Miles, Henry
(born: 1905 - died: 1984)Henry Miles was born in Samuels, KY, one of the three children of Henry and Mattie Skinner Miles [sources: 1910 U.S. Census; and Kentucky Death Certificate #31298, Registered #74]. The family was still in Samuels when the youngest child, Isaac, born in 1909, died of tuberculosis. Henry, the other son, would later leave Samuels. He was living in Louisville in 1930, according to the U.S. Census. He was one of the lodgers at the home of Vera Brown at 1425 Chestnut Street.
Henry was a musician in an orchestra.He played the fiddle, guitar, violin, and mandolin. He is most remembered for his fiddle playing with the Ballard Chefs (1929-1932) and his group, the Henry Miles Jug Band. Henry had taken over the Earl McDonald Jug Band when Earl died in 1949. Under Henry's direction, the Jug Band performed at the 1965 World's Fair in New York and the 1974 Smithsonian Folklife Festival in Washington, D.C.
For more see "The Juggernaut jug band and the folk revival," Chapter 6 in Louisville Jug Music, by M. L. Jones; see the Henry Miles entry by B. Bogert in The Encyclopedia of Louisville, ed. by J. E. Kleber.
