Justin Miller, guitar and mandolin: Stories

In 1957, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly were all at the top of their game. Rock & roll seemed indestructible. But by 1959. Elvis was in the U.S. Army in Germany. Little Richard was in Bible College. Chuck Berry was in the dock, indicted for violating the Mann Act. Jerry Lee Lewis was in disgrace for marrying his 13 year old cousin. And Buddy Holly had perished in a plane crash.

Thus, the next five years (until the Beatles were catapulted into superstardom) are sometimes called the "Lost Years" of rock. But not for guitar pickers!

Why? Because those years gave us The Ventures' "Walk Don't Run" (a hit both in '60 and '64), Dick Dale's "Misirlou" ('62), The Tornado's "Telstar" ('62; the first hit record in the U.S. by a British group), The Chantays' "Pipeline" ('63), The Surfari's "Wipe Out" ('63, originally entitled "Switchblade") and, in the U.K., a flurry of hits by Cliff Richards' sometime-backing band, The Shadows.

In short, "Surf's up!"

I have long featured a suite of surf guitar hits in my shows, Though I have only recently started performing "Apache", I first memorized "Apache" from The Ventures Play 'Telstar' ('63). When I realized that The Ventures often recorded their own versions of other groups' hits I began to wonder about the origins of "Apache". And so begins the following, rather tangled, yarn. . . .

By 1960 a chap from West London, Jeremiah Patrick Lordan, had served in the RAF, failed as a singer, as a comedian, in advertising, and at heaven knows what else. But, using his advertising business contacts, Jerry Lordan was able to audition a tune of his own devising for a record producer. The record flopped in the U.K. but Lordan's song was then recorded by an American rockabilly singer, Dale Hawkins.

Now, Dale Hawkins, mostly remembered for his huge "swamp rock" record "Suzie Q.", is the cousin of Ronnie Hawkins whose backing band, The Hawks, later backed Bob Dylan and became known as The Band. Which, of course, has nothing to do with my story here. But the following scrap of dreadful dialogue does:

"Will they not say that growing corn is woman's work?"
"I am a warrior. What I do can never be woman's work."

Those are the only lines I can recall from a Hollywood Western starring Burt Lancaster in 1954, a movie set just after Geromino's surrender. When, years later, the film opened in London, Jerry Lordan went to see it and was mightily impressed by the score composed by David Raksin (who would eventually write the music for than one hundred movies!) The name of the flick is, of course, "Apache".

Thus inspired, Lordan devised a faux Native American tune of his own and played his new number—not surprisingly entitled "Apache"—on a ukulele for Jet Harris, the bass player in The Shadows. The Shadows recorded it in July, 1960. In just a few weeks it landed on the top spot in the English hit parade.

But that record did not "cross the pond" to the U.S.

Americans know "Apache" because in the following year, 1961, it was recorded again, this time by a Danish jazz guitarist named Jorgen Ingmann. His cover version went straight to #2 in the U.S. and #4 in Canada. (Ingmann is also the guitarist on The Champs' "Tequila".)

So our tale which begins with Geronimo passes through Hollywood, England and Denmark and at last arrives on American airwaves. And, almost fifty years later, in my shows. But it doesn't stop there: "Apache" has been a hit for home-grown bands in Germany, The Netherlands, France, and even Chile!

Before partisan pundits had their own cable venues, newsletters, web sites and blogs, they had songs. "Broadsheets" — published lyrics, usually set to familiar tunes — promoted the favored candidate and spoofed the opposition. Many tunes we now think of as "traditional" or simply "folk tunes" became popular because of politics.

The "Eighth of January" commemorates General Andrew Jackson's feat in 1815 when he lead a motley band against overwhelming British forces in a stunning victory. Jackson's ragtag bunch suffered fewer than two dozen casualties while the British losses counted in the thousands. (Oh, all right; so the numbers are likely exaggerated, but they were reported this way throughout the world and boosted the image of the still-young United States.)

History buffs know that Jackson's great day did nothing to change the course of the War of 1812 as, weeks prior, a peace treaty had been negotiated between the Yanks and Brits. News of the treaty did not reach New Orleans in time to forestall the battle. But the song "Eighth of January" was played throughout the land, reminding all of Jackson's victory and so helped him to win the presidency.

