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Reporter Eugene Sylvester (Editor newspapers outside of Boston) interviews Jimmy Miller in the CCI Industry Report.
When the late Jimmy Miller was on the top of the world with the Rolling Stones, he was given a ten-album deal with ABC Records resulting in various releases, including a B.B. King album produced by the late Joe Zagarino, material by Bobby Whitlock, and this extraordinary record by the lead singer of Ten Wheel Drive, Genya Ravan. Jim Price and Joe Zagarino produced the album for Jimmy Miller Productions, with Miller producing only two of the 12 titles, the Stones-ish “Southern Celebration” and Eric Clapton/Bobby Whitlock‘s “Keep on Growing.” This is a great setting for Ravan, her impeccable vocals a perfect fit for an album rife with pop and Southern rock. Jimmy Miller produced Delaney & Bonnie & Friends on Tour With Eric Clapton (and George Harrison incognito), and the legendary status garnered by that classic and the Blind Faith album should’ve insured this disc a better fate. Ravan was disappointed that Miller did not produce the entire project, and she has a valid point. Jimmy Miller certainly had supreme intuition, but as with many artists, he lost sight of the business end of things. In retrospect, Zagarino, one of Miller‘s engineers with the Rolling Stones, and Jim Price do a phenomenal job — the Pat & Lolly Vegas tune “When You Got Trouble” is a standout, coming in between the Vegas brothers’ hits with their band Redbone. Van McCoy‘s “Gotta Tell Somebody (‘Bout My Baby,” Richard Carpenter and King Pleasure‘s “Swan Blues,” and two Genya Ravan co-writes with Jim Price, “Don’t Press Me” and “I’ll Be With You,” all present a side of Ravan that is far removed from the jazz/rock of Ten Wheel Drive, except for two tracks. “Under Control” is exhilarating, with Jim Horn‘s flutes actually throwing a little tease of the Ten Wheel Drive sound into the mix; the tune starts funky and slips into stunning pop. “I’ll Be With You” is like a ballad from Ten Wheel Drive, and it is nice that her past is addressed. The majority of this album, though, is a testament to Ravan‘s vocal genius. She would reunite with Jimmy Miller 13 years later in 1986 for the Buddy Guy project, the unreleased album before his breakthrough Damn Right I Got the Blues. The album cover is a trip, with Ravan decked out as a Southern belle, with mimes surrounding her. The inside cover photo and lyric spread is familiar, looking very much like the cover of her And I Mean It album for 20th Century. This is brilliant work from a woman who deserves a bigger piece of the rock & roll pie.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/they-love-me-they-love-me-not-mw0000846571
My dear friend Elissa Perry was involved with the publicity but yours truly was in charge…
Much of the immediate post-Rolling Stones work by producer Jimmy Miller was embraced by ABC Records, which gave Miller a lucrative deal to sign talent and release records, and it was clear he had a free hand. Albums by Genya Ravan, Henry Gross, B.B. King, Bobby Whitlock, and others at least had an outlet, but as one colleague put it, “Jimmy had already run the hundred yard dash…and won.” It’s a true rock & roll tragedy that a genius producer didn’t have the ambition to infuse the intuitive elements he put into Spooky Tooth and Traffic into these grooves for Locomotiv G T, thus there are highs and lows on this outing by a unique Hungarian rock quartet. Jack Bruce shows up on harp on “She’s Just 14,” and the songwriting of Tamas Barta, Anna Adamis, and Gabor Presser is sometimes very good. “Rock Yourself” and “Confession” are standouts on side one, as are “Waiting for You” and “Serenade to a Love (If I Had One)” on side two. But there is a void here, and the void seems to be Miller‘s mind perhaps on other things. The album feels like co-producer/engineer Andy Johns is in control, as it has more of his homogenized approach than Jimmy Miller‘s clever rhythms and variety of sounds. Miller adds his percussion to some of the tracks, but not to the level that dripped lots of frosting on “Jumpin’ Jack Flash,” “Honky Tonk Women,” “Loving Cup,” and other delights. That’s the biggest problem with Locomotiv G T — there is no standout hit to draw an audience in, and Miller certainly knew better than to leave an album somewhat naked. “She’s Just 14” is a nice bluesy raver, and Bruce‘s harp is fun, though the really awful packaging probably went a long way to sending this directly to the bargain bins. A silver train inside what looks like foil graces the cover, with a single unrevealing photo of the band on the back. Drummer Joe Laux did go on to become an engineer of note, including work with Michael Jackson, Dionne Warwick, the Average White Band, and others, while the recording also provides evidence as to how wide Jimmy Miller‘s scope was. Like the Savage Rose, this band hailed from Europe, while Kracker was a Santana-influenced band from Cuba or South America. He even discovered American Doug Fieger, who later went on to form the Knack. The major flaw is that Jimmy Miller Productions didn’t seek out hit tunes to launch all these artists, and despite some impressive songwriting skills on Locomotiv G T, there are too many klunkers, like “Won’t You Dance With Me” and “Back Home,” which offset the good tunes and are about as exciting as the dreadful album art. Uneven, it plays like it’s unfinished.
