BFT: Tell us something about your husband...

EMM: We had six boys. He worked at the post office, as a mail handler. He died in 1977. He was a very good person. I haven't married again, but I've kept myself intact by tranquilizing myself with the piano.

BFT: How did you meet?

EMM: I had come back from New York with the band; I was on my way back to school. I met him, and never did go back. He was just out of the Army. I met him at a neighbor's house who lived right behind where I did. She asked me to come over one night and play cards, and I did and that's the way I met him. He was a lonely man, working, and he had just recently gotten out of the Army. Hammett Miller. His home was Rockdale. We kept on; we wanted a girl, but after six boys, I gave up.

BFT: How old were you when you got married?

EMM: 19. When I finished high school, maybe I finished too young. Maybe I would have finished if I hadn't gotten all these... You know? He didn't want me to play saxophone with men around, so that's why I started playing the piano and started playing professionally. It was such a big help to us, what with the children and all. He would work in the day, and I would work at night. And he would stay with the kids at night, and I'd take the kids in the day. And it worked out just perfect.

BFT: After you moved back to Austin and got married, you continued to play out. Where?

EMM: The first place I played was at Dinty Moore's on West 6th. The next place was the Flamingo Lounge way out on West Austin Boulevard. From there, those same people had a club called, a club on San Jacinto, the Jade Room. Then I went to the Jester's Club where I played the early cocktail hour. And then I would go to the New Orleans after I finished that early cocktail hour and play the rest of the night at the old New Orleans Club. I've been working like that, hard like that, but it doesn't seem like hard work because I enjoy it.

BFT: What kind of clubs?

EMM: Dinty Moore's was just a long room with a piano way back in the back at the end of the room. One night... It was an old, old building. It's across from the old Post Office that used to be on West 6th. And they had an old upright piano in the back. Every night a little rat would come out and sit on top of that piano and cross his legs. Really, that little rat would run across there! I think they finally got it. I said, I guess he liked music. I got through jumping on the stool and everything, he finally disappeared. It was just a bar; they didn't have mixed drinks then. They served what they called "wine cooler" and beer, and people would just come in and listen to the entertainment. That was '49 when I started.

BFT: Cover?

EMM: No. Then I went up on Congress Street to a place called Longhorn Bar and Grill. It was very nice. They had a nice baby grand up on the stage. One night, I was singing. I was singing "Stormy Weather," singing, "I don't know whyyyy"... And somebody took a cherry out of their drink and tossed it up there on the stage, and tossed that cherry at me. And it landed right in my mouth! And everybody just about died and fell off their stools laughing and everything. I said, I heard of people throwing tomatoes, but not cherries. I cried about it, but it was real funny. I think something was written on the back of one of my albums about that. I just opened my mouth and that cherry went pop right into my mouth.

BFT: Do you remember the people who first gave you the gig at Dinty Moore's?

EMM: Dave and Flo Robbins. It was husband and wife, and they just ran the club. I saw her. He's deceased, but I visited a nursing home about two years ago, and I saw this lady sitting in a wheel chair, and I said, "Are you Ms. Robbins?" And she remembered me. We talked and reminisce about the olden days. I hadn't seen her in years, but there was still a similarity that I could tell enough about her.

BFT: Why did they pick you?

EMM: I had played for little things around town and all. The Corley brothers had a band, and I played with them a little while. They used to play around clubs, and I guess, every now and then, they'd ask me to play piano with them. And I guess she had heard me playing with them and gave me a call one day and asked me would I like to do this. And I did it. I started getting an agent in 1980. I had done all this work all those years without an agent, and I didn't get one until 1985. I was playing at the Hyatt Regency, and she came up to me one night and asked me would I like to have an agent. Her name is Patty Polinard. That is the first time I'd ever had an agent. And I was in a musicians' union when I played with this all-girl band, but I didn't stay in the union after I started playing single. I'd just get jobs. I didn't see much need to getting into a union; I was just going on my own merit. But now that I have this agent, it's pretty good. I pay her 15 percent when I'm working a steady hotel job. And she gets private parties, and then I give her 20 percent. She's gotten quite a few nice engagements for me. I think now I'll let someone else do all the work, and I don't have to do it all myself now that I'm getting old. It's a big help.

BFT: Did you ever get to go out and listen to other people who was playing?

EMM: Ray Charles. I really didn't. Whenever they would come to the auditorium or anything here, I'd always be working and I really didn't get to hear the touring bands. Every now and then, whenever I get the chance, I do go to the Erwin Center, whatever is in when I'm off. That's very seldom. They're usually around here on weekends and I'm usually working, and it's too late for me to go out after I get through.

BFT: Do you remember who else was locally in the business at that time?

EMM: Damita Jo de Blonde, do you remember her? [Damita Jo was a world-famous singer who had at least 20 TV appearnces on national talk and variety shows. She had a million-seller single in 1961: "I'm Saving the Last Dance for You." She died in Baltimore in 1998 at age 68.] She was a vocalist, and she made a lot of records. She moved away from here, though. She's all up and down the East Coast. I think now she has retired. But she was very popular. She played at Dinty Moore's some then, even before I did, with a band called Johnny Simmons and the Rhythm Aires, I think they were called. She really hit it big. She's finally died. But I thought that just staying around home as long as I was working was healthier for me and was easier, and I could be here with my kids. I haven't regreted one time that I haven't made it big time, because I made just a lot of people right here in Austin happy. And I'm just one little old person, and that's good enough for me! I'm still here and still working and in good health.

