Sawyer Brown’s Mark Miller Talks ‘Star Search,’ Touring and 40 Years in Country Music (EXCLUSIVE)
Check out the band’s documentary streaming on Prime Video!
Long before Kelly Clarkson won the first season of American Idol in 2002 or Sofronio Vasquez was named winner of the most recent season of The Voice, Sawyer Brown took the grand prize on the inaugural season of Star Search, becoming the first winner of a televised singing competition. In 1983, it was an unusual entry into country music, but the Ed McMahon-hosted show provided the springboard to a successful career that has lasted 40 years—and is still thriving.
Sawyer Brown’s journey from aspiring Florida musicians to TV fame and chart-topping country music success is chronicled in the documentary, Get Me to the Stage on Time, now streaming on Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV+ and Google Play. Directed by Sawyer Brown frontman Mark Miller’s daughter Madison Miller and produced by Blake Shelton, the documentary spotlights the band’s early days from winning Star Search to touring with Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton, to the recording of their latest album, Desperado Troubadours, which was produced by Shelton.
The band began celebrating their 40th anniversary back in 2024 with the February release of The Boys and Me: My Life in the Country Music Super Group Sawyer Brown, a memoir penned by Miller. And throughout the year, they have kept busy on the road celebrating the band’s anniversary. Woman’s World recently caught up with the group’s energetic lead singer as Miller reflected on the band’s most memorable milestones.
Mark Miller looks back on ‘Star Search’ and Sawyer Brown’s rise to fame
“When we were going to do Star Search, I remember thinking, ‘I can’t believe you are going to do that. Why are you doing that?’ But at the time, we didn’t have any options. It’s like, ‘You can go do this TV show or you can keep playing clubs or sit on the couch,’” Miller tells Woman’s World. “When people ask me about being on Star Search I say, we just look at the show as a starting point. If you don’t have the work ethic afterwards, you’re done.”
Sawyer Brown seized the opportunity, but even before winning, they had already paid their dues. The band—consisting of Gregg “Hobie” Hubbard on keyboards and vocals, Bobby Randall on lead guitar, Joe “Curly” Smyth on drums and Jim Scholten on bass guitar—was originally the backup for singer/songwriter Don King. “I was the roadie. I wasn’t even in the band,” Miller recalls. “I set up all their gear and drove the van and wrote songs for Don King’s publishing company.”
When King retired, the band convinced Miller to step into the frontman role to secure a local club gig. They took the name Sawyer Brown from a busy Nashville road and began looking to make a name for themselves. Star Search provided the vehicle. The band’s energetic live performances quickly made them a fan favorite and they worked their way into the winner’s circle.
“Star Search was only a money prize back then,” Miller says. “We won the money and then it was up to us to sign a record deal. Dick Whitehouse, who was with Curb Records, was at every single show that we did at Star Search. Lynn Schultz was at Capitol Records and Lynn was one of the only guys in Nashville that gave us any encouragement. They weren’t a full-fledged label, so I said, ‘If you guys could put together a joint venture, we would like to sign with you guys.’ So Mike Curb and Don Zimmerman at Capitol put together a deal for us and that was the start.
Sawyer Brown’s biggest hits & why ‘The Walk’ changed everything
“We got a ton of marketing and publicity because it was coming through the LA office with pop and rock music budgets. So on our first videos, ‘Step That Step’ and ‘Betty’s Being Bad,’ they spent as much on the videos as we spent on the album. That’s how much that Don believed that we were a visual band and that continued on through our career.”
In the years that followed, Sawyer Brown has recorded nearly two dozen albums and populated the charts with more than 50 songs. Their first single, “Leona,” reached the top 10 and they followed with “Step That Step,” which became their first number one. Like most bands, there were lulls on the charts and changes in personnel over the passing decades.
Bobby Randall exited in 1991 after the release of their Buick album and was replaced by Duncan Cameron, formerly of the Amazing Rhythm Aces. When he exited, Shayne Hill joined in 2004 and has since been known as the “new guy” as he performs alongside founding members Miller, Hubbard and Smyth. Scholten retired from Sawyer Brown in 2021 due to health reasons.
