Page two
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Thursday, October 22, 1970
I~age rwo THE MICHIGAN DAILY Thursday, October 22, 1970
music letters
hMiller Blues: Smooth --committed Rehashing Doc Ross
By FARGO BERMAN
, and DANIEL ZWERDLING
Talking for 45 minutes with
the members of a top blues
band which zips across the
country three times in two
weeks and makes at least $7500
a gig is like talking for 45 min-
utes with anyone else who's
human and has to avoid the
draft and has to make a living.
Here's the catch: Steve Miller
paid $25,000 last year in federal
income tax, which is to say he's
a 27 year old who's rolling in
big rock money; the other three
nieibers of the Steve Miller's
Blues Band are in their early
twenties and are also making a
bundle of money; and their job,
making music, happens to be
just not an vocation but a whole
life style..
They're normal just like you
and us, except they're not. We
don't run out a few times each
week 'onto a gigantic stage in
a flood of spotlights with a mass
of 10.000 high-paying demand-
ing people scrutinizing us and.
ready to either idolize us with
applause and screams or turn
off their love lights and sit re-
senting us; cold. But Steve Mil-
ler and his group don't play
themselves as superstars; they're
four guys who live committed
to their music, are lucky to have
made the bigtime; and now have
adjusted their lifestyles to fit
the big concert circuit medium
of making music.
Miller has made five popular
records in the past several years,
but he's been playing only since
August with tonight's group:
Bob Winkelman, rhythm guitar,
Ross Valory, bass, and Jack
King, drums -they all sing -
Miller himself takes lead guitar
and vocals. Last week the group
hit San Antonio, Texas, before
that Nashville, New York, Mass-
achusetts and San Francisco.
Four months out of every year
on the road: strings of Holiday
Inn plastic wonderlands, vari-
able quality burgers, living for
the two or three nights when
they can let loose and blast a
basketball arena (or the Fill-
more East and West?) with
their unique blend of blues.
Miller's blues isn't the blues
you'd expect, not like Paul But-
terfield, not black urban or
delta by any means. Miller
travels with tapes of the Beatles,
the Cream, James Brown, Can-
nonball Adderly and Herbert
von Karajan, but the group
writes most of its own music. It
emphasizes a close blend of
voices and instruments, a tight
sound that never lets loose with
one guitar or one voice driving
on its own musical orgasms.
Steve Miller Blues strives for
a smooth afterglow effect:
brings you up, floats on an even
plateau, but doesn't shoot you
up, then wrench you down, play
with your moods. That's t h e
Miller Blues Band on records;
Miller himself says the group
has a long way to go in the
studio. "We let loose at the
concerts," he says. "In the
studio wa try to make the re-
cords as perfect.. as possible.
They're so smooth because we're
working on a whole lot of things
at the same time, each instru-
ment, every amp, the h ° a d-
phones. In a concert we step out
a lot more, take more chances
-the music is there and then
it's gone, so it's a lot more spon-
tanaous,"
Miller's band works out about
two and a half hours before
every concert. It takes that long
for them to feel settled elec-
tronically, and absorb t h e m-
selves totally in the music. "On
the road we're always rehear-
sing, composing, working over
songs," says Miller.
Just before the interview the
band wrote two new songs.
We're always changing," Miller
says. "Otherwise, I'd go insane."
To the Daily:
We would like to register our
outrage with Bert Stratton's
review of the Doctor Ross Con-
cert. We find Stratton's use of
the phrase "corny, hick black-'
man" to describe Doctor R o s s
particularly o f f e n s i v e and
smacking of the ugliest kind of
elitism. We can't understand
why anyone, after h e a r i n g'
Doc's killer set and his incred-
ibly sophisticated harp playing,
could refer to him as a "corny,
hick blackman."
Doctor Ross, along with such
other "corny, hick blackmen"
like Howling Wolf, Muddy Wat-
ers, Willie Dixon, and Son
House (to mention but a few)
have been supplying white bands
with material for years. Doc's
own tune "Cat Squirrel" w a s
ripped off by the Cream with-
out even crediting him for it,
much' less sending some cash
his way.
