Hello reader,
Welcome back. If this is your first time, welcome. Explore the site a bit after finishing this review and come back for more.
Today, we’re going to delve into John R. Miller. Born in the DC area and raised in the Shenandoah Valley region of West Virginia, the singer-songwriter has become a well-respected musician and storytelling lyricist who now calls Nashville home. If you haven’t heard the name yet, many of your favorite musicians love the guy and his work, including but not limited to Tyler Childers, who said Miller is “a well-traveled wordsmith mapping out the world he’s seen, three chords at a time.” SWT Favorite Tucker Riggleman played in Prison Book Club with Adam Meisterhans, William Matheny, and John in the late 00’s to the early 2010’s. Miller grew up in punk music as well as an appreciator of all forms of music, and as he’s aged, has expanded his genre interests from garage bands in his high school days, to alt-country, Americana, Blues, rock n roll, fiddle-based, and old-timey string music playing in the group The Fox Hunt, among others. More recently, Miller has pursued solo projects, with the debut of his first full-length album, the self-released Service Engine, in 2014, followed by a full band affair, The Trouble You Follow (2018) on the indie label Emperor Records, billed as John R. Miller & The Engine Lights. Miler’s first album on Rounder Records, Depreciated, was released in 2021, and two years later, his second one, Heat Comes Down (2023).
Which brings us to the present day, Miller’s newest album, The Great Unknowing, is out on physical formats (CD and vinyl) on Friday, June 5th, with digital release later on Friday, July 17th, for your listening pleasure. We at SWT support trying out this idea. Why did Miller choose to do multiple releases? According to the press release for the album, he stated, “I’m hoping to encourage folks to visit their local record and CD shops, or to order the album directly. Maybe I’m a romantic, but I want to see the places I love, brick-and-mortar shops you can walk into with music and books and art made by humans, continue to exist into the future, and I want the culture around these places to thrive with diverse thought and taste.” Amen.
According to the press release for the album, the well-traveled and often pushing new boundaries of his own sound, Miller wanted to be challenged by a new locale with new sounds, stating, “I wanted to get out of my comfort zone, go somewhere less familiar to me and try a new approach.” He decided on Tulsa when the idea of recording at Leon Russell’s famed and newly reopened Church Studio became a possible option. Miller noted, “Immediately, the gears started turning. Tulsa is one of the great legacy-bearing cities of American music—J.J. Cale is one of my all-time favorites, and Shelter Records was based there. So much of what I love in music history happened right around that block.”
“I didn’t want to go in and make a Tulsa Sound tribute record. And we didn’t, which is great. But it was important for me to check my expectations, be able to adapt, and trust the other people in the room. It’s an act of faith, if nothing else, and I learned a lot from it.” Miller elaborated, saying, “My goal was to get into a room with a bunch of people that I didn’t already have a rapport with and track the record live,” he says. “I wanted to go into a new situation and hopefully strike up some new creative ideas as we were doing it.”
The press release talks album construction, saying the following, “With his longtime friend and collaborator Adam Meisterhans as co-producer and guitarist, Miller approached Tulsa-based drummer Paddy Ryan to help enlist the band, a line-up which came to include Grammy-nominated John Fullbright on keyboards. Feeling both apprehensive and excited, Miller was thrilled by how quickly things fell into place. Other Tulsa-based players in the band included Aaron Boehler on bass and Muskrat Jones on pedal steel. The album was engineered by both Gary Laney (Don Williams, Merle Haggard, The Marshall Tucker Band) and Mike Prado (Ziggy Marley, Sara Bareilles, Matt Kearney). A longtime Nashville engineer, Laney brought decades of experience into the room along with a deep and varied resume that quietly underscored the caliber of the team Miller had assembled.”
Miller explained, “Once we got in there, we realized that these were all guys that were cut from the same cloth. As soon as we started playing through the songs, it sounded like a band. These guys are so adept and intuitive, and we found a lot of common ground to mine, connecting not just on Tulsa music, but psych, heavy metal, and all sorts of stuff. Having Adam there was key, too. He has a deeper knowledge of music and guitar than I do, and was a major part of the session’s connective tissue, both interpersonally and musically.”
