10+10 fishermen against the wind. 2) Mrs. Miller
Mrs. Miller - A Hard Days Night She is a legend, a true legend.
Elva Ruby Miller was 59 years old when she recorded her first record. And for Capitol!
Before that, our Elva had only recorded a 45 RPM record at her own expense, juggling charity work and family commitments with children, grandchildren, and a husband 34 years older than her, living in Claremont, California (she had also studied music in Pomona).
The record ended up in the hands of Gary Owens, a DJ who would later boast that he discovered her, our Mrs. Miller.
Owens plays the record, and among the listeners is a certain Fred Bock, a young and broke pianist/arranger who, however, is friends with Lex De Azevedo, who, among other things, is the grandson of Bill Conkling (the boss of Capitol) and dreams of becoming a producer.
The two, thinking they are clever, take the sprightly grandma into the studio. They believe they’ve come up with the genius idea of the century, and to strengthen the effect, they make her sing after long, exhausting recording sessions (apparently, one of the tricks used was to have her hold an ice cube in her mouth for at least 20 minutes!).
But Elva eats both of them for breakfast: she signs as "Mrs. Miller" and titles her first record "Greatest Hits" because no one teaches you irony in school.
And they hit the jackpot: the record sells and sells well, the singles enter the charts (okay, at the 94th and 96th places, but you get what we’re talking about, right?) and the Florence Foster Jenkins of pop music becomes a star. She appears on Johnny Carson's show, performs with Jimmy Durante, and sings for the troops in Vietnam with Bob Hope.
And she records three more albums with Capitol. Three gems, that one of country standards with her on the cover wearing a big hat and a Cowgirl look is fantastic ("The Country Soul Of Mrs. Miller").
But she is too ahead of her time. Too much. For both the American audience and Capitol, who drop her.
Elva doesn’t give up. She arrives at Amaret Records, a small label that lets her record one of the most incredible albums you could ever hold in your hands: "Mrs. Miller Does Her Thing."
Our Alva has become a hippie, dressed in bright colors, offering strange green hors d'oeuvres...
The record is a bizarre faux-psychedelic thing full of references to the drug culture, crazy, really. But Alva doesn’t feel like herself in that guise and drops everything. It’s 1970, and her career is over. There will be a couple more records and a rediscovery around the turn of the millennium with the subsequent compilations and posthumous albums.
She returns to being a grandmother, engaging in charitable activities (and more) until her death.
I’m sorry to keep it so brief, but it’s an experience, there’s more to tell (who knows). But now, please, listen to her, and listen with curious ears. Don’t think it’s a joke, a freak show, something to laugh at...
Alva is much more than that, but how do I explain it to you?
If you have never sung at the top of your lungs in the shower, done air guitar in your underwear in the living room...
