I've been gifting this album to friends for several years now. It's pretty hilarious. It's an oddity, it's obscure, and again, it's hilarious. How and why Capitol Records, the same label that released the Beatles, decided to put this out is somewhat of a mystery. She's a middle aged housewife that was an Opera buff, she had taken singing lessons in the past and studied music in college, but regardless, she is an awful singer. Despite that, she put out some self financed singles and was discovered by a Capital producer and signed.
They put this out as her debut and titled the collection of covers 'Greatest Hits.' The players behind her are solid Capitol studio musicians and it's clear, money went into the LP. However, producer Lex De Azevedo, the same that discovered her, took the worst vocal tracks. The first song, "Downtown", Mrs. Miller doesn't even make it through the whole song without falling apart. The album continues in much the same fashion, solid backing tracks, horrible vocal takes by an awful singer.
The copy pictured here was just recently gifted to a friend (don't worry, I still have my own). After looking the album over, my friend asked me, "She's local, huh?" I replied, "I don't think so." He sent me the Wikipedia link and Holy Crap! She has local ties. She was born in Joplin, Missouri which is over 2 hours South of Kansas City and doesn't fit the goal of this blog. However, it also indicates she grew up in both Kansas and Missouri as a child. So, I guess she counts. There are several other LPS and singles out there, most of which are pretty hard to locate. After this album, the novelty of her terrible singing and humble looks had wore off.
Mrs. Miller - Downtown
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