"Fly Like an Eagle" (Steve Miller Band)

Back in my college days at UNC, I always found it interesting when I'd go to parties and, in the midst of a marathon of Timbaland, Montell Jordan, or Puff Daddy songs, someone would put on Steve Miller Band, and everyone would go nuts.  (Ironically, I remember having to wash Miller Lite out of my shirt after a friend/co-worker pretty much tossed her Solo cup of beer into the air when the "Space Intro" to "Fly Like an Eagle" came floating through the speakers at one particular party.)
What I'm trying to say is, Steve Miller has a surprising amount of staying power compared to many of his pop-rock contemporaries.  You put on the album Fly Like an Eagle (1976) today, and it still sounds remarkably fresh and creative.  Sonically, the album is hard to pin to a certain date because it doesn't exactly scream "1976."  
I think Miller's music holds up well because his roots and influences go deeper than just Elvis, Carl Perkins, or Bill Haley.  In fact, his musical foundation is built upon early 20th century blues, jazz, country, and gospel.  Growing up, Miller was introduced to all sorts of roots music as well as number of influential musicians by his parents, who were both avid jazz/blues fans.  In particular, the Millers were close friends with musician/inventor Les Paul as well as renowned blues musician T-Bone Walker, both of whom would frequently visit the Miller household and teach young Steve licks and riffs on their guitars.
When I hear the opening riff to "Fly Like an Eagle" (which Miller borrowed from his own earlier composition "My Dark Hour"), I can hear that knowledge and love of the blues come through, loud and clear.  But the fact that he bridged that bluesy feel with spacey, futuristic synthesizers and a hard funk beat, which sounds more like something you'd hear on a Stevie Wonder record than a rock record, shows that he wasn't a purist, hemmed in by genre.  Furthermore, he seemed to sense where pop/rock was heading in the decades to come.
In the documentary Fly Like an Eagle: 30 Years Rock'n (2006), Miller says that the song first made its debut around 1973 as an onstage jam with improvised lyrics that centered around the state of America's crumbling inner cities in the Vietnam era.  He then spent the next three years trying to capture the live feel of the song on tape, only to be displeased with the results, time after time.
"I recorded that song three different times.  That means we went into the studio, we spent a lot of money, we spent a lot of time, and we brought a lot of people in, and we recorded it and went, 'Hmmm, no'."
He finally found the right groove on the fourth try with session musicians Gary Mallaber on drums and Lonnie Turner on bass.  But he still felt the track needed something.
"So I'd recorded it, had it all together, and on the last day after it was mixed, I came in with a synth that I had...I hooked it up to my Echoplex (pre-amp), and I said, 'I want to put some effects and some things on this'."
Within a few minutes, Miller had laid down the "Space Intro" and the various sweeping synth lines that give "Fly Like an Eagle" its otherworldly texture.
But when it came time to do another mix down with engineer Jim Gaines, Miller still felt the track was missing its crowning touch.
"So when Gaines and I are mixing it, we had to get another piece of tape.  While we were playing that, we found that the bulk erase tape had a sound on it, and that's the little beep-beep-beep.  And we went, 'That's it!  It's done!'"