Volume 8 Article 11 Issue 4 Summer

7-15-1989 A Loving Salute to the King of the Road Ernestine Gravley

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Recommended Citation Gravley, Ernestine (1989) "A Loving Salute to the King of the Road," Westview: Vol. 8 : Iss. 4 , Article 11. Available at: https://dc.swosu.edu/westview/vol8/iss4/11

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Out around Erick, the natives and Amelia Miller near Erick, in a certain sergeant, Jethro, of the recognize Roger Miller, the famous Beckham County. He attended a comedy team of Homer and Jethro. songwriter and performer, as one one-room school and joined the His new friend convinced him to of Western Oklahoma’s most color­ Future Farmers of America though head for Nashville at the end of his ful characters. Back in 1965, his he had no intentions of farming. military service. “Otherwise, I “King of the Road’’ sold over 2.5 From age six, Roger’s ambition would go back to Oklahoma and million records. He won an unpre­ was to be like Sheb Wooley, a work in a gas station,” he said. cedented eleven Grammy awards country singer who lived up the In Nashville, no one took him and earned four gold records for road a ways and was married to seriously as a performer. He worked albums grossing a million dollars Roger’s cousin. Wooley was famous as a bellhop at the posh Andrew or more. for his “Purple People Eater” and Jackson Hotel, a fiddle player with Twenty years later, his versatile other novelty songs and acted in Minnie Pearl, a guitar player with talent took him to the top, to RAWHIDE and Western films. George Jones, a drummer with Broadway, and made him a Tony Sheb taught young Roger some Faron Young. He kept writing Award winner in recognition of his strings chords, and the boy picked songs. “Invitation to the Blues” outstanding original music and 400 pounds of cotton to buy a was recorded by Ray Price and by lyrics for “Big River: The Adven­ second-hand guitar. Patti Page, “Half a Mind” by Ernest tures of Huckleberry Finn,” his “I didn’t see much use to waste Tubb, and “Billy Bayou” by Jim first score for theater. It was named my time with algebra, so as soon as Reeves. He hung around Tootsie’s the best Broadway musical of 1985. I perfected my autograph in the Orchid Lounge with free spirits Rocco Landesman, producer, said: eighth grade, I quit school to become like Waylon Jennings and Willie “I wanted toget America’s greatest a singer. He left home and bummed Nelson. People in the music business novelist. Mark Twain would have around.. .a kid who stole milk from affectionately called him the Wild been proud.’’ Later, Roger Miller front porches to survive. Drifting Child, but his break didn’t come. remarked, “I was so dumb I didn’t from town to town, he worked as a “I almost let failure go to my know enough at first to get excited carhop, helper in a filling station, a head,” Miller declared. He decided about it.” dishwasher, herded and dehorned to go to California and “maybe Not bad for a two-mule cotton cattle, drove a tractor on a wheat study acting.” To finance the trip, patch “six miles the other side of ranch, rode Brahma bulls in rodeos. he recorded an album for Smash, a RESUME SPEED” and a boy who He was briefly a firefighter in subsidiary of Mercury on which never used a telephone until he Amarillo. “There were only two was his tune “Dang Me,” a song of was seventeen. He was reared with fires while I was there,” he said. self-disgust. It became a hit single no indoor plumbing and no electri­ “The first was a chicken coop. I within a week of release, selling city in the farmhouse. slept through the other one and more than a million copies. “There Roger Dean Miller was born on they fired me.” Evenings, he hung for a while, I thought I was Elvis,” January 2, 1936 in Fort Worth. His around honkytonks, sang for anyone Roger said of his sudden notice father died less than a year later, who would listen, and begged to sit among the guests. and his mother, in those Depression in with bands. He was on his way.. .appearances days, could not provide for her At seventeen, Miller joined the on the TONIGHT SHOW, Las three sons. She sent them to each U.S. Army and drove a jeep in Vegas bookings, which are the of the father's three brothers-----in Korea until his musical ability got most lucrative in show business, Arkansas, California, and Okla­ him into Special Services and a an NBC television series, THE homa. Roger was reared by E.D. country music band where he met ROGER MILLER SHOW. His output

