Since she was in third grade, Hazel Miller — and more than likely, those around her — knew that she would be a singer. The legendary Colorado vocalist was inducted into the state’s Music Hall of Fame on June 10, capping an exceptional career that has taken Miller around the world and earned her a place in the hearts of thousands.
Miller, the fifth of seven children, was born in Louisville, Kentucky. Her mother and father were guarded-yet-exceptional singers in their own rights.
When Miller was in third grade, a priest at her school named Samuel Viani asked her to join the eighth graders for a Christmas song — a prospect that, to Miller’s knowledge, had never been done. Even at an early age, Miller’s talent was undeniable.
“After that, I knew,” Miller said. “When you’re the fifth of seven children, you’re Joanne’s sister, you’re Carol’s sister, you’re Eddie’s sister — all of a sudden, everyone knew my name. I told my mother I was going to be a singer. She said ‘OK, as long as you go to school.’”
That she did. Things were lean in the Miller household, but the tight-knit bond of the family largely made up for that. Miller said that her mom raised seven children on $150 a week salary.
Miller said she wasn’t particularly aware of social class before she transitioned from a parochial Catholic school to a public school. There, she faced bullying but was undeterred.
“I didn’t know I was broke until I got to public school, and these girls… they let me know in no uncertain terms that I’m from the project,” she said.
Early career
After high school, at age 21, Miller enrolled at the University of Louisville and sang in bars on weekends. Newly divorced and with a newborn baby boy in tow, she biked with her son to school, singing all the while.
“I used to wrap a towel around the crossbar — it was a boy’s bike — and we’d ride to school, the college was about four miles up the road,” Miller said. “And we’d sing all the way there and sing all the way home. My son, to this day, says, ‘I didn’t know we were broke. We were having so much fun!’”
Shortly thereafter, following the birth of her second son, Miller changed her focus to music, with the support of her family.
“I went to work at the best nightclub in Louisville, Joe’s Bomb Room,” Miller said. “I started making real money — $400 a week — and I worked from Thursday to Sunday. And my mother treated me like I was Aretha Franklin. She said, ‘Go do this, we’ll watch the kids.’ I have never known a time where my family didn’t support me.”
Miller built a strong following in Kentucky but was beginning to outgrow her hometown.
In 1982, she recorded the Louisville anthem “Louisville, Look What We Can Do,” which brought her further local acclaim. Earlier this year, she was invited back to her hometown in January to perform the song at Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg’s inauguration. Still, Miller’s sights began to drift elsewhere.
Dana Marsh, Miller’s longtime keyboardist, moved to Colorado in 1982 and stayed in touch will Miller, with the latter flying Marsh back to Louisville for shows periodically.
“I kept telling her about Colorado,” Marsh said. “I said, ‘There’s no one out here like you. I think you would really like Colorado, and they would love you.’”
In 1984, Miller packed up a UHaul with her belongings, her two sons, a friend’s son she was taking care of and a friend who was running from her husband. At this point, Miller’s oldest was 12 years old and her youngest was 6.
“I made the four of them a promise; ‘No one will ever live in our house,’” Miller said. “No one will ever come between us.’ And that was that. And I’ve been happily single for 43 years.”
From Kentucky to Colorado
Miller’s sights were set on the bright lights of Los Angeles, but her van had other plans.
Just inside Colorado’s borders, her UHaul broke down. Miller took the speedbump as a sign and has lived in the Centennial State ever since.
“To be honest with you, if I’d gotten to L.A., I’d probably have had to go home,” Miller said. “But God put me in Colorado. And I have had nothing but success.”
Without many local connections besides Marsh, Miller struggled to gain a foothold in the Denver scene at first. Then, she began sitting in at the fabled El Chapultepec every Saturday night, and her fortunes began to change.
“People like (fellow Colorado Music Hall of Famer Chris Daniels) took me under his wing,” Miller said. “There were other guys who worked at the Pec, they would tell me about who was looking for a singer. It was a lot of sitting in for no money, it was a lot of hanging out, trying to let people know who I was.”
Luckily for Miller, her generational voice left a lasting impression. El Chapultepec’s owner hired Miller to sing with the house band every Sunday night, for $40. After a few years of dues-paying, Miller had formed her own band in 1988, and, in her words, “was rollin’ and never looked back.”
‘Beloved by the people of Colorado’
One of Miller’s first bands, called Rich Relations, earned a reputation in the local scene and was hired to do a Department of Defense tour in the Far East. Miller’s backing band at the time was entirely white, leading to their — perhaps infamous — name change.
