BRINGING THE MUSIC HOME: Buddy Miller, son of Councilman Bernie Miller, performs with his band at an October 26 fundraiser for Princeton Community Housing. The award-winning musician was the executive music producer of the TV show “Nashville,” which is where he has lived for many years. (Photo by CJ Hicks)

By Anne Levin

It isn’t often that Princeton Councilman Bernie Miller asks his son, Nashville-based singer, songwriter, and producer Buddy Miller, to volunteer his services for a hometown cause. But the elder Miller recently broke with tradition, asking his son to perform at an upcoming fundraiser for Princeton Community Housing.

“My Dad has never asked me to do anything that I can think of,” said Miller in a phone interview last week from his Nashville home. “So when he does, it gets my attention.”

On Thursday, October 26 at The Boathouse at Mercer Lake in West Windsor, Buddy Miller and Friends will entertain at the organization’s 50th anniversary gala. Miller is a 1971 graduate of Princeton High School; two of the musicians in the band, banjo player David Olsen and bass player Jerry Steele, also have local roots.

For four years, Miller was the executive music producer for the ABC-TV show Nashville. He left when the show moved to the CMT network. “It was time to move on,” he said. “It had become more than full time, so I didn’t have time to do other things. I loved the people I worked with. The cast were wonderful folks. But it was wearing me out, and I stayed a year later than I should have. I’ve got messes around the house from those four years that I still haven’t cleaned up.”

Miller, whose real name is Steve (he changed it because there was already a well-known Steve Miller in the music business), is known for his solo albums, his own band, and the songs he has written for such artists as Shawn Colvin, Emmylou Harris, Steve Earle, Patty Griffin, and his wife, singer/songwriter Julie Miller, among others. He recently performed in California with Bob Weir, Earle, and Harris to raise awareness of the refugee crisis.

Miller curates the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival, an annual event in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park with more than 90 acts. “It’s really a mix of everything from Los Lobos to Randy Newman to a lot of bluegrass and anything you can think of in between,” he said. “It started after 9/11, when an investment banker named Warren Hellman gave it as a gift to the city. It has turned into a three-day event on six stages. He passed away a few years ago, but left it funded for another 15 years.”

In an interview in Princeton Magazine three years ago, Miller reflected on his youth in Princeton. He left the town “as soon as I could get a driver’s license,” he said, but credits music classes in high school, hanging out at the radio station WPRB, and seeing shows at McCarter Theatre and Richardson Auditorium, with planting the seeds for his future. Miller has kept close ties to friends from Princeton, some of whom visit him in Nashville. “They come to hang out because it’s so much fun. And I get them passes that get them better toilet access,” he joked.

When his father asked him to get a band together for the Princeton Community Housing gala, Miller didn’t hesitate. “I thought, I don’t play that often these days,” he said. “I just don’t want to tour much. So I thought, what about these guys I played with in high school and shortly after? I looked up to them so much. So I’m really looking forward to it. David Olsen is a banjo player, and Jerry Steele plays everything. He was like the guy who could have been anything but he didn’t feel like it. He is much more talented than me. He was my hero, music-wise.”

The other two members of the band are Joe D’Angelo on drums and vocals, and Steve Hendershott on mandolin and fiddle. “All of the players are really good,” Miller said. “I’m flying in early enough to get it all together, and hopefully we won’t humiliate ourselves in public.”

Miller has slowed down a bit since leaving the television show. With his wife, he writes songs from their home studio, and their compositions continue to get recorded. There have been numerous awards. There have been Grammy nominations, including one that they lost to Bob Dylan. “So that’s actually okay,” Miller said.

Princeton Community Housing’s October 26 gala celebrates 50 years of leadership in providing affordable rental homes in Princeton. For ticket information, visit www.princetoncommunityhousing.org.