One of the premier autoharpists in the world, Adam Miller is a renowned American folksinger and natural-born storyteller. An accomplished folklorist, historian, and song-collector, he has amassed an impressive repertoire of over 5,000 songs. He accompanies his rich, resonant baritone voice with lively fingerpicking acoustic guitar and stunningly beautiful autoharp melodies. In a contemporary musical landscape peopled with singer/songwriters and their often short-lived offerings, his time-honored traditional folksongs and ballads are a breath of fresh air. A masterful entertainer who never fails to get his audience singing along, he has distinguished himself as one of the great interpreters of American folktales and folksongs, and as a performer who appeals to audiences of all ages.

Walnut Valley Festival, Winfield, Kansas, 2009	Photo by Marti Knauer

Traveling 70,000 miles each year, Miller is a twenty-first century troubadour with a trunk full of stories and songs rich with the wisdom, wry humor, and soulful sensibility of American wit. Genuinely personable, playful, provocative, often profound, and 100% enjoyable, he is a master at engaging his audience and educating without the least hint of pretense. His songs evoke a by-gone time when most entertainment was homemade -- before radios and televisions replaced the musical instruments that once resounded in every American homestead. His songs are the songs of America’s heritage; a window into the soul of our nation in its youth.

He is a walking encyclopedia of American history and American folksongs. A performer who enlightens as well as entertains, he points out fascinating connections between events in history and the songs that survived them. And like radio’s Paul Harvey, he manages to give you “the rest of the story” -- providing the often surprising provenance of seemingly innocuous folksongs.

“There’s nobody else out there doing what he’s doing,” says Bob Redford of the Walnut Valley Festival. KKUP fm’s David Stafford says, “He’s truly an original.” One reviewer said of his performance, “It will charm even the most die-hard of iPod-loving kids or reluctant significant-others.” Another wrote, "Impressively educational but also alluringly entertaining -- delighting both young and old alike. His energizing performance brought history alive!”

"I have always had a great interest in how folksongs travel through history, and how history travels through folksongs," Miller explains. “American History -- our collective past -- is very much alive within us. People seem to crave a connection to that past, to the traditions, legends, and folksongs that they (and their parents and grandparents) grew up with. It is a great privilege to sing with people of all ages, all over the nation, and help them locate their own place in the long stream of cultural tradition – to make those connections to their own family history, their traditions, and those old songs that are part of them.”

Folksinger Frank Hamilton says, “He’s doing a real service for folk music: defending the Treasury of American Tradition.” George Winston calls Miller, "One of the great autoharpists and folksingers of our times." The San Francisco folknik describes Miller's autoharp playing as, "...superb and imaginative." Maine Public Radio calls him, "...a master of the autoharp." Fellow folksingers call him “a National Treasure.”

Immersed in the Oral Tradition, Miller is mostly self-taught, and learns just about everything by ear. As a small boy growing up a few blocks from historic Cannery Row, on California's Monterey Bay, he began his lifelong pursuit of collecting old songs and old records. Armed with a photographic memory and an uncommonly good ear for melody, he found he could easily learn practically every song he heard.

When he was 11 years old, Miller attended folksinger Sam Hinton’s performance at the Big Sur Grange. He credits Hinton as his greatest inspiration and his mentor. Throughout his long career, Miller has documented and kept alive the thousands of songs and stories he has collected in his travels. Some of these folksongs (like “The Frog Song”) are so obscure that no one else sings them.

His highly entertaining performances at festivals, schools, libraries, and concert halls from the Everglades to the Arctic Circle have won him a diverse and multi-generational following. Over one million American students have participated in his “Singing Through History!” school assemblies. He is a nationally recognized presenter of folklore and folk music programs and has been a featured performer and workshop leader at many American folk festivals. A captivating storyteller and gifted instrumentalist, he is recognized for his ability to interpret traditional folksongs with warmth, humor, and remarkable scholarship.

Miller has recorded four CDs that receive airplay across North America and Europe: "Bare Fingers - The Solo Autoharp Artistry of Adam Miller," "The Orphan Train and other Reminiscences," "Wild Birds," and " Along Came a Giant - Traditional American Folk Songs for Young People.”