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CCR - Buddy Miles Interview (November 2006)

 
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blahblahwoofwoof



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PostPosted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 4:21 am    Post subject: CCR - Buddy Miles Interview (November 2006) Reply with quote

Quote:
He Keeps Rollin’ with Them Changes
An Interview with Buddy Miles

by Ryan Sparks, November 2006

The musical achievements of legendary drummer / vocalist Buddy Miles would probably be large enough to fill a hardcover book. Over the course of 40+ years in music, Miles has graced the stage with some of the biggest names in rock and R&B. He certainly needs no introduction to fans of the late 60’s West Coast American music scene as he not only jammed with many of the heavy weights from the Laurel Canyon and Haight Asbury scenes, he actually started a band with some of them. The short lived Electric Flag debuted in 1967 and their first recordings were featured in the 60’s psychedelic cult flick The Trip. The group featured not only Miles, but hot shot blues phenomenon Mike Bloomfield who was fresh out of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band on guitar and core members bassist Harvey Brooks, keyboardist Barry Goldberg and vocalist Nick Gravenites, in addition to 3 horn players. Unfortunately the band almost totally disintegrated before their second album amid the usual mix of egos, drugs and mismanagement took over. Miles soldiered on for one more studio album, albeit with a different lineup and one re-union attempt in the mid 70’s.

However it was Buddy’s involvement with Jimi Hendrix that really elevated his public persona. By the end of the 60’s the guitarist was looking to branch his music out into different territory so he called on old friend, bassist Buddy Cox and Miles with whom he’d worked with on Electric Ladyland and the ultimate black, soul power trio, Band of Gypsys was born. While the group only survived long enough to record one live album simply titled Band of Gypsys, which was recorded during the course of 4 sets over 2 nights at the legendary Fillmore East in NYC, it was enough to seal Miles’ place in rock history forever. Buddy would end up forming his own group called The Buddy Miles Express in addition to playing over the years with such diverse musicians as Carlos Santana, John McLaughlin and Nils Lofgren to name but a few.

While Miles may have been out of the spotlight recently he is currently preparing a new Express record as well as having a few other projects up his sleeve. It was a great pleasure and an honor to talk to a true rock legend.


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CRR: I understand you’ve got a lot of projects coming up and that you’re currently working on new material in the studio is that right?

Buddy: Yeah. It’s not a professional studio, it’s more like a work studio where I can work out all of my arrangements and get my sound worked on for AM/FM adult contemporary radio. I’ll be working on projects in the next year that will put me back into a musical genre that I was in when I was much younger and one in which the general worldwide public remembers me from.

CRR: This material as I understand it is for a new Buddy Miles Express album which is your first one in quite awhile isn’t it?

Buddy: Yes it’s for a new Buddy Miles Express and yes it’s been quite some time. This is not really a good time of year to be putting an album out for anybody so I’m hopeful it will come out right after the first of the New Year. The business has changed so drastically and whether it even comes out on a major label remains to be seen. A good label has to give you the credibility and to be able to help you and provide you with the tools that you’ll need to sell your music.

CRR: Are you able to talk about the musicians who will be appearing on this new album?

Buddy: Well I could but I can’t really say who it’s going to be because I haven’t really made up my mind who I’m going to have in my band yet. I do know that I’m going back to the format of how I used to do things when I was in the Electric Flag on American Music Band. There’s a specific reason for that and that is because I’m much more comfortable playing with not just bigger bands but a size of a band where you can get more out of the musicianship rather than just have one style to be identified by.

CRR: What’s your involvement in this other project called The Guitar Man?

Buddy: Well the person who did that record is a very famous guitarist by the name of Nile Rodgers who came out of the band Chic. My involvement on that is I sang the vocals on the track “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”.

CRR: That’s great, so Buddy is coming back better than ever.

Buddy: That’s very kind of you to say. I’ve got a lot of work to do and I’ve gotta keep on working. The biggest part of working now is understanding that times and people have changed and will always change, but you have to do it in such a way that you can get yourself to change with the times. I’m looking forward to working with America because I have some very interesting concepts with this album and it will be a little bit different that any of the previous Buddy Miles albums that I’ve ever done, because of what I have to say.

CRR: What do you think is the biggest difference in the music business today compared to when you first started out?

Buddy: I’m pretty much a contemporary musician but one of the biggest problems that I had even when I was in some of the bands that I had, for instance The Buddy Miles Express in particular, not so much the Electric Flag. With The Electric Flag I was fortunate enough to be playing with probably the best known white blues guitarist in this country at the time which was Mike Bloomfield. As time went along, I got my feet wet and I formed my own band. I loved it and I played with some of the best qualified musicians in the country. However in a way I almost wish that I would have given myself more time to learn more about the leadership aspect and what it takes to have a band. It’s quite a heavy chore to understand and learn about the business and also learn how to work with business people.

CRR: Was the whole business aspect of things something maybe you wanted to steer clear of initially?

Buddy: Not necessarily, it’s just that when you’re in a business and a leader of a band at such an early age, lets face it when I was in The Electric Flag I was 17 years old. When I was 21 I had my own band and that’s a little young to be leading anything in any genre. I was lucky to go as far as I did with any of them and probably one of the best things to come out of that whole period is that I was able to meet so many different widely known musicians that ever came out of this business.

CRR: How did the Electric Flag come about, it was Mike Bloomfield who came to see you play?

