Grammy winner to headline Chasco opener
Bill Miller will appear on Native American Night marking the first time the fiesta has had a Grammy winner for a solo recording.
By BARBARA L. FREDRICKSEN
Published March 1, 2005
Grammy winner Mohican Indian Bill Miller will be on stage in Sims Park on Thursday as the headliner for the opening night of the Chasco Fiesta.
Miller's appearance on Native American Night will be the first time that Chasco has featured a performer who has won a Grammy Award for a solo recording.
On Feb. 13, Miller won a Grammy Award for his latest album, Cedar Dream Songs , an instrumental featuring him playing the cedar flute. In 2002, Chasco Country Concert headliner Joe Diffie had two tracks on the 1998 Grammy Award-winning album, Tribute to Tradition , for "Best Country Collaboration with Vocals," an album featuring 14 tracks by 13 different performers. Previous Chasco performer Lonestar has been nominated for the music award six times.
"We're really lucky to hit it this way," said Pete Altman, who is in charge of Chasco's Native American Night and was instrumental in establishing Native American Night in 2003. Miller was featured performer on that night, too.
Miller won in the "Best Native American Music Album, vocal or instrumental" category. He will perform 7:30 p.m. Thursday as part of an evening that will include American Indian dancers and other musicians in full regalia.
Cedar Dream Songs is the 12th album Miller has recorded since 1993. In 2000, his album Ghost Dance won five Native American Music Awards, including Artist of the Year, Album of the Year and Songwriter of the Year.
Miller started out in music at age 5, when he was living on the Stockbridge-Munsee Reservation in northern Wisconsin.
"There was woods, trout and a Zenith radio that picked up AM stations cross the country," Miller once told an interviewer. He grew up listening to Barbra Streisand, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix and Bob Dylan. He got his first guitar at age 12 and later joined a teen rock band.
Before long, though, he traded his electric guitar for an acoustic one and took up the American Indian wooden flute. After attending a Pete Seeger concert while he was studying art at the Layton School of Art and Design in Milwaukee, he moved to Nashville and became a singer/songwriter. He wrote for Kim Carnes and Nancy Griffith, among others, and shared the stage with Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, the BoDeans and Arlo Guthrie.
His big break came when he was asked to open for Tori Amos on the Under the Pink tour in 1994, after he had issued his first CD, The Red Road , the previous year. Entertainment Weekly compared his guitar and harmonica playing on his debut release to that of Neil Young.
Miller's albums have been blends of American Indian and western folk/blues vocals and instrumentals. His Grammy winner blends flute, drum, guitar, keyboard and other instruments.
Besides composing, playing, performing and producing music, Miller is also a serious painter. He maintains an art studio in his Nashville home and has had his work shown and sold in several U.S. galleries. He is also an ardent environmentalist.
Samples of Miller's music from Cedar Dream Songs can be found on amazon.com.