In Memoriam
By Lynn Paris

Remembering George Allen "Buddy" Miles

Buddy Miles died of congestive heart failure on February 26, 2008. On March 30th, a memorial tribute to Buddy Miles will be held at 6 PM at Threadgill’s in Austin, TX. All proceeds and/or donations will be used to help defray the cost of medical bills associated with Buddy’s illness.

When I first met my husband, Jim, we had a 4-hour conversation sitting by the side of a pool. As I was falling in love with him, he was telling me about his days inhabiting the world of rock and roll, funk and blues, not as a fan, but as a full-fledged skinny white boy producer in a world of mostly black musicians. “Who did you produce?” I asked. “Buddy Miles,” he answered proudly. He said it as though I should be dazzled so I was. I probably had him confused with Buddy Rich or Miles Davis anyway, either of whom would have impressed me, so it wasn’t that much of a stretch. Then, in those pre-Google Dark Ages, I went home and did some serious research to discover who Buddy Miles was.
 
Buddy was a gifted musician, a prodigy; he was a phenomenal drummer who could play almost any instrument; his voice being perhaps his finest. But Buddy got the reputation as a very bad boy in an industry that pretended to adore its bad boys, but only to a point. And my husband co-produced Buddy during his baddest days, after the Electric Flag and after Jimi Hendrix, but before enough time had gone by to make him a legend, at least among his fellow musicians.

In fact, during our courtship Jim must have told me a thousand stories from those days, some of which I half-believed because I was in the throes of love and most of which I assumed were made up to woo me, and all of which were later verified and corroborated. The proof was in his photo albums, it was established by members of Buddy’s band that played at our wedding, re-told by guys we ran into at the “House of Blues” who knew Jim from back in the day, and confirmed by Buddy himself, who called to sing me my first soulful Happy Birthday.

Still, I had no idea how influential Buddy was to the history of music because he has been largely ignored by the powers that be. With the aid of Google, I have now discovered that there are black musicologists who consider Buddy a legendary funk, rock, blues, whatever genius…. who should be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but never will be. Many reasons for that, and ironically my husband had told me about most of them. The first was that after the pioneering black rock group, Band of Gypsys (Hendrix, Miles and Billy Cox) rocked the Fillmore East back in 1970, Jimi’s British manager, Michael Jeffries, sabotaged their efforts because he didn’t want anyone to sully Jimi’s super-white-stardom, much less a black band where Jimi happily shared the spotlight with Buddy. So he allegedly slipped Jimi two tabs of acid before they went onstage at a sold out Madison Square Garden benefit, and Buddy literally had to scoop Jimi up off the stage.  Jeffries then whisked Jimi back to England, where he would retain his superstar status just long enough to die alone.

The second reason is that Buddy never got over the first reason, and for a long time went on a self-destructive crusade to become the biggest, baddest in-your-face-druggie in the music business. During that time, from about 1973 through 1981, the time many considered Buddy’s lost years, my husband was co-producing Buddy. As Jim says, “Buddy was lost in every way but musically; he was still a phenomenal musician so I stuck with him.” They released two albums, Roadrunner and Sneak Attack, but Jim spent a whole lot of his time bailing Buddy out of trouble, fights, drugs, jail, etc. until ultimately the gig was up. Sneak Attack—part of which had been ingeniously recorded at Chino State Prison—was signed by Atlantic Records. After the first 5,000 copies were released and sold, Buddy was sent to prison and the record dropped off the map; Ahmet Ertugun must have decided there was no point promoting the album of a guy behind bars. Years later, Buddy said that serving his time taught him to grow up and be a man. It taught my husband that he had to get out of the music business.

According to many, Buddy Miles was a thread running through the fabric of American music, especially American black music, jamming and collaborating and creating music with the best of the best in soul, rock, blues, jazz, funk and even Latin music, most notably on the huge selling Santana Miles album. His love of Latin music resurfaced with the first track on the Sneak Attack album entitled “Latin Rock Fusion.” Buddy was all about musical fusion and, according to those in the know, way ahead of his time.

Send me your opinions at LParis@netlistings.com