A local favorite, Folksinger, storyteller and autoharp virtuoso, Adam Miller performs a free concert of Folksongs of the American Civil War at 6:00 pm on Monday, April, 9, 2018, at the A. K. Smiley Public Library, 125 W. Vine Street in Redlands, California.
An artist whose kind has dwindled to an endangered species, Adam Miller is a renowned old-school American troubadour and a natural-born storyteller. One of the premier autoharpists in the world, he is an accomplished folklorist, song-collector, and raconteur, who has amassed a remarkable repertoire of more than 5,000 songs.
Miller is a masterful entertainer who never fails to get his audience singing along and accompanies his rich, resonant baritone voice with lively finger-picking acoustic guitar, and stunningly beautiful autoharp melodies. Skillfully interweaving folksongs and the stories behind them with the elegance of a documentary filmmaker, he has distinguished himself as one of the great interpreters of American folksongs and as a storyteller par excellence. And he is that rare performer who appeals to audiences of all ages.
Traveling 70,000 miles a year, Miller performs over 200 concerts annually in 48 states, from the Everglades to the Arctic Circle. More than 1.5 million students have attended his Singing Through History! school assembly programs. He’s performed live in over 2,000 American public libraries.
Praise for Adam Miller
• The Ketchikan, Alaska Sitnews called his show, "Impressively educational but also alluringly entertaining - delighting both young and old alike. His energizing performance brought history alive, as he skillfully grabbed the audience's attention and transported them with song and laughter through 400 years of history."
• A reviewer in Melbourne Beach, Florida, said that Adam Miller’s presentation is “even more accessible than most good folk music. His stories are not the boring ‘once-upon-a-time’ kind, but rather keep you in a constant state of suspense, and his gentle, building guitar chords heighten it. It's all about how folk music lives on through oral tradition and has a kind of ‘betcha didn't know you've done it too!’ kind of theme. It will charm even the most die-hard of ipod loving kids or reluctant significant-others.”
• The Tennessean, said that it was “Exceptionally inspiring to witness this true master of eclectic art forms and keeper of the flame of endangered American traditions.”
• George Winston calls Miller “one of the great autoharpists and folksingers of our times.”
• Pete Seeger admired his “wonderful storytelling!”
• NPR called him “a master of the autoharp.”
• The Grand Traverse Insider called him “A National Treasure!”
• Folksinger Sam Hinton praised Miller’s “impeccable taste” in selecting the right songs to sing with the right audience.
• A reviewer at the Walnut Valley Festival wrote, “Adam Miller holds his audience spellbound without a lot of trappings. It’s just him, his autoharp and guitar, and his signature Panama hat.”
Miller highlights the soul of American heritage.
Adam Miller began his lifelong pursuit of collecting old songs while still in grade school. Armed with an audio-graphic memory and a kaleidoscopic musical curiosity, his childhood ambition was to learn every song he heard.
Today, with a repertoire of thousands of tunes, his traditional folk songs and ballads are the songs of America’s heritage: a window into the soul of our nation in its youth. A performer who enlightens as well as entertains, he points out fascinating connections between events in history and the songs that survived them.
And like old-time radio commentator Paul Harvey, Miller gives you “the rest of the story” — providing the often surprising provenance of seemingly simple folk songs.
Miller has become a national favorite with repeated appearances at the Walnut Valley Festival, the Kansas Storytelling Festival, the Tumbleweed Music Festival, the California Traditional Music Society’s Summer Solstice Festival, and the Kentucky Music Weekend.
In a contemporary musical landscape peopled with singer-songwriters and their often short-lived offerings, Miller’s iconic time-honored traditional ballads and folk songs are a breath of fresh air. They evoke a bygone era when most music was homemade.
Adam Miller explains it this way, “Folksongs travel through History. History travels through Folksongs.”