Biography
Ned Miller earned lasting renown chiefly through his worldwide 1962 smash “From a Jack to a King,” yet throughout the 1960s he placed eleven singles on the country charts and crossed into the pop listings on three separate occasions. Born in Raines, Utah, he began composing material and performing at neighborhood gatherings and on local radio broadcasts at the age of sixteen. Following his release from the Marines, he held a series of ordinary jobs until relocating to California in 1956 with the intention of writing songs professionally. The next year Gale Storm took his composition “Dark Moon” into the Top Five; Bonnie Guitar likewise scored with the same tune, and both vocalists kept cutting Miller’s material thereafter. He launched his own recording career in 1957 on the Fabor imprint, offering “From a Jack to a King” as his first single. Later the same year he issued “Roll O Rollin’ Stone,” which likewise attracted little attention. In 1962, after a brief interlude at Capitol Records, Miller convinced Fabor to reissue his earlier recording of “From a Jack to a King”; the revived single climbed to number three on the country chart, number ten on the pop chart, and number two on the British pop chart. The following year he registered two further Top 30 entries, “One Among the Many” and “Another Fool Like Me.” In 1965 another Top Ten country hit, “Do What You Do Do Well,” appeared; the same track later brought success to Ernest Tubb, while Miller’s own rendition reached the pop Top 60. Still later in 1965 he returned to Capitol. Numbers he penned alone or with his wife Susan also reached the charts for other performers, including Gale Storm’s “Love by the Juke Box Light,” Faron Young’s “Safely in Love Again,” Porter Wagoner’s “Your Kind of People,” and Hank Snow’s “The Man Behind the Gun.” After the 1960s Miller slipped from public view, yet years afterward Ricky Van Shelton revived “From a Jack to a King” and took it to number one.
Albums
