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Bill Miller (musician)

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Name
  
Bill Miller


Role
  
Singer

Bill Miller (musician) Awardwinning songwriter Bill Miller performs Monday at

Awards
  
Grammy Award for Best Native American Music Album

Albums
  
Cedar Dream Songs, Spirit Rain, Spirit Wind North, The Evil One, The Red Road

Similar People
  
Robert Mirabal, Dean Martin, Luciano Pavarotti, Oscar Peterson, Bing Crosby

Profiles

Bill miller tumbleweed


Bill Miller (born January 23, 1955) is a Native American singer/songwriter and artist of Mohican heritage. He was born on the Stockbridge-Munsee reservation, near Shawano in northern Wisconsin.

Contents

Bill Miller (musician) wwwamericanindiannewsorgwpcontentuploads2010

Miller's Mohican name is Fush-Ya Heay Aka (meaning "bird song"). He began playing guitar when he was 12 years old, and is an accomplished player of the Native American flute. In 1973, he moved to Milwaukee and won an art school scholarship to Layton School of Art, later attending University of Wisconsin at LaCrosse. Today he is also an accomplished artist whose drawings and paintings have been widely praised.

Bill Miller (musician) Wally39s World Entertainment

In 1984, he moved to Nashville. His biggest break came when popular musician Tori Amos, after listening to his Red Road CD on her tour bus, asked him to serve as the opening act on her Under the Pink tour. Miller continuously gained fans with other artists from a broad musical spectrum. He went on to tour with diverse musicians such as Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, The BoDeans, Richie Havens, John Carter Cash, and Arlo Guthrie and wrote songs with artists such as Nanci Griffith, Peter Rowan and Kim Carnes. In 1995, Miller's flute playing was featured on the Vanessa Williams song “Colors of the Wind”, the theme song on soundtrack of Disney’s Pocahontas, which won a Grammy Award and both the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song.

Bill Miller (musician) Bill Miller Wins third Grammy

He has won numerous Native American Music Awards, including a Lifetime Achievement Award, along with three Grammy Awards. In 2005, Miller's instrumental Cedar Dream Songs won a Grammy Award for Best Native American Music Album.

Bill Miller (musician) Bill Miller Biography Albums amp Streaming Radio AllMusic

In an interview, Miller said, "I appreciate people who have something to stand up for. I stand up for the truth. If you stand up for what you believe in you have no idea how many people you'll affect." Miller's songs have always been deeply spiritual and have clearly explored his Christian faith in his own indigenous language; Spirit Rain exemplifies this elegant dialog. He crossed genres with his 2000 record, Hear Our Prayer, which was released by Integrity Music as a Christian worship music project. While some songs were co-written by notable songwriters in the genre, he re-recorded some familiar songs such as "Praises" from The Red Road and "Listen to Me" from Raven in the Snow which, in a new context made clear that he could still be fully Native and fully a Christian. Perhaps the most notable cuts on the album were his cover of Bob Dylan's "I Believe in You" and a reinterpretation of the spiritual "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me 'Round."

Miller has collaborated with other notable Native American musicians such as Robert Mirabal, Carlos Nakai, and Joanne Shenandoah. His project with Mirabal, Native Suite was an experimental and traditional project, featuring flute and percussion, as well as Mohican pow-wow singing. His vocals appeared on Thomas Kinkade's 2000 album Music of Light which featured Rob Mathes and Australian Michelle Tumes; he also was featured on Cherokee singer-songwriter Jason Upton's album Great River Road.

In early 2008, Miller worked on a project in La Crosse, Wisconsin for The Pump House, a regional arts center. Miller painted one of many 6-foot-tall (1.8 m) herons that will be auctioned off and placed around the city in honor of fine arts. On April 25–26, 2008 the world premier of his symphony, "The Last Stand", was performed by the La Crosse Symphony Orchestra with Amy Mills conducting, along with Native American musicians and dancers. Co-composed with Joshua Yudkin and Kristin Wilkinson, the symphony grew out of an inspiration Miller had after visiting the Battle of the Little Bighorn site when he was nine years old. Called a "symphony of hope", it deals with that battle and the reconciliation which Bill Miller, a man dedicated to his Native and Christian roots, feels must still occur. Thirty-three photos taken by David Joseph Marcou of "The Last Stand" world debut's dress-rehearsal are in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

Praises bill miller nmai


Discography

Albums
  • Bill Miller and Native Sons (1983, Windspirit)
  • Old Dreams and New Hopes (1987, Windspirit)
  • The Art of Survival (1990, Vanguard)
  • Loon, Mountain And Moon (1991, Vanguard)
  • Reservation Road - Live (1992, Vanguard)
  • The Red Road (1993, Warner Western)
  • Raven in the Snow (1995, Reprise/Warner Bros.)
  • Native Suite: Chants, Dances, and the Sacred Earth with Robert Mirabal (1996, Warner Western)
  • Ghostdance (1999, Vanguard)
  • Healing Waters (1999, JVO Records; 2001 Good Cop Bad Cop)
  • Hear our Prayer (2000, Integrity)
  • Spirit Rain (2002, Paras)
  • A Sacred Gift (2003, Paras)
  • Cedar Dream Songs (2004, Paras)
  • Spirit Songs: The Best of Bill Miller (2004, Vanguard)
  • Spirit Wind North (2009, Cool Springs Music Group)
  • Spirit Wind East (2010, Cool Springs Music Group)
  • Chronicles of Hope (2010, Cool Springs Music Group)
  • Contributing artist
  • Disney's Pocahontas Soundtrack with Vanessa Williams (1995)
  • The Rough Guide to Native American Music (1999, World Music Network)
  • Look Again To The Wind: Johnny Cash's Bitter Tears Revisited (2015, Sony Masterworks)
  • References

    Bill Miller (musician) Wikipedia