Roger Miller: 2022 Digital Debuts, Also Escalator Excavations

 I've been catching up with the 2022 digital debuts of quite a few Roger Miller albums, but I'll start the mentions with a prequel I just now listened to: the 2020 Early Recordings (1957-1962), where I was immediately struck by the early tracks' unabashedly twangy, forthrightly honky-tonk settings for the post-Hank blue verve of his ballad singing--and even sometimes interspersed with well-timed bit of Millerized(more falsetto, in little leaps) Jimmie Rodgers blue yodel---all of which is eventually followed by a few lint tufts of more discreet, post-Eddy Arnold sadness, which Miller has no particular knack for, as is proven again and again on some of the 2022 reissues (even when his ballad-writing is on point, with crisp "Invitation To The Blues" and "Tall Tall Trees," which was a Top Ten hit for Alan Jackson in the 90s---could def see AJ doing a good Miller tribute.)
There are also quite a few Early Recordings with rowdy Roger appeal, often Louisiana-flavored country flaunting persistent Jerry Lee-type piano punctuation, leading through New Orleansian party favors at times--with a different kind of refreshment, even on a ballad, provided a few times by Roger and acoustic guitar, that's all. My current fave is a perky version of mountain classick "I Traced Her Little Footprints in the Snow." She left in summer with no footprints, but he found her, by cracky, and "now she's playing in that angel band," where he hopes to join her someday---but what's really cool to him, sounds like, is that---he traced her!

 

Back to 2022: Roger and Out (1964) and The Return of Roger Miller (1965)*, largely from the same sessions, are poptastic realness, calling on all creative resources to jitter and jolt and josh and clown himself through all manner of country and Roger sadness, anxiety, ritual guilt trips x pity parties, a lot of them just barely drive-by noticeable, but close enough. Also, for instance, "John Q.," with veteran Roger marching again through whut-whut, even gnarling over drums like pirate ancestor of the Pogues. These one-two hitz-laden punchbowl punches are his most peaky and tweaky---as in olde term "tweaker," speed-enthusiast; he was taking regular doses of Vitamin A then---also with some from those same sessions, The Third Time Around (1965)---and Words and Music (1966), especially—are not quite as good,  but certainly have their keepers.

*Oh yeah, the only way I've found The Return of Roger Miller is via this person's playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPxBsjevnerd7-VqpvTW99a_hwBDrMmBP Which may be missing a couple of tracks on the reissue, but if so, they can be rounded up on YouTube.

 

Then the title track of Walkin' In The Sunshine has a 1967 buzz of surprise, shows he's keeping up with the pop possibilities, as he turns out to have a Roger way with Jamacoid, Johnny Nash-in-Nashvile sing-along, bounce-along, not-too-cuteness, and most of the rest is okay, esp. in afterglow of the hit.
 

Waterhole # 3 (The Code of the West) (1967) is a skippable soundtrack he didn't write, and his singing lacks conviction at best.

 A Tender Look At Love(1968) is as bad as you might suspect from title: all ballads, and all covers, I think (I don't want to think about it).

 Roger Miller (1969) lets fly with the Sir Dougadelic "Shame Bird" (RM ain't one!) 

Roger Miller 1970 sucks except for the Tommy James and The Shondells-worthy picnic vision ov "Crystal Day," wheee.

 Ken Tucker really liked the long-lost commercial flop A Trip To The Country (1970), and you can hear why in his archived Fresh Air coverage, but I think it's mostly pretty boring (here is where Miller under-undersells "Invitation to the Blues").
 

Making A Name For Myself (1979) (really more Related than Country, ballot taxonomy-wise, but for continuity and what the heck) is appropriately, self-assuredly, expertly ambitious, kicking off with "The Hat," in which a Miller prime time street personage admires and would like to have your hat (for a start?), pass it over and he'll tell you why---ok? He's cheerful and serious.
Then, with input from some Steely associates, he makes himself at home in actually sexy (heretofore not a Roger-associated attribute, that I've noticed) mid-to-late 70s R&B lanes, like Aretha and Al Green might approve, but still sounding just like himself--then my favorite, "Pleasing The Crowd," I'd swear is an Allen Toussaint-Dr. John visit, though still Roger as hell, as the jaded old showman sez tough shit kid and then rallies whomever, including himself, judging by the ever-building reluctant intensity. (My favorite RM reissue, next to the '64 and '65 joints)
 

Roger Miller (1985) is most notable for openers and closers from his Huck Finn musical, Big River: real good, and I'll have to check out the Original Cast Recording for the whole thing, though he's not on it (he did perform in it live for several months after John Goodman split).
Another on this '85 set, a song about "Arkansas," which sounds like it's gonna be rhymed with "Yee-haw!", but never quite is, is nonetheless a celebration of a place he ain't never been, but maybe he is about to, finally! Like his Granpaw always said they would. Relatable.

Oh, and also kind of relatable, hopefully especially eventually: even in the early 60s, scat-singing flipster Roger wants to make it even clearer that he isn't just for hipsters: he points out that it takes all kinds, including squares---several years before Merle's great line, "A place where even squares can have a ball!" Roger's talking about boring, necessary jobs, but with no push-back topicality---indeed, talking about what it takes to make the world go round leads him yet into another whirl.

Yeah, and don't sleep on the aforementioned Early Recordings (1957-1962)'s Bear Family edition, with an added disc of cover versions: the title is modified to The Early Years 1957-1962, and it lacks some good tracks on ER, but Amazon's got for $15.99 (haven't yet checked for streams), and dig the cover artists (tracks 1-26 are Roger's original versions:)

27 Love Love Love - Eddie Bond

28 Happy Child - Jimmy Dean

29 Tall, Tall Trees - George Jones

30 Half a Mind - Ernest Tubb*

31 Billy Bayou - Jim Reeves

32 Invitation to the Blues - Ray Price

33 Nothing Can Stop My Love - George Jones

34 Knock Knock Rattle - Rex Allen

35 That's the Way I Feel - Faron Young

36 When Your House Is Not a Home - Little Jimmy Dickens*

37 If Heartache Is the Fashion - Jim Reeves*

38 Home - Jim Reeves*

39 Last Night at a Party - Faron Young

40 Big Harlan Taylor - George Jones

41 Trouble on the Turnpike - Gordon Terry

42 A World I Can't Live in - Jan Howard

43 Where Your Arms Used to Be - Billy Strange44 Wish I Hadn't Called Home - Dale Hawkins

45 My Ears Should Burn (When Fools Are Talked About) - Claude Gray

46 If You Want Me to - George Hamilton IV

47 Private John Q - Hank Cochran

48 Don't We All Have the Right (To Be Wrong) - James O'Gwynn and the Merry Melody Singers

49 You Know Me Much Too Well - Ray Peterson

50 When Two Worlds Collide - Margie Singleton and George Jones

51 The Moon Is High and So Am I - Johnnie and Jack*

52 The Swiss Maid - Del Shannon