Roger Miller Biography
Songwriter, singer, guitarist, fiddler, drummer, TV star, humorist, honky-tonk man, Broadway composer, and perhaps above all else, an awesome wit - Roger Miller was all of these and more. Roger Dean Miller was born on January 2, 1936, in Fort Worth, Texas, the youngest of three boys. His father, Jean Miller, died at the age of 26 from spinal meningitis. Roger was only one-year-old.In 1964 Roger Miller dominated the country music category in the Grammy Awards, walking off with five awards including Best Country Song and Best Country and Western Male Vocal Performance. Incredibly that was only a warm-up for what he would do the following year, when he swept the board with another six awards, including Best Rock-and-Roll Male Vocal. Roger's King Of The Road, is one of the few songs that has transcend the boundaries of time and culture. Its appeal, like all classic songs, has been cross-generational. Miller wrote the jazz-influenced tune in 1964, and when released as a single in March 1965, it sold over 500,000 copies in its first two weeks and subsequently chalked up world-wide sales in excess of five million. The song has since been covered by nearly 300 artists in all styles of music from jazz through reggae to soul, country and rock. In the mid 1960s, while most of America was getting caught up in rock's British invasion, the Nashville-based singer-songwriter was dominating the pop and country charts with a mix of nonsensical and deeply emotional songs like Dang Me, Chug-A-Lug, (And You Had A) Do-Wacka-Do, Engine Engine No.9, One Dyin' And A Buryin', Kansas City Star, England Swings, Husbands And Wives, Walkin' In The Sunshine and Little Green Apples.
