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Selwyn Miller: By: Marchelle Lewis There are certain moments in our lives PHOTOGRAPHY BY: BIONCA FLOT SYKES that put us on the path to being the people we are meant to be. For Selwyn Miller, a memorable night in 1955 was one of those moments that placed him on his path. The songs of Little Richard, Fats Domino, Lloyd Price and other artists who recorded in New Orleans – plus Rock & Roll stars like Elvis, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis – coming from the family’s radio sparked an interest in music that the young man growing up in Cape Town, South Africa had never known. This interest would later transform Miller into a music industry impresario. During a 52-year-long career as an artist manager and tour organizer, he logged in an estimated half a million miles, taking him and his acts to every inhabited continent on earth. “I was so blown away. I just loved the music I was hearing. I thought ‘This is the kind of world I want to be in. I want to be in the music business,’” Miller said. After going to London to attend college, he dropped out to become a part-time road manager for a British R&B group called Gary Farr and the T-bones. “I was just starting out. I was a teenager,” Miller said of his time with the band. “It was at that time that I really had a taste to live in MANAGING AND TOURING WITH THE MUSICAL GREATS America, but I never did until the 1980s.” After traveling with the band, Miller came to the United States to take a “$99 for 99 Days” bus tour around the country to see some of his favorite artists, most of whom were African American. The U.S., during that time, was still segregated and experiencing racial tension. Despite this obstacle, however, Miller travelled the “Chitlin Circuit” around the U.S. to see the musicians and artists who had inspired him from childhood. In every city that he went to, Miller would visit the main theaters and clubs for Black artists during that time, including the Apollo in New York, the Howard in Washington, D.C., the Regal in Chicago, the Uptown in Philadelphia and other major U.S. cities. On his first visit to New Orleans he recalls seeing Clarence “Frogman” Henry, Al Hirt and Professor Longhair on Bourbon Street. “The biggest thing for me was to see all my R&B and blues heroes here in America,” he said. When he returned to South Africa, Miller started some of the first festivals and R&B tours in his home nation with Ronnie Quibell, featuring such artists as Peaches & Herb, Arthur Conley, Percy Sledge and many more. He also opened six clubs in Cape Town featuring live music, wrote a weekly music column in a major Cape Town newspaper and ran the largest artist management agency in his native country, representing around 80 performing artists, “of ALL races,” he strongly emphasized. 10 | BREAKTHRU MEDIA | breakthrumediamagazine.com S E P T E M B E R / O C TOB E R 2 0 1 6


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