Although the Steve Miller Band's songs are
well known in Europe and feature a large number of fans; their
concerts, on European territory, can be counted on the fingers of one
hand, as they only visited the United Kingdom in February 1972; in
July 1975 during Knebworth Festival; plus a mini tour of a couple of
concerts during the second half of July 1982; and one last concert in
Germany on August 20, 1983 for Rockpalast.
Faced with the possibility that the group
began a new tour as a promotion for their recent album "Living
in the 20th Century", released in November 1986 and it began in
Europe, there was talk of a couple of concerts at the Royal Albert
Hall in London; Mercury Records prepared a compilation album of their latest hits, which was to be called "Steve Miller Band –
Greatest Hists 1981-86".
Side
A: 25:07
Keeps
Me Wondering Why.3:44
Cool
Magic.4:25
Abracadabra.5:08
Heart
Like a Wheel.4:01
Give
It Up.3:38
Macho
City (edit).4:09 (unreleased)
Side
B: 24:48
I
Want To Make The World Turn Around.4:24
Shangri-La.3:04
Italian X Rays.4:37
Bongo
Bongo.3:13
Nobody
But You Baby.4:04
Circle
Of Love (edit). 3:23 (Unreleased)
Although the project was intended to be distributed mainly on CD, given the reception success that this new format was having; some of the songs were edited so that there were no problems when it came to presenting it also on Lp and cassette. bit.ly/Gh87SmB For this purpose, some singles were remastered, especially from the early years, in addition to including the last that sounded on the radios "Nobody but you baby".
But after assembling the album, Steve Miller decided to make it more commercial for the European market and restructured it leaving on the side A a broad summary of the original 1978 "Greatest Hits", which so many sales records had been giving; albeit by space problems,the Lp was revised again and some songs were changed by others.
The final result was called: “Greatest Hits 1976-86”: A Decade of American Music”; with this new line-up:Side One: 1.Space Intro - 2.Fly Like An Eagle – 3.Bongo Bongo - 4.Rock 'N Me – 5.Jet Air Liner – 6-Take The Money And Run. 7.Mercury Blues. Emplazando a la cara contraria algunas de las canciones incluidas en la lista anterior. Side Two: 1.Swing Town – 2.Shangri-La – 3.Abracadabra – 4.Italian X Rays – 5.Out Of The Night – 6.5Who Do You Love. – 7.Harmony Of The Spheres.
But unfortunately the long-awaited European tour never materialized, if by the United States and Canada in 1988. Despite this,,Mercury Records decided to carry out the edition of the album to cover at least the costs of production, publishing it first in the United Kingdom and later in the Netherlands, Greece, Portugal and Spain.
Finally the cassette version was aborted, being distributed mostly on Lp accompanied by a lower number on CD. Only in Greece things were somewaht different when changing the Lp edition by the cassette, accompanied by the CD. Be that as it may, there was no more than an edition; except in Holland because first was distributed CD and subsequently, on LP. After the Spanish edition distributed at the end of 1987 by Mercury/Polygram Iberica S.A," This record was immediately discontinued and never recovered for the Steve Miller Band catalog.
The Tommy Steel's cover design,overseen by Steve Miller, also did not help; it was considered, among all existing, one of the least graceful. Ugly. This design, modified, was taken advantage for another compilation album released in 1991, called "The Very Best of Steve Miller Band".
Here you have the original project along with the remixes that were made of the songs "Macho City" and "Circle of Love" for this compilation work. Forgotten in time. but recovered and rebuilt, now.
Enjoy it.