Frankie Miller

Born in Victoria, Texas, on December 17, 1931, Frankie Miller secured a football scholarship to a nearby junior college, where he assembled the Drifting Texans and started airing performances over KNAL. Houston gigs followed, leading to a deal with the 4 Star offshoot Guilt Edge. Several tracks were cut there in 1951, yet military service in Korea soon interrupted his path; he returned two years later decorated with a Bronze Star and joined Columbia in 1954. A dozen sides issued the following year failed to register on the charts. Throughout the late ’50s he worked Texas venues, among them Fort Worth’s Cowtown Hoedown, and issued scattered singles on regional imprints.

Starday owner Don Pierce, one of the few who had valued the earlier Guilt Edge sides, brought Miller aboard in 1959. That year “Blackland Farmer” climbed to the country Top Five and became one of the label’s signature releases, while “Family Man” reached number seven in October. Cashbox named him Most Promising Country Artist for 1960, and he began appearing on both the Louisiana Hayride and the Grand Ole Opry. Three further chart entries followed: “Baby Rocked Her Dolly” entered the Top 15 in 1960, a 1961 reissue of “Black Land Farmer” peaked at number 16, and “A Little South of Memphis” reached number 34 in 1964. United Artists recordings appeared in 1965, after which Miller left the music business for a position at a Chrysler dealership in Arlington, Texas. During the ’80s the German reissue label Bear Family restored three of his albums.