Emmett Miller

Subject: Emmett Miller
From: AR282
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 10:44 PM

Any Emmett Miller fans here?

Arrogant ass that I am, I almost started considering myself a jass/ragtime "scholar"! But usually, when I start thinking this way, reality kicks me where it counts the most.

This happened the other day when I was in a rather esoteric kind of record outlet. There in the jazz bin was this CD put out by Columbia/Legacy called "Emmett Miller--Minstrel Man from Georgia". It shows a white man in blackface on the cover.

Since minstrel music is one of the main influences of ragtime, I was very interested in this. All your great minstrel men such as Thomas D. Rice, George Washington Dixon, Dan Emmett, Cool White (not to be confused with Vanilla Ice even though both made their living pretending to be black singers), Billy Emerson etc. all lived before the days of recording so we will never hear their genius or see them performing on stage. So Emmett Miller interested me. Here I could at least hear how a real minstrel man sounded.

I'd never heard of him. Who was he, what did he sound like? I had to buy it! All I can say after having played it 20 or 30 times in the last 3 days is WOW! This guy is fantastic!

If you've never heard Emmett Miller, you don't know what you're missing. This CD covers 1928 and 1929. Miller is a consummate professional. Trust me, this guy can sing! He frequently does a bit of comedy routine with another blackface artist in the tradition of the great black vaudevillians. The nice thing is that Miller at no point insults or mocks blacks. We might regard anyone in blackface as a racist but that is simply not true. Most blackface minstrel man of days past were often outspoken against slavery. George Washington Dixon for example even though he played a blackface character named Zip Coon. And we know that Dan Emmett, author of "Dixie", joined the Union to fight the Confederacy saying he wished he'd never wrote the song after learning the South had adopted it as its anthem.

Likewise, Miller's portrayal is modeled stone-cold on black vaudeville performers with no attempt to condescend. No racially insensitive material. He is simply a white man who could perform black vaudeville to perfection and that's exactly what he did. He's out to make you believe you are listening to a black performer and, if you didn't know better, you would assume just that.

Miller's technique is astonishing. A single syllable can be drawn out over a succession of bars covering a gamut of pitches. His timing is perfect.

Okeh signed him up and recorded him. He had a superb band behind him called the Georgia Crackers. Superb they were but hardly unknown: Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Jack Teagarden, Eddie Lang, Gene Krupa--heap o' powerful medicine there. Interestingly, Tommy Dorsey was known for playing trombone and he does so here until Jack Teagarden joins the band and then Dorsey moves over to trumpet replacing the marvelous Leo McConville who does some fantastic work here. This stuff is pure jazz--no goofing around. There are some corny numbers such as "She's Funny That Way", the kind of stuff Miller hated doing but did so because Okeh demanded he do it ("They're trying to make a damn Gene Austin out of me," he complained).

What's odd is that Miller's vocal techniques didn't so much influence jazz as it did country. Emmett Miller defined country music. There would be no country music were it not for Emmett Miller. That's not much of a tribute in this day of caterwauling yokels sourly incorporating rap (rarely are we treated to anything that sounds so godawful pathetic) but is quite an honor when one realizes who took huge helpings of his style: Hank Williams, Bob Wills, Patsy Cline, Jimmie Rodgers, Eddy Arnold and countless others. Modern-day performers include Merle Haggard--a fan from way back--and Leon Redbone who is an authority on the life and music of Emmet Miller. Not to mention Hank, Jr.

Jimmie Rodgers and Bob Wills copied Miller's vocalizing virtually note for note. Wills, as we know, is credited with having started western swing and for those of us familiar with western swing know that's quite an honor. But the truth is, Emmett Miller deserves the credit for inventing western swing. His "Anytime" became Eddy Arnold's signature song. Bob Wills did Miller's number, "Right or Wrong". Miller's "Lovesick Blues" became Hank Williams's signature song. Hank even billed himself as "The Lovesick Blues Boy".

Miller's biggest hit was his 1928 rendition of "I Ain't Got Nobody" which he took from Bert Williams--the great black vaudevillian who was half of the great cake walking duo of Williams & Walker. This song appears to have been written by Charles Warfield, a great black ragtimer from St. Louis (whom I believe had known Scott Joplin while the latter resided in Missouri). Today we know it as "Just A Gigolo". Miller's vocals on this side are just out of this world. He puts his voice through acrobatics that would give me throat cancer. Bob Wills also lifted this number.