Though some successful bands just coast on their laurels, the members of Sawyer Brown reignited their career in 1991 with “The Walk,” a thoughtful hit Miller wrote that demonstrated the band could be as poignant as they were playful. “I had written that song about my grandfather and it was real personal to me,” Miller shares. “But it was on the Buick album, which was a flop.”
The band’s managers were convinced the song could be a hit and told Miller they planned to release it as a single. “They said, ‘Listen we’re going to do everything that we can do and prove to you that this is a hit,’ and that’s what they did,” he recalls. “It literally changed the way everybody looked at the band. That one song changed everything for us as far as people taking us serious about telling a story [and not just] having fun. We followed with ‘The Dirt Road,’ which had a lot more substance and then we were able to do ‘Some Girls Do’ and come back with ‘Café on the Corner.’ Everybody accepted this band can do anything and that’s how we rolled through the ’90s.”
Sawyer Brown looks back on its success
Sawyer Brown has continued rolling on and Get Me to the Stage on Time, which features interviews with Dolly Parton, Dierks Bentley and others, is an in-depth look at the band’s ups and downs and how they have persevered. Miller is proud of how his daughter Madison captured Sawyer Brown’s unique career.
“When my kids were growing up, I never had any gold albums in the house or anything that had Sawyer Brown on it. I just wanted our home to be the home,” Miller says. “Madison became the historian of the band doing this and it was so cool for me, as her dad, to see her excitement and for her to go back and find out all this stuff.
“I was blown away because she wrote the whole thing and then she went to get the interviews to tell that story,” he continues. “I couldn’t be more proud of her and I couldn’t be more proud of how it represents and tells the true, true story of the band. It shows the contrast of what was going on in country music and what we were and also what we became.”
Opening up about faith
Miller also had a chance to share his story in The Boys and Me: My Life in the Country Music Super Group Sawyer Brown. “The book is my life story, and it includes the band. What I was most proud of is that I wasn’t afraid to talk about my faith in the book,” says Miller, who is also a successful songwriter and producer in the contemporary Christian music field, having discovered multi-platinum selling band Casting Crowns and producing all of their albums the last 20 years.
“It’s just the little things growing up that mold and shape you,” he continues. “My mother was a strong figure in my life and in shaping me as a man. I didn’t have a father. My dad got killed in the Korean War and my mother was my father figure. I dedicated the book to her. My mom was President of the Sawyer Brown fan club for so long, so it was a cool way to get to honor her.”
In addition to the book, documentary and tour, Sawyer Brown celebrated the 40th anniversary this year by releasing a new album, Desperado Troubadours, produced by Shelton. “We read an article that said we were Blake’s first concert and ‘The Race Is On’ was the first record he ever bought,” says Miller, who approached Shelton about working together. “He called me back within five minutes and he was all in. That was so cool. He and Gwen flew in from LA and we recorded the album in Nashville.
“Blake was the first one at the studio in the mornings and the last one to leave,” Miller smiles. “He was just really, really into it and we had a blast. I had actually gone out maybe a month or so prior to Oklahoma to spend some time with Blake and just talk about the project. The one thing that we wanted to make sure with this album is it sounded like us. We weren’t trying to chase current country radio or anything. We just wanted to make another Sawyer Brown album as if we were still in the 90’s and I feel like that’s what we did.”
Sawyer Brown’s legacy & what’s next for the band
In looking back over his four decades with Sawyer Brown, Miller has many fond memories, including performing “I Get Around” with the Beach Boys on the 30th Music City News Country Awards at the Grand Ole Opry House in 1996.
He’s also proud of the fact that they were asked to perform at James Brown’s 60th birthday. “James loved the band and we played his birthday party,” he says. “He told us the songs he wanted played and he’d seen the video where I had worn the bright yellow suit in the ‘Hard To Say’ video and he said, ‘I want Mark to wear that suit.’”
As they gear up for the rest of 2025, Miller says they plan to record a new album and will be on tour. “This is such a blessing to get to do this and I’m just humbled every night to see all these people come out,” he smiles. “When we sound check every day, I walk every area of the arena or wherever we are playing personally so I can make sure that every section sounds good because I want those folks to have a great show, and hear well. And I literally work out every day so I can go out and do the kind of show that they are expecting to see.”
With 40 years of hits and memories in the rearview, what’s next? “For me, the bucket list is to get to 50 years. That’s my goal,” Miller smiles.
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