You might recall Johnny Horton's chart-topping record from 1959, "The Ballad of New Orleans". The tune for that hit was adapted by James Morris (aka Jimmy Driftwood) from the "Eighth of January", though performed far slower than most bluegrass renditions.

The old time fiddle tune and bluegrass classic "Salt Creek" is somewhat trickier to decipher but here's my take:

Bill Monroe, the father of bluegrass, had already recorded a song with a somewhat similar title when he decided to wax a century-old number named "Salt River". His record company urged him to change the title so that prospective record buyers would not get confused, thinking they already owned Monroe's new record. Hence, Monroe changed the title from "Salt River" to the now universally accepted name, "Salt Creek."

"Salt River" referred to an offshoot of the Ohio River — which native-born Kenuckian Bill Monroe certainly knew — but it also has several connotations. One is political and (depending on the telling) goes like this. . . .

In 1832 Andrew Jackson (yup, he's back) fought Henry Clay for the presidency. Clay paid a riverboat pilot to navigate the Ohio River to bring him to Louisville to give a campaign speech. The boatman, who supported Jackson, intentionally took a wrong turn on the Ohio, steering Clay up the Salt River and away from Louisville. Thus the song "Salt River" might be another celebration of General Jackson, or at least a fond reminiscence of a 19th century political dirty trick.

For the duration of the century the phrase "Salt River" came to mean a dead end, a futile gesture, a policy bound to fail, or simply the likelihood of getting fleeced by a smooth operator.

From time to time I perform a short suite of old-time fiddle tunes — on the mandolin, of course — including both of these great tunes, "Eighth of January" and "Salt Creek." Though in concert I often tell the stories behind the songs, these tales are a little too complex to assay on stage but I thought you might enjoy them here.

What do "The Alamo", "High Noon", "Red River" and "Rio Bravo" have in common?

Yes, of course, they are all Westerns, all cowboy movies. But what do they share with "Lost Horizon", "Dial M for Murder", "You Can't Take It With You", "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington" and "It's A Wonderful Life"?

Herein lies a tale. . . .

In the 1910s, a Russian piano student at the St. Petersburg Conservatory hung out at a local cafe called "The Homeless Dog." There he heard American ragtime and blues, and was knocked out by a recording of Irving Berlin's recent hit, "Alexander's Ragtime Band."

After WWI, this young man studied in Germany and performed piano concertos in Paris. There he played Gershwin's "Rhapsody in Blue" for a sold-out house —wherein sat none other than George Gershwin! And there he met a Russian who had become a Broadway producer and who invited him to join a vaudeville show in New York. But when the stock market crashed in '29, he, like so many others, went to California to look for work. . . and found it composing scores for Hollywood.

Dimitri Zinovich Tiomkin would write the music for more than 100 movies, working with many of the greatest directors in Hollywood including Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and Frank Capra. Tiomkin received about two dozen Oscar nominations (and won four in just six years) during a career spanning almost half of the 20th century.

It may seem odd that a Russian composed "Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darlin'" for "High Noon" but 'tis true.

On rare occasions I perform Tiomkin's theme song for the 1961 flick "Town Without Pity". The song was a vocal hit for Gene Pitney but there is a thrilling, almost symphonic, version set for electric guitar performed by Ronnie Montrose on the album "Open Fire." Unfortunately that recording can be very hard to find as it was released only in Japan and may not have been 100% kosher, issued without the artist's consent.

There are many songs in Shakespeare's plays, most boasting lyrics set to music by regular collaborators associated with Shakespeare's theater company. These composers also devised musical interludes and the "jig" performed at play's end. (Most plays in Elizabethan England concluded with a dance featuring members of the cast, each performing his signature routine.)

But Shakespeare mentions one well-known popular song of the day by title: "Greensleeves". And he cites it not just once but twice in his play "The Merry Wives of Windsor" [Act 2, Scene 1 and Act 5, Scene 5]. What was so special about "Greensleeves" that Shakespeare gave it such prominence?

My answer requires a mixture of history and popular legend. It is a bit complicated, but here goes....

"Greensleeves" was registered with the London Stationer's Company in 1580 under the name "A New Northern Ditty of the Lady Greensleeves". But according to English folk legend, the song was composed by Henry VIII in the early 1530s while courting the young lass who in 1533 would become his second wife, Anne Boleyn.