2 2 W estview Suuvier 1989 Erick’s country-boy baritone THE KING OF THE ROAD By Ernestine Gravley

was phenomenal. He wrote songs sleep. William Whitworth report­ Miller said, “I know. Let’s all go to on airplanes, in cars, in hotel ed in THE NEW YORKER Miller’s L.A. Let’s go to my house. Let’s go rooms, at recording studios, using penchant for marathon partying, see if I have any mail. Hey, Jerry,” whatever paper was available----- entertaining, and welcoming all he told his road manager, “Call the envelopes, napkins, gum wrappers. who cared to show up. Whitworth Lear.” He had two pilots available Many good songs vanished from attended one of these events which for any hour. Miller’s memory because he lost lasted not for hours but for days. When someone asked, “You look track of his “spearmint manu­ Roger came out of a bathroom of tired, Rodge. When did you last go scripts.” But his “treasure box,” a his suite in the Sahara at Las to bed?” He answered, “I don’t leather chest about three feet long Vegas tugging at the waist of his know, but it was before that.” In and two feet deep, is filled with slacks. “These------things certain moods and while talk goes scraps of compositions that were are gaining weight,” he grumbled. on around him, the champ says, “I not lost. Overnight, Roger Miller He wore gray pants, a white shirt don’t know how to react to that. was making $10,000 a performance open at the throat, and an electric Ya’ll go ahead and talk about it.” “back in the poor days.” He made bluejacket. They took in a show by At other times, Roger, the lonely his debut in Carnegie Hall in 1966, Dobie Gray in the Congo Room seeker, the tender of heart (believe but the Big Apple reviews were for where Roger congratulated the it!) will say, “Aw, let’s don’t talk the most part unfavorable. performer: “Wow, man, that was about that. Why don’t we just hum No matter. His irresistible person­ real average.” for a while?” ality attracted attention and people. He slumped in his chair, overcome Roger Miller and his entourage William Price Fox of TV GUIDE with 24 or more hours wide awake. flew in his Lear jet back and forth said: “His coterie is like Sugar “I’m having a 92 percent good time between Los Angeles and Las Vegas Ray’s. . .a strange mix of beards, out of a possible 96,” he said, for three days, and Miller didn’t frauds, disc jockeys, and silent sighing heavily. It was 4:30 A.M. miss a single performance. When staring Texans and Okies just “We may have to get out of here,” asked how long Roger could stay passing through.” Roger added. “I’m having too good awake, his drummer at the time “Everybody’s my closest friend,” of a time.” said, “Well, I’m not sure. I’ve only Roger told VARIETY. “Man, I ain’t Back in his suite, twenty or so of been with Roger a year and a half. I got room to breathe.” his entourage and droppers-by don’t know how long he was awake His television show was scheduled were ready to call it a night, but before that.” Miller later revealed opposite I LOVE LUCY and lasted Miller suggested, “We could go that his energy came from amphet­ only sixteen weeks. “They were watch the free parking at the amines during that period of his trying to make a country Andy Flamingo.” He fought sleep and life, an addiction he subsequently Willi ams out of me, writing my drank Coca-Colas. The liquid portion overcame and crusaded against. lines, putting words in my mouth of his diet is almost exclusively His Woodland Hills mansion in that didn't fit. . .1 couldn’t think, Coke, and he often consumed a the Los Angeles area overflowed couldn’t sing, couldn’t write.” case a day. When things slowed with people. Roger showed his He returned to the nightclub down from weariness, he suggested, guests walls covered with gold circuit, kept writing and slept “I think it’s time we broke into a records, awards, plaques, the Popeye little. Accustomed as they were to series of folk dances. As long as Spinach Award for building a Little late hours, show people were aston­ there’s a vine, I’ll swing.” League Park in Muleshoe, Texas, ished by Roger’s ability to forego About sunrise, Whitworth relates, an invitation to the White House,