David Lee Roth must have liked Emmett Miller since he took at least two of his songs: "I Ain't Got Nobody" and "Bad Bad Bill Is Sweet William Now". Even though Emmett Miller could fart more melodically than Roth sings (for that matter, so can I since I've done it on numerous occasions), at least Davie-boy deserves credit for knowing who to lift material from.

One outstanding song is "You're the Cream in My Coffee". This sounds like another of those that Miller hated doing but, boy, can he do it nice!! Leo McConville adds a wonderful muted trumpet solo and mixes beautifully with Miller's voice.

Some might call what Miller does as yodeling. But it is not. Not even close. It bears a resemblance but it is superficial indeed. Jimmie Rodgers did some true mountain yodeling but also huge helpings of Milleresque vocal acrobatics and you can hear the difference very clearly. Hank Williams does the same thing in "Weary Blues From Waitin'".

Miller also recorded a number of his vaudeville minstrel skits. One was a version of Pecos Bill the tall-tale hero. This skit is called "Brother Bill" and Miller says: "He came to town the other day ridin' a wildcat, had a rattlesnake for a whip, barb wire for a necktie. Went in the drugstore, drank a dime's worth of carbolic acid, chiseled it down a mite, and hollered, 'I'm a ba-aa-a-a-d man!" Now you know where "Bad to the Bone" and "Who Do You Love?" come from. Thorogood and even legends as Chuck Berry still copying Emmett Miller.

How then could this man remain so unknown? How could I have never heard of him before a few days ago? No answer. But occasionally a true gem gets buried. I guess that makes finding it all the more special. Emmett Miller--an American one-of-a-kind. Now that we have found him, let us not lose him!

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 20 Feb 02 - 11:35 PM

I gather you liked the CD. I have the same CD, and stumbled on it equally unexpectedly. Got it in a used CD store. He is a true original... or perhaps one of many, but the only one whose recordings have been re-issued. There has to be a great wealth of stuff on Edison cylinder that you'd die for. I worked in the Newark Museum, many light years ago, and rigged up an old cylinder player and taped some of the old cylinders in there collection. Not much for quality, and recorded on a cheap tape recorder, but the stuff was still amazing.

That makes two of us who have heard this guy.

Jerry

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: Stewie
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 12:18 AM

Count me in as a third. It is a great CD reissue. If you are looking for info on Miller, Nick Tosches 'Country: the Biggest Music in America' devoted a couple of chapters to him and the second edition has an expanded essay, based on previously unavailable material. The book is a great read - eccentric but captivating.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: GUEST,Greycap
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 04:46 AM

Damn right! Just got the excellent biography on Emmett from Nick Tosches, got turned onto him after Merle Haggard's 1974 LP 'I love Dixie Blues ( so I recorded live in New Orleans )', then Ry Cooder did "Big Bad Bill from Louisville' on his 'Jazz' LP

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: GUEST,AR282
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 08:16 AM

Nick Tosches is a great writer. I've always enjoyed his stuff. I'll have to pick that book up. Having started off listening to Hank and Wills and Patsy and like that, it's quite a shock to work your way backwards to Miller. Suddenly, you hear all these people in his voice. You realize, "Good god, they all copied him!"

I agree there's likely tons of stuff out there--old stuff--that will never be released to the public. I once made an effort to find out who recorded the first ragtime but with no luck. Even the true ragtime scholars I know couldn't tell me. My friend, Mike Montgomery, is considered perhaps the world's foremost piano roll authority and even he didn't know. Chris Ware in Chicago didn't know either. Reginald Robinson also didn't know. And both Ware and Robinson have been uncovering a lot of amazing stuff in the last few years including a fragment of a previously unknown Joplin composition.

But I do love finding these old guys. But you have to wonder how they ever slipped through the cracks.

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: Fortunato
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 10:14 AM

Thanks for the reminder, I'd forgotten the references to him that I'd seen. I've ordered the CD.

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 10:37 AM

Marvelous CD!

One of my all time favourite vocals is Tommy Duncan (with Bob Wills, of course) singing "I Ain't Got Nobody", which he obviously lifted from Emmett Miller. I wonder how many folks think that Hank Williams wrote "Lovesick Blues"? Emmett kicks ass on that one as well.

