Bill Miller

BILL MILLER
 
 
Bill Miller  (born January 23, 1955) is a Native American singer/songwriter of Mohican heritage.  He was born on the Stockbridge-Munsee reservation, near Shawano in northern Wisconsin.  Miller’s Mohican name is Fush-Ya Heay Aka (meaning “bird song”).  He began playing guitar when he was 12 years old, and is an accomplished player of the Native American flute.  In 1973, he moved to Milwaukee and won an art school scholarship; today he is an accomplished artist whose drawings and paintings have been widely praised.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 

 

 

Bill Miller (Mohican) certainly doesn’t sound like a Native American name, but he was born on the Stockbridge-Munsee Reservation in northern Wisconsin.  He is proficient at playing the Native American flute and also on guitar; Miller has also been praised for his drawings. 

 

His big break came in 1994 when Tori Amos heard his album, The Red Road and asked him to open for her on several dates during the tour to support her album, Under the Pink.  I saw him perform on that tour at one of the campuses of City University of New York (CUNY), as I recall.  Bill Miller has since played with several prominent musicians such as Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam, Richie Havens, the BoDeans, and Arlo Guthrie and has written songs with Nanci Griffith, Kim Carnes and bluegrass musician Peter Rowan. 

 

In 2005, Bill Miller’s instrumental album, Cedar Dream Songs won the Grammy Award for Best Native American Music Album.  Miller also won four Native American Music Awards in 1999 and another in 2006.  In all, Bill Miller has released 15 albums. 

 

(August 2013)