It is barely two weeks until Christmas, and it seemed appropriate to choose something nice and Yule-related for the Song of the Week. One of the choices I considered was Roger Miller’s “Old Toy Trains.”* That reminded me, though, of Miller’s “Our Hearts Will Play the Music,” which is perhaps closer to the way I have been feeling of late (or for many years, for that matter).
Roger Miller was an interesting “country” performer who said it took him 20 years to become an overnight success. His father died when he was only a year old. His mother was unable to provide for her three children, so Roger was separated from his brothers and went to live with his aunt and uncle on a small Oklahoma farm. His cousin’s husband, Sheb Wooley, became a minor celebrity based on his hit song, “Purple People Eater,” and Roger wanted to follow those footsteps. He ran away from home while still in high school, but was arrested for stealing a guitar. Rather than go to jail, he was permitted to join the army, where he was assigned to “Special Services” and required to play fiddle. After his discharge, he moved to Nashville and began song writing.
Some of his songs became hits for other artists, but his performing career was mostly restricted to playing in backup bands for more well-known singers. What turned out to be his big break came in 1963 when he signed a contract with the relatively new Smash Records. Smash was a very eclectic label which recorded artists as diverse as Jerry lee Lewis, James Brown, Mother Maybelle Carter, Eric von Schmidt, the Left Banke and Sheep on Drugs (really). Miller’s first big hit, “Dang Me” was released early the next year.
Also in 1964, he recorded his best known song, “King of the Road,” which was released as a single and on the album, The Return of Roger Miller. That album included our Song of the Week, “Our Hearts Will Play the Music.” Miller continued to produce popular songs until Smash Records was discontinued by its parent company, Mercury Records, in 1970.
Miller was known as an eccentric, hard-living, hard-drinking, hard-smoking guy who dashed off his songs quickly and never looked back. However, in the early 1980s he seemed to become more focused and spent over a year writing the score to a musical called Big River that was based on Mark Twain’s stories of Huckleberry Finn. The show opened on Broadway in 1985 with Roger Miller playing the role of Huck’s father, Pap, for several months after the original actor, John Goodman, left for Hollywood.
Miller’s unhealthy ways did catch up with him. He developed a cancer that took his life in 1992, at the age of 56.