AllMusic Review by Joe Viglione [-]
This 1980 album by singer/songwriter Billy Falcon plays a lot like early John Cougar Mellencamp — material that isn’t quite there yet — significant only because it is a rare album from this time period by the legendary Jimmy Miller. Three years before Johnny Thunders‘ In Cold Blood would see the light of day, this album sounds more like Miller discovery Joey Stec than the lead guitarist from the New York Dolls. “Mozambiques, Mozambiques” rips “Rip This Joint” from Exile on Main St., but doesn’t have the musicianship of the Rolling Stones or the chemistry when Jimmy Miller recorded that legendary album in the south of France. Falcon Around, however, was recorded in Olympic Studios in London, where the Stones had much success. It just really never gets off the ground because Billy Falcon‘s talent is nowhere near that of the Rolling Stones, or many other acts recorded by their former producer. Charles Koppelman, who would reshape the ’80s with his SBK company, and Miller’s manager, George Greif, who also managed Jose Feliciano and the New Christy Minstrels, were heavily involved, and with the big boys behind him, it is interesting how this effort by Falcon didn’t have a cover or a song from someone’s publishing catalog or anything that resembles the all important break-through hit. “Not Goin’ Down is appealing in its own way — a very nice album track, but the vocal over does it, despite rather elegant musical production by Jimmy Miller. The waves the producer was making with Motorhead and the Plasmatics was in heavy metal and punk circles, but this is an interesting look at a project of his that didn’t gain much notoriety, and fills in forgotten spaces on his amazing resume. Having seen Jimmy Miller at work, it is hard to picture him accepting a tune like “Businessman’s Lunch” unless the artist was adamant about it. Miller had tremendous ears and would only tell his acts once if he disagreed — after that, you were on your own. There is none of the magic here that he put into so many records, from Traffic to Spooky Tooth and Blind Faith, making this one of the albums which sound like he was there in the room, but not giving much input. The tricks with the echo are far from Miller’s cohesive style and the material is shockingly weak to be endorsed by a heavyweight publisher like Charlie Koppelman. “Holdin’ On” closes out the album, and it is a decent hook as well as performance, following nondescript compositions like “Reaction,” “Rocks in His Head,” and the completely awful “I Don’t Know Nothin’,” which will rank as one of the worst efforts in Jimmy Miller‘s illustrious career. This is another one of those albums you need to own for posterity, but need not play.
Producer
Ed Michell and Joe Zagarino
from Wikipedia B.B. King in London is the nineteenth studio album by B.B. King, recorded in London in 1971. He is accompanied by US session musicians and various British rock- and R&B musicians, including Ringo Starr, Alexis Korner and Rick Wright (not the same from Pink Floyd), as well as members of Spooky Tooth and Humble Pie, Greg Ridley, Steve Marriott, and Jerry Shirley.
The album was released in the United Kingdom on November 19, 1971 in order to coincide with the first date of King’s tour of the country.[5]
Wright and his female companion Fritz started a short-lived blues-based band Sunrise which came to an end after Wright’s untimely death in a car accident in 1974. Sunrise also included session blues guitarist Paul Asbell. John Lennon had announced that he would perform on some of the tracks, but ended up having no involvement with the album.[6]