Roger Miller.

Roger Dean Miller was born on January 2, 1936, in Fort Worth, Texas, and raised in Erick, Oklahoma. He joined Ray Price’s Cherokee Cowboys in the 1950s, absorbing the honky-tonk style that would influence his later hits. His mother Laudene Holt Burdine was a lasting presence in his life, outliving him until 2001.

Miller’s breakthrough came with the 1964 hit Dang Me, which won a Grammy and led to the 1965 signature song King of the Road. He won 11 Grammys overall, including a controversial win for Little Green Apples over the Beatles’ Hey Jude. In the 1980s, he composed the musical Big River, based on Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn. It won the 1985 Tony Award for Best Original Score. He also acted in the 1973 animated film Robin Hood and the 1983 film Superman III, and appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson and Murder, She Wrote.

Miller was married three times: to Barbara Louise Crow from 1956 to 1965, to Leah Kendrick from 1965 to 1974, and to Mary Miller from 1978 until his death. He had seven children from these marriages: Alan, Rhonda, Shari, Dean, Shannon, Taylor, and Adam. His son Dean Miller became a country-music recording artist. He lived at a ranch near Erick, Oklahoma.

The Country Music Hall of Fame inducted Miller in 1995; the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame had done so in 1973. The Grammy Hall of Fame added Dang Me in 1997 and King of the Road in 1998. Big River has seen multiple revivals, including a 2004 Tony-nominated production and a 2005 Ovation Award-winning Deaf West staging. Roger Miller Boulevard and Roger Miller Memorial Highway in Erick, Oklahoma honor his innovative songwriting.