Roger playing guitar behind Charlie Walker and Buddy Emmons on steel.
Great review and post Nita! Thank you. Roger was and is a truly American musical treasure.
Posted on 09/16/2006 5:58:25 PM PDT by Nita Nupress
Thanks for this review. I plan on buying the book.
What a nice post, Nita.
Thank you.
How fun! I was just around as a fan. Lived in OK a lot, so I couldn't he'p it.
Bob Wills was my "king" - his brother Johnnie Lee (*and all the boys*) played locally, and I loved Leon McAuliffe (*take it away, Leon*). Met nearly all the Playboys at one time or another.
Beyond that, later it was Waylon and Willie, while in TX. I was just one degree removed from 'em, but never spent any upclose time with either one. Handled some promos throughout OK even later than that. The business I was in, I didn't keep track of all the celebs I've met, as that wasn't my "thing."
Don't think I ever actually met Roger Miller, but I've been wracking my brain to recall some certain fuzzy times that went by too fast, lol. Just know I always tipped my hat in Erick, long before he was on a sign there.
IIRC, Roger wrote a C&W song entitled "If I Can't Be Your Number One, Then Number Two on You!"
I'll admit that, as a child, we had several Roger Miller 45s around that we kids played endlessly. It was sometimes hard to tell what was the "A" side from the "B" side.
The praise for his talent just never quite resonates for me though. Yes, he was quick with a phrase and some of his lyrics are stunning in their simplicity (The Last Word In Lonesome Is Me), but he is something of an acquired taste. Your first instict is to go "who is this bumpkin?" and dismiss a lot of his two-minute-and-change ditties.
I do love enough of his work that I made my own "greatest hits" CD from some of his old tapes and records of the 1960s. And I found a little gem of his I've wondered why it never became a hit. It goes:
If you ever want to get depressed just come to this town
Nothin' to do from dinner to breakfast in this town
Four stop lights and one old grocery
I ain't long to stay here, nosirree
I'm gonna catch the next Greyhound leavin' this town.
They got very little sunshine, very little hay in this town
The mail don't come but every other day in this town
The cotton's coming soon and I'm gonna pick it
Just long enough so I can buy myself a ticket
So I can catch the next Greyhound leavin' this town...
We had some fun times, this is true.
Sounds like you did, too!
"The Purple People Eater" IIRC was written by the late J.P. Richardson AKA The Big Bopper of Beaumont, Texas who died in the plane crash with Buddy Holly and Ritchie Valens. Had J.P. not died so young, I believe he would have rivaled Roger in his song writing ability.
(Well it's really country, but some of y'all might like it!)
Thank you for posting and for writing what sounds like a remarkable book!
I'm handicapped in that I haven't any sound or video on this puter AND am also without my 800 or so CD's, which are in storage - so I can't listen to the songs we're all humming and singing - or to the singers and songwriters we're talking about. I have nearly all of them, but am operating from memory, not my best way to post, lol.
Anyway, the roundup of stars sounds like it was fun. I used to work the CMA promos out in the hinterlands (OKla), but never got to go. Didn't get to the Ryman until it was closed down.
Thinking of Loretta Lynn (and Tex Ritter) now *I dreamed I was 'thar' in Hillbilly Heav-in ... oh what a beautiful sight ... I met all the stars in Hillbilly Heav-in ... oh what a star-studded night!"
I 'magine Roger is makin' 'em laugh till they cry.
Actually, Carter was. By a long shot. Clinton comes in a distant second.
Sure 'nuff! Just found out I do have a small tidbit to add here. Didn't know I did, but it was something niggling at me.
LOL, it's not about Roger Miller, it's about his wife Mary! When I turned 21, I had just started back to school that semester at SMU. On my birthday, my BF took me out someplace to get my first "legal drinks."
(That wasn't quite true, because girls only had to be 18 to buy beer in Oklahoma in convenience stores or grocery stores. Guys had to be 21. We couldn't go in package - liquor - stores or order drinks out anywhere, but could buy it.
Like a dolt from TX, my 18th BD I was at OU, and didn't know that last part. My BF then took me out for pizza there in Norman and I ordered a pitcher of beer, proclaiming loudly to the waitress that I was 18 that day! LOL, beer disappeared fast. Learnt that tricky little lesson about Oklahoma liquor laws, which were bizarre, the hard way.)
Anyway, the place we went to for the Big 21 was some little dark club which I think was over on Greenville. Not sure about that. The headliners were Kenny Rogers and the First Edition.
The place was tiny and I wasn't sure why the people who had had the hit record "Just Dropped in (To See What Condition my Condition Was in)" a few years earlier were playing there, but it seemed like a good deal. We had a bunch of former New Christy Minstrels floating around Houston who played at pizza places and down on Market Square, so we were always running into them.
Kenny was from Houston, and I knew some people he knew - I also was a friend of a friend of one of their singers, or so I thought. My BF told them early on that it was my 21st, so the whole night, they sang whatever I requested (maybe not Boomer Sooner, but everything else) and played like it was exclusively for me. It was a special night!
Sometime during the evening, I asked about Thelma Comacho, who was the FofaF. She wasn't with the group any more, they said, so I remember being kind of bummed.
Well, hello! The girl that was so nice to me that night and took so many of my (eventually drunken, I'm sure) requests was Mary Arnold, now Mary Miller - Roger's widow.
*It's a small world, after all, it's a small, small world.*
I was not aware that Roger Miller was dead. (and so long ago).
I have always wondered whatever happened to Henson Cargill, who recorded that 60's country hit "Skip A Rope".
He used to be around OKC when I lived there, but I've been gone for over 15 years.
LOL! Well, now that you mention it, probably not. Amphetamines taken over an extended period of time can cause extreme moodiness and swings between high and low. It's a wonder ANY of them ever finished a show when they were taking that stuff.
Gotta run. Just stopped by real quick to bump the thread. (bump = push it to the top of the Latest Posts page so people will see it).
One more thing...
"Your compilation" just doesn't have a nice ring to it. I'll stick with "Your book," thank you.
Besides, you earned it. Ten times over, you earned it.
That's a cool picture of Buddy Emmons on the steel. I haven't thought about him in a long time.
Roger Miller bump ;o)
You and the rest of the gang in here are too kind. "The book" is great with me.
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