Buddy: Yeah and it was in a time when there was this whole worldwide music and sound revolution first began. The Beatles and the Stones had just come out and all these other groups like Alvin Lee and Ten Years After and Jethro Tull to name just a few. I met a lot of people in those days who I’m sure still remember me, even though I haven’t really seen a lot of them. I also got into an era of music where I was playing with certain jazz musicians such as Mahavishnu John McLaughlin and Larry Coryell as well.

CRR: The very first Electric Flag show was at the Monterey Pop festival. Tell me about that whole west coast music scene back in those days.

Buddy: Oh my goodness. It probably started the life as we know it of George Alan Buddy Miles as a musician. I got to grow up and live a musical dream which has lasted right up to this very minute as we speak.

CRR: Electric Flag was really your baby wasn’t it?

Buddy: Yeah. We did 4 albums together and then got back together for one album in the mid 70’s.

CRR: You also did the soundtrack for a film which starred Jack Nicholson called The Trip didn’t you?

Buddy: Yes but it makes me unhappy that we didn’t get the credit we deserved because we helped Roger Corman a lot with the music on that film.

CRR: How did you go from meeting Jimi to discussing a possible collaboration?

Buddy: Just over a period of time, it was a situation where you meet people through your travels and time and you come in contact with so many people in different art forms whether they’re artists, painters or writers.

CRR: Band of Gypsys for me personally is probably my favorite record of Jimi’s and an album where your presence is very strong. You hung around a lot with Jimi and appeared on Electric Ladyland as well, what was the whole vibe like around Jimi, was it one of constant jamming with other musicians?

Buddy: It was what spawned me to go on to bigger heights and to be really known as a rock’n roll and R&B drummer. The most important thing I remember about Jimi is why we got together in the first place and that was the music. We were three musicians who when we got together just loved playing together. We did do a lot of stuff and I’ve said it before and don’t want this to be taken the wrong way but his manager at the time Michael Jeffery’s did not want us to play together.

CRR: The music on that album and just the band itself was quite revolutionary at the time. It makes you wonder what future collaborations may have taken place had Jimi not died. Have you ever wondered what Jimi and Buddy would have sounded like together in 2006?

Buddy: [laughing]. Oh many times. That’s not a loaded question either because I have.

CRR: I’ve always loved your voice and one show you were involved in that I watched not too long ago on DVD was the Supershow concert which was filmed in London back in 1969. You sang some fantastic slow soul blues on the Electric Flag song “Texas” I believe it was.

Buddy: You’re too kind. I remember that show because it had Eric Clapton, Buddy Guy and Led Zeppelin. As a matter of fact I was very tight with Stephen Stills at the time and he was the one who was nice enough to make sure I was involved in that. I want Stephen Stills to personally know that I love him for the things that he helped me with. I’ll never forget when he offered me to play drums in Buffalo Springfield when Dewey Martin left, but I had already signed a contract with Mercury Records to form my own band which became The Buddy Miles Express. When you become attached to people and you’re young, in those days a friend was a friend and I had a lot of good friends. David Crosby and Neil Young are dear friends as well. I wasn’t as close to Graham Nash as I was everybody else. Frank Zappa and Jim Morrison were good friends of mine too; I could go on and on.

CRR: The live album you did with Carlos Santana was another solid release.

Buddy: The one we did at the Diamond Head crater yeah. I also worked on Love Devotion Surrender and the Freedom album as well.

CRR: The California Raisin television commercials have to be some of the more memorable commercials from the 80’s . How did you come to be the voice behind those singing raisins?

Buddy: The honest to god’s truth? I had itty, bitty legs and a big head; no I’m just kidding [laughing]. That’s a very good question; I would imagine it was because of my style. That’s the only reason I can think of.

CRR: You started playing music at such an early age. What were your musical influences growing up as a young boy?

Buddy: My father George Alan Miles SR. was an embalmer, a mortician. His father hailed from St.Louis MO and then moved to Atchison KS and if you know anything about that part of the States it’s about a 100 miles from Kansas City which is where the Be-Bop era started. How my father got in to playing music is beyond me. I never really got a chance to talk to him about that part of his life. However the little bit I do know about that part of his life is what made me go on to being a musician. As far as my influences are concerned I’m a true rock n’ roller. I love my rock and roll and R&B to this day.

CRR: You were some backing vocal work with bands like Ruby and The Romantics and The Delphonics at the time. Is that around the time that Wilson noticed you?

Buddy: I think that because of my involvement with people like Wilson that different people got a chance to see me play at different shows at different times. In this business when people see an opportunity to work with other players, they do it. That’s pretty much how it’s done. I just think it was one of those situations where I was in the right place at the right time.

CRR: What are your feelings on the rock n’ roll hall of fame?

Buddy: I don’t mind saying that I think I should be in it. I think that I have contributed enough music to be amongst my peers but who knows? Maybe one of these days it will happen, maybe it won’t. I do say this though, most of the people who have been nominated into the hall of fame you can best be sure they know who Buddy Miles is and that makes me prouder than anything.


http://www.classicrockrevisited.com/Interviews06/buddymiles.htm
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Christopher X



Joined: 07 Jul 2006
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Location: New Zealand

PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 3:47 am    Post subject: Thanks Reply with quote

Thanks for the Interview blahblahwoofwoof,have you herd of that cd and dvd i think of the band of gypsy's new album,like billy and buddy with eric gales and some othe guitar players and band members,doing hendrix songs and new ones.
I saw it too at the music store,but its to dear for me,and its ben there for months too,one copy,but no ones bought it,maybe it will be there still when i do get some money?.
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