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Roger Miller music biography continued...

Miller learned to play several instruments including the guitar and banjo, while still a youth. After toughing it out in Nashville for several years, Miller moved back to Amarillo, Texas where he got a job playing fiddle for Ray Price's Cherokee Cowboys. After Price had a huge hit with Miller's song, "Invitation To The Blues," Miller became one of the hottest songwriters around, with such hits as Ernest Tubb's "Half A Mind," Faron Young's "That's The Way I Feel" and Jim Reeves' "Billy Bayou," "If Heartache Is The Fashion" and "Home." Since his songwriting career was flourishing, Miller decided it was again time to try to become a performing artist as well. He moved to Hollywood and earned appearances on The Merv Griffin Show and The Jimmy Dean Show, where he morphed into a performer of goofy, fun novelty songs. On the basis of these performances, he signed a record contract with Smash Records and released his first single for the label, "Dang Me," in the summer of 1964. It was an immediate smash, catapulting to number one and spending six weeks at the top of the charts; it also crossed over into the pop charts, peaking at number seven. It was followed by such chartbusting novelty songs as "Chug-a-Lug" and "Do-Wacka-Do" Miller's most productive year was 1965, when he released his signature song, "King of the Road," which peaked at number four on the pop charts, as well as the Top Ten country hits "Engine Engine #9," "One Dyin' and a Buryin'," and "Kansas City Star," making him a beloved cross-genre star.



Miller's career went into considerable decline in the 70s and early 80s, as he only performed and recorded sporadically. In the mid-'80s, he wrote the music for Big River, a Broadway adaptation of Mark Twain's works. Both the play and Miller's music were critically acclaimed and enormously popular. Big River won seven Tony Awards and two of those went to Miller, for Best Musical and Outstanding Score. Big River would be the last major work of Miller's career. In 1991, he was diagnosed with throat cancer and died a year later, leaving behind a strong legacy for lovers of all kinds of music.