist Mick Weaver, bassist Chrissy Stewart, and drummer Stu Perry. This group traveled to San Francisco to record The Rock (named after Alcatraz), which was released in 1975.

Miller's backing band imploded, and he was back on his own for 1978's Double Trouble, which produced his first British Top 30 hit in "Be Good to Yourself."
Late that year, Miller scored a runaway Top Ten hit in the U.K. with "Darlin'," a single included on his 1979 LP Falling in Love .

1980's Easy Money was recorded in Nashville, and some of 1982's Standing on the Edge was recorded at Alabama's legendary Muscle Shoals Sound Studios. During this period, Miller also had a Scottish hit with his cover of Dougie McLean's "Caledonia."
1986's "Dancing in the Rain" was his final studio album.


In August 1994, Miller suffered a devastating brain hemorrhage that left him in a coma for five months. Unable to walk or talk upon his emergence, Miller rehabilitated himself enough to begin writing songs again . At a late-'90s benefit concert in Edinburgh, Miller's new collaboration with Will Jennings, "The Sun Goes Up, the Sun Comes Down," was performed by Bonnie Tyler, Paul Carrack, and Jools Holland.
(all music)


Miller wrote for and performed with many recording artists and is best known for his album Full House, the single "Darlin’ " and his duet on "Still in Love with You", with Phil Lynott. In an article published in Rolling Stone magazine in 1978 Bob Seger remarked that Miller "was a huge influence" on him.


TRACKS

1 Darlin' 3:06
2 When I'm Away from You 3:21
3 Be Good to Yourself 3:00
4 I Can't Change It 3:08
5 Highlife/Brickyard Blues 4:36
6 A Fool in Love 3:01
7 Have You Seen Me Lately Joan? 2:13
8 Love Letters 2:57
9 Caledonia 3:31
10 Stubborn Kind of Fellow 3:07
11 The Devil Gun 3:39
12 Hard on the Levee 3:13
13 Tears 3:29
14 I'm Ready 3:06
15 Shoo-Rad Shoo-Rah 2:50
16 Double Heart Trouble 3:22
17 So Young, So Young 3:34



THE DEVIL GUN

I don't mind if you laugh in my face
I don't mind the way you treak me down
I don't mind the feelings you erased .

I don't mind no whiskey in your water
I don't mind no sugar in your tea
Everybody's got to feel free .

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