Frat-Rock fans listen up… THE JOKER is BACK! You know the man… “Maurice and the Pompitous of Love”. He’s rocking out with a new album release after a seventeen year recording hiatus! Who…, you ask is this Maurice, the Joker?

Why it’s just Steven Haworth Miller, AKA Stevie “Guitar” Miller, a guy who still sells over a million recordings a year… an aging rocker in his mid-60’s who is presently on his annual live tour, performing at sold out concerts across the North American continent.

His latest release “Bingo” hit the shelves on June 15, 2010 with some great advanced reviews. The ten track, thirty-two minute CD was recorded at George Lukas’ Skywalker Ranch a couple years ago and released by Steve Miller’s own Space Cowboy label in partnership with Roadrunner/Loud & Proud Records. There were a total of forty-two songs recorded during the eleven day session, with more tracks planned for release on a future CD.

“Bingo” is a departure from the genre of music Steve Miller Band fans would be acquainted with from the 1960’s, 70’s, 80’s and 90’s. Hard-core Steve Miller fans may even be disappointed with the lack of new material, and although he has definitely embraced the blues this time around, his own distinctive sound is still intact.

"This is a party record, man," Miller tells Billboard.com. "It's about getting up and getting ready to dance. It's like the fraternity party gigs I used to play in college. I went through and picked all my favorite tunes that I really, really loved. I wanted to make this record forever; it started off as just kind of a goof, and then it got real serious."

We all are aware of the affects that listening to music can have on a person’s psyche. Studies have shown that certain genres of music can have a calming and relaxing affect on a person. The old adage "Music calms the savage beast…" may be more than just an old wives’ tale. On the other hand, we all have experienced that inappropriate music played at the wrong time can be distracting and at times almost unnerving. This concept indicates that music can have a powerful influence on our emotional being.

One study done by Dr. Laurel Trainor, Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Behavior at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, and the Director of the McMaster Institute for Music and the Mind revealed that Classical and Baroque music played at a moderate tempo (about 60 beats per minute) while students were learning a subject, had a significant increase in students’ memorization skills. The study also revealed that if the same music was played during a testing period, the students’ test scores were significantly higher. The same was true when listening to light Jazz music. Other research has revealed that Alzheimer patients who listen to music encounter a significant improvement in neural brain function.

Another topic of research that is particularly revealing is the affect that formal musical training can have on the human brain. Dr. Trainor concluded through clinical trials that early childhood musical training on children between the ages of four and six increased their ability to memorize information more easily. Psychologist Dr. Frances Rauscher of the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh also conducted a similar study with a collaborating conclusion.Yet another clinical study conducted by Georgetown University suggests that music can influence the area of the brain responsible for ones’ attention span. It was found during clinical research that brain activity increased during pauses in a musical composition’s movement, thus developing the areas of anticipation neural clairvoyance. This is a major finding when it comes to learning during early childhood. Formal musical training for children has also been attributed to a positive affect on their social skill development. It was discovered through various studies that certain types of music can increase a person’s ability to sense emotion in music and sound, thus increasing one’s ability to recognize emotional cues in various social situations. Subsequently there may be an increase in a person’s emotional stability and an improvement in one’s skills when dealing with interpersonal relationships