Buddy Miller

New West Records

Steven Paul “Buddy” Miller was born in September 1952 in Fairborn, Ohio, near Dayton. His family eventually settled in Princeton, New Jersey. During the late 1970s, Buddy was in a country-rock band called the Desperate Men, which played venues in both North Jersey and the New York area, including clubs like the Stanhope House. In 1975, he moved to Austin. He played in the band Partners in Crime with Julie Griffin, soon to be his second wife. In 1980, they moved to NYC, and they formed the Buddy Miller Band with singer-songwriter Shawn Colvin. He also performed with Jim Lauderdale and Larry Campbell. Each Sunday, Buddy performed in Kinky Friedman’s band at the Lone Star Cafe.

Buddy moved to Nashville in the 1990s after a stint in Los Angeles. He worked on recording sessions and began producing his own records in his living room studio, which he named Dogtown. Buddy’s first solo recording, Your Love and Other Lies, was released in 1995. It was followed by Poison Love in 1997 and Cruel Moon in 1999. In 2001, he and his wife, Julie Miller, released Buddy and Julie Miller, and it won the Album of the Year Award from the Americana Music Association. He followed up with Midnight and Lonesome in 2002 and 2004’s Universal House of Prayer. In 2009, he and Julie released a second duet album, Written in Chalk. In 2011, he released The Majestic Silver Strings with Bill Frisell. 2012 saw the release of the duet album Buddy & Jim with Jim Lauderdale. In 2016, Buddy recorded sessions with Lee Ann Womack, Brandi Carlile, Kris Kristofferson, and others on the album Cayamo: Sessions at Sea.

Buddy has toured with Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Linda Ronstadt, Alison Krauss, Patty Griffin, Gillian Welch, Robert Plant, and Shawn Colvin. Buddy suffered a heart attack in 2009 and underwent successful triple bypass surgery. When he started performing again, he toured with Lauderdale and also served as one of the leaders of a tribute concert for Jerry Garcia. In 2016, Buddy was part of the Lampedusa: Concerts for Refugees tour. For the past decade he has often been a part of the Cayamo Cruise, which sails from Miami to St. Maarten and Tortola.

Buddy is a regular performer at the annual Hardly Strictly Bluegrass music festival in San Francisco. He has produced albums for Richard Thompson, Shawn Colvin, the Wood Brothers, the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the McCrarys, and Ralph Stanley. He has co-produced records for Robert Plant, Lauderdale, Solomon Burke, and Patty Griffin. In 2000, Buddy co-produced and performed on Jimmie Dale Gilmore’s album One Endless Night, and he played on Lucinda Williams’ Car Wheels on a Gravel Road. Buddy has worked as an instrumentalist for many artists listed above and for Johnny Cash, Levon Helm, John Fogerty, the Chieftains, Rodney Crowell, the Dixie Chicks, and Elvis Costello, and as a recording engineer for Willie Nelson.

Buddy has been a songwriter for many of the above-listed artists, including Patty Loveless, Tab Benoit, and Brooks & Dunn. He has been a producer for the ABC TV series Nashville and, along with Don Was, The Life and Songs of Emmylou Harris. Buddy has covered Tom T. Hall’s “That’s How I Got to Memphis” and many other songs. Between 2002 and 2013, Buddy won twelve Americana Music Honors and Awards and was nominated for seven others. Buddy is the leader of the Americana All Star Band, and in 2008 No Depression magazine named him Artist of the Decade.

Buddy plays guitar on all tracks and is accompanied by Tim Lauer, keyboards and accordion; Steve Fishell, pedal steel guitar; Fats Kaplin, fiddle; bassist Victor Krauss; and drummer/percussionist Fred Eltringham. A horn section including Jim Hoke, saxophones and horn arrangements; John Hinchey, trombones; and Steve Herrman, flugelhorn, is featured on five tracks; backing vocalists the McCrary Sisters appear on four tracks; and Austin Hoke plays cello on two.

The album opens with “As Long as I Have You,” written by Bob Elgin and Jerry Ragovoy and first sung by Garnet Mimms in 1964. Buddy’s version includes the McCrary Sisters, whom Buddy first heard with Isaac Freeman, the bass voice of the Fairfield Four, when they performed with Mike Henderson on guitar. Buddy sings, “Born in darkness, but I fought my way up to the sun, had a lot of battles, some I have lost and some I won, but let me tell you girl, you ain’t seen nothing yet. There’s nothing in this world, that I can’t get. As long as I have you…Found some teardrops, but I sang my way out of the blues, had to learn to standup, even when they scared me out of my shoes, there’s nothing in this world, that I can’t get. As long as I have you.”

“You Never Really Get Over It,” the first of several songs written by Julie and Buddy, features Shawn Colvin as she chimes, “It replays, I’m always wearing this heartache, I go back, the world’s black, you’re something I can’t shake, I’m sorry I’ve been sad for too long, tears come down, when I ought to be strong, and they will for the rest of my life. Sometimes you never really get over it, sometimes you never really get over it, sometimes you never really get over it, whatever they say.”

