GIBSON/MILLER BAND A CHEMICAL REACTION

Both Blue Miller and Dave Gibson have been around the musical block more than once, so when record producer Doug Johnson suggested, "You need to know each other," they didn't dream they were about to embark on a partnership that would change their lives.

But the second night they played together, a bit of a sodden evening as they recall, they wrote the chorus of "An Offer a Heart Can't Refuse."

It was based on old war stories about the music business. Gibson called Miller the next day and said, "I've got to finish that song."

Miller said, "I did."

Sitting in their tour bus before Thursday night's performance at the SEMO District Fair, they both laughed at the memory of that fateful moment. Both were afraid that Gibson, a proven lyricist, wouldn't like it. But he did.

"At that point I realized we had a rare chemistry," said Miller, a rock 'n' roll guitar-slinger for the pre-successful Bob Seger Band and later for Isaac Hayes.

The song eventually went on their first album. Three hits later, including the recent number 11 "Texas Tattoo," "Where There's Smoke" has sold 200,000 units and they're about to begin recording number two.

The band is starting to settle into the American musical consciousness as the country group with a bit of an outlaw rock 'n' roll edge.

A Seattle DJ who liked them still observed, "They look like they'd burn the hotel down."

With their somewhat scruffy appearance and Miller's roots-rock guitar-playing, the Gibson/Miller Miller Band is the antithesis of what Nashville used to be about and in many ways still is. "We're not the starched Wranglers and cowboy hats," Gibson says.

Gibson himself provides the Nashville capital they have with his stone cold country voice, engaging lyrics and Arkansas twang. In fact, he is the band's only Southerner. Miller and bassist Doug Kahan are from Detroit, steel player Mike Daly is from Cleveland, and drummer Steve Grossman calls Long Island home. And Grossman has a degree in jazz from North Texas State University.

Someone has dubbed their sound "turbo-twang," and the overdrive belongs to Miller.

He's a soft-spoken, thoughtful gent whose Stratocaster just happens to roar. Once upon a time, he was a dyed-in-Detroit rocker who recalls, "My only exposure to country music was "Hee Haw."

Gradually, he says, he came to understand that the best music from both world was rooted in the blues. "Country wasn't all `Hee Haw.'"

Gibson, who wrote "Ships That Don't Come in" for Joe Diffie and "Jukebox in My Mind" for Alabama," risked being an all-but-unknown songwriter and demo singer until he was paired with Miller.

Now they're starting to headline smaller venues and actually enjoying all the interviews and fan attention. "I've waited my whole life to do this," Miller said.

They don't particularly like living on a bus and never really seeing the towns they play. But, Miller says, "One and a half hours of playing and then meeting the fans afterward makes the other 20 hours on the bus tolerable."