CoronaVinyl Day 111 (RS Greatest Albums 401-450): Fly Like an Eagle by Steve Miller Band

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Today, we are looking at albums ranked between 401 and 450 on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All-Time.  I am going with Steve Miller Band's 1976 album Fly Like an Eagle, which comes in at #445.

Steve Miller Band is one of those bands whose songs you probably know a hell of a lot more of than you think.  While they got their start in the late '60s and had some middling success between then and the early '70s, their most successful period was between 1973 and 1982, after they switched their sound from psychedelic rock and blues-based rock to more of a mainstream rock sound.  In that span, four of the five studio albums the band released reached the Top 3 of the Billboard album chart, and they had 9 Top 40 hits on the Billboard Hot 100, including five that hit the Top 10 and three #1s ("The Joker," "Rock'n Me," and "Abracadabra").

Fly Like an Eagle was the band's ninth studio album, and it reached #3 on the Billboard album chart and has gone quadruple platinum in the U.S. -- the band's best-selling album, other than their 14x platinum Greatest Hits: 1974-1978 album, which it seems like everyone who was a teenager in the '70s, '80s, or '90s probably owned at some point.  As one woman once said while listening to Steve Miller, this is like the soundtrack to my life.

Fly Like an Eagle features several of the band's most famous songs, including the title track (which reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100), "Rock'n Me" (which reached #1), and "Take the Money and Run" (which reached #11), as well as other Steve Miller Band staples like "Serenade," "Dance, Dance, Dance," and "Wild Mountain Honey," a cover of Sam Cooke's "You Send Me," a cover of the blues song "Mercury Blues," and an appearance by blues harmonica legend James Cotton, who played the harp on "Sweet Marie."  The album showed the band could play pop, rock, and the blues quite well, all at the same time.

Favorite song from Side 1:  "Dance, Dance, Dance"

This is an innocent pop song with a country tinge about dancing as a means for prolonging one's life.

Favorite song from Side 2:  "Take the Money and Run"
"Take the Money and Run" is just a classic, catchy rock song with its signature "hoo-hoo-hoooo" and handclaps, not to mention a great story, as we follow Billy Joe and Bobbi Sue -- two young lovers with nothing better to do than get high, watch TV, and rob houses -- and their subsequent fleeing from the law, specifically Billy Mack, who is a detective down in Texas who knows what the facts is.  Okay, so it doesn't rhyme, but it's still a great song.