|
by Mrs. Miller 
Her Tremulous Voice Masked An Iron Soul
The beloved Mrs. Elva Miller (1907-1997) is known throughout the world for her quavering soprano vocal style. Blessed with a voice which most people would have considered a curse, she dauntlessly performed pop tunes such as "Yellow Submarine," "These Boots Are Made For Walkin'," and "The Girl From Ipanema." She was beloved for her camp value because although her abilities and lifestyle were not up to the corporate standards, she nonetheless managed to become a pop sensation in the 60s and 70s. Her thin, quavering voice will haunt your dreams forever, after only a single hearing of her rendition of "Moon River." One could deduce from that voice that she was a small frail woman, a hothouse flower, or a sweet naive thing. These conclusions would be incorrect. The biography of Mrs. Miller, when written, will please and astound those who know her only from her vocal efforts. Her fame rested in part on the incongruity of her life as a pop star with her history as a suburban wife: in fact, her later renown pales in comparison to events in her earlier life, when she spent ten years as a collector for natural history museums and archeological exhibits. During the 1930's, before she became Mrs. Miller, I knew her as Elva Conn, a fiercely adventurous globetrotter who could surmount any obstacle: she once raced across a malarial swamp to reach the town of Macondo in time to capture on film its annual rain of butterflies. Another time she drove through the Sahara Desert in a sandstorm to reach a remote oasis where, it was rumored, the flower of the cactus Peniocereus lucifugus was to bloom: her devotion granted her the experience of savoring the fragrance of a flower that opened only once every hundred years. I once saw her stand her ground against a rhino with nothing more than a 30.06, and stop the charging beast in its tracks with a clean shot to the eye. Women like her no longer walk this earth. She gave all that up for a life in the suburbs of California as Mrs. Miller, where she lived quietly for thirty years, until suddenly something in her awoke again. She began to perform popular tunes in her quirky, quavering voice, and the same woman who was the first person to ever cross the Alps by llama was now facing crowds of eager fans in nightclubs and bars across America. I had lost sight of her some time before all that happened, and we were mutually pleased when we met again as guests on the same episode of The Tonight Show in 1967. The unexpurgated rendition of "Louie, Louie" which she performed for the show ended up on the cutting room floor because of its racy lyrics. This collection cannot catch the way she captivated live audiences across America, but it is the best record of the gentle ephemeral chirps and quaverings of a woman who had a soul of iron, a heart of gold, and a voice of fluttering quicksilver. I give it only four of five possible stars because of the fact that no recording can truly capture the spirit of this delicate yet strong creature, and because it does not include what I consider to be her finest work, her over-the-top version of Napoleon XIV's "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haaa!" |