“We walked out on stage one night in Korea, this little bitty base in South Korea,” Miller said. “And I said, ‘Hi we are Hazel Miller —’ and these Black soldiers yelled, ‘And the Caucasians!’”
As Miller tells it, the base broke out in raucous laughter, prompting her to change the name of her band, in earnest, to Hazel Miller and the Caucasians. Perhaps in accordance with changing social norms, or perhaps simply because her point had been proven, Miller changed her band’s name to Hazel Miller and The Collective in the 2000s.
While Miller was, as she puts it, “rollin’,’” she had yet to gain a larger audience outside of Colorado by the 1990s. That would change after a fortuitous meeting with one of Colorado’s top bands of the era; Big Head Todd and The Monsters.
“We had first seen Hazel at JJ McCabe’s when we were students at Boulder in the ’80s,” Todd Park Mohr, Big Head Todd’s frontman, said. “We thought she was a soul diva and she knew about music we did not. We invited her to sing on a track called ‘Wearing Only Flowers’ in 1995, but soon after she joined us a lot. “
Mohr might have been enticed by Miller’s music, but The Monster’s management wasn’t sold.
“Their manager, Chuck Morris, said, ‘You can’t have her there, your fans won’t understand,’” Miller said. “’Her voice is too ethnic.’”
Nevertheless, the rock outfit continued their pursuit of the vocalist, sending a cab to her home with a demo CD of “Wearing Only Flowers.” Two days later, she was in the recording studio laying down vocal tracks.
“Wearing Only Flowers” was released on The Monster’s 1994 album “Stratagem,” and Miller accompanied the band on stage at their album release show. Soon after, Miller and Big Head Todd hit the road together.
“In 1996, my son graduated from high school at Mullen, and I went out on tour (with Big Head Todd and the Monsters) for a month,” Miller said. “They said, ‘Just come and see if you like it.’ I went back home, got (my son) into college, and went back out with them the next fall.”
At first, Miller just sang backups on the one song but felt like her salary outweighed her contributions to the band. Little by little, Mohr began to incorporate Miller into more songs.
“Todd started saying ‘Can you do this part? Can you sing on this?’” Miller said. “And they did a second CD with me on it and I was singing on two songs. Little by little, I wormed my way in. It was like being on the bus with three of your little brothers. They treated me like I was Aretha Franklin.”
When she was on the road, Miller would go shopping at TJ Maxx or Ross and send clothes home to her family in Kentucky. During a stop in her home state, the Miller family came to a show and provided the band with four fried chickens, mac and cheese, cornbread, greens and desert.
“These guys (Big Head Todd and the Monsters) thought they died and went to heaven,” Miller said. “Todd goes, ‘Are y’all taking this food with you when you go?’ (Miller’s sister) Carol goes, ‘No, it’s for the bus.’ They love my family. My family shows up, they cook.”
The first time Miller and The Monsters played Red Rocks; Carol came to see her sister play. The Miller family was aware of Hazel’s success in Colorado but couldn’t quite conceptualize the heights to which she had risen.
“The first time I played Red Rocks with Todd, Carol, my sister came out,” Miller said. “She had no idea how many people were there. We came through the back. We walk up, and I say, ‘Turn around.’ She saw all those people out there, she said ‘Oh my god!’ (When I started singing) I looked over and Carol was crying. She’s like, ‘I’ve never seen anything like that in my life.’”
Mohr said his favorite performances with Miller have been their stops at Red Rocks over the years.
“My favorite memories of Hazel personally are her performances with us at Red Rocks,” Mohr raid. “I say that plural because it usually goes down the same way. There is usually some over-the-top garments involved. She just goes for it in every way and people lose their minds hearing and watching her energy and sincerity.”
Fittingly, Miller and Big Head Todd and The Monsters were inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame together on June 10 — at their sold-out Red Rocks show.
Karen Radman, the Colorado Music Hall of Fame’s executive director, said that Miller is being honored for her solo work and collaborations with The Monsters, and added that she has been crucial to spreading Colorado music across the globe.
“(Miller) really is seen as one of our key female artists,” Radman said. “We just decided to put them together, for what they’ve done collaboratively but what they’ve done individually as well.
“When we looked towards her as an artist to honor and celebrate with Hall of Famer status, it was the work that she’s done here and the impact that she’s made in Colorado music, but also to bring that Colorado music and bring that Colorado artistry to other places in the world,” Radman continued.
