Jerry Miller

Jerry Miller (born July 10, 1943) is an American songwriter, guitarist and vocalist.

He performs as a solo artist and as a member of the Jerry Miller Band.

His career began in the late 1950s, playing and recording with popular Northwest dance-rock bands including the Elegants and the Frantics.

He contributed guitar work to an early version of the hit record "I Fought the Law" by The Bobby Fuller Four, and toured with Bobby Fuller in his predecessor group to The Bobby Fuller Four.

Contrary to many popularized statements that Miller played lead guitar on the national hit record version of "I Fought The Law" and was a member of The Bobby Fuller Four as the group was popularly known.

Neither is true.

He is also a founding member of the 1960s San Francisco band Moby Grape, which continues to perform occasionally.

Rolling Stone included Miller at number 68 on their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time and Moby Grape's album Moby Grape at number 124 from listed 500 greatest albums of all time.

Miller's longtime (since the early 1960s) guitar is a Gibson L-5 CES Florentine guitar which he calls "Beulah".

Miller was born in Tacoma, Washington, United States.

He attended Lincoln High School in Tacoma through the mid-1960's.

Jerry Miller: In 1962, after I left high school, a guy named Larry Thompson from Tacoma who was playing drums with Bobby Fuller, heard me playing at the Crescent Ballroom.

Within two days I jumped on the Greyhound for El Paso where I moved in with Bobby and his parents.

At that time it wasn't known as the Bobby Fuller Four, just Bobby Fuller, with his brother, Randall, and Larry and myself.

I recorded four tracks with them including the original "I Fought The Law" (released as a single on Exeter), "Wine, Wine, Wine" and "King Of The Beach," though my guitar didn't make it onto that final track.

We toured around Texas mainly, wearing those cool matching suits, with long hair even before the Beatles!

About the time Bob Keene took over as manager, I thought things were looking a bit shaky, so I returned to Washington state in the summer of '63.

While both were playing locally in Seattle, prior to becoming internationally famous, Jerry Miller befriended Jimi Hendrix.

Along with Larry Coryell, who was developing his reputation as a guitarist while attending the University of Washington in Seattle, they would regularly get together to watch touring bands visiting the Seattle area.

One particular club was the Spanish Castle, in Des Moines, Washington, between Seattle and Tacoma.

The later Hendrix song, "Spanish Castle Magic", was based on his experiences with fellow guitarists at the Spanish Castle in Des Moines.

Before co-founding Moby Grape, Miller and bandmate Don Stevenson were members of The Frantics, a Pacific Northwest bar band based in Seattle, who had some local fame with records on Dolton, a Seattle record company.

The band relocated to San Francisco and, with the addition of Bob Mosley, formed the nucleus of what would become Moby Grape.

Moby Grape was formed in San Francisco in 1966.

Jerry Miller was the lead guitarist in the three-guitar band.

The Grape signed with Columbia and recorded four albums for that label, released between 1967 and 1969.

During this period, Miller co-wrote (with Don Stevenson) three of Moby Grape's best known songs, "Hey Grandma" and "8.05", both from the self-titled first Moby Grape album (1967) and "Murder In My Heart for The Judge", from the Wow album (1968).

The latter song was covered by both Three Dog Night and Lee Michaels, while Robert Plant covered "8:05" and The Move covered "Hey Grandma".

In the late summer of 1969, subsequent to the release of Truly Fine Citizen, Moby Grape's last album for Columbia, Jerry Miller and Don Stevenson joined with John Barrett (bass) and John "Fuzzy" Oxendine (drums) to form The Rhythm Dukes.

Don Stevenson played guitar, rather than drums.

It is speculated that he left the band shortly after its formation for that reason, preferring to remain a drummer.

Moby Grape toured the U.S. and Europe, but fell apart as of 1970.

Members regrouped for the album 20 Granite Creek on Reprise Records in 1971 and played and recorded intermittently thereafter, in various configurations.

Moby Grape continues to perform occasionally.

More recently, "Hey Grandma" was included in the soundtrack to the 2005 Sean Penn-Nicole Kidman film, The Interpreter, as well as being covered in 2009 by the Black Crowes, on Warpaint Live.

The Biography of Jerry Miller on the Jerry Miller Band website (accessed August 31, 2008), which Miller apparently does not directly control, also contains these errors.

It is also inaccurately stated that Miller was with Bobby Fuller until the time of his murder.

Jerry Miller clarifies matters in as reprinted in Moby Grape discussion group.

Goldmine: A little known fact is that you played and recorded with Bobby Fuller in Texas.

How did that come about?