WARREN MILLER

Born Warren Martin Miller Jr.,30 April 1937, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Died 18 November 2015, Virginia Beach, Virginia

Warren Miller is best known for the fast rocker "Everybody's Got A Baby But Me" (United Artists 104), released in January 1958. Think of all the stories you've heard about sharecropping rockabillies who end up grousing about missed breaks or that familiar lack of promotion. Warren Miller is as far removed from that milieu as it's possible to get. The son of a part-German banker who was married to a concert pianist, young Warren rebelled by descending to the basement where he took up the guitar and learned to play Hank Williams' songs. Raised in Washington, D.C., Miller played some demos to a local promoter named Ted Pedas who had heard that United Artists was getting into the record business and went up to see them. Cut at RCA's studios in New York, "Everybody's Got A Baby But Me" was Miller's only record under his real name, but there were others under other names, though Miller can't remember all of them now. He does recall recording for Colt 45, including "Haunted House" and "Have Gun Will Travel" under the name Cris Kevin. "Have Gun Will Travel" did well in the middle Atlantic states, Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, but never made the national chart. It was covered by the Clovers on United Artists in 1961. Miller also turned his hand to country music (for instance "Blues Express" as Jesse Travers on the D'Arcy label in 1964), but finally quit the performing end of the business in the mid 60s. Since then, he's been running Studio Center, his own Norfolk, Virginia-based company which produces radio and TV commercials.

"Everybody's Got A Baby But Me" appears on several compilations, including "That'll Flat Git It, Vol. 12: Rockabilly From the Vaults of Imperial Records" (Bear Family BCD 16102). This bio is adapted from the liner notes (by Bill Millar) for that CD.