Alton Miller
Co-founder of Detroit’s Music Institute, DJ, singer and conga player: Alton Miller has spent more than three decades making soulful Detroit house.
- Detroit DJ, producer, singer and percussionist, born in Chicago and raised in Detroit.
- Co-founded the Music Institute afterhours club with George Baker and Chez Damier; it closed in 1989.
- First record “Pleasure Baby” (1991); launched the Music Institute label in 2019.
In late-1980s Detroit, one afterhours room brought together the DJs who would take the city’s sound around the world: the Music Institute. Alton Miller was one of its three founders. He went on to make house records that put his own voice, and his congas, at the front.
Motown, P-Funk and Derrick May
Miller was born in Chicago and raised in 1970s Detroit on Motown, the Philadelphia sound, Parliament-Funkadelic, Santana and Stevie Wonder. Meeting Derrick May in 1984 pushed him towards DJing. He cites Chicago’s Ron Hardy and Frankie Knuckles as major influences, along with Larry Levan and Timmy Regisford.
The Music Institute
In the late 1980s Miller opened the Music Institute with George Baker and Chez Damier. It was a short-lived afterhours club in downtown Detroit, with Derrick May, D-Wynn and Kevin Saunderson among its residents, while Miller and Damier shared the Saturday night sessions. It closed in 1989.
Miller then left for Toronto, where he hosted a radio show, and toured abroad between 1989 and 1991. He also took up conga drums, accompanying a local dance company working in the tradition of Katherine Dunham.
Records, from KMS to Planet E
Back in Detroit, Miller worked for Derrick May’s Transmat label. His first record, “Pleasure Baby”, came out in 1991 on Serious Grooves, connected to KMS, the label of Kevin Saunderson, the producer behind Inner City’s “Big Fun”. “I Like Having You”, on Cyren, was his vocal debut and became a favourite with house DJs. As Aphrodisiac he released “Dusk”, which charted in Europe and North America.
The Rare Source EP, recorded in Paris for BPM, made Muzik magazine’s Top 100 of 1996. He released a single on Carl Craig’s Planet E, mixed records for Scott Grooves and, at the end of 1998, signed an exclusive deal with Distance Music. Over the years he has also released on Mike Grant’s Moods & Grooves, Soul City and Theo Parrish’s Sound Signature, with the EP “Bring Me Down” featuring Maurissa Rose.
Keeping the spirit alive
In 2015 Miller relaunched his label InnerMuse Recordings. At Movement in Detroit in 2016 he played with Chez Damier for the first time since the club closed. In December 2019, thirty years after that closure, he launched a label named after the Music Institute, opening with his own 12-inch Next Generation. “The label aims to fill that void and keep that spirit alive,” he told Resident Advisor.
For another Detroit house producer who keeps soul and jazz at the heart of his records, read about Moodymann.
FAQ
Who is Alton Miller?
A Detroit DJ, producer, singer and percussionist, and one of the three founders of the Music Institute club in the late 1980s.
Who founded the Music Institute in Detroit?
Alton Miller, George Baker and Chez Damier. The downtown afterhours club had Derrick May, D-Wynn and Kevin Saunderson among its residents and closed in 1989.
What was Alton Miller’s first record?
“Pleasure Baby”, released in 1991 on Serious Grooves, linked to Kevin Saunderson’s KMS.
