Less than a month after releasing his new project, BIG BIG WORLD, acclaimed songwriter Scott Miller will perform at Club Cafe in Pittsburgh on Thursday, November 7 at 9:00 p.m. Miller will be accompanied by Rayna Gellert on fiddle, who also graces the recording, as well as Bryn Davies.
Miller, who the Austin Chronicle described as “One of Virginia’s best exports,” with “Southern tales that are both sharply satirical and vividly told,” is supporting this new album with a series of fall/winter tour dates (including several with Patty Griffin) throughout the U.S.
Miller’s new album, BIG BIG WORLD, was recorded, mixed and produced by Doug Lancio, with Lancio and Miller playing the parts of what would normally have been Miller’s backing band, The Commonwealth. Miller and Lancio met back in 2007 when Scott opened for Patty Griffin while Doug was bandleader and playing guitar for Griffin.
Miller first came to national attention with the V-Roys, the roots-rock band signed to E-Squared, an indie label founded by the late Jack Emerson and Steve Earle. After several critically acclaimed albums with the V-Roys, Miller signed as a solo artist with Sugar Hill Records, recording three studio albums and a live record with The Commonwealth. BIG BIG WORLD is the third release on Miller’s record label F.A.Y. Recordings.
Ever since Steve Earle declared Miller a “world class” songwriter, Miller has been known as a writer’s writer. Even on the next four albums Miller recorded and released on Sugar Hill Records from 2001 to 2008, Miller’s songwriting remained genuinely thoughtful, for the most part regional and history based– but always cloaked in what one New York Times reviewer called an “epic vernacular.” In other words, he wrote big.
The last two years have seen big changes for the malapert Miller. “Like many with elderly parents I heard the call: Now is the time for all sons to return to the land of their raising, smother their parents with a pillow and collect their social security,” Miller deadpanned. Moving home to take over the family cattle farm and establishing a new base from which to tour in Staunton, VA – all while embracing a new life of sobriety – has been challenging and time consuming. “Most of my touring the last couple of years has been in spurts, not like I used to do. I can’t leave my cows for that long. I need their guidance.”
“Scott Miller tells stories better than most novelists. His intuitive lyrics hide universal heartbreak behind humor. His empathy is unsurpassed. He bestows dignity on dirt, elevates our pettiest concerns to poetry. He makes himself an everyman when he is anything but. A single listen reveals how Miller is exceptional, with a delivery so piercing and true you hardly notice how thoroughly you’ve been shot through. See him sing live once, and you’ll never feel lonely again.”
– Allison Glock, Garden and Gun
ARTIST: Scott Miller
VENUE: Club Cafe, 56 S. 12th St., Pittsburgh, PA 15203
DATE: Thursday, November 7, 2013
TIME: 9:00 p.m.
ADMISSION: $10, $12 door
Venue URL: www.clubcafelive.com/
ARTIST URL: www.thescottmiller.com