Roger Miller, King of The Road

Roger Miller  (1936-92) was a singer and song writer and another of those country singers who comes from Texas.  Hs family were very poor and after his father’s death, his mother sent him to relatives in Oklahoma…As a boy he liked to listen to the Grand Old Opry, on the radio…  He enlisted in the US Army at the age of 17 or so, and spent a few years in the service.  He played in a band, towards the end of his time, when serving in Georgia.

After his army time, he decided to try his luck in Nashville, in the music business, but it took him some time to get work. He worked in a hotel, and met George Jones and Minnie Pearl, who hired him to play in her band.  However he gave up the music business when he became a father, and worked in Texas in the fire service.  He returned to Nashville after a time and tried to get work as a writer, ending up working for Tree Publishing.  He was very talented but not very disciplined...   He had some success as a performer and writer, but then ended up getting a divorce and living a partying lifestyle.

 He toyed with the idea of becoming an actor, but in 1964 he penned King of the Road, which became his greatest hit...  It was a number 1 hit and netted him a lot of money and was a succesful crossover in the Pop charts.
  He recorded songs by other artists as well, including Little Green Apples. 

In the 1970s, he wrote less, though he had some success writing songs for a Robin Hood film for children and a musical version of Huckleberry Finn... In which he himself played “Pap”, Huck’s drunken father.

He married three times and had several children, including two who were adopted.  Like many country singers, he had bouts of depression and drug abuse.  He was so very talented it might be said that he transcended country, but he was undoubtedly a country singer…

He was a heavy smoker, and died tragically young at the age of 56, of lung cancer….