Artist: Scott Miller
Album: Ladies Auxiliary
Bitrate: 226kbps avg
Quality: EAC Secure Mode / LAME 3.98.4 / -V0 / 44.100Khz
Label: F.A.Y Records
Genre: Country
Size: 60.29 megs
PlayTime: 0h 35min 31sec total
Rip Date: 2017-09-15
Store Date: 2017-07-28
Track List:
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01. Epic Love 5:12
02. This River's Yours / This 3:25
Valley's Mine
03. Jackie With An Eye 3:03
04. Someday / Sometime 3:55
05. Mother-In-Law 2:35
06. Ten Miles Down The Nine Mile Rd 4:13
07. Middle Man 3:17
08. Lo Siento, Spanishburg, WVA 3:58
09. With Body And Soul 3:31
10. Get Along, Everybody 2:22
Release Notes:
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SCOTT MILLER
Ladies Auxiliary
ôI wanted to call this record Thalia and Melpomene after the Greek muses (the
smiley/frowny
faces of the theatre) but my manager Kathi Whitley said, æYou call this record
THAT and I
quit.Æö
So says Scott Miller of his tenth studio record since leaving the V-Roys, the
1990s Knoxvillebased
thinking-manÆs party band. The V-Roys caught the ear of Steve Earle, who signed
them to his somewhat ephemeral E-Squared label. Band and label collapsed at
about the
same time. Miller has survived a health scare, scaled back his erstwhile
stoically-crazed
lifestyle, hightailed it from the city lights of Knoxville, and taken up the
life of a cattleman on
his familyÆs Shenandoah Valley ranch. Somehow amid all that, this record is his
tenth release
under his own name, or that of his post V-Roys band, the Commonwealth.
After junking that Clash of the Titans title, Miller settled on the name Ladies
Auxiliary, thanks
to the simple fact that everyone involved, save Miller himself, is, in fact, a
lady. The A-list of
XX-chromosomers includes Whitley and the entire band: Bryn Davies, Rayna
Gellert, Jen
Gunderman, Deanie Richardson, and Megan Carchman. The record was also produced
(and
performed on by) Anne McCue, who brings a smidgen of vintage Django jazz and
Charlie
Christian swing to the arrangements.
In ôLo Sientoö, we have an instant Americana classic. As an eloquent lament of
the ongoing
downward spiral of the working class û and hell, American protest songs in
general û this
track stands toe to toe with any that has come before it. As someone who grew up
in both
Tennessee and Texas, I see it as an Appalachian analogue to North Texas / Great
Plains
songs like James McMurtryÆs one-two punch of ôChoctaw Bingoö and ôWe CanÆt Make
It
Hereö.
The Dylan-esque quasi-talking blues, incanted as a litany, ôLo Sientoö takes on
the travails of
Spanishburg, West Virginia, a dying town recently rejuvenated by the arrival of
hordes of
wealthy retirees streaming down from the DC suburbs.
ôThereÆs a lot of Northern Virginians who are retiring and there are towns like
the one where
my grandmother grew up -- Clifton Forge, Virginia (which by the way IÆve always
thought
would make a great name for a country singer) -- but those baby boomers are
coming down
here after theyÆve worked for 25 years for the government and gotten their
pensions,ö Miller
says.
ôSomeday / Sometimeö finds Miller putting himself in the shoes of the father of
a late friend of
his, ôan incredibly smart, talented, pretty girl I grew up with who sealed up
her garage, started
her car and asphyxiated herself, leaving twin 8 year old girls.ö
Miller initially balked at telling the songÆs backstory ôbecause I hate it when
people introduce
songs that are about suicide, because itÆs like æWhat the hell, we are already
here listening to
an earnest singer-songwriter, do you really need to bring us down even more?Æö
Most of the collection covers more humorous ground. ThereÆs ôMother-in-Lawö, an
amusing
nightmare that should have those of us not married to a spouse whose mother
steals sugar
packets at restaurants, whines about spicy home cooking, and whose unshod feet
could
choke a billygoat, feel fortunate. ItÆs one of two covers on the ten-song
album. The other
cover, ôWith Body and Soulö, finds us back in primordial Appalachia, the Celtic
strains still
readily apparent in a Scots-Irish dirge made famous by Bill Monroe, though
written by Virginia
Stauffer, a Michigan-born Nashville songwriter / Murfreesboro Road trailer park
manager
(and honorary member of the Ladies Auxiliary) Monroe called ôGypsyö. In addition
to the
covers, thereÆs also a co-write: ôTen Miles Down the Nine Mile Roadö, which
found Miller
partnering up with Robin & Linda Williams for a kitchen table writing session.
ôI don't think any of us think itÆs finished but it's pretty close,ö he says.
ôÆPleasing the
unpleasableÆ is a life goal/bad habit I possess. Makes for good songs anyway.ö
ôMiddle Manö, also known as the ôScott Miller Theory of Relativity,ö finds
Miller waxing
blatantly and uncharacteristically autobiographical. ItÆs a story of a rural kid
who went to a
school where the first day of hunting season was a holiday, where his TV could
pick up only
two stations, if it was cloudy enough. Miller turned first to books (the whole
family read all the
time), and then painting, and then learned to play three chords on the guitar
and started
telling truths.
ôBeing well-read with a spark of wanting to be heard meant I didnÆt really fit
in with what was
normal in Swoope, Virginia,ö Miller says. ôCry me a river, right? Who DOES fit
in when they
are a teenager?ö
MillerÆs ôEpic Loveö sounds like something MillerÆs hero and fellow Shenandoah
Valley native
Sam Houston would have written in his younger and wilder days, and MillerÆs
Shenandoah
Valley cattleman side comes through on ôThis RiverÆs Mine / This ValleyÆs
Yoursö.
ôIÆll take a river through some mountains over the ocean any day, any season,
any time, just
for the metaphor alone,ö he says. ôMy home county (Augusta) is the largest in
the
Commonwealth, and has the largest cow-to-people ratio of any county east of the
Mississippi.
There are no rivers that flow into it. ItÆs the headwaters of the Shenandoah
River (flowing
north to the Potomac) and the James River (east to the Chesapeake Bay.) We start
everything, baby.ö
ôIÆve been told my songs have time bombs in æem,ö he says. ôI met this
playwright when I was
playing in DC a couple of weeks ago and she was all gaga over my writing and she
told me æIt
sounds so simple but itÆs so complex,Æ and that comes from all my love and study
of
modernist poetry, all these subtle allusions to Sanskrit and [crap] like that,ö
he says. ôI like to
pack that [stuff] in there naively thinking that people will get it. But they
donÆt, and thatÆs why
my career sits where it does. Maybe 10,000 years from now they will be regarded
like
Cicero's letters, but I don't knowà"
- Bio by John Nova Lomax, Senior Editor, Texas Monthly