Country and pop hit-maker and Grammy award-winner Jody Miller died Thursday morning (Oct. 6) in Blanchard, Okla. Per a press release, the 80 year old had been suffering from complications related to Parkinson's Disease.
Myrna Joy Miller was born Nov. 29, 1941 in Phoenix, Ariz. By the early '60s, she lived in Los Angeles, where she worked as a folk and pop singer.
A run on Capitol Records began with minor pop hit "He Walks Like a Man" (1964). Two years later, Miller became an unlikely country star with "Queen of the House"— a send-up of Roger Miller's (no relation) "King of the Road" that cracked country music's Top 5.
"That thrust me into the country music business," Miller told Wide Open Country in 2018. "To that point, I had not been interested at all in country music. I thought that 'Queen of the House' was a good little number for Peggy Lee. She was on the Capitol label, too, and she'd had a record called 'Fever' with finger snaps. 'Queen of the House' had finger snaps, so I thought, 'Well shoot, you're the jazz singer. Why don't you get this song to her?' Now I was happy to get it, especially once it started selling like it did. It really wasn't one of those beautiful songs like 'Home of the Brave' that I could sink my teeth into. It's a simple little song— three chords on a guitar."
Miller took home the Best Country Performance— Female Grammy award in 1966 for her unplanned crossover moment.
Though two country covers of note ("Silver Threads and Golden Needles" and "Long Black Limousine") followed in the '60s, Miller's most consistent stretch in the genre came in the '70s for Epic Records and producer Billy Sherrill. She charted 11 straight Top 30 country singles between 1970 and 1973, namely Top 5 covers of "Baby I'm Yours," "There's a Party Goin' On" and "He's So Fine."
Miller semi-retired in the '80s before reemerging as a Christian music artist. In 1999, she joined the Country Gospel Music Association's Hall of Fame in the same class as Loretta Lynn. Miller, her daughter Robin Brooks Sullivan and her grandchildren Montana and Layla Sullivan continued in recent years to perform secular and gospel material live.
A final album, Wayfaring Stranger, was recorded by Miller in 2020 for Heart of Texas Records. In 2021, Miller attended the groundbreaking for the Jody Miller Performing Arts Center in Blanchard: an honor she described as being "better than a Grammy."
"Jody Miller's talent cannot be overstated," shared Jennifer McMullen, Miller's longtime representative, in a press release. "She had this innate, God-given ability to interpret and communicate with the most beautiful tones and inflection. She made it look and sound so easy that it sometimes takes a moment to realize the greatness of what you are hearing. But she was just as authentic and exceptional in her own life as she was on stage and on record."
Arrangements are currently pending.
