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Arlene & Arthur Miller
have been members of the Princeton Folk Music Society since shortly after its founding in 1965. Through the years they have both served in various capacities, Arthur as president from 1987 to 1989, and Arlene as president from 1993 to 1995. In the following interview (August 18, 2011), they share some highlights of their involvement with folk music and some interesting aspects of the early days of the club. ![[Arlene & Arthur Miller]](Miller, Arlene & Art.jpg) RT -- What would be the earliest songs of any kind that you remember hearing that made an impression on you as a young person? Arthur -- I remember hearing Burl Ives' sort of stuff - "Little White Duck" and so on. But the person who introduced me to folk music is here, actually, is Arlene. A quick story -- when I was a graduate student, my department had parties every month and some of us would get to sing. I did my share of singing and people liked that. As a result of this, I was invited to take part, although I was a graduate student, in two musicals that were presented by the faculty, written by an extremely clever member of the faculty. One was for the American Association for the Advancement of Science which was having their meeting at my school and the other one was honoring Linus Pauling for his first Nobel Prize. I learned these fantastic songs that this faculty member brought in, decided they were great party songs. I decided when I finished my studies and had the money that acquiring a piano would probably be too heavy to take along to parties with me so I decided to take up the guitar. I was taking lessons . . . there was a guitarist in Princeton whose day job was a butcher but who was a very, very good, excellent flamenco guitar player and he was giving lessons. Carlos Montoya was a leading flamenco artist. When Montoya came to perform at McCarter Theater in Princeton, he would always invite my instructor, Dominic Zullo his name was, up to play with him. So, here I was playing guitar . . . I guess I must have played some Weaver stuff and so on. This is now very late 1950's. And I started dating Arlene. Arlene, every month, would go to a folk sing in southeast Queens. She started taking me to those and that's basically where I got introduced to folk music, per se. RT -- So you basically got interested in folk at about college age. Arthur -- I was about 28 or 29. RT -- Prior to that, what kind of music did you like to listen to? |
Arthur -- I listened a lot to classical music. When I was in graduate school I used to go to concerts at the Hollywood Bowl and places like that. I went to graduate school in California. And I would also listen to pop stuff.
RT -- Does anything stick out in your mind? Arthur -- I remember disliking Elvis Presley music. The Beatles didn't come out until after Arlene and I were married. I would do largely popular stuff. I'll show you my lack of exposure to folk music. When I was in graduate school, there was one . . . this must have been around 1954, 1955 . . . there was one of my fellow graduate students . . . he was fixated. There was this particular piece that he was fixated on and he said it was sung by someone, actually I think I have heard this name before but the music was just totally meaningless to me. The song was Wimoweh." He was fixated on singing "Wimoweh" and I knew he was doing it but I bore no relationship to it whatsoever and, of course, it was Pete Seeger. Now I think I had heard . . . I sort of knew who Pete Seeger was by the middle '50's but not enormously well. RT -- Do you remember what any of your favorite music was before being introduced to folk? Arthur -- I played the recorder. RT -- Was that your first instrument? Arthur -- Basically, although I played an ocarina and a tonette as a kid. But I played the recorder, I've played in graduate school. I had a tenor recorder, bigger than the usual size. I took some recorder lessons when I first came to Princeton, which was like in 1956-57. I belonged to a couple of recorder groups. There were groups around town. One was better than the other. The better one was fairly good playing recorder music, which is basically baroque type of stuff. Around this time I met Arlene and I got dragged into folk music. The people that hosted this monthly sing were active in the Committee for Sane Nuclear Policy. I can remember some of the songs . . . "Hey Lidy" . . . we did a lot of songs that one sings together. It was not the structure, was not the way it is now with someone leading it. There might be someone leading it but there was always an open invitation to sing along and to play along if you could. With my experience going to these folk sings . . . I remember that I was just barely learning to play guitar when I started. As I attended folk sings over the years, the complexity and the virtuosity of how people were playing evolved. I was about three steps behind where I wanted to be and I still am. Fifty years ago at sings people were playing extremely simple stuff. A church lick would be considered in the forefront. Billy Pressman was a banjo player. He was good. He was one of the people playing professionally well. I don't know of any banjoist that we have at the Folk Music Society that played as well as he did fifty years ago. P R E V I O U S P A G E N E X T P A G E |
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