Born George Allen Miles Jr. in Omaha, Nebraska, his aunt nicknamed him after the big-band drummer Buddy Rich, and began playing drums as a child and was 12 years old when he joined his father’s jazz group, the Bebops. As a teenager he also worked with soul and rhythm-and-blues acts, among them the Ink Spots, the Delfonics and Wilson Pickett. By 1967, he had moved to Chicago, where he was a founding member of the Electric Flag.
In 1967 he formed the Electric Flag with guitarist Mike Bloomfield. While the lead vocalist for the Flag was Nick Gravenites, fans of the Flag always looked forward to the numbers sung by Miles. Listen to the slow blues song “Texas” by the short-lived Flag and you will get a sense of what Miles brought to the group. Although the band collapsed in the wake of a disappointing second album, Miles retained its horn section for his next venture, the Buddy Miles Express. This exciting unit also included former Mitch Ryder guitarist Jim McCarthy. Their first album, Expressway To Your Skull, was full of driving, electric soul rhythms that had the blessing of Jimi Hendrix, who produced the album and wrote the sleeve notes.
After Electric Flag, Miles would begin his involvement with the legendary Hendrix. Miles had met Hendrix in an earlier time when both were acting as sidemen for other artists in the early ’60s. Their meeting had occurred in Canada at a show both were participating in. This prefaced a later friendship that would result in varied collaborations between the two artists. An extremely busy Hendrix would produce the Buddy Miles Express release, “Electric Church”, in 1969. There was obvious public curiosity as to whether the name of the band “Buddy Miles Express” was influenced by Hendrix’s act, “The Jimi Hendrix Experience”.
Soon after, Hendrix started opening his recording style to include guest artists. And in this mode Hendrix was working in, Miles quite naturally was invited to participate. He played with Jimi Hendrix on the hugely influential “Electric Ladyland” album. Miles played on the songs “Rainy Day, Dream Away” and “Still Raining, Still Dreaming”.
Soon after the release of this groundbreaking album, he would join Hendrix in a short lived Band of Gypsys. One of the notable features for his auidience at the time was the fact that all of the players were black. This was a first for Hendrix as an international recording star and this choice reflected a move toward reconnecting with his soul roots. It also had the effect of re-associating rock with its African American roots. “Live at the Fillmore East” was arguably Miles and Hendrix’s most riveting recording. The band was based in New York City where Hendrix was spending the majority of his time. Hendrix, who was tangled in legal litigation concerning contracts he had signed in the past prior to his becoming internationally recognized, was required to release a record to the Capitol Records label as part of the agreement in court. This fact led to the live recording of his collaboration with both Miles and Billy Cox. The Band of Gypsys made a famous and enduring live album that was recorded in New York’s Fillmore East on New Year’s Eve 1969/70. However during a follow up performance a month later, Hendrix had a minor, drug-related meltdown on stage which has also been speculated to have be an act of sabotage. Miles was fired by Hendrix manager, Michael Jeffery and the Band of Gypsys all too short life came to an end.
Miles continued to work with Hendrix during early and mid 1970 after the Jimi Hendrix Experience had failed to reform to record. Miles would share recording studio drumming duties on songs “Room Full of Mirrors”, “Izabella”, “Ezy Ryder” and the first version of “Stepping Stones” (for which Mitchell played a final drum track). These songs have been released in several posthumous Hendrix albums.
by E. "Doc" Smith
I don’t quite know why but I was never quite happy or convinced by Buddy as a great drummer or better than Mitch Mitchel which may hold the key to my prejudice as I still consider Mitch the much better drummer but reading this I take him lightly at my peril the driving force behind an early Electric Flag with Bloomfield and Gravenites who I really admired and later the Express who I dig too, it was just somehow I never felt the right ‘fit’ behind Jimi somehow and then we learn he is on Electric Ladyland in places so that’ll do for me.
It is probably more to do with Band of Gypsys as I didn’t care for where that was going but once he brought Mitch back in I was happier. Miles remains a towering influence on drummers and an important figure in not only, of course, his own legendary history but in Jimi’s too!
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