Ernie Mae Miller (deceased) began playing the piano by ear after listening to her grandmother’s records on the family Victrola. She was discovered to be musically gifted by the time she was five years old. The granddaughter of L.C. Anderson, Miller attended Prairie View A&M University where she was invited to play the baritone saxophone with the Prairie View Co-Ed Jazz Band.

The Prairie View Co-Eds performed in Tuskegee, Alabama on the same show with Bob Hope, with Vaughn Monroe and Anita O’Day in New York City and at the Plantation Club in St. Louis with Billie Holliday. She also began her solo career as a jazz pianist and vocalist. She has played for most of the prominent hotels, events and exclusive parties in the Austin community. Miller was the featured performer for fifteen years at the Old New Orleans Club in Austin.  Her career had spanned over forty years.