And now for some hype for both your ears and eyes via John R. Miller’s YouTube channel:
The live recording of “Tollbooth”:
(All credits and rights to John R. Miller)
The reflective lyrics within the song, “A World Away”:
(All credits and rights to John R. Miller)
The postcard-heavy lyric video for the slow waltz during the song “If You Could Only See Me Now”:
(All credits and rights to John R. Miller)
The Great Unknowing is a step forward for Miller in terms of songwriting and craftsmanship. The arrangements! If you’re a fan, you may be wondering if he can get better at songwriting, and this album is proof of that. Going to Tulsa was a brilliant idea that paid off wonderfully. Kudos to drummer Paddy Ryan and Miller for assembling a ridiculously talented group of musicians, engineers, and producers together like a well-worn puzzle. They fit together seamlessly like folks who are part of a well-oiled machine. Meisterhands is not only talented but a longtime collaborator of Miller’s in multiple projects over the decades, and really shaped the album for the better alongside Miller. The result is an album that is his most complete and best effort under Miller’s name yet. One that features a series of fantastically written stories, earworm-worthy moments, and a great time from start to finish for the listener. Plenty of pedal steel, some good bass, drums, and more. Kudos. There’s not really a throwaway, filler, or skippable song on the album. One may prefer the first, middle, or end as listeners tend to do, but there’s plenty for everyone to like on this album. Whether solo vocals or paired with another vocalist, the vocals were well-matched. Miller did a great job with the covers on this album as well. This sheds light on the quality of each original song and shows what Miller and the band could do with them. Kudos. What Miller did with solo songwriter Darrin Hacquard’s song “A World Away” as well as Dan Baird of the Georgia Satellites song “Golden Light” as well as William Matheny’s “If You Could Only See Me Now”, showing the songs immense reverence while adding his own pace and making them his own version. As well as Mark Knopfler of Dire Straits’ famous song “Walk of Life”, significantly altering the pace and making the cover his own. You can hear two of those in the YouTube videos just above this portion.
All that being said, The Great Unknowing gets 4.5 out of 5 Scum Drops from me, relative as always to this year’s new album releases. If you’re a long-time fan of Miller’s work, this will be at or near the top when someone asks you what your favorite albums of the year are. If you’re a new listener, you may feel the same way and still be a big fan of it. There’s a lot to like from the melodies to the songwriting to the vocals and production. I recommend adding this album to your collection on the format of your choosing. The physical is out this week (June 5th), and digital will be out in July. See above for more details or the links below.
I’ll always advocate that you take the time to listen to every album in its entirety. The listening process with The Great Unknowing will take just over an hour from start to finish. It won’t feel like an hour. Along the way, you’ll discover your own favorite songs without the influence or bias of others. After several listens, I found the songs highlighted in green below to be my favorites on this album.
The tracklist for The Great Unknowing (song length)
- Don’t Bet On Me (4:01)
- Far From The Station (4:36)
- Tollbooth (4:03)
- Think I’ll Start Over (3:34)
- Looking For A Place To Die (4:05)
- Steering Wheel Drums (4:02)
- Daughter of Night (4:17)
- A World Away (5:21)
- Day Drinking (3:50)
- Golden Light (4:00)
- Two Days Clean (3:33)
- If You Could Only See Me Now (3:05)
- Double Lives (4:23)
- Static and White Noise (4:07)
- Cornbread and Pinto Beans (4:35)
- Walk of Life (4:07)
Total runtime: 65:39
For more info on John’s music, merch, and tour info, check out his website. If you’re looking to stream and listen to his music, check out his Apple Music, Spotify, TIDAL, and YouTube pages, and follow his socials: Instagram, Facebook, and comprehensive Komi.io.
John R. Miller’s Upcoming Tour Dates:
- Sat, Jun 6 – Lexington, KY – Railbird Music Festival
- Sun, Jun 7 – Charleston, WV – Mountain Stage
- Thu, Jun 11 – Pineville, KY – Laurel Cove Music Festival
- Sat, Jul 18 – Morgantown, WV – 123 Pleasant Street^
- Fri, Aug 21 – Stockholm, Sweden – Stockholm Roots Festival
- Sat, Aug 22 – Falkenberg, Sweden – Rootsy Summer Fest 26
- Aug 26-29 – Tønder, Southern Denmark – Tønder Festival
- Fri, Oct 2 – Thomas, WV – Purple Fiddle~
- Sat, Oct 3 – Thomas, WV – Purple Fiddle#
Supported by ^William Matheny #Darrin Hacquard ~Olivia Ellen Lloyd
Thank you for reading and supporting good music.
Until next time,
Alex
Scummy Water Tower Productions co-founder, reviewer, business manager, and editor. Thank you for visiting this site, scummywatertower.com, and YouTube for Water Tower Sessions and SWT Interviews. And all of our socials.
Questions, feedback, or more? Contact me: alex@scummywatertower.com
