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What piece of art changed your life? How did it affect you?
Hearing Michael Jackson and the Jackson 5 at the age of ten changed my life. To hear kids my age who were that accomplished really inspired me to get more serious about music. Then watching Michael go on to become all that he did was a constant source of inspiration as I traveled my own path. Every generation has their child stars. We were just lucky that our child star happened to be one of the greatest entertainers of all time. His dancing contained the entire history of African American dance. He had studied everyone from the Nicholas brothers through Sammy Davis Jr. to the break dancers in the streets of New York. Very inspiring.
Monster bass player Marcus Miller was mentored by the great Weldon Irvine, cut his teeth with the likes of Miles Davis and Grover Washington, Jr., and went on to play with Aretha Franklin, Bryan Ferry, Luther Vandross, Boz Scaggs, and many others. His new solo album, Renaissance, includes lively covers of Irvine's "Mr. Clean" and War's "Slippin' Into Darkness," a pair of tunes that surely influenced his musical development. Miller plays two shows (6 & 9 pm) at the Rams Head in Annapolis this Thursday night.
