KEEP IT TO OURSELVES
Crusty and cantankerous, Miller barked out commands to his bandsmen and interspersed his lyrics with sly, half-whispered asides and slices of worldly folk wisdom. His voice, with its warm, throaty vibrato and subtle nuances, was among the most expressive in blues, and he approached soloing with a childlike sense of fun and adventure that hinted at a tenderness submerged beneath the hard-bitten cynicism. His songs spun convoluted tales of outrageous relationships and unlikely sexual misadventures, fables he offered up as life lessons to both himself and his audience with his trademark ribald humor and occasional forays into spine-chilling poetic imagery and penetrating emotional insight.
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Miller’s persona enveloped him so completely that one never knew whether he realized (or cared) what an eccentric figure he cut–entirely contained in his own reality, apparently putting little stock in convention and even less in mainstream social acceptance. Toward the end of his life (he died 25 years ago), after he’d been lionized in Europe, he affected the fashion and demeanor of a British gentleman–formal suits, derby hat, umbrella, leather attache case for his harps. And such was the power of his personality that there was little apparent incongruity in rough-hewn American blues coming from such a dandified figure.
This recording highlights Miller’s metronomic feel for timing and rhythm. Several of the most impressive cuts are unaccompanied, with only Miller’s tapping feet and snapping fingers to provide percussion, yet you rarely miss the presence of a drummer. An especially impressive example is “Don’t Let Your Right Hand Know,” a reprise of a theme Miller used several times on record. In a spoken introduction he claims that the idea for the lyrics was given to him by a lady friend. The song features Miller in his country-philosopher role, as he lectures both the lady and the listener on the finer points of how to maintain an illicit love relationship; interspersed with the verses are trainlike harmonica chug-chug-chugging and broad-toned single-note phrases. At one point he manipulates the tone so it sounds uncannily like a Jew’s harp. It’s all punctuated with finger snaps and tongue stops, a tour de force in a style that relies on subtle tonal shadings and an unerring sense of time rather than flamboyant flourishes.
Miller’s knack of mixing rowdy enthusiasm with artistic sensitivity rarely left him, and it’s among this record’s most distinguishing features. He introduces “Gettin’ Together” thus: “We call this number “M.T. Murphy and Sonny Boy Williamson Gettin’ Together’–oh yeah, baby, from Chicago!” Then he fires up the song with harmonica hawk screams before swooping into a series of choppy middle-register phrases as Murphy comps serenely. Even in the gentle-sounding “Why Are You Crying?” the lady is treated with Miller’s characteristic harshness (“Why are you crying / When all you done throwed away was mine?”) while Miller provides us with a taste of his trademark triplet harp riff, which some of his imitators have overworked into a tired cliche. Miller used it sparingly enough that it never lost its freshness.
