My Idol Mark Miller of Sawyer Brown Joseph Zilar Everest University ENC 1101-80 Composition I Professor: Pirooz Kalayeh It was in 1984 when introduced to my idol, Mark Miller and Sawyer Brown, the country rock band. I was clicking through the channels and found a show called Star Search. It was the first reality performing arts competition that I had the pleasure to see, other than “The Gong Show”. I love to sing, so I could relate to the venue at hand.
Ed McMahan was the show host, and most may remember him from “The Tonight Show” with Johnny Carson.
I started watching Star Search, and began to root for the country rock band Sawyer Brown each week. Sawyer Brown ended up being the top winner. Here it is almost thirty years later, and Mark Miller and Sawyer Brown are still going strong, and winning over audiences everywhere they go. (Thesis) I picked Mark Miller as my Idol because of; his leadership, his Christian values, sharing personal commonalities, and his love of music.
Much of Mark’s music, thanks to his leadership, reflects his deep Christian origins (Evans, and Ross, 2013).
Sawyer Brown’s founder and front man of the band, Mark Miller doesn’t sing about cheating. He sings about the common man and having good old fashion fun. When Sawyer Brown was announced the winner of Star Search, the leader Mark Miller thanked God for the opportunity to show their music on TV. I remember them singing a song on Star Search.
It was the song “Step that Step”, and that song was their very first hit. I thought to myself back then that Sawyer Brown would become a big name band as long as Mark’s leadership kept the band grounded in their beliefs.
Mark is a very quiet and soft spoken Christian man, and makes people wonder where all of his energy on stage comes from and how real it is. “You have no idea,” says Miller, “People look at me offstage, and think it’s an act. But that’s how my brother and I were raised. Be good, do right, but when you get to church, you let it go. People talk about my dancing… well, where we went to church, that’s what people did when the music was pumping. And let me tell you: that music got going” (Sawyerbrown. com, 2013). “In my Life everything revolves around putting God first, my family second, and then everything lse has to come after that. To this day I’ve never drank a beer. I never have. I was always taught that was wrong” (Evans, and Ross, 2013). Mark Miller was raised up in the Pentecostal church, where the music in church flung down with passion and fire, and that on fire sense of musical explosions happen at all of their performances. I share a lot of things in common with Mr. Mark Miller. My singing voice sounds very much like his. I would say that he sounds like me, but he was born before me, so I sound like him.
Mark Miller, like me, has such a love for music too. Mark goes on to say,” Really, I feel music. I feel it through every ounce in me, and through to my bones. You know something rhythmic comes on” (Evans, and Ross, 2013). That is how I feel. Often, someone will speak a phrase, and it will remind me of a song. Then I just start singing that song. Like Mark Miller, I have been writing songs and dancing around since I was 15 years old. Mark has written songs like “Step that Step”, “Drive me Wild”, and “Some Girls do”, just to name a few. I admire Mark very much.
Especially for his dedication to follow his passion, and making a living doing what he loves. That’s the one thing I wish I had in common with him. Leader of Sawyer Brown, Mark Miller, and his band have come a long way since 1984 and Star Search. They have most of the original band members, still doing about 80 performances a year, and have their own company, Beach Street Entertainment, which just finished putting out a Christian based movie April 9 of this year (Wyland, 2013). Because of his Christian family values, Mark Miller even finds time to coach his kid’s basketball games.
That is why I admire and look up to the singer and song writer, band leader, Christian family man, and entrepreneur Mark Miller.
Works cited Evans M. , and Ross S. (2013) Between the Liner Notes, Mark Miller: Who’s the real Sawyer Brown. The Christian Broadcasting Network, Inc.
Mark Miller Sawyer Brown Dancing. (2019, Dec 05). Retrieved from https://paperap.com/paper-on-essay-mark-miller-sawyer-brown-2/