GANGSTER OF LOVE
“Gangster of Love” is a blues song recorded by Johnny “Guitar” Watson in 1957. When Watson re-recorded the song in 1978, it became a hit. Author David Ritz has identified it as “his most famous song”, and several artists have recorded interpretations. The Steve Miller Band included a version on their 1968 Sailor album (though this is not to be confused with the band’s song “The Joker”, which contains the lyric “some call me the Gangster of Love”). (More from Wikipedia)
With their album The Joker (1974), Steve Miller Band showed a major shift in the music – though they had kept trying new things all along – but this also gained them Top Ten singles and strong album sales that had eluded them with their earlier work. Perhaps to acquaint his new listeners with their earlier work, the opening verse of the title song “The Joker” – “Some people call me the space cowboy / Yeah! Some call me the gangster of love / Some people call me Maurice / ’Cause I speak of the pompatus of love” – cited songs and lyrics from their previous albums; “Gangster of Love” for instance is on the Sailor album. Steve Miller Band is continuing to release albums – about a dozen since this one.
(June 2014)
