MIRIAM LINNA
Miriam Linna (b. Sudbury, Ontario) has run the Brooklyn-based independent record label Norton Records since 1986 with her husband — the producer and singer-songwriter Billy Miller. Her skill as a drummer earned her a “May I recommend?” nod from Bob Dylan on his XM Theme Time Radio Hour program (episode 37) in January 2007. Linna is part of the collective of musicians that emerged from the Cleveland, Ohio punk rock scene, including the Dead Boys and Pere Ubu. When the re-formed Rocket from the Tombs performed in Hoboken, New Jersey in 2003, singer David Thomas dedicated the band’s signature song “Amphetamine” to her. (More from Wikipedia)
One cool thing about the Cramps is that they were always about half women, half men. One of their drummers, Mirian Linna met Billy Miller at a record show in 1977; and their common musical interests led them to form a fanzine called Kicks, dedicated to obscure rock, soul and rockabilly. They are now married.
A 1986 article in Kicks on Hasil Adkins caused a sensation, and Norton Records was born when they released Out to Hunch later that year, the first of several albums collecting Adkins’s music.
(May 2011)
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Of course, these are all people who are more or less well known. Other singer-songwriters live in obscurity but still produce their music year after year. One example is Hasil Adkins, the rockabilly one-man band from rural West Virginia that I have discussed previously. Once Miriam Linna and Billy Miller of Kicks magazine brought him to a wider audience, launching one of the best reissue record labels in the process (Norton Records), Adkins had some celebrity in the final years of his life. Wikipedia and Allmusic list 10 studio albums and 6 compilation albums by Hasil Adkins; I’m up to I think 5 albums myself thus far. If not for Norton, Hasil Adkins would have been almost completely unknown, and that would be a tragedy in my mind.
(March 2015)
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Just this month I learned of the untimely death of writer and musician Billy Miller, and also the co-founder (with wife Miriam Linna, a former drummer with the alt-rockabilly band the Cramps) of the excellent reissue label Norton Records, who was responsible for introducing Hasil Adkins to a wider audience through such albums as Out to Hunch, Poultry in Motion and The Wild Man. I learned of a past UARA named the Lonesome Drifter through their albums.
(Year 7 Review)
