Beauty Path is the new release from Howlin’ Dog Records of Dave Miller, our newest signed artist, but one of our oldest friends and members of the musical family of Howlin’ Dog. We’ve known Dave since the 70’s and his years fronting the band Gumbo and have always loved his music. We are thrilled to help send this beautiful album out to meet the world.

Beauty Path is a wonderful work that perfectly showcases the breadth of Dave’s musical and personal expression, from the hard-driving love song of the opening track Long Road Home, to the impossibly tender country I Will, through the mystic/tribal Beauty Path, which sums up the deep spirit of the journey. The touching story of Uncle Levi’s Wooden Leg is the next stop on the Path, then on to the “everybody come together” ecstasy of Full Life, followed by the mist and mystery of Valley of the Song, Dave’s tribute to the Howlin’ Dog experience.

Then we move on to the fabulous What’s in the Gumbo, Mama, Dave’s homage to the bayou “do whatcha gotta do”, delivered with that Dave Miller twinkle in the eye, then on to the new twist on the impending break-up New Boots and the tender ascendancy of Sunrise in My Heart. Next we’re further on down the road and leaving it all behind in Freeport, then wrapping up our journey with the moving and contemplative Grandfather Tree, which leads to the stream of consciousness energetic blessing and invocation of Heart Like a Wineglass.

Dave Miller has been playing music, performing, and writing songs for 5 decades. He has played in taverns, dance halls, concert venues, festivals, showcases, and coffee houses from coast to coast across the US and in British Columbia.

Dave began playing music at age 13 when his mother bought him a five-string banjo for Christmas the year his father passed away. Dave would tune it up and play along with the country and bluegrass stars who performed on the Saturday afternoon music shows. He sometimes jokes that it was the great Earl Scruggs himself who taught Dave to play the banjo—Dave sitting on his sofa in Little Rock, Arkansas, Earl in the television studio in Nashville, Tennessee. Dave joined his first band, The 49ers, shortly thereafter in 1964 at the age of 14. Over time, Levon Helm, Merle Haggard, Delbert McClinton, Guy Clark, and John Prine all came to influence him. Beauty Path is Dave’s third album release, following his duo Just Flow (with his old bandmate Pat Hooper) and his solo Southern Dreams, both also recorded at Howlin’ Dog.