Because of economic consider-
ations Doctor Ross was forced
to quit playing and work in the
Chevrolet Metal Fabrication
plant in Flint. We've been to
his home in the center of Flint's
ghetto and he doesn't even own
a record player (much less a
tape deck) to listen to his new
album. Beneath that "corny,
hick" exterior is a man who has
paid some pretty incredible duis.
Perhaps the term "hick" w a s
not meant in a derogatory sense.
Perhaps the reviewer is just
used to the music of more
"sophisticated" blackmen. (Doc,
by the way, taught Ike Turner
how to play the guitar).
Whatever, Doctor Ross was
overjoyed with being able to
play in front of a college aud-
ience and claimed he had "the
best time since I was in Europe."
We just hope he never sees
Stratton's review.
-Karl Pohrt
Dick Pohrt
Marian Krzyzowski
DIAL 8-6416
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D. H.LARENCE'S
IN LOVE"
COLOR by DeuXe Uintd Artists
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THI IS1 THE DAWNING OF THE AGE OF
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A UNIVERSAL PICTURE' IECHNCOLOR PANAVISION*
Thurs.-Fri., Oct. 22-23
LOWER DEPTHS
dir. AKIRA KUROSAWA U(952)
Kurosawa's masterful treatment of Gorki's
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some humor, some hope. Starring Toshiro
Mifune.
SAT.-SUN.: Fellini's White Sheik
7 & 9:05 ARCH ITECTURE
662-8871 AUDITORIUM
\
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A choral fantasia
By J. P. MILLER
Thursday and Saturday nights, the ninety singers who make
up the Small Chorus of the Choral Union spread University fame
in a performance of the Beethoven Choral Fantasy with the
Detroit Symphony Orchestra. In an excellent program consisting
of a pianist--Evelyne Crochet, and the first chair violist of the
Symphony. Nathan Gordon, as soloists, the Small Chorus gave light
to one of Beethoven's little known works. The Fantasia for piano,
chorus, and orchestra is hardly ever performed-it necessitates the
engagement of a pianist for a smaller than average part, and of a
chorus for a scant five minutes of a twenty-five minute piece.
Never-the-less, the group, under the direction of Dr. Donald Bryant,
performed well-managing to fill Ford Aud., a concert hall having
a reputation of being similar to a barn.
Gordon gave an exceptional performance of the Concerto in B
minor for Viola and Orchestra, a work attributed to Handel. Both
the technique and feeling he employed in the work supported the
reputation he has established. Notably in the Andante movement,
he made full use of'the viola as the most melancholy instrument
of a modern orchestra.
Crochet, new as a soloist to both this country and the Detroit
Symphony, gave a technically brilliant, although sloppy perform-
ance of this Fantasy in the form of a Concerto. Combining the
typically Beethoven-ish showy parts, with an interesting theme
similar to that in his 9th Symphony, Crochet did very well in keep-
ing up the difficult tempo of a fairly demanding work. In many
parts her exceptonally clear and precise playing was evident. It
was in her many arpeggios, however, that she fell short of the
desired accuracy. In the extremely long thrills which are often
evident in the piece, she concentrated on clarity to the point of
losing emotion. If a fault were to be found with her fervor, it would
be in the sacrifice of shading to achieve it.
Two other works were performed on the program-the Over-
tureto Semiramide by Rossini, and the Symphony in Three Move-
ments by Stravinsky. Putting aside the faults normally found in
the Symphony's violin section, the Stravinsky was performed well.
Sixten *hrling, principal conductor, seems to display contem-,
porary themes as his forte. In the haphazard timing found in this
work, and many others of Stravinsky, the orchestra was quite
precise. In the conflicts resolving into provocative themes which
typify the work, the orchestra's melding, achieved through Ehrling's
dramatic baton, proved to have an exciting effect.
0.
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UNDER MILK WOOD
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By DYLAN THOMAS
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Feature 20 min. later
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