Lyle E. Style - Aint Got No Cigarettes: Memories of Music Legend Roger Miller

Ain't Got No Cigarettes

Memories of Music Legend Roger Miller

Lyle E Style

Ain't Got No Cigarettes
Memories of Music Legend Roger Miller

Copyright 2005 Lyle E Style

Great Plains Publications
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Great Plains Publications gratefully acknowledges the financial support provided for its publishing program by the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP); the Canada Council for the Arts; as well as the Manitoba Department of Culture, Heritage and Tourism; and the Manitoba Arts Council.

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mobi ISBN 978-1-926531-34-2

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"Roger was a great musician and a soulful man.

His influence on music will never be forgotten."

Tony Joe White

Foreward

Throughout our lifetime, we are influenced by things people say to usour parents, teachers, family members, mentors and spiritual advisors. We are inspired by things in almost everything we do. I was tremendously influenced by Roger Miller, just like countless others. All of the writers that I look up toWillie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and others have said how important he was to their music world. No one said it quite like Roger, before or after. He was truly an American original. There were only a few people I felt the need to seek out and get to know at some point in my life. Roger was the only one I never got to meet. He passed on before I got to Nashville. However, I felt like I knew him inside-out through his music and clever sayings. Ask someone who knew him personally to tell you a Roger story, and they will smile and tell you something great he said, always something he said. That is what made him extra special. How many great songwriters are known among their peers as having just as much to say in person as in song? That is a short list, huh?

As far as songwriting goes, he never seemed to compromise his integrity for success. He made rhymes that shouldn't rhyme, he said things you shouldn't say, always clever and almost always with a smile. Hoboes, railroads, funerals, coffins, reincarnation, kiddie shows, moonshine, love, lost love, women; he backed off of no subject. He won Grammys and Tonys, he wrote everything from tender love songs to Broadway musicals. I hope in your lifetime you find that one person that inspires you and what you do more than anyone else. I can only hope some of Roger's influence shows up in my work. Again, after reading this book, ask someone who knew him to tell you a story. Enjoy. Then get a Roger Miller boxset. Enjoy. Was he a genius? The ones who know think so.

Toby Keith

Introduction

The question I am asked most of all, next to "Is Lyle E Style your real name?", is "How did you start working on this Roger Miller book?" See, some people think it's a little strange that a guy born in 1971 in Winnipeg, Canada, wrote a book on an American music legend whose career had its zenith before the author was even born. In fact, I didn't even know who Roger Miller was until 1998, six years after he died, but once I discovered him, things were never the same.

Growing up I survived a strict all-boys high school/minor seminary in Roblin, Manitoba, called St. Vladimir's College. It was a scary experience for methe kind of place where students are encouraged to become priests. As you probably guessed, since the cover of this book doesn't say "Written by Father Lyle E Style," I never did get the calling. After graduating from St. Vlad's I went to university and fell in love with a girl. Long story short, three years later it was over, and with all the new heartache and pain I finally "got" country music.

I guess finishing university just wasn't in the cards for me. I found it more therapeutic to write my own songs about lost love and misery than to study, so I quit just shy of getting my degree, got a day job working for the government, started singing in a band, eventually recorded a CD and attempted to "take it on the road." Fast forward to 1996 and I was on the way home from my first visit to Nashville, Tennessee. A scenic detour to check out Branson, Missouri led to a variety of very strange coincidences that landed me an introduction to legendary songwriter Bill Dees. Dees wrote over sixty songs with Roy Orbison, including "Oh, Pretty Woman" and "It's Over." He invited me to his house to listen to some of his new songs. I was blown away by how someone could make a great living off of writing songs, especially ones that were written over thirty years ago! I was equally impressed that he was still making great money, even though he was on wife number four at the time and was himself receiving only a small portion of the royalties earned on those songs.

While I was at his house I asked if he would consider co-writing with me, something I've never done but was told to do by a few people in Nashville. He kindly said, "No, the only artist I've ever written with is Roy Orbison and I'm going to keep it that way." I totally understood, but nonetheless I said to his wife (now ex-wife), Leesa, as I was leaving, "If he ever feels like writing with a Canadian, let me know and I'll be here within forty-eight hours." She said to Bill in a beautiful southern persuasive tone, "He's willing to drive all the way from Canada to write with you. Why don't you give him a shot?" So Bill said to me, "Don't make a special trip, but if you're ever out here again you can give me a call and we can sit down and try to write something." Well, I "happened" to be out there two weeks later, and since then we've become very good friends. I really lucked outmy first co-writer had written "Oh, Pretty Woman," a song that almost everyone in the world knows the words to, and which is rated by Rolling Stone Magazine as one of the top twenty-five pop songs of all time.

After meeting and writing with Bill Dees, I really started to pay attention to the art of writing songs. I began taking seminars and reading books on it to learn all the "rules" of songwriting. Eventually, two years later, I discovered Roger Miller and his one rule of songwriting: There are no rules.

After my inspiring adventures down South (including meeting my hero Johnny Cash), I felt like I needed to move away from Winnipeg, to get away from the mosquitoes and the insanely cold winters and to go somewhere I thought had a happening music scene. I wanted to relocate to Nashville, but it's almost impossible for a Canadian without a university degree to move to the USA, so instead I moved to Vancouver to be a singer/songwriter/actor. In other words, I was waiting tables. I turned out to be a terrible waiter. I was even written up in the Vancouver Sun for being the "worst waiter" in the city.

One night in 1998, after a shift, I was flipping channels when I came across Dean Miller on TNN (when it was The Nashville Network ) saying, "My dad wrote this song for me." He launched into "Old Toy Trains," one of the few country songs my parents played when I was a kid that I really loved. Watching the show, I recognized many of the songs that were played: "Husbands and Wives," "King of the Road" and "Dang Me." Then I heard "My Uncle Used to Love Me (But She Died)" and I was hooked! Hearing that song for the first time changed my life. The next morning I went to a record store and bought one of the Roger Miller Greatest Hits CDs. I loved it, every song. However, each song was only two minutes long and there were only ten tracks on the CD. Twenty minutes was not enough Roger Miller for me, so I went back the next day and bought the Roger Miller Mercury boxset. I had never enjoyed anyone's music so much in my life! With just a few songs, Roger Miller became my favorite singer and songwriter of all time.