Reggie fuses the influences of Leadbelly, McTell, Charley Patton, all those old blues and ragtime authors, with original songs and those of musical acquaintances. The intensity and excitement he generates reflects the raw emotion of the rural Delta blues that rocked the juke joints of the twenties and thirties. Combine Reggie’s powerful vocals and hand-built *resophonic slide guitar bottle-neckin’ with the rhythmic huffs and moans of his harmonica and you’ve got a recipe for foot stompin’.
"Shel Silverstein meets Leonard Cohen" (Anon)
But to say that Reggie is merely all of the above is to deny his lighter side. His passionate past-time penchant for unearthing obscure nonsense narrative nuggets from numerous 78rpm archives by noted nutty nearly unknowns like Nervous Norvus, Lazy Larry, and untold others, has made Mr. Miles one of the Northwest’s favorite funny-bone ticklers.
"One part Sonny Terry, one part Tiny Tim, and three parts Mister T!" (Amos Jesup)
"Outstanding!" (Tony Bolles)
Now add to the mix Reggie’s explorations into the eerie tones and subtle timbre of the musical saw and his uncanny ability to flex the hand tool’s razor sharp spring steel betwixt his knees to produce a prodigious pallet of pleasing panache. As Seattle’s Premiere Sawist, he risks life and limb by bending 213 terribly treacherous teeth dangerously close to body parts both near and dear. Paying no heed to thoughts of personal safety, he proudly provides a vicarious vaudevillian daredevil bloodlust experience each time he attempts to tame the unruly blade. See his knee quiver and quake with the torment of torturous trepidation! Thrill at his unrivaled skill! Chill at his critically acclaimed capability to coolly coax complex collections of cutting edge cornball curiosities and colorfully comical crackpot compositions via the confidently controlled contortions of his cruelly capricious and cantankerously caterwauling crosscut in a cantabile cadence!
Last but certainly not least, Reggie is one of the few true Gurus of Mojo Appliance Pre-Cussion with his much imitated but never duplicated 1929 Maytag Special Custom Dixie Delta Deluxe Eldorado Rhythm Board, his washboard/sound effects gizmo. Following in the famous footsteps of legendary loony laundry scrubbers like Hezzie of the Hoosier Hot Shots,
Spike Jones, Sheriff Tex, and jug band blues scratchers like Washboard Sam,
he masterfully manipulates his maniacal musical menagerie.
"POSTER BOY FOR NONCONVENTION" (Rod Backman)
*Resophonic: Reggie’s homemade genetically modified guitar is a product of his own Frankenstinian experimentation with recombinant DNA gene splicing. Constructed from pieces of door kick plate, piano soundboard, vegetable steamer, record player, table leg and baseball bat, it is a unique hybrid of both the National and Dobro acoustically amplified resonator instruments. Reggie dubs it his Nobro. He uses a sizeable frictionless marine propeller-shaft bearing as a bottleneck slide and is quick to remind those who stare.
“It’s not the size of your slide.... it’s the slide of your size.”
