David Miller

“He brings great cheer towards the hill folk” was the way the Gennett label publicized the recordings from the blind troubadour David Miller, who basically stated the rolling hillsides of Western Virginina as house, although he occurred to have already been given birth to ten miles on the condition collection in Ohio. Miller was among the first performers to record old-time music, trimming edges for the Starr Piano Organization label from past due 1924. He continuing recording because of this clothing in 1927 and 1930 and in addition made several information for Paramount, another label that pioneered in documenting Appalachian performers in the ’20s and ’30s. His recordings tended toward sentimental ballads such as for example “Since Mother’s Eliminated” or severe accounts of poor times such as for example “It’s Hard to become Shut Up in Jail.” He understood about roughing it 1st hand. Miller was raised toiling at a fruits farm, getting into the military in 1917. That’s where he contracted a disorder referred to as granulated eyelids. Military doctors announced that Miller would proceed blind; remarkably, the same doctors experienced noticed nothing incorrect with the youthful man’s eye at his induction examinations. non-etheless or simply typically, military brass refused to consider responsibility for the problem and Miller was switched loose without type of compensating pension. He used your guitar after total blindness experienced occur. In the first ’20s he relocated with his fresh wife to Huntington, WV, where he became a member of up with banjoist Cecil “Cob” Adkins to be the 1st performers on train station WSAZ, selecting through two-hour slot machines double daily from 1927 through 1933. Therefore, the shows of Miller and his companions became widely noticed in the Appalachian locations as well as the blind musician built up a significant following. Also from the Huntington period and long lasting through the first ’40s was his romantic relationship with a music group called the Western Virginia Mockingbirds. An extended string music group, the group included Miller plus four brothers who all performed fiddle: Ed, George, Albert, and Frank Baumgardner. Another person in the latter family members, Jim Baumgardner, performed banjo, as well as the stage was additional packed out by Belford Harvey, doubling on banjo and acoustic guitar, and aged sidekick Adkins on “third seat” banjo. This group was well-known on radio aswell as in concert events at churches and regional dances. Ultimately Miller’s child, Davy Miller Jr., became a member of the band’s rates on guitar, producing the put together lineup sometimes look like a delivery of devices to a music shop. In the ’40s and ’50s, Miller performed at nation & western expenses at the primary theatre in Guyandotte, WV, posting this program with traditional country performers such as for example T. Tx Tyler and Patsy Cline.