Darnell Miller has been making music for over five decades. He is the true definition of a traditional country entertainer. Born in Bland, VA (where he still resides), Darnell grew up in a household where country music was always being played and enjoyed. His father and uncles were amateur old-timey musicians. Country music could also be heard emanating from the family\u2019s radio. As a young boy, Darnell loved this music and wanted to learn to play it just like the big folks did. One day, the left-handed Darnell picked up his right-handed father\u2019s old guitar and started playing it. His dad taught him some basic chords and promised Darnell that if he learned how to play his guitar, he would buy him one of his own! Darnell\u2019s father kept his promise and bought his son a brand new guitar from the Spiegel catalog, costing $17.98. Now with his own guitar in hand, there was no looking back for Darnell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Over the next few years Darnell played and sang at family reunions and parties. He often teamed up with his cousin Roger Morehead (on stand-up bass) and they performed as The Virginia Pals. Then their \u201cbig break\u201d came. Radio station WHIS in Bluefield, West Virginia broadcast a number of \u201chillbilly music\u201d programs. One such show, \u201cThe Home Folk Barn Dance\u201d featured one-time vaudeville stars turned country sweethearts, \u201cSalt and Peanuts\u201d (Frank Kurtz and Margaret McConnell), held an open audition for new acts for the show. Darnell convinced his father to drive Roger and him to the station for the audition. The audition went well and Darnell and Roger were invited to perform on the road, albeit locally, with Salt and Peanuts. By this time Darnell was in high school and he convinced his principal to let him study outside the high school walls. The principal agreed, provided that Darnell maintain good grades. Off went The Virginia Pals who became local celebrities while earning a whopping $20 a week! After a year, Salt and Pepper decided to retire and Salt\u2019s son, Bud Kurtz invited Darnell and Roger to become part of his own band, \u201cFiddlin\u2019 Bud & His Buddies\u201d. Shortly thereafter, Roger was drafted in the Army and left the group. Darnell\u2019s \u201cnumber\u201d never came up and he avoided the draft. During this time, however, Darnell need to earn some real money so he went to work for WHIS-TV, Channel 6, an NBC affiliate in Bluefield. He remained with the station for several years starting off as a prop hand and working his way up the ladder to cameraman and eventually the director of several shows.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the late 1950\u2019s, WHIS-TV aired a daily live program called \u201cThe RFD Jamboree\u201d and a weekly Saturday program called \u201cCountry Jamboree\u201d. Darnell was a regular on both shows and his performances piqued the interest of Nashville and Texas music industry executives. In 1959 Darnell was introduced to Don Pierce, the owner of Starday Records (then home to such stars as Roger Miller, Jimmy Dean, Pee Wee King and Moon Mulligan). Pierce signed Darnell to Starday and released a single entitled \u201cCardboard Sweethearts\u201d. <\/em>This was followed by \u201cMommy Will My Doggie Understand\u201d<\/em> -a tear jerker about a dying little girl asking her mother if her pet dog will miss her when she is gone. The single went on to become a regional hit and gained national fame when Starday included it on their 10-track compilation LP, \u201cTragic Songs of Death and Sorrow\u201d. The album was advertised on radio station WCKY out of Cincinnati, Ohio and became a best seller.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1964 Bob Jennings, the host of an early morning show on Nashville\u2019s radio station WLAC played another Darnell Miller tune, \u201cBack To You\u201d<\/em>. Jennings loved the tune. In addition to working at WLAC, Jennings was also the publicist for cowboy movie star Gene Autry\u2019s \u201cFour Star Music\u201d publishing company. Jennings asked Darnell to raise money for a \u201cspec session\u201d which Darnell did. They went into RCA\u2019s Studio B and recorded four tunes. Word of Darnell\u2019s music got around and he was visited by RCA\u2019s Chet Atkins and Decca\u2019s Owen Bradley. Atkins and Bradley liked what they heard. Bradley said that Darnell was the \u201cbest damn hillbilly singer that he ever heard\u201d but passed on him because Decca had a deal with the Grand Ole Opry and couldn\u2019t sign any traditional acts that weren\u2019t Opry members. Atkins also passed on Darnell because RCA was breaking away from traditional country acts and moving towards a country\/pop sound. Determined to get Darnell a record deal, Jennings pitched the tunes to Autry, who owned the Challenge and Republic record labels. Autry proclaimed that \u201cDarnell is one helluva singer\u201d and signed him to Challenge records. Autry also offered Darnell some advice. He told him that he should make \u201cgood records and not hit records\u201d \u2013 advice that Darnell still adheres to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Challenge Records released \u201cShow Me The Door\u201d <\/em>and \u201cThe Floor Above The Ceiling\u201d <\/em>in 1964 and they both became hit singles for Darnell. Another release, \u201cHinges On The Door\u201d (<\/em>b-side: \u201cSold To Form\u201d)<\/em> became a monster hit. Several singles followed \u2013 \u201cClose To Tears\u201d\/\u201dYou Can\u2019t Make Hay Picking Cotton\u201d (1965); \u201cBare Facts\u201d\/\u201dRainbow Of Loneliness\u201d (1967); \u201cHero Of The House\u201d\/\u201dMy Imagination\u201d (1967).<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n With the success of \u201cHinges\u201d<\/em> Darnell was on the verge of becoming a nationally recognized name. He was invited to perform on the Grand Ole Opry\u2019s Saturday night show and on Bobby Lord\u2019s WSM television program. One afternoon in 1966, Darnell received a telephone call which would forever mark a turning point in his life. The call was from Lee Sutton, the Managing Director of the WWVA Jamboree USA in Wheeling, West Virginia. Sutton invited Darnell to make a guest appearance on the Jamboree. The fifteen minute spot that Darnell did in December of that year resulted in an invitation from Sutton to become a member of the Jamboree. Darnell was honored to accept the offer and over the years, performed regularly with the Jamboree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 1971, Darnell was signed to Deneba Records and released the LP, \u201cThe Pure Country Sound of Darnell Miller\u201d. His next full length LP, \u201cForever Yours\u201d was released in 1992 by Playback Records. Three years later he recorded \u201cCountry Winners\u201d for Fanfare Records but the album was never released. Then in 2000 Darnell signed with Aaron Records and released a DCD entitled \u201cVoice Activated\u201d which Aaron followed up on 2002 with \u201cTimeless\u201d. Singles from the two Aaron albums were released to radio nationally through Aaron\u2019s compilation discs, and internationally through Hillcrest\u2019s compilation discs. These radio friendly singles have catapulted Darnell to the top of the independent chards world-wide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Darnell is one of the 5000+ Legends listed on the Rockabilly Hall Of Fame. He\u2019s recently inducted into the Golden Circle of Country Music Honor Society in the state of West Virginia and recipient of a Commendation from the Senate and House of Delegates of the Commonwealth of Virginia for his recognition and induction into the Southern Legends and Performing Arts Hall of Fame. He continues to perform today and is available for engagements. To quote a friend of Darnell\u2019s Buddy Ray \u2013 \u201cA super-singer\u2026.and entertainer\u2019s entertainer\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Darnell Miller has been making music for over five decades. He is the true definition of a traditional country entertainer. Born in Bland, VA (where he still resides), Darnell grew up in a household where country music was always being played and enjoyed. His father and uncles were amateur old-timey musicians. Country music could also […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-145","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/darnellmiller.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/darnellmiller.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/darnellmiller.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darnellmiller.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/darnellmiller.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/darnellmiller.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":228,"href":"https:\/\/darnellmiller.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/145\/revisions\/228"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/darnellmiller.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}