The Associated Press
Grammy Award-winning musician Bill Miller, who was born on the Stockbridge-Munsee Reservation near Shawano, is hospitalized in intensive care in Nashville after emergency surgery for life-threatening blood clots.
Miller, a Native American of Mohican heritage, underwent the surgery Monday to remove clots in his heart, lungs and legs, according to Native News online.net.
The 61-year-old Miller earned his musical chops in La Crosse.
“I claim it as my home city because I first started playing there,” Miller said during an interview last May before he kicked off the annual Moon Tunes summer concert series at Riverside Park. “I credit La Crosse with treating me as part of the family.”
In addition to winning three Grammys, Miller also is a songwriter, activist, painter and world-class flute player.
He has won several Native American Music Awards, including NAMA’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
A Nashville resident since 1984, Miller has been touring recently in support of a collaboration album titled “Look Again to the Wind: Johnny Cash’s Bitter Tears Revisited,” on which he has the title track.