The Wild Child

Born into a dirt-poor family, Miller picked cotton, ran away from home at seventeen and stole a guitar. Too fundamentally decent for a life of crime, he turned himself in next day, and enlisted to avoid jail. Served in Korea. Came home, did this and that, went to Nashville to pursue his dreams of becoming a songwriter. Got a gig playing fiddle. Wrote some songs (some in the time it took to sing them), got rich, did drugs, got his own TV show, got married three times, did some more drugs, wrote songs for movies and shows, won some awards, and died of throat cancer - he was a life-long smoker - at fifty-six.

Yep. Miller lived the life. Undiscliplined, charming, generous, funny, and superhumanly talented, the sharp-looking Texan wrote and performed songs that in their unabashed sentiment or flat-out humor could never have been created in these grim times, where his values and behavior would be judged problematic by prematurely middle-aged Millennials without one percent of his talent.

Where you find him praised, it's often as a "guilty pleasure", that jarring phrase used to show you have sophisticated tastes but can be adorably human too. Nuts to that. There's nothing ironic or self-conscious or arty about any of his work - he's as transparent as a glass of vodka. When he sings sad, you're sad. When he sings funny, you laugh. Simple emotions, directly evoked, nothing fancy about any of it. Pure pleasure from the lost age of entertainment.

Here's a couple of his earliest albums. Some vinyl crackle may be present - if in doubt consult your physician.