I think the delay in getting Emmett's stuff out there was because so much of it was delivered in "Minstrel" or "Blackface" style. No question the guy was hugely influential to other singers....and what a voice!

Thanks for the thread AR

Rick

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: Fortunato
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 10:47 AM

Brother Fielding,

is it not interesting and ironic that one primal source of Country and Western music is a white man in blackface? When my old pal Tex Rubinowitz hit Emmett Miller at the roots of Hank Williams years ago we were amazed. But thanks to this reissue I'll be able to hear the influence and the crossover instead of imagining them. Great Thread. Now if one realizes that Black Fiddlers have been a somewhat unheralded influence on Old Time Music...(thanks RMWT). Chance

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 03:35 PM

I have to admit to being amazed when I first heard Emmet Miller version of "Lovesick Blues", 25 or so years ago, and I have been also amazed that over those years, I rarely heard his name, let alone any acknowledgement of his talent and influence--good to know that, at least here, some people do know about him--

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: Rick Fielding
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 04:07 PM

It's a groundswell Folks!!

Now lets do it for:

Emmett kelly

Bold Robert Emmett

and EmmetTed

Cheers

Fan of unpopular music

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: vectis
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 08:00 PM

I can't believe that a jazz musician was named after an insect.



An emmett is and ant in south west England.

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: M.Ted
Date: 21 Feb 02 - 08:20 PM

It's a better last name--Ted Emmet--I may use it!

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: GUEST,Greycap
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 02:47 AM

Hey, Fortunato, Where did you order the CD? It seems to be unavailable here in the UK, all I have of EM is on a much-loved cassette from a friend.

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: Fortunato
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 08:47 AM

Amazon.com, Greycap, my friend.

Click here



cheers, Fortunato

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: Greycap
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 01:33 PM

Fortunato, You are a gentleman and a scholar - we must take wine together sometime Cheers

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: Fortunato
Date: 22 Feb 02 - 01:36 PM

Anytime, Greycap, are you anywhere near Washington, DC?

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: Greycap
Date: 24 Feb 02 - 05:15 AM

Fortunato, No, I'm in England, about 200 miles North of London, and 20 miles West of York. However, I do have a friend in Baltimore who I may visit. If so, we'll go for the drink. Or, of course, if you are ever over here.....

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: GUEST,fortunato
Date: 24 Feb 02 - 12:51 PM

Well, Greycap, I expect to get over your way sometime, to visit Micca and Gervase and Johnny Collins and his wife. So who knows? But if you're in Baltimore please let me know. We'll head down to Fells Point and The Cats Eye Pub or Bertha's Mussels for a pint. Cheers, Fortunato

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: AR282
Date: 24 Feb 02 - 02:26 PM

You know Johnny Collins who does sailor shanties? He's my favorite shanty-man! "Shanties & Songs of the Sea" is awesome!

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From:
Date: 24 Feb 02 - 04:42 PM

Hi i have been a fan for years ... i am from the uk but reside in Israel for the last 21years and play this kind of music + jazz etc with several Bands and my 1 man Band show .. this is my living !!! e me for more on this related subject or more Aloha and shalom Paul PS have CD out and another on the way! lots of great links out there /////

Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: Guy Wolff
Date: 24 Feb 02 - 07:37 PM

Hello to all. I cant beleave I saw this thread ..A friend lent me this cd this last month and I wondered what people thought of him and here is a thread on the guy. Great.. I loved his"love sich blues" alot.. Some amazing people playing with him as well. I hope all is well here. I am in the studio this mounth working on the next one. YAY all the best, Guy
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Subject: RE: Emmett Miller
From: GutBucketeer
Date: 25 Feb 02 - 02:18 PM

I have recently discovered Emmett Miller too. There are some of his songs on the great old time page that was the subject of several threads: http://www.honkingduck.com
A number of Emmett Miller songs have also recently been posted on the Newsgroup: Alt.binaries.sounds.78rpm-era. This is a great Newsgroup for old songs, but you will need a newsreader that can handle mult-part attachments such as the shareware XNEWS.

It is unfortunate that the CD portrays Emmett as a black face minstrel singer. While some of the songs I have are in that vein most aren't.

JAB