Hazel Miller

It was a Sunday morning in Louisville and gospel music filled the kitchen in the apartment Hazel shared with her parents and siblings, her mother singing along as usual. Music had always been in the background of Hazel’s life – at home, at church, at school – and at an early age it took on a more prominent role. She was in the 3rd grade when she got her first solo, a hymn she sang in Latin, and after that, something astonishing happened. Suddenly people knew her name, a public recognition that Hazel, as the fifth of seven children, rarely enjoyed. The attention felt good; Hazel wanted more.

Hazel continued singing throughout high school and got her first paid gig her junior year when she was asked to help open for none other than the godfather of soul himself, James Brown. Each of the performers got paid $50 a person, a staggering sum in Hazel’s limited experience, almost as staggering as the size of the crowd. But as exhilarating as that performance was, Hazel put any musical aspirations aside soon after, when she married her high school sweetheart and started a family. Little did she know, she now muses, that she would miss performing more than she wanted to be married, and by the time she was in her early twenties she was divorced and trying to make a life for herself and her young son on her own.

After a brief time in college, Hazel decided the better path for her was to get on with making a living. She held down a series of day jobs and at night she went out on what was known as the Chitlin Circuit, a network of music venues that provided a safe place for black musicians to perform during the worst years of racial segregation. One night, following a Billie Holiday cover she knew she had knocked out of the park, the club manager told her to stick around; he wanted her to be a regular. Hazel went from singing at the club every weekend to putting together her own band, performing at local weddings and parties. Then, in 1982, she got her big break with the recording of a song called Look What We Can Do, Louisville. Suddenly, Hazel’s voice was everywhere. TV stations and radio used her song as a sign off, high schools played it during graduation ceremonies, and when it came time for the Kentucky Derby, Hazel got to ride along with Muhammed Ali and Joe Green as her own voice blared over the loud speakers.

By then, Hazel had two boys and enough local fame to coast on, but she kept hearing her mother’s voice in her ear, telling her that she had done all she could do in Louisville; it was time to go searching for bigger and better opportunities. Hazel piled her kids and a few belongings in a rented U-Haul and set out for LA, only to have her plans derailed by repeated break downs, the third and final of which left her stranded in Denver. It proved to be a fortuitous twist of fate. After an initial period of adjustment – Hazel recalls her youngest son taking in his new surroundings and asking “Mama, where’s all the black people?” – the family made Colorado their home and Hazel found more musical success there than she had ever dreamed possible.

Since then, Hazel’s music career has taken her around the world, from South Korea and Guam to Egypt and Israel. She has performed at the White House with Herbie Hancock and at Carnegie Hall with the Temptations. She has toured stadium shows with Big Head Todd and the Monsters in every major venue across the country, including twelve (and counting) appearances at her beloved Red Rocks, belting out her signature blues and funk as she gets the crowds up on their feet.

In an official recognition of her success, in 2023 Hazel was inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame. The award was as much of a shock as it was an honor, though perhaps even more important to Hazel is the fact that she has been able to use music both to put two sons through college and to make adifference in her community, raising money for the Inner City Health Project in North Denver, an organization that helped her in her time of need and one she is proud to support now that she is able to give back.

Music, Hazel says, keeps you young in the body, spirit and soul. It gives you hope, a hope Hazel offers to every person who comes to see her perform. When she gets up on stage, Hazel makes sure that no matter where the audience came from or what they are going back to when they leave, when they are with her, they are having as great a time as she is.

It is never too late to get ‘em up dancing.