Not all "influential" albums qualify as necessarily "good". Some music, in fact, takes a more Nietzschean course and transcends such primal dualities as "good" vs "bad". This is the very essence of the true "outsider" when it comes to music and the performing arts. These are the dedicated souls who pursue their art without any need for the validation of critical approval or even fan support, though they often end up with some form of both. The sheer inevitability of their existence makes them invaluable treasures in the end.
It was, I think, some time around 1995 when Elva Ruby Miller, Mrs. Miller, came into my sphere of consciousness. Her 1966 "Greatest Hits" album was lent to me by an acquaintance who never managed to get the record returned. Normally, I'm very good about borrowing, but this one refused to leave my grasp once it found itself there. It only took a minute of the first track for me to be enchanted by the warbling, soprano atonalities fluttering from these grooves.
Mrs. Miller had somehow managed to forge a successful recording career in the 1960s despite her obvious lack of professional skills. Against a backdrop of professionally recorded and performed music by, I assume, the top studio talent of the day, Elva plonked down her vocals like mom having been summoned unexpectedly from cooking dinner and she left the beans burning. She sounded kinda rushed and off key and she'd forget lyrics and then stick an ice cube in her mouth for her whistling solo and all of this was crashing together simultaneously into this glorious symphony of ineptitude. It's like they only let her do one take of every vocal and didn't let her see the lyric sheet beforehand.
She managed to have a career at a time when outsider artists could even have hit records (as in Tiny Tim's Tiptoe). For me, discovering her, along with The Shaggs, sent me on a musical side quest for other artists who managed to defy the odds and the standards of the day to create their own space where they could be free to be themselves and damn everyone else, though you're more than welcome to hang about if you like.
It was, I think, some time around 1995 when Elva Ruby Miller, Mrs. Miller, came into my sphere of consciousness. Her 1966 "Greatest Hits" album was lent to me by an acquaintance who never managed to get the record returned. Normally, I'm very good about borrowing, but this one refused to leave my grasp once it found itself there. It only took a minute of the first track for me to be enchanted by the warbling, soprano atonalities fluttering from these grooves.
Mrs. Miller had somehow managed to forge a successful recording career in the 1960s despite her obvious lack of professional skills. Against a backdrop of professionally recorded and performed music by, I assume, the top studio talent of the day, Elva plonked down her vocals like mom having been summoned unexpectedly from cooking dinner and she left the beans burning. She sounded kinda rushed and off key and she'd forget lyrics and then stick an ice cube in her mouth for her whistling solo and all of this was crashing together simultaneously into this glorious symphony of ineptitude. It's like they only let her do one take of every vocal and didn't let her see the lyric sheet beforehand.
She managed to have a career at a time when outsider artists could even have hit records (as in Tiny Tim's Tiptoe). For me, discovering her, along with The Shaggs, sent me on a musical side quest for other artists who managed to defy the odds and the standards of the day to create their own space where they could be free to be themselves and damn everyone else, though you're more than welcome to hang about if you like.
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