Miller toured with The Monsters until the birth of her granddaughter in 2001, when she decided to spend more time with her family. Nevertheless, the pair’s collaboration has continued throughout the years.
“We have had the pleasure of her company on many tours, shows and trips since but still maintain our separate identities,” Mohr said. “We have a close relationship beyond music and have been through a lot together over the years.”
Since retiring from touring, Miller has become one of Colorado’s most celebrated — and prolific acts. She plays frequently in far-flung localities from Denver to Buena Vista to Parker and beyond, always retaining the same energy and charisma which has defined her career.
At Winter Park Jazz one year, Miller sang with one of her heroes; Dianne Reeves. Miller said she considers Reeves to be the best jazz singer of their generation.
When Milller received word that she had been inducted into the Hall of Fame, she called her brother, who’s first reaction was to make sure Reeves was already in.
“‘When I told my brother, he said, ‘Is Dianne (Reeves) in?’” Miller said. “I said, ‘Hell yeah!’ He said, ‘Cool.’”
When asked about Miller, Reeves raved about her now-fellow Hall of Famer, describing Miller as “our precious treasure.”
“Hazel Miller is a consummate artist beloved by the people of Colorado,” Reeves said. “Over the years she has consistently brought joy, healing and celebration to us all. Hazel has always been and still remains to be a genuinely loving and caring human being. She is our precious treasure.”
A mentor for young musicians
In recent years, Miller has helped a number of young Colorado artists get their start, including 20 Hands High, Julia Kirkwood and Blankslate — the latter of which happens to be the author of this article’s band.
Miller said she wanted to be the role model for others that she never had. As a young singer, Miller was sitting in with an older band, when the band purposely played the song in the wrong key to mess with her. She stormed out, grabbed her coat and walked home. Miller was 17 at the time.
“I don’t want anyone to ever tell me that they had to go through that,” Miller said.
In her mentorship, Miller channels another one of her inspirations; Bonnie Raitt.
“I want to be like Bonnie (Raitt),” Miller said. “She resurrected Ruth Brown when (Brown’s) record company dropper her. And Bonnie started bringing her on tour. That’s what I want to be to these young kids. These kids call me, ‘Miss Miller, would you come mentor my band?’
“And I say, ‘Well, I’ve got to come see you first, make sure you’re doing something cool,’” Miller continued.
One of Miller’s protégés, Chad Wooten — the frontman of country act 20 Hands High — said Miller discovered him in a karaoke bar in Morrison. Miller told Wooten to form a band and before long, he had taken her advice.
“She said, “A voice like yours needs to be on stage,’” Wooten recalled. “She’s a selfless shining light who has been enough to mentor me, as I had zero experience with a band, playing out live, booking … She loves to see others succeed… everyone in every music scene and genre could learn from her.”
Miller said that she especially hopes to mentor young female musicians, who she believes are often undervalued in the music community.
“We get the short end of the stick,” she said. “…They play, they sing, they write. I didn’t know how to do any of that. Nobody ever said, ‘You can write your own song.’ Nobody ever said, ‘You can start your own band.’ I started my band because I was tired of getting ripped off.”
‘If I die on stage, I’ll die happy’
While she doesn’t have any regrets from her career, one area that brings Miller sadness is that she — one of Colorado’s foremost Black artist — has never played for a predominantly Black crowd.
“I love my audiences because they don’t see me as being Black, they just see me as the band they came out to see,” Miller said. “The only thing that disappoints me — I have never had a Black audience. I can usually count Black people on one hand at my shows.
“And I can go see a Black band, and they’ll have all these people there, and they’ll know me — but they don’t come to my shows,” Miller continued. “I don’t know why. But I had to let go. Because the people that come to see me want to be there, and we have a ball. I don’t worry about it anymore, but it does hurt. It’ll never stop hurting.”
Miller recently turned 70 but has no plans to slow down.
“I don’t know how to give it up. In all honesty, if I die on stage, I’ll die happy,” Miller said. “Everyone I love and respect were still working when they died. From Ella Fitzgerald to Aretha Franklin. They were all working when they passed away. And you can’t beat that.”
All in all, Miller’s career has taken her around the globe, bringing the fifth of seven children from Louisville, Kentucky to stages massive and modest. The most important accomplishment from her career, she says, is that she was able to give her children and grandchildren opportunities that she was never afforded.
“My job allowed me to give my boys things that I never had,” Miller said. “I have been to places that I dreamed of, and I got to see them because I was there singing. I woke up one morning and looked out the bathroom window at Mount Fuji. It was unbelievable — there was snow on it!”