Jody Miller country music discography (DJ Joe Sixpack's Guide To Hick Music)

Jody Miller hit the Country charts in 1965 with "Queen Of The House," a big novelty hit which was a feminist-themed answer song based on Roger Miller's "King Of The Road." Written by Mary Taylor, the song hit #5 on the country charts and crossed over into the Pop Top 20, setting a pretty high bar for Miller's career. The rest of her tenure on Capitol Records failed to live up to that promise, but after joining countrypolitan king Billy Sherrill at Epic Records, Miller had a solid run of early 1970s singles, including many covers of '60s girl-group classics, and once again she crossed over into the Pop charts. The hits dried up during the disco era, and Miller retired from the limelight, though she later came back to recording as a country gospel artist. Here's a quick look at her work...

Discography - Best-Ofs

Jody Miller "The Best Of Jody Miller" (Capitol, 1973) (LP)

Jody Miller "Home Of The Brave" (Marginal, 1998)
This European import includes a few tracks that were previously unreleased...

Jody Miller "Anthology" (Renaissance, 1999)
Miller's Capitol and Epic years are covered in this generously-programmed collection, which naturally starts off with "Queen Of The House" and moves into her subsequent hits. Tons of cover tunes, ranging from country oldies such as "Please Help Me, I'm Falling" and "Ashes Of Love" to a spate of girl-group cover tunes -- "Baby I'm Yours," "He's So Fine," "Baby It's You," etc., given a slightly downtempo country-folk twist. This is certainly one of the best, most comprehensive overviews of her work...

Jody Miller "Complete Epic Hits" (Real Gone Music, 2012)
This collection focusses more closely on her Epic years, after she left Capitol in 1970 for a chance to work with the up-and-coming countrypolitan producer Billy Sherrill. Turns out it was a pretty good match, with Sherrill and Miller successfully framing her as an oldies-cover artist specializing in remaking old girl-group and teenpop hits -- the formula brought her repeatedly into the Top 40 (and Top Five!) in the early 'Seventies. These twenty-five tracks represent all her charting singles from 1970 up through 1979, even though the her last Top 40 entry came several years earlier. For fans of the era, this disc will be a real treat.

Jody Miller "Higher Love" (Compendia, 2003)
After her country and pop hits faded away, Miller retired from show business, but later returned to recording as a gospel artist. This best-of collection gathers twenty tracks from several of her independently-released religious albums, and might be of interest to her secular fans as well.

Discography - Albums

Jody Miller "Wednesday's Child Is Full Of Woe" (Capitol, 1963) (LP)
(Produced by Kermit Walter)
Miller's debut was a folk-pop album, with arrangements by Glen Campbell, Billy Strange and others. It didn't make a dent in the charts, and they quickly shifted gears to refashion her as a more convntional Nashville singer. Most of the tracks on this album were re-released on a budget-line Hilltop album, Queen Of Country, and generally fit into the "Joan Baez wannabee" category, with Miller singing in a comedically brusque, declarative style, with rhythmic 12-string accompaniment, some banjo and strummy guitar. It's mostly folk standards, innocuous material, but a stylistic mismatch that didn't really work for Miller... But when they let her "go country" on her next album... look out!!