Boogie woogie cheating songs, love-lamenting ballads, rockabilly country bops, lonesome melodic soliloquies—the tones of Geoffrey Miller’s debut solo album “All Night Honky Tonk Man”—tell a story reaching back to Miller’s childhood. 

Miller grew up breathing the air of country and oldies AM radio and listening to Waylon, Willie, and Hank Jr. cassettes in the dash of his adoptive father Vern Miller’s work truck. Echos of Bakersfield, California’s “Nashville West”, reverberate across the Central Valley to Sacramento, CA where Miller grew up through family record collections, boom box radios at summer trips to the river, and Hee Haw on afternoon TV. Picking up the frequency from a young age, Miller strummed on toy guitars and sang Merle Haggard verses as a child.

Fast forward to 2019, Miller bends crying notes from his fender telecaster over a room full of two-steppers and swing dancers on a hardwood dance floor. The worlds of country and rockabilly meld in a crowd topped with cowboy hats, pompadours, and pin-up style hairdos. Between the occasional classic by his favorites, Merle, Johnny Horton, and Faron Young, MIller’s original songs fill the room and make a direct connection to the moment.  The clacking of a stand-up bass, the break-up of a 50s tweed guitar amplifier, and the slight rasp in Miller’s voice burrow into the audience with something real.