01/01/2026
Born on 2nd January 1936, Roger Miller was an American singer-songwriter, musician, and actor, best known for his honky-tonk-influenced novelty songs. His most recognized tunes included the chart-topping country and pop hits "King of the Road", "Dang Me", and "England Swings", all from the mid-1960s Nashville sound era.
Roger Dean Miller, Sr. was born in Fort Worth, Texas, the third son of Jean and Laudene (Holt) Miller. Jean Miller died from spinal meningitis when Miller was a year old. Unable to support the family during the Great Depression, Laudene sent her three sons to live with three of Jean's brothers. Thus, Miller grew up on a farm outside Erick, Oklahoma, with Elmer and Armelia Miller.
As a boy, Miller did farm work, such as picking cotton and learnt how to plough. He would later say he was "dirt poor" and that, as late as 1951, the family did not own a telephone. He received his primary education at a one-room schoolhouse. Miller was an introverted child, and would often daydream or compose songs. One of his earliest compositions went: "There's a picture on the wall. It's the dearest of them all, Mother."
Miller was a member of the National FFA Organization in high school. He listened to the Grand Ole Opry and Light Crust Doughboys on a Fort Worth station with his cousin's husband, Sheb Wooley. Wooley taught Miller his first guitar chords and bought him a fiddle. Wooley, Hank Williams, and Bob Wills were the influences that led to Miller's desire to be a singer-songwriter. He began to run away and perform in Oklahoma and Texas. At 17, he stole a guitar out of desperation to write songs however, he turned himself in the next day. He chose to enlist in the United States Army to avoid jail. He later quipped, "My education was Korea, Clash of '52." Near the end of his military service, while stationed in Atlanta, Georgia, Miller played fiddle in the "Circle A Wranglers," a military musical group started by Faron Young. While Miller was stationed in South Carolina, an Army Sergeant whose brother was Kenneth C. "Jethro" Burns, from the musical duo Homer and Jethro, persuaded him to head to Nashville after his discharge.
Miller began his musical career as a songwriter in the late 1950s, writing such hits as "Billy Bayou" and "Home" for Jim Reeves and "Invitation to the Blues" for Ray Price. He later began a recording career and reached the peak of his fame in the mid-1960s. He continued to record and tour into the 1990s, charting his final top 20 country hit "Old Friends" with Willie Nelson in 1982. He also wrote and performed several of the songs for the 1973 Disney animated film “Robin Hood”. Later in his life, he wrote the music and lyrics for the 1985 Tony-award winning Broadway musical “Big River”, in which he acted.
Miller died from lung cancer in 1992 and was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame three years later. His songs continued to be recorded by other singers, with covers of "Tall, Tall Trees" by Alan Jackson and "Husbands and Wives" by Brooks & Dunn which both reached the No.1 spot on country charts in the 1990s. The Roger Miller Museum in his home town of Erick, Oklahoma, is a tribute to Miller and a main street was named Roger Miller Boulevard in his memory.
