Buddy Miller life and biography

Buddy Miller is a country singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist and producer, currently living in Nashville, Tennessee. Miller is married to and has recorded with singer-songwriter Julie Miller.

Soulful Americana songwriter, singer, and producer Buddy Miller began his career in the early '60s as an upright bassist in high-school bluegrass combos. Later, he traveled the backroads of America as an acoustic guitarist, eventually landing in New York City, where his Buddy Miller Band included a young Shawn Colvin on vocals and guitar. He also forged an enduring relationship with country-rock iconoclast Jim Lauderdale.

Miller eventually landed in Nashville, where he did session guitar and vocal work on albums by Lauderdale, Victoria Williams, and Heather Myles, among others. He self-produced his criminally overlooked 1995 solo debut, Your Love and Other Lies for Hightone Records and followed it with 1997's equally superb Poison Love. By this point Miller was the lead guitarist in Emmylou Harris' band, and Harris returned the favor with backing vocals throughout Poison Love. 1999's Cruel Moon continued Miller's string of home-recorded masterpieces; this time around, Steve Earle dropped by for the sessions.

A big part of all Miller's recordings was the songwriting and harmonies of his wife, Julie Miller. The 2001 duet album Buddy & Julie Miller brought her contributions to the front of the mix and delivered them with gritty, soulful country arrangements enhanced by the interplay of his scowl and her lilt.

Miller released his fifth album in 2002, Midnight and Lonesome. It again featured contributions from Julie, Harris, and Lauderdale and mixed honky tonk with heartfelt balladry and the occasional soul cover. In addition to his stellar solo career, Miller held down his gig in Harris' backing band, played guitar with Earle, produced albums by his wife Julie, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, and the Vigilantes of Love and wrote songs for the Dixie Chicks, Lee Ann Womack, Lauderdale, and Hank Williams III.

He released the spiritually inclined Universal United House of Prayer on New West Records in 2004.

Buddy Miller has also produced albums for a number of artists. During 2006 Solomon Burke came over to Miller's house at Nashville to record his country album 'Nashville' on which Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin, Gillian Welch and Dolly Parton appear as duet partners.

He has a signature acoustic guitar made by the Fender company, and frequently uses vintage Wandre electric guitars.

Buddy Miller toured as part of the band on Robert Plant and Alison Krauss's Raising Sand tour of the USA and Europe, and with Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin and Shawn Colvin on the Three Girls and Their Buddy tour. While on tour, Miller suffered a heart attack in Baltimore on February 19, 2009 following his performance as part of the MammoJam Music Festival and underwent triple bypass surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital on 20 February.

Miller produced Patty Griffin's Downtown Church which was released in 2010 and won a Grammy Award for Best Traditional Gospel Album on February 13, 2011.

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