Customer Reviews

The Minstrel Man from Georgia

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is simply good music to listen to and enjoy, although it is very historically important. Emmet Miller was a weird, cool, jive performer, who is fun to listen to. If you listen to him, you know where Leon Redbone really comes from. Listen to him, and realize that when Bob Wills hired singers, he auditioned them by requesting they sing Miller songs usually "I ain't got Nobody," a tune that Miller obviously takes from Louis Armstrong's great version. Listen to him and you will see a lot of him in Tommy Duncan and Leon Rausch. Probably Hank Williams never heard Miller, or his version of the lovesick blues. Williams copied a copy of Miller's performance. To my opinion, Miller's is just as good or better.

People raised on the fiction of modern "country" music may object. That isn't what this is, thank goodness. It hasn't been white-washed, formulaed, and restricted to a group of easily borrowingly repeated tunes. Instead this is the meeting of the last of the great ministrels with pre-Swing Jazz, and above all one of the many ways the masterful musical innovations of Louis Armstrong penetrated white music.

I am sure that just like Bob Wills or Hank Penny or any of Miller's real descendants, Miller did NOT consider himself part of country music. He was a jazz man of the first generation as well as the last of the great minstrel performers, two of the great strains in the history of American culture. The musicianship on his records is that of the basic Jazz combos that Columbia's predescessors maintained at the Union Square Hotel and other Manhattan studios. I haven't checked the notes recently, but I am sure the Dorsey Brothers, Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, and lesser known drum and guitar players who LATER went on to front or be great soloists in the swing bands are on these sides when they worked as session recorders for whosever session was scheduled that day.

Incidentally, the one time Bob Wills appeared on the Grand Ole Opry, he almost left because they objected to his drums and horns. They even tried to stop him smoking his trade mark cigar on stage (on a radio show!!!) He never returned. As the song goes, Hank Williams got kicked off the Opry as well. The currently uninformed person whose only reference is nashville, is ignorant that a broad stream of white performers from the South who were decisive in this music like Miller were inspired and informed by Black music.

With all this said, Miller is fun to listen to. His music has a nice little swing to it. He is funny. His versions of some of the pop standards, like She's Funny This Way are great are terrific.

Yes, there are some things that are offensive and down right racist here. I am African American and have been actively involved in antiracist struggles and research all my life. This is the real legacy of life in this country, not some aberration. You're not going to learn about American culture without some of this. So don't sweep it under the rug, enjoy it.
The greater triumph against racism is that Miller helped bring much of the Black style into white southern and Western music.

Cool people have known about Emmett Miller for years, I mean the guy performed in blackface with a bluesy feeling, and yodeling in such an appealing country blues style. He was backed by Jimmy & Tommy Dorsey, Eddie Lang, Joe Venuti, Bunny Barigan, and many other jazz allstars on the recordings on this cd. All the tracks are jazz standards and have classic dixieland arrangents. The best sides are the ones with doalouges, where he does sort of an early Amon'N'Andy thing. Emmett is cool and a blues legend. Even jazz critic Will Friedwald wrote in his book Stardust Melodies, that Milelr recorded a very credible version of St. Louis Blues. Every cut on this is a classi, and if you hear his version of I Ain't Got Nobody, you will understand why Miller was such a big influence on Leon Redbone(also listen to Lovesick Blues, and you'll know that Hank Willaims was also influenced by Miller). This is an essential cd for fans of vintage jazz, western swing. country blues, and yodeling. A great disc full of classic jazz and country blues, for an eclectic dixielandish style! Buy one for yourself and for a friend who has a good sense of humor(musicly taht is). A gem of a cd.

Emmett Miller was a forgotten influence on such greats as Jimmy Rodgers, Gene Autry and Hank Williams until writer Nick Tosches rediscovered him. Now he is an American Original, and so is his sound. His Georgia Crackers is made up of Jazz greats Jimmy and Tommy Dorsey, and Guitarist Eddie Lang. Hank Williams learned his "Lovesick Blues" from listening to Miller's recording of the same. Merle Haggard and Leon Redbone have both done tribute albums in honor of Miller's musical legacy. You can listen to a Thousand Frogs on a Log, but Miller will still sound unique, haunting and memorable.

Emmett Miller yodels better than Jimmie Rodgers, sounds drunker than Jerry Lee Lewis and has more fun than either one. Here's 20 sides cut for the Okeh label in the 20's. This is where Hank Williams got "Lovesick Blues", Eddy Arnold got "Anytime", and the Dorsey brothers and Eddie Lang are in his backing band (The Georgia Crackers!)and so on, but this ain't about historical interest, it's about having a good time. Docked one star for the 3 non-musical minstrel routines, but when they come on you can either hit the skip button or go get another drink.