BFT: Can you characterize how you play?

EMM: Maybe for ten or fifteen minutes, I try to feel the crowd out. Sometimes I have a crowd there and I'll play different types of music and see which one gets the most response. The type of crowd that I get the most response and the type of songs I sing... In other words, if I play a country-and-western, and I feel I have a country-and-western crowd, then I'll keep my set going all night. If I do a modern jazz, and I think the crowd likes that, then I'll keep that going. I have become so I can just feel the crowd, and I think of the songs to play that appeal to the different crowd that I have. I don't ever just take a repertory around and sing a list every night or something. I just feel what kind of crowd I have and take it from there. And the way I remember these songs, if I get the title, if I ever knew the melody, well, I get the melody down and the composition and I adlib it from there. It seems to please most of people. I just let the crowd lead me on as to what I need to do.

BFT: Had you already figured that out at Dinty Moore's?

EMM: That's where I started kind of feeling the crowd. It just came upon me to do it like that. It has worked. Then sometimes, they might want some gospel songs, and I might do that a little while. Then I'll see somebody go, ooooh, and then I'll think I'll give this side a little bit of what I think they want. And then I'll change over and do this for the others. So I try to please them all. But you can't please everyone, so sometimes I just please myself.

BFT: How have your jobs and crowds changed?

EMM: It's a funny thing. A short time ago, I played "Stardust," and some little girl came. And she looked about eighteen or nineteen. "Oh, what was that song that you played? I sure do like that song." I said, "Honey, that's an old, old song." She went, "Oh, play it again, that sure was pretty!" In that way, some of the things that are old are really what is new to the younger generation. They hadn't heard these songs before, and a lot of those standards they want to hear them. That's the only way they can get familiar with them. She thought that was a new song. And a lot of the older songs: "Oh, what was that." I get the younger crowd saying, "Play that again!" You wouldn't think that it would work like that. Now, some of these newer things... I have a son that plays. He plays keyboard, they call it "synthesizer." His songs... Well, maybe I'm getting old or something, but I don't quite get his as easily as I did the other, the earlier stuff.

BFT: What's his name?

EMM: Terence Paul Miller. He played with... The first band was called the Time Machine, and the next one was called J Rob now, I think, but Trix Trax.

BFT: I knew that, actually.

EMM: He told me, "Mom, they ought to throw tomatos at you." I say, well they ought to throw watermelons at you!" We are just completely different. But still, I find some young kids that really like the things that I do. Some of the things I do now I've been doing for 40 years.

BFT: Do you have a general attitude about the state of popular music right now?

EMM: I think it's a little bit too repetitious. Sometimes they have maybe one line of lyrics and they just chop this one line all up into thirty-two bars without changing it: "baby, oh baby, baby baby, oh baby!" And I think it's... I don't want to talk about it, because they have their own thing, and it's not mine I guess. I just go out and do my thing, and let the others go out and do theirs.

BFT: Generational connections in the local scene connect styles and players. Anybody locally that you would be influenced by or have influenced?

EMM: For a while I was the only cocktail pianist around here; now there are quite a few. When I first started, it was a rare thing. I think there was one blind man who played. His name is... He's still playing. Now, Bobby Doyle, I know him. But this guy, I can't think of his name now. There weren't any girls playing cocktail music when I started out. Of course, they may not give me credit for that, but I think that a lot of them that have come in that are playing now have come to listen to me and they are playing a lot of the things that I played and that no one else was playing then. But now, I wouldn't want to say that they took my style. But a lot of people come to me and say, "Are you Margaret?" And Margaret says they come up to her and ask her if she is Ernie Mae. And see, we play a lot alike. But I was playing a lot before she was, I'm older than she is. She does have better voice than I do. So I don't try to sing all of them, but I do play some of the great things that she sings and plays, but I won't sing them. I don't have the range she has in singing. She's very good, but I was playing these things and I was the only one playing for a while, in a cocktail lounge.

BFT: We'll place things in history.

EMM: I was doing it. And then Geneva came from Kansas City. She called me. It was during the '50s, I believe. She asked me how did I start and all that. Then she started playing all the same songs. Now we just have quite a few that... I played all the hotels over the years. I started... The first hotel I played was the Driskill; then the Bradford; then the Hyatt Regency for a few years; then the Stouffer; and now I'm at the Radisson.

BFT: Society gigs?

BFT: I guess, because of the type of music, because I'm still playing the music that was in my era and coming up. Well, most of the people now who are able to have parties and things, well, they like that type of music because that's their age now. They want to hear the things that they understand. And then a lot of times progressive jazz and all like that, it's way above an ordinary person's head. Sometimes you just... If they don't understand it, it becomes boring, but if I can play down-to-earth things and then my little addition to it, my age-era enjoys it. Lowell Lieberman, a lot of parties for him. Even Ann Richards used to come down to the old New Orleans when I was playing down there; she was in school. I played for Alan Shivers and Preston Smith and Lyndon Baines Johnson. So, I played a lot of social engagements for quite a few of the celebrious people in Austin, I won't go into all the names. I have a magazine or two that I was written up in, the Austin Homes and Gardens, if you would like to look at that material. And if you want to look on the back of these records, you might get answers to some of the questions you might want to ask.

[End of interview]