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Bill Miller is a Native American singer/songwriter of Mohican heritage. He was born on the Stockbridge-Munsee reservation, near Shawano in northern Wisconsin.
Miller's Mohican name is Fush-Ya Heay Aka. He began playing guitar when he was 12 years old, and is an accomplished player of the Native American flute. In 1973, he moved to Milwaukee and won an art school scholarship; today he is an accomplished artist whose drawings and paintings have been widely praised.
In 1984, he moved to Nashville. His biggest break came when popular musician Tori Amos, after listening to his Red Road CD on her tour bus, asked him to serve as the opening act on her Under the Pink tour. Miller continuously gained fans with other artists from a broad musical spectrum. He went on to tour with diverse musicians such as Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder, The BoDeans, Richie Havens, and Arlo Guthrie and wrote songs with artists such as Nanci Griffith, Peter Rowan and Kim Carnes.
In 2005, Miller's instrumental Cedar Dream Songs won a Grammy Award for Best Native American Music Album.
In an interview, Bill said, "I appreciate people who have something to stand up for. I stand up for the truth. If you stand up for what you believe in you have no idea how many people you'll affect." Miller's songs have always been deeply spiritual and have clearly explored his Christian faith in his own indigenous language; Spirit Rain exemplifies this elegant dialog. He crossed genres with his 2000 record, Hear Our Prayer, which was released by Integrity Music as a Christian worship music project. While some songs were co-written by notable songwriters in the genre, he re-recorded some familiar songs such as "Praises" from The Red Road and "Listen to Me" from Raven in the Snow which, in a new context made clear that he could still be fully Native and fully a Christian. Perhaps the most notable cuts on the album were his cover of Bob Dylan's "I Believe in You" and a reinterpretation of the spiritual "Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around."
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