In the 1590s Shakespeare wrote two wildly popular plays, "Henry IV, Part I" and "Henry IV, Part II", each featuring Sir John Falstaff, a witty wonder, the fat, boastful and utterly marvelous drinking companion of the young Prince Hal (the wastrel who would grow up to become the heroic Henry V).

Falstaff was wildly popular with audiences. Even Queen Elizabeth I was said to have adored that character so much that she asked Shakespeare to please write a new play in which Falstaff falls in love. So commanded, the tradition continues, he wrote "The Merry Wives of Windsor" which was almost certainly performed at court in 1602.

Today "The Merry Wives" is not considered one of Shakespeare's best works. It has a rather nasty, almost vindictive tone and much of the humor does not thrill modern audiences as does the wit of "Much Ado About Nothing" or "As You Like It", plays written during the same period, the late 1590s. But why mention "Greensleeves" and why twice?

I think the answer is that Shakespeare knew that his audiences believed the song to have been written by Queen Elizabeth's father, Henry, while wooing her mother, Anne.

Anne was executed after being accused of practicing witchcraft (along with other nefarious doings) in order to seduce Henry. Once in her Anne's thrall, Henry shed his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, the mother of Elizabeth's older (half-) sister Mary who would become Elizabeth's predecessor, Queen Mary I. But after Anne was convicted her own daughter, Elizabeth, was declared illegitimate.

Now, in the song "Greensleeves" the singer declares that his beloved has "cast me off discourteously". If, as the audience believed, the singer/composer was Henry VIII and the object of his affection Anne Boleyn, then the song's lyrics bear witness to Anne's innocence: she could hardly be a witch, scheming to entrap Henry, to seduce him into marriage, if she had refused his affections. And if Anne was innocent then her offspring, Elizabeth, should certainly be considered legitimate.

Thus, I believe that Shakespeare cited the song (twice!) in "The Merry Wives" in order to curry favor with Queen Elizabeths by suggesting her legitimacy and her mother's innocence. After all, he could be certain that the queen would see the play as she had suggested that he write it in the first place.

You will find a recording of "Greensleeves" on my forthcoming album, "RIO TIGRE," performed on "Shorty", a 12-string guitar tuned one octave higher than a normal guitar, and on my beloved Rigel mandolin. [To see shots of both instruments, just click on the "Photos" tab.]

That recording also includes "Scarborough Fair", a melody far older than that of "Greensleeves" as the song "Scarborough Fair" may date from the late Middle Ages!

Scarborough, once a Viking settlement and now a quiet resort town, sits on the southern tip of the North York moors. But as a medieval trading village, Scarborough was home to one of the great fairs. This "fair" was more than a carnival; it was a seasonal exposition lasting from August until October to which merchants and artisans would come from both England and continental Europe to trade raw materials like wool and flax and to show their finished goods. And that is why in the lyrics of "Scarborough Fair" the singer asks his lady friend to make him a coat or a shirt, precisely the kind of activity typical of medieval fair.

Jim Rob loved Mexican dancing, minstrel shows, big band swing and the blues singing of Bessie Smith, once riding fifty miles on horseback to hear her perform. He delivered bread, preached the Bible, sold insurance and attended barber college..

While working as a barber in Oklahoma, New Mexico and Texas he heard Mexican dance music on the radio and fell in love its vibrant energy. Though he'd learned violin from his father, a champion fiddler, he knew he wasn't as good as his dad, He would never be a virtuoso, let alone be able to play the swing jazz he loved. But he'd seen what happened when Cain's Dancing Academy in Tulsa implanted springs under the dance floor. So, he founded a group to play for dances, often using two fiddles in place of the saxes employed by the big bands. (His bands in the early 1930s, like those of Milton Brown's Musical Brownies, included trumpets and saxophones.)

Like the big bands, Jim Rob's featured marvelous soloists but his might play mandolin or steel guitar. As Jim Rob liked the uniforms, the discipline and the professionalism of the big bands he did not want his band to have a hillbilly image. Hence he changed his name from Jim Rob to Bob. . .Bob Wills.

Cutting hair in Roy, New Mexico, Bob played for local dances on Saturday nights, composing his own number "Spanish Two Step." In 1935 he recorded "Two Step" for Columbia records. In '38, now in Dallas, Columbia's representative asked Bob if he had another song like "Spanish Two Step." Bob said he didn't but that he'd come up with one in just a few minutes. He did, quickly composing the classic "San Antonio Rose." When he added lyrics in '40 he changed the title to "The New San Antonio Rose" so—to be precise—the song should have that longer name whenever it is sung but the shorter name when it is performed without a vocalist.

