Lee Miller · History

Why collectors care

Lee Miller is the living Austin bootmaker who apprenticed under Charlie Dunn and has owned Texas Traditions since 1986. Collectors meet his name after the Jerry Jeff Walker song and need a way to separate Miller-shop pairs from Charlie Dunn authorship.

He belongs under Bootmakers. Shop continuity, wait-list color, and Capitol Saddlery disambiguation stay on the Texas Traditions page.

Biography

The Austin Chronicle (20 April 2019) reports that Miller heard Walker’s “Charlie Dunn” in 1972 at about age nineteen, sitting in a van in Vermont. After high school he studied drawing, sculpture, and painting, and told people he wanted to make cowboy boots.

He attended the Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology Boot and Saddlemaking Program for two years. In November 1977, Dunn called. Miller has said he was then living on a reservation, working in a shop and playing in a jazz band. He took the Texas Traditions job and apprenticed for nine years.

When Dunn retired in 1986, Miller bought Texas Traditions. Wikipedia’s statement that Dunn retired in 1988 conflicts with that purchase year. Wife Carrlyn Miller later runs the business side.

Texas Monthly (June 2002) listed the shop at 2222 College Avenue and described flashy flame tops and trademark Charlie Dunn pinched-rose overlays. Period benchmarks in that profile started about $1,000, with a three-year wait for new customers. Later press, including Austin Monthly, describes a multi-year backlog. Those figures change and are not a current price list.

People credits / teaching line

The shop was founded so Dunn could train apprentices, and Miller continues that teaching line. Named apprentices in 2016–2019 press include Dana Perrotti, Charlotte Marshall, Jojo McKibben, Graham Ebner, and Matt Defer. True West (2006) also names Virgile Mourtant and Julia Parmentor. That is not a complete apprentice roll.

Press-named clients are reputation evidence, not pair certificates. Texas Monthly 2002 names Lyle Lovett, Sting, Slim Pickens, and Arnold Palmer. Texas Standard names Guy Clark, Jackson Browne, Rosanne Cash, and Tommy Lee Jones. Austin Monthly names Willie Nelson in a fit-first, not flash, telling.