Miller influenced Hank williams, Leon redbone, Jimmie Rogers, and countless others. His vocals are fun and appealing, and his dialogs are hilarious, especially about the "Lion." Here you get the original Lovesick Blues, and many other future jazz standards. you also have every name in jazz backing Miller up(essentially the Dorsey Bros. alumni). This is hot dixielandish jazz, but with blues feeling and Milelr's yodellign and great sense of rhythm, swing and HUMOR!!! Essential!

Emmett Miller was enormously influential (Jimmie Rodgers, Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Merle Haggard and many others), but nearly forgotten by modern listeners until this CD release (and Nick Tosches subsequent outstanding biography, "Where Dead Voices Gather."). It is interesting that Miller has had such a profound influence on Country musicians since this is decidedly not traditional country music. Rather it is a vibrant amalgamation of early 20th century styles, and is particularly influenced by jazz and vaudeville (and features some of the top jazz players of the time such as the Dorsey brothers and Eddie Lang). Miller's style transcends genre. He swings like a jazzman, but with a hillbilly earthiness. He is a masterful, and sublime, yodeler and undoubtedly was the principal influence on Jimmie Rodgers' "blue yodel." His phrasing and inflection is nothing less than amazing, and his odd "clarinet" tenor has an appealing, well-worn quality.

Beware, Emmett Miller was a blackface minstrel performer and this CD contains a few comic routines that modern listeners likely will find at least mildly offensive. In the spectrum of minstrel material, this is pretty tame stuff, but it does reflect the sensibilities of an era completely out of sync with modern mores. Nonetheless, this is an excellent CD that re-introduces one of America's greatest singers to a new generation.

Thank you for the wonderful CD from "yester-year" for my dad! He is really enjoying it! Just one complication was the CD case was cracked but I suppose that is the original case so that is fine! Thank you and God bless!

If you are reading this,chances are only me,you and handful of other people know about this wonderful and completely forgotten entertainer from 1920s,who performed as comedian in black-face,sort of missing link between rural blues,vaudeville and country.

Some might object to his old-time comedy routine as one would expect,poking fun at racial stereotypes is not politically correct today,but hey,we are talking about 1920s,relax and enjoy it for what it is. Besides being funny and witty comedian (I find him funnier than Al Jolson and Eddie Cantor together) he has some excellent music backing,yodels effortlessly and his most famous song "Lovesick blues" (future country evergreen) is included here.

Miller stands with one foot in vaudeville/early jazz tradition and another in country,so it sounds not only as he listened carefully what was going on around him,but has also influenced others - just listen to his yodeling and you know that Jimmy Rogers listened as well.

"She's funny that way","St.Louis blues","I Ain't got nobody","You are the cream in my coffee","Big bad Will is sweet William now" are just some of the highlights of this collection,pure Heaven for lovers of old-time music. Time machine transports you directly in 1920s prohibition era

I first heard Emmett Miller some forty years ago, on the English Parlophone First Rhythm Style Series, which included two of his September 1929 recordings. He began recording around 1924, and he had one later session for Bluebird in September 1936, but this compilation concentrates on the 1928/29 Okeh sides on which he was backed by his Georgia Crackers, a studio group which included the Dorsey brothers, Eddie Lang, and on the final session Gene Krupa.

This bizarre marriage between Miller's minstrelsy tradition and the cream of New York's session musicians has to be heard to be believed, almost as if Gus Ellen, say, had sung with Ray Noble. His nasal voice is high-pitched, and shifts effortlessly into the falsetto to which his yodel is a natural corollary (he was billed, inaccurately, as the "Clarinet Voiced Comedian"). Elements of his style would be picked up and adopted by country singers like Jimmie Rodgers, surfacing most identifiably in Hank Williams version of "Lovesick Blues".

Some of these songs were standards already, others became so later thanks to their championship by Bob Wills, Eddy Arnold, and Leon Redbone, to name but three. Also included are examples of blackface dialect skits, which give a flavour of this long gone genre, which sadly fell into disrepute and is now largely forgotten.

This is a classy production; the CD face is a facsimile of the Okeh label, and the 20-page illustrated liner booklet sets out the salient details of his career which is prefaced by a detailed discography. Remastering is exemplary.

I am a big fan of traditional country music. I am also a fan of the old minstrel type music. In todays world this CD would be considered to be racist, however if you read the bio that comes with the CD I'm sure you'll agree with me that he is not racist. I would like to see a CD released without the minstrel type chatter. If you like the blues, delta, New Orleans, Chicago style, country, or any other style...you'll love this CD.