Thursday, January 21, 1960: Them Changes

This morning’s paper brought the sad news that George “Buddy” Miles, Jr. (pictured with Jimi Hendrix) died Tuesday night, February 27, of congestive heart failure at his home in Austin, Texas, at the age of 60. Miles, inducted into the Nebraska Music Hall of Fame in 2004, was born in Omaha, Nebraska (my neck of the woods) on September 5, 1947. His father, George Miles, Sr., was a jazz musician, and according to Miles’ obituary, by January 21, 1960--age 12--Buddy Miles, nicknamed “Buddy” after has idol, jazz drummer Buddy Rich, was playing drums in his father’s jazz combo, The Bebops. By the age of 15—if The Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll (Rolling Stone Press/Summit Books, 1983) is correct—Miles had played drums for the session that had produced the Jaynetts’ 1963 hit, “Sally Go ‘Round the Roses” (later covered by the British band, The Pentangle). Buddy Miles never finished high school, dropping out of Omaha North High in 1965 in order to become a professional musician; he was awarded an honorary degree by the school in 1998.

Hence by the time I was first made aware of Buddy Miles--although, ironically, until age 12 I never lived at any time more than 40 minutes from Omaha North High--on the Electric Flag’s 1968 album A Long Time Comin’ (loaned to me by a friend in either ’68 or ’69), he’d already years of experience behind him. He was not yet twenty years old when he joined the band. As is well known, The Electric Flag was formed by ex-Paul Butterfield Blues Band guitarist Mike Bloomfield. He, along with bassist Harvey Brooks and keyboardist Barry Goldberg, recruited Buddy Miles for the band, at the time (early 1967) drumming for Wilson Pickett. What isn’t so well known is that two other members of The Electric Flag—sax players Stemzie Hunter and Herbie Rich (the latter also a member of the Nebraska Music Hall of Fame)—were also from Omaha. Moreover, when Bloomfield left the band in 1968, he was replaced by guitarist Hoshal Wright, who was from Omaha. (Herbie Rich and his brother Billy were later members of the Buddy Miles Express.) For some reason, A Long Time Comin’, and its follow-up, titled simply The Electric Flag (which had Miles’ large, round, slightly menacing face on the cover behind red, white and blue neon lettering), didn’t quite click for me, although somewhat serendipitously I only recently picked up A Long Time Comin’ on CD (Columbia CK 9597) along with Old Glory: The Best of Electric Flag (Legacy/Columbia CK 57629). Having not listened to the band’s music for many, many years, I discovered I liked it, and have come to appreciate it. I'm glad for that.

In 1968, after abandoning, reluctantly I think, any hope that The Electric Flag might be viable as a band, he formed the Buddy Miles Express out of the Flag’s tattered remnants, releasing Expressway to Your Skull (Mercury Records, 1968), an unusual mélange of rock, funk, and soul which included an imprimatur, in the form of liner notes on the album’s gatefold sleeve, by Jimi Hendrix. Subsequently, Hendrix would produce the next, more funk oriented BME album, Electric Church (Mercury, 1969).

Then, of course, came Band of Gypsys, the short-lived collaboration consisting of Jimi Hendrix, Miles, and Billy Cox, referred to on Miles’ MySpace page as “one of the first all-black rock bands,” but perhaps more accurately called the first all-black power trio. “Machine Gun” in my estimation is one of the great live improvisations in the history of rock, and I can’t immediately name a drummer other than Miles who could thunder one moment and play delicate jazz flourishes the next. But after the BOG's live appearance at Madison Square Garden on January 28th, 1970--the infamous performance in which Hendrix took the stage high on drugs and unable to play--Hendrix’s manager, Michael Jeffery, fired both Cox and Miles (and subsequently rushed former Experience members Mitch Mitchell and Noel Redding to the United States to cobble together what amounted to Hendrix’s final tour). Despite the hesitations of certain critics such as Robert Christgau, Band of Gypsys is now considered a classic album, and has withstood the critical acid bath.

Miles next appeared on John McLaughlin’s Devotion (Douglas Records, 1970), recorded early in 1970 and comprising what is a dazzling admixture of guitar virtuosity and psychedelic fusion that also featured Larry Young on organ and Billy Rich on bass. (Somehow I missed this classic when it was released, not discovering it until around 1979, when I purchased a mint used copy at the local record store at the urging of one of the store’s employees.) Later that year Miles released the album Them Changes, his only significant hit and the song for which he is most remembered, and which premiered on the Band of Gypsys album. Them Changes included his tribute, “Paul B. Allen, Omaha, Nebraska,” dedicated to Paul B. Allen (born in Omaha), the former Platters’ vocalist (“Smoke Gets in Your Eyes”) and the person Miles largely credited for enabling his musical career.

In 1974 he tried to revive The Electric Flag along with original band members Mike Bloomfield, Barry Goldberg, and Nick Gravenites. The reconstituted group released one album on Atlantic, The Band Kept Playing, but the group dissolved by the end of that year.

And, afterwards, Miles’ career became more elusive. Twice in the next decade—in 1976 and again in 1985—he served time in prison. But things seemed to turn around for him in 1986, when he became the vocalist for the “California Raisins,” a series of commercials that made Miles’ vocal rendition of "I Heard It Through the Grapevine" a popular hit. A “California Raisins” album followed, which was highly successful.

Although I don’t remember hearing about it, for a short period in the mid-1990s Miles drummed and sang for the Mighty Jailbreakers, a popular band in the Omaha area. I do remember reading in the paper about a later event, when Miles was to perform at the Omaha Riverfront Jazz & Blues Festival, corresponding to the moment he was formally inducted into the Nebraska Music Hall of Fame. The next year he was inducted into the Omaha Black Music Hall of Fame, which he said was one of great moments of his life.

Buddy Miles has been accused by some critics of over-estimating his own importance in the history of rock—largely by virtue of his backing Jimi Hendrix during the Band of Gypsys period—and by others of having an ego the size of Texas (hence, I suppose, it is only appropriate that he died there). But as Greil Marcus observed many years ago, any authentic rock and roll artist, in addition to raw talent, has to have “volcanic ambition” and also must have--equally as important--no real sense of his or her own limits. Certainly it can be said that Buddy Miles performed with some of the greatest names in rock history, and played on many of its most significant recordings. I’ll allow those who can properly access his technical virtuosity to do so, but as far as I’m concerned, when I listen to Buddy Miles, I hear someone playing only as one can when playing itself is all that matters, playing like one who doesn’t care a jot for so-called "limitations."