Though I've never put it an a record, I often perform "San Antonio Rose" during the mandolin section of my concerts but I usually play it bluegrass style, not with the lovely lilting swing of Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys.

By the by, though Bob eventually became a shrewd businessman he was known as a "soft touch" for a sad story. After giving money to a supplicant, he turned to a friend and said, "That guy's probably lyin', but I can't take the chance." What an open-hearted philosophy!

For centuries, sailors plying both the high seas and America's rivers developed a body of songs designed to help them at their chores. These were called chanteys or shanties, perhaps from the English word "chant", perhaps from the French command "Chantez!" which instructed the sailors to sing together. Songs suitable for short bursts of activity are called "short haul shanties", those for heavier work, "halyard shanties", and those for long repetitive tasks, "capstan shanties".

While most of the famous shanties are English or Dutch in origin, here's the story of one that is truly an American original.

During the long, cold winter of 1777-78, General George Washington struggled to preserve his army at Valley Forge. The troops were freezing and, perhaps worse, in danger of starvation, when a delegation of Oneidas brought 600 bushels of corn to aid the colonials. The problem: the troops did not know how to prepare the corn.

An Oneida named Polly Cooper taught the starving soldiers how to fix the corn, refusing all offers of payment from the grateful soldiers. As a token of gratitude, none other than Martha Washington gave Polly a bonnet and shawl (which is still treasured by the Oneida and often displayed at the Oneida Nation's cultural center).

The name of the Oneida chief whose generosity saved the colonial army from extinction is Skenandoah (yes, it is spelled with a "k") from which we get the names for the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia, for towns throughout the midwest, and whose daughter is the object of affection in the beautiful song, "Shenandoah".

While there is nothing inherently nautical about the song "Shenandoah", it was so loved by sailors plying the Ohio, Missouri and Mississippi rivers during the 1840s that it was adapted to serve as a capstan shanty which a group of sailors would sing while turning the great wheel that raised the anchor.

When the riverboat sailors landed in the great trade ports of Mobile and New Orleans they met English and Dutch deep-water sailors who carried "Shenandoah" back to Europe. (That's why many Brits today think that the melody, with different lyrics, originated in England.)

And so the kindness of a Native American woman during the War of Independence and the generosity of her chief became the lyrical subject of a sailors' work song sung around the globe.

My own mandolin arrangement of "Shenandoah" is featured on my third album ("Rio Tigre") which will be released this coming fall. But you, dear visitor, do not have to wait...just click on the "Music" tab and you will find this recording awaiting you now!

In 1904, a 26 year old from Providence, Rhode Island — George Michael Cohan — wrote and starred in a musical, "Little Johnny Jones." Though the show closed early the next year after hardly more than fifty performances, it featured two new Cohan songs which quickly became nationwide hits: "I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy" and "Give My Regards to Broadway." As 1905 commemorated the 40th anniversary of the end of the Civil War, a parade was held in New York for Civil war veterans and, because of those two songs, George was invited to serve as Grand Marshal of the parade.

Cohan rode in the parade beside a veteran of the battle of Gettysburg who cradled a tattered flag on his lap. The old soldier commented, "She's a grand old rag."

As ragtime music was then a national obsession, Cohan —an experienced business manager as well as songwriter and performer — saw the possibilities, wrote a song for his next show, "George Washington, Jr." and entitled his new composition. . . you guessed it. . . "You're a Grand Old Rag."

Cohan was so certain that his new song would be a smash that sheet music and recordings (on Edison cylinders) were released even before the show opened on February 6,1906. The new song was wildly popular, just as Cohan had hoped. But it sparked outrage with everyone from the Daughters of the American Revolution to President Teddy Roosevelt waxing wroth. Why? They objected that calling the Stars and Stripes a "rag" was unpatriotic.

Though George M. Cohan was as hard-headed as anyone in Broadway history, he knew when he was licked and changed the title (and lyric) to "You're a Grand Old Flag".

Cohan ordered the recall of all the sheet music and Edison cylanders (recordings) but a few survived and are now valued collector's items. Still, the newly retitled song became the first in history to sell more than 1,000,000 copies of sheet music!

