Supplied

Everybody Loves Some Buddy Sometime | Buddy and Julie Miller’s latest album, Written in Chalk, came out in January.

BUDDY MILLER
w/ Emmylou Harris and the Red Dirt Boys. Winspear Centre (4 Sir WinCston Churchill Square). Thu, Nov 12 (8pm). Tickets: $65, available through the Winspear box office (428-1414).

You’ll never get a bad word about anyone out of Buddy Miller.

Try as you might, the Nashville singer/songwriter, producer, and highly sought-after sideman, just doesn’t rise to the hook, no matter how well baited. Even to clearly sympathetic critics dulled by prolonged exposure to the beast that is New Country, and incensed that this gifted songwriter and guitarist doesn’t even rate to your average Rascal Flatts fanbot.

Why am I so pissed on his behalf, and why is he laughing about it?

“Hey, thanks,” he chuckles over the phone from Chicago, where he and his friend Emmylou Harris have just taped a television show. “I do better than you might think, though. To be playing music all my life is a blessing. I’m not 25 years old and I feel grateful to do what I do, working with incredible people that I respect and love. It’s tough out there, man; I scratch my head at why some of my friends aren’t doing better than they are.”

There is admittedly much truth to his words. When soul legend Solomon Burke decided to make a country record in 2006, Miller was tabbed to produce it. Harris, Steve Earle, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Linda Ronstadt, and Willie Nelson have used his services as a guitarist and all-around collaborator, as well as Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. Jimmie Dale Gilmore asked him to co-produce and play on his Endless Night album, and John Fogerty tabbed him to be a member of the Blue Ridge Rangers band.

Miller and his wife Julie have been releasing intelligent, beautifully crafted records apart and in tandem for close to two decades, but by and large they’ve been ignored outside of their cult following. It’s infuriating to even guess why the inanity that passes for country music these days can fill stadiums while the Millers pack clubs, but Miller himself doesn’t appear to be all that worried that his latest, last January’s Written in Chalk, was slightly off most mainstream music critics’ radar.

“You mean ‘went completely unnoticed,’” he laughs. “Well... records slip in and out all of the time, so I’m not surprised, really. When this one came out, I was in the hospital, and the record company can’t really do anything if the artist is unable to promote the record.”

It’s perfectly understandable that Miller couldn’t really get behind the release; he was out of commission for months as he recovered from a heart attack suffered after performing at a music festival in Baltimore. “After that, I guess you could say my eyes were opened a little more,” he concedes. “I haven’t really changed much, except for maybe my diet. I’m also a little less likely to put up with bullshit.

“The thing is,” he continues, “the records we put out don’t fit into a format as easily. I’m glad there’s anybody listening to them, I really am. I really am halfway surprised there’s an audience at all.”

Now how’s that for a lesson in humility? Miller’s approach to music doesn’t just come down to self-effacement, though; he’s truly a throwback to a time when craft was all. Harris and his other friends know that Miller’s greatest strength might be knowing when not to play. The guitarist says that he’ll often recuse himself from projects he’s asked to participate in if he feels it’s not right. The closest analog to this ethic would be in Stax/Volt or Muscle Shoals recordings, where everything was kept lean, muscular, tight, not a wasted note in the way.

“Yeah, well, those are some great records, aren’t they? If it gets stale, I can pull the plug on myself,” he notes. “I’ll bow out if I need to — if I’m not adding to the song and don’t need to be there, I shouldn’t be. There’ve been times I’ve withdrawn for that reason.”

That and the fact that his work schedule is at an all-time high; he’s constantly on the road, constantly running from project to project, but he’s also devoted to Julie, who’s been sidelined due to an exhausting battle with fibromyalgia. The heart attack may have slowed him down somewhat, but it’s also been a wake-up call for reordering priorities.

“I have nothing to complain about,” he insists. “When I was younger, I used to live in a kind of communal situation, and it seems as though I’ve constructed that in my adult life as well. These people I play with are friends, not just workmates — I’m surrounded by some pretty fantastic people, so I really don’t know how things could get any better.”