Chuck Miller born 30 August 1924

Chuck Miller (30 August 1924 – 15 January 2000) was an American singer and pianist who had a US top ten hit in 1955 with his version of "The House of Blue Lights".

Charles Nelson Miller was born in Wellington, Kansas, United States, and little is known of his early life. One of four children, he learned to play piano as a child and by the mid 1940s had become a professional musician in the Los Angeles area, alongside other singer/pianists such as Nat Cole and Charles Brown. He became friendly with saxophonist Big Dave Cavanaugh and formed a bond with Cavanaugh's bass-player, Robert Douglass, who would become instrumental in helping Miller form his own trio for personal appearances and became the group's chief arranger as well as playing the bass. They began touring as the Chuck Miller Trio in the late 1940s, but California was awash with similar groups and record deals were hard to come by.

Dave Cavanaugh

Chuck Miller began recording for Capitol with Cavanaugh's band and the first singles, released in 1953-54, were firmly in the MOR pop and novelty moulds, heavily inspired by Miller's twin influences of Bing Crosby and Dean Martin. Chuck's third release however was a cover of Wade Ray's "Idaho Red" - a hillbilly truck-driving song written by a real truck driver, Frank Kauzlaric. Wade Ray's original recording had been in the western swing style, but Miller's more urbane arrangement sold well too and caused Capitol to swiftly scour their stockpile of unissued tracks for a lively follow-up. Chuck's self-penned "Hopahula Boogie" had been cut by the trio in a break from the usual orchestral fare and, although it wasn't a big seller, it set the style for much of what Miller would produce in the next few years.

                                   

In early 1955 Chuck Miller left Capitol for a new recording contract with Mercury Records. His debut with the label paired his own classy pop song, "Can't Help Wonderin'", with the hip revival of Freddie Slack's old swing-era classic "The House of Blue Lights" - both arranged by Robert Douglass - which would soon prove to be his most successful single. It did so well during the summer of 1955 - spending 14 weeks on the Best Seller chart, peaking at #9 - that Capitol Records rushed out a fifth single from their stockpile, but the sides remaining with his debut label were a bit corny compared to what Miller was then laying down for Mercury.

Chuck Miller Trio

Having proven his success with cover versions, Mercury next had Chuck cover Bobby Lord's jaunty country rocker, "Hawk-Eye" written by Boudleaux Bryant, which they paired with another solid Miller-penned ballad "Something To Live For". The single was nowhere near as successful as the first, so for the follow-up they decided to expand the sound of the Chuck Miller Trio to include horns and the resulting single was quite spectacular, with another rocked-up swing-era classic, Gene Krupa's "Boogie Blues" coupled with an eldritch novelty full of voodoo symbolism called "Lookout Mountain". The latter was so unusual that RCA's chief A\&R executive, Steve Sholes, sent the record to the young singer he had just signed (but not yet recorded) to consider for his upcoming debut session. Sadly, as far as is known, Elvis never recorded the appealingly sinister song written by one Seymour Lazar, even though "Heartbreak Hotel" had been cast from the same mould.

By 1956, due mainly to that boy Elvis, rock 'n' roll was running rampant and Miller was now teamed in New York City with Hugo Peretti's small studio orchestra to sample the charts and run the gamut from the out-and-out motor-head madness of "Bright Red Convertible", the Tennessee Ernie-like "Baltimore Jones", the MORish "Good Mornin' Darlin'" and the bubbly "Baby Doll", the latter composed for the controversial Elia Kazan film of the same name. Hugo Peretti also arranged Chuck's fine cover of Leroy Van Dyke's country novelty hit "The Auctioneer", which gave him his only other taste of national chart success when it peaked at #59 on the Hot Hundred in December 1956.

On another occasion in Chicago in 1956, with support provided by David Carroll's orchestra, Chuck covered Bob Temple's King rocker "Vim Vam Vamoose" (which alludes to Presley and "Heartbreak Hotel") and the minor rock 'n' roll classic "Cool It Baby!" which had been featured by The Treniers in the movie "Teenage Rebel" and would achieve celluloid rock excellence with Eddie Fontaine's version in the mighty "Girl Can't Help It" movie later in the year. During that year Mercury honoured Chuck with his first LP; an album called Songs After Hours With Chuck Miller (Mercury LP MG-20195), on which he and his trio indulged their love of swing-era music ("I Can't Give You Anything But Love", "Cow Cow Boogie", "September In The Rain", etc.) as well as cutting loose with a couple of breakneck eponymous rockin' boogies and a very nice version of "Re-Enlistment Blues", famous for the rendition by Merle Travis in the 1953 Columbia film From Here To Eternity.

Chuck Miller's swansong for Mercury Records was another old Freddie Slack boogie woogie classic from the early 1940s. Miller's pounding version of "Down the Road A-Piece" was backed by an energetic take on "Mad About Her Blues". Inexplicably, like his previous releases, the single went nowhere and he was dropped by Mercury at the end of his contract, but was swiftly snapped up by California-based Imperial Records where he cut a variable LP called Now Hear This! Songs Of The Fighting 40s.The Imperial deal seems to have contracted for just one album and subsequently Chuck Miller faded into obscurity. He and his trio had a residency in Boise, Idaho for a while, before Miller moved to Anchorage, Alaska, did a stint playing piano in The Sage Room at Harvey's Lake Tahoe, and later to Maui where he played at The Whale's Tale for many years. He later retired to Hawaii where he lived in Lahaina, Maui. He died aged 75 in the Maui Memorial Hospital on 15th January 2000, where a very modest obituary appeared in the local Honolulu Star Bulletin newspaper, in which he was described as a “self-employed entertainer”. 

(Edited from This Is MY story \& Wikipedia)