Happy 101st, "Grand Old Flag"!

If you've seen my live shows you have probably seen me perform a ragtime version on classical guitar with chords, bass and melody all played at the same time.

One of the most popular fiddle tunes in American history is "Fisher's Hornpipe". As far back as 1783, just after the Revolutionary War, a gent named John Greenwood transcribed the melody into his musical copybook (though set for the "German flute", not the violin).

We know that surveyor Moses Cleaveland -- for whom Cleveland, Ohio is named -- always traveled with a fiddler in his company. When they first pitched camp on the banks of the Cuyahoga river in July, 1796 the happy campers danced while the fiddler played "Fisher's Hornpipe".

Fiddlers contests often require that contestants perform "category tunes", songs that every fiddler should know (rather like the compulsory exercises gymnasts must execute before they can show off their personal creativity in the final events). "Fisher's Hornpipe" was one of those "category tunes" as far back as the 1800s. At the fiddlers contest in Gallatin, Texas in 1899 the prize went to the best performance of -- you guessed it -- "Fisher's Hornpipe".

But who was "Fisher"?

Some believe Fisher to have been the song's composer but no one is quite sure who that was. Perhaps he was Johann Christian Fischer, a German friend of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. Perhaps he was James Fishar, an English conductor and ballet master at Covent Garden who certainly did compose hornpipes.

My own arrangment of "Fisher's Hornpipe" (which I sometimes perform in concert on mandolin and sometimes on guitar) was especially fun to write as I change the harmony every single time the melody comes around and give it something of a "Riverdance"-ish treatment.

Like many cities in the 1920s and '30s, Birmingham, Alabama was crisscrossed by streetcar lines. Two, the Pratt City and Wylam streetcars, terminated at 20th Street and Ensley Avenue, the site of the Nixon Building which boasted a wonderful dance hall on the 2nd floor. At day's end, folks would disembark the streetcars still dressed in their work clothes. As they were hardly attired for the evening, a local clothing store rented them dressy outfits (holding their work togs as collateral). Hence, the nickname Tuxedo Junction.

A local boy, trumpeter Erskine Hawkins, attended the State Teachers College in Montgomery, just over an hour's drive from Birmingham. To help the College survive financial straits during the Depression, Hawkins lead the Bama State Collegians jazz band on a tour, raising funds for the school. In '34 when the band arrived in New York City it became the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra, even playing Harlem's famed Savoy Ballroom.

In 1939, now living in New York year-round, Hawkins composed the music for the song that celebrated his home town, Birmingham: "Tuxedo Junction."

On Christmas Eve at the Savoy, the Erskine Hawkins Orchestra shared the bill with a new band, the Glenn Miller Orchestra, playing to a record-breaking crowd of 4,000. The Miller band couldn't help noticing that the audience loved Hawkins' new tune so Glenn's musicians borrowed a lead sheet (just melody and chords) from one of Hawkins' sax players. Miller's arranger, Jerry Gray, worked up a bare-bones sketch of the tune and passed it around so that the Miller musos could add their own embellishments.

Though Erskine Hawkins' record of "Tuxedo Junction" was hardly a flop, it was the Miller band's platter, recorded in February of 1940, which sold 115,000 copies... in just one week!

As the song is really a gussied up blues, my own arrangement -- which I sometimes perform as a solo guitar piece -- takes "Tuxedo Junction" back to its roots in Alabama.

Several songs have become hit records more than once but there's one song that was successful on five different records all in the same year!

In 1942 this song was a hit in the U.S. for Kay Kyser, Glen Miller, Sammy Kaye, Jimmy Dorsey and Kate Smith. Any guesses?

Here's a clue. It was recorded that same year in the U.K. by Vera Lynn and has ever since been associated with her.

Here's the story behind that song:

In 1940-41 Nat Burton, an American inspired by the courage of RAF pilots during the Battle of Britain, wrote a lyric which looks forward to a time of peace and happiness. Set to music by another American, Walter Kent, Burton's opening line contains a wonderful ornithological error. Bluebirds are common in North America but are seen nowhere near Dover in England. Nat Burton could hardly be blamed for his mistake; you see, he had never visited England. He first saw Dover with his own eyes in 1985, forty years after the end of WWII.

I added my own arrangement of "White Cliffs of Dover" to my guitar concerts in time for the 60th anniversary of D-Day.