“Strange Desire” was written by Paul Kennerley and John David in 2014 and features Buddy’s true-blue friend Jim Lauderdale, as Buddy chants, “Everytime I see you, everytime you call, I shake all over, honey that ain’t all. I’m beggin’, baby have mercy please. My temperature’s rising to a hundred degrees, I’ve got chills and fever, I’m on fire, I’m burning up with a strange desire…I jump in the river, climb by the wall of death, ’cause honey I just can’t help myself, you put a spell on me, when you talk so sweet, you got me movin’ to a voodoo beat, and that’s the kind of lovin’ that I do admire, I’m burning up with a strange desire. I’m burnin’ up everytime we touch, I need you baby, much too much, you hold me close, and the flame gets higher, I’m burning uo with a strange desire.”

On “Ruby Hang On,” written by Julie Miller for a friend who had known deep trouble, Buddy enlists the aid of Regina McCrary, whose beautiful vocal is a gem, as she moans, “Ruby hang on, to the one that’s created you, all the way down your hard road, he has been there too, he calls you beloved child, and just waits for your eyes to meet, and to show you the love he has in every heartbeat…Ruby hang on, when the lights grow dim, you believe in something, let it be Him.”

“Don’t Look Back” was written by Ronald White and Smokey Robinson and recorded by the Temptations in 1965. It features the McCrary Sisters and a vocal from the soulful Dan Penn as he groans, “If it’s love that you’re running from, there’s no hiding place, love has problems, I know, but they’re problems we’ll just have to face. If you just put your hand in mine, we’re gonna leave all our troubles behind, keep on walking and don’t look back…the past is behind you, don’t let it remind you, love can be a beautiful thing, though your first love let you down, ’cause I know we can make love bloom, baby, the second time around.”

On “Not Enough Time to Change,” written by Hoy Lindsey, Dan Penn, and Carson Whitsett, Buddy wails, “This road I’m on is all I know, some days high, some days low, folks say I’m stuck in the wrong lane, but there’s not enough time to change. I made it this far step by step, stumbling along with nobody’s help, some look at me and say, what a shame, what a shame, but there’s not enough time to change.” Buddy adds that someday he’d like to record a whole album of Dan Penn songs.

“Losers’ Celebration,” written by Julie and Buddy many years ago, before “no kings” meant anything, features biblical references as Buddy howls, “We got nothin’ to prove, and you don’t need an invitation, we’re just in the groove, here at the losers’ celebration (so the last shall be first, and the first last). Now the winner’s circle is way across on the other side of town, here we got no awards, but baby we really know, how to get down…nobody stays at the top, most of the time, we’re somewhere in the middle, here you can be a fop, in here we love the big and the little.”

On “Lay Down the Burden of Your Heart,” from Jesse Winchester, first recorded in 1976 and produced by Robbie Robertson, Buddy is joined by the husband-and-wife duo the War and Treaty (Michael Trotter Jr. and Tanya Trotter) as they plead, “It’s a cold cold world, that we’re walking through, lay down the burden of your heart, but it’s warm as toast, walking two by two, lay down the burden of your heart. Lay down the burden of your heart, I know you’ll never miss it, Oh, show your Daddy where it hurts, and let your Daddy kiss it. It’s a fine fine line, between love and hate. It’s tough to tell the two apart, but you know it’s love, that I offer you, lay down the burden of your heart,” as Steve Fishell shines on the pedal steel.

“Stop Me” was written by Lauderdale and John Leventhal and first performed in 1985. It is performed as a duet with Lee Ann Womack, as they cry out, “Stop me if I talk too much, say that’s nothing’s wrong, I can’t get along. Stop me if I laugh too loud, when I think she’s near, just so she can hear. It’s a trick my mind plays on me sometimes. I’m afraid I don’t have the will to forget her. I can’t give in or else I’ll never win, any fool would know better. Stop me if I try to walk down her street at night, tell me it’s not right, stop me if I sink too low, any way you can, please stop me,” with more great pedal steel.

On “Till the Wheels Come Off,” written by Ashley Monroe, Angalena Presley, Elizabeth Cook, and Meg McRee, and sung with Monroe and Cook, Buddy sings about his and Julie’s love as he belts, “Gonna shine a light, gonna hold your hand, let’s get out alive while we still can, everything we have, everything we lost, gonna ride it out, till the sheets come off.”

“The Inner Sanctum of God,” written by Julie Miller, features Emmylou Harris, Larry Campbell, and Teresa Williams, as they declare, “In this world of trouble and tears, there is a place it all disappears, love overtakes our heartbreak and fears, in the inner sanctum of God. Darkness is light and worry flees, when you go down in prayer on your knees, Jesus says come and the Spirit agrees, in the inner sanctum of God…He speaks in the thunder and moves in the wind. He laid down his life to make you his friend. Come and cast all your cares upon him. In the inner sanctum of God.”

On the closer, “Masterpiece in the Sand,” written by Julie and Buddy, Buddy croons, “We build our towers high, and fashion wings to fly, we want to touch the sky, before our time to die. We make our palaces grand, put a claim on someone’s land, but all the works of our hands, are just a masterpiece in the sand…you can work your whole life long, to get the world to hear your song, but the greatest works of man, are just a masterpiece in the sand.”

Buddy Miller cleared out the kitchen to make room for a drum kit. This self-titled album is Buddy’s first solo recording in fifteen years — twelve songs of soul, country, early rock ‘n’ roll, and gospel, made with a community of friends and collaborators that spans five decades of American music. Buddy Miller’s music is a testament to his enduring talent and commitment to his craft. He is still at the top of his game.

Richard Ludmerer

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