W e s t v ie w . S u m m er 1989 23 citations from BILLBOARD mag­ Kenny Rogers introduced them. he says. “I’ll always be able to azine, a medal from the governor of “Mary’s my third wife,” Roger stand around and say I wrote a Oklahoma, the first draft of “King said. “But I’ve really been married musical for Broadway and it’s of the Road” scrawled on a West only this one time. I’m a different playing in Oklahoma City, Wichita Coast airlines credit card appli­ person than I was.” Falls, and Cleveland tonight. That’s cation, a souvenir of Roger Miller They settled in New Mexico, a great reward.” Day in Tulsa. where they live on twenty acres six LIFE magazine called Roger Dean Outside was his fleet of luxury miles north of Santa Fe with his Miller a “cracker barrel philosopher automobiles: several Mercedes-Benz son Dean, several horses, cats, and and humorist” who “can rarely models, Jaguars, Lincoln Town dogs. “I don’t like to live on the put two sentences together without Cars, Cadillacs, and four motor­ road; I’ve done that,” Roger told a pun or a joke.” As for Roger, he cycles. Asked if the novelty of being Jack Hurst of the CHICAGO TRI­ regrets not a moment of his Okla­ rich had faded any for him, Roger BUNE. “Some people get to going homa days at home. “It was hard at said, “I like my cars. My uncle so hard in the fast lane they can’t the time,” he reflects, “but I never had a car. . .just an old pull off even if they get a flat.” wouldn’t be anything of what I am pickup and it was his. Yeah, I “There’s no pretension with if it wasn’t for that. Some people wanted a red Model A real bad. One Roger,” Mary says. “I travel with feel the rain and some just get thing, though, I don’t look at the him his twenty weeks of club wet.” right side of a menu anymore. But I dates; then we come home to Santa Today, he relaxes a great deal like peanut butter and jelly sand­ Fe and Rodge says, “Let’s go get a along the Rio Grande (“It’s where I wiches better.” cheeseburger with green chiles.’ learned to sit back and be quiet”) Eventually, months or years He’s like that.” and reflects on his Texas-Oklahoma later, Roger Miller said one day: Roger Miller, the Okie, is five background of hitchhiking, country “Whoa! This life won’t work. I’m feet ten inches tall, weighs about towns, dusty roads, and hopeless tired of falling down. I gotta conduct 170, has a long jaw and small, jobs: “I’m a man of means by no my business. You either mature or deep-set eyes. But then everybody means. . .King of the Road.”# you die.” He went before an Okla­ knows his face. They just may not REFERENCES: homa state legislature to support a know the man as well. In Nashville, PEOPLE WEEKLY----- July ‘85. ban on over-the-counter sale of he is rated with Jimmie Rodgers VARIETY----- July ‘73, September amphetamines because “it could and Hank Williams, the two most ‘87. keep somebody from getting into revered figures in country song­ the same snake pit I got into.” With COUNTRY MUSIC----- May-June, writing. The appealing elements in ‘ 86. two failed marriages and five child­ his lyrics include love of wordplay CURRENT BIOGRAPHY----- Sep­ re n ----- Dean, Shannon, Alan, (last word in lonesome is me; squares tember, ‘88. Rhonda, and Shari----- he had at make the world go ‘round). In his NEW LEADER----- April 8, 1985. last come to his senses. country-boy baritone, he sings of THE NEW YORKER------March He reached back to his roots once love and neon and honkytonks and ‘69. more, mined his Oklahoma boyhood you’ve-been-cheatin’-on-me-darlin’, NEWSDAY----- November ‘70. for a stunning comeback, this time but with a difference. He is a joy to WHO’S WHO IN AMERICA. as composer of BIG RIVER, which hear. . .he cannot tolerate the ENCYLOPEDIAOFFOLK, COUN­ walked away with seven Tony whiny earnestness of the hard TRY, AND WESTERN MUSIC. awards, including Best Musical stuff. He can sense at once if the CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONI­ and Best Score. Reviews were audience is with him, that he is TOR-----April 26, 1985. glowing with praise. NEW LEADER wanted and loved. NEW YORK TIMES----- May 5, said that Roger Miller’s music and Roger is scrupulously honest. “I 1985. Director McAnuff’s skill found the can’t read a note of music,” he CHICAGO TRIBUNE----- March right tone to make the production admitted. “I don’t know a bar from 2, 1986. perfect. “I felt like I was a real a stripe. Ijust learned the positions NEW YORK POST----- April 26, writer at last,” he told David on the guitar. After I record a song, 1985. Hutchings. “It’s like I had the the publisher has someone to write paints and brushes, but until now I it out. I don’t wanna learn much didn’t have the canvas.” ERNESTINE GRA VLEY of Shaw­ about music. Afraid it might affect nee, a prize-winning poet and prose One of Roger’s songs in the my free fall.” writer, has been a loyal WESTVIE W musical was “Arkansas” for his In the country music field, he is supporter and writer all the days of natural mother, who lives in that successful to a degree that might our lives. state. He invited her to New York fairly well be described as spec­ to hear it. tacular. In Broadway theater, he On Valentine’s Day, 1978, he just stands by in wonder. “I’m still married singer Mary Arnold after enjoying the thrill of BIG RIVER,”

24 W e s t v ie w . S u m m e r 1989