Len “Snuffy” Miller

He spent six years with Anderson, who gave him his nickname. On the long car trips to shows Miller kept warning the driver that they were all about to be “snuffed out,” and Anderson finally introduced him on stage as “Snuff Miller”; after that, by Anderson’s account, nobody called him Len again. Anderson remembered him as a crowd favorite on the road shows, a naturally funny performer who could also turn to a serious song and hold the audience.

On 25 July 1968 he played drums at Bradley’s Barn in Mount Juliet, Tennessee, when Jimmy Martin recorded “Free Born Man” and “Losing You,” with Paul Williams on mandolin, Chris Warner on banjo, Vernon Derrick on fiddle, Bill Yates on bass and Ray Edenton on second guitar. He also made records of his own for the Stop label: “Now Everybody Knows” backed with “I Sure Do Enjoy Lovin’ You” in October 1969, and “Woman” backed with “Before I Lost You,” produced by Pete Drake, in August 1970.

He went on to drum for Dottie West and Nat Stuckey, and then worked as a producer. For MCA he produced Jerry Clower’s live comedy recordings from 1974 into the 1980s, taped at places as different as a high school auditorium in Picayune, Mississippi, and the Grand Ole Opry, and the singer Kenny Starr’s Nashville sessions from 1975 to 1977. He later left music and drove the bus for the Nashville Sounds, the city’s Triple-A baseball team. He was found dead at his Nashville home on 24 June 2008, in his sixties.