Folksinger, storyteller, and autoharp virtuoso Adam Miller will be performing his award-winning, one-man show The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie: American Balladeer at 6:30 p.m. Thursday, March 7, at the Harney County Library, 80 W. “D” St. in Burns. Please arrive early for best seating. For more information, call 541-573-6670.

In his short life, Woody Guthrie (1912-1967) authored more than 1,000 American songs, and he didn’t use an original melody for any of them! Miller’s outstanding musical tribute, The Life and Songs of Woody Guthrie: American Balladeer, tells the story of the man who wrote, “This Land is Your Land,” one of the most widespread English-language folksongs. Miller’s original nonfiction account of Guthrie’s life received the prestigious Storytelling World Resource Award in 2019.

A national treasure

An artist whose kind has dwindled to an endangered species, Miller is a renowned old-school American troubadour and a natural-born storyteller. One of the premier autoharpists in the world, he is an accomplished folklorist, song-collector, and raconteur, who has amassed a remarkable repertoire of more than 5,000 songs. Miller is a masterful entertainer who never fails to get his audience singing along. He accompanies his resonant baritone voice with lively finger-picking acoustic guitar, and stunningly beautiful autoharp melodies. Skillfully interweaving folksongs and the stories behind them with the elegance of a documentary filmmaker, he has distinguished himself as one of the great interpreters of American folksongs and as a storyteller par excellence. And he is that rare performer who appeals to audiences of all ages.

Traveling 70,000 miles a year, Miller performs more than 200 concerts annually in 48 states, from the Everglades to the Arctic Circle. More than 1.5 million students have attended his Singing Through History! school assembly programs. He has performed live in more than 2,200 American public libraries.

• The Tennesseean wrote, “Mr. Miller’s Woody Guthrie tribute was among the best edutainment experiences I’ve ever had. Exceptionally inspiring to witness this true master of eclectic art forms and keeper of the flame of endangered American traditions like secular group singing.”

• The Syracuse News Times said his performance was “mesmerizing.”

• Pete Seeger called it “Wonderful storytelling!”

• The Grand Traverse Insider called Miller “A National Treasure.”

• George Winston says Miller is, “One of the great autoharpists and folksingers of our times.”

• A reviewer at the Walnut Valley Festival wrote, “Adam Miller holds his audience spellbound without a lot of trappings. It’s just him, his autoharp and guitar, and his signature Panama hat.”

• “His storytelling is so riveting and engaging – it rivals Garrison Keillor’s,” says Frank Hamilton, co-founder of Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music and former member of The Weavers.

• The San Francisco Weekly wrote, “It was hands down the best musical and historical presentation on Woody Guthrie’s music and life I have ever heard. Mr. Miller’s performance is so outstanding — such a gifted storyteller and musician.”

• As a concert promoter in Melbourne Beach, Fla., observed, “Adam’s presentation is even more accessible than most good folk music. It will charm even the most die-hard of iPod-loving kids or reluctant significant-others.”

Miller began his lifelong pursuit of collecting old songs while still in grade school. Armed with an audio-graphic memory and a kaleidoscopic musical curiosity, his childhood ambition was to learn every song he heard. Today, with a repertoire of thousands of tunes, his traditional folk songs and ballads are the songs of America’s heritage: A window into the soul of our nation in its youth.

Folksongs travel through history

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 old-time radio commentator Paul Harvey, Miller gives you “the rest of the story” — providing the often-surprising provenance of seemingly simple folk songs.

Miller has become a national favorite with repeated appearances at the Walnut Valley Festival, the Kansas Storytelling Festival, the Tumbleweed Music Festival, the California Traditional Music Society’s Summer Solstice Festival, and the Kentucky Music Weekend.

In a contemporary musical landscape peopled with singer-songwriters and their often short-lived offerings, Miller’s iconic time-honored traditional ballads and folk songs are a breath of fresh air. They evoke a bygone era when most music was homemade.

Miller explains it this way, “Folksongs travel through history. History travels through folksongs.”