Carlos and Buddy
Carlos and Buddy
Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles “Live” 1972, recorded at Honolulu’s “Sunshine Festival,” is a seriously groovy album. Yes, album! In 1972 I owned it on 8 track, as well, which I played in my orange truck, as I headed out to the construction site, in the 7000 degrees Florida summer heat, when I was still a teenager. I’d slide the 8 track into the machine, driving with one hand, while jacking the volume to heights previously unimagined by man or beast, and marvel at Carlos Santana’s wah-wah pedal work, and Buddy Miles cement mixer drums.
The rest of the band was equally ferocious, a mix of jazz, Latin-jazz, hard rock, soul, and blues musicians, played by aging Latin percusionistas and youthful rock gods, occupying the same musical space. All, had a place in Carlo’s band, augmented by Buddy’s Band. This particular composite of the two bands was a one-off record deal, that worked, and made good sense, monetarily and musically, channeling a jazz aesthetic and a deep blue feel, played at a significant volume.
Buddy Miles got his start in Wilson Picket’s band, then made his way to a much higher profile gig in Mike Bloomfield’s super-group, “The Electric Flag,” as drummer and singer. Bloomfield was widely regarded as one of the premier guitarists in the new rock music, having spent time, early on, accompanying various older blues musicians on the road, like the primitive country bluesman, Big Joe Williams. In 1964 Bloomfield joined the groundbreaking Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and totally redefined rock guitar for a generation, laying the foundation for fusion, just as surely as Miles Davis or John McLaughlin. He did session work, too, and played on Bob Dylan’s musical watershed album “Highway 61.” No record made during that period did more to define the disaffected world-view of the emerging youth movement.
Bloomfield, along with the rest of the Butterfield Band, performed with Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Dylan committed heresy and abandoned his acoustic guitar for an electric, plugged in, and proceeded to unload his stream of consciousness, Kerouac influenced, loud, aggressive, folk-rock, to a completely unsuspecting audience of youthful sycophants hoping to hear Dylan in his Woody Guthrie phase. Maybe if Woody had hooked up with Muddy Waters Blues Band and dropped some acid, otherwise, they were out of luck. What they got, instead, was the baby boomers musical version of Moses coming down the mountain.
Mike Bloomfield left his footprints all over the soundtrack of 1960’s popular music. He was also a major influence on Carlos Santana—and by extension Carlos’ band—making the connection between Buddy Miles and Carlos Santana a natural gathering point for like-minded musicians.
All of the music on this record was new, then, a cutting-edge mixture of extant forms, freshly redefined, and deeply rooted in current and older American musical traditions, including Latin music, which has been a reality in N. America for more than a century. “The Flag,” as they were called, back in the day, officially defined themselves as an American music band. Santana, was more of the same, with a distinctive Latin flavor, owing more to Tito Puente and B.B. King, than Richie Valens.
They were explosive times.
There are some youngsters out there, today, who really do this kind of music right. But they are seldom heard in the mainstream. Most have gone underground, like mole men and mole women, heading to subterranean climes, places where the music can thrive, unencumbered by the record label chieftains, who dominated the music business, not so long ago. Today, the bands might not make much money, relative to the few high-profile pop stars who dominate the public consciousness, but they are free to play the music as they please. In that sense, the new bands are closer to the jazz musicians of the 1960’s and 1970’s, who suffered through the rock & roll era, managing against all odds, to make a living, and keep a band on the road.
Yes, those were the days my friends, we thought they’d never end. And they haven’t, I can still hear them, echoing in the distance.
“Well, my mind is goin’ thru them changes….I feel just like committing a crime.”
Mark Magula
Carlos Santana & Buddy Miles “Live” 1972, recorded at Honolulu’s “Sunshine Festival,” is a seriously groovy album. Yes, album! In 1972 I owned it on 8 track, as well, which I played in my orange truck, as I headed out to the construction site, in the 7000 degrees Florida summer heat, when I was still a teenager. I’d slide the 8 track into the machine, driving with one hand, while jacking the volume to heights previously unimagined by man or beast, and marvel at Carlos Santana’s wah-wah pedal work, and Buddy Miles cement mixer drums.
The rest of the band was equally ferocious, a mix of jazz, Latin-jazz, hard rock, soul, and blues musicians, played by aging Latin percusionistas and youthful rock gods, occupying the same musical space. All, had a place in Carlo’s band, augmented by Buddy’s Band. This particular composite of the two bands was a one-off record deal, that worked, and made good sense, monetarily and musically, channeling a jazz aesthetic and a deep blue feel, played at a significant volume.
Buddy Miles got his start in Wilson Picket’s band, then made his way to a much higher profile gig in Mike Bloomfield’s super-group, “The Electric Flag,” as drummer and singer. Bloomfield was widely regarded as one of the premier guitarists in the new rock music, having spent time, early on, accompanying various older blues musicians on the road, like the primitive country bluesman, Big Joe Williams. In 1964 Bloomfield joined the groundbreaking Paul Butterfield Blues Band, and totally redefined rock guitar for a generation, laying the foundation for fusion, just as surely as Miles Davis or John McLaughlin. He did session work, too, and played on Bob Dylan’s musical watershed album “Highway 61.” No record made during that period did more to define the disaffected world-view of the emerging youth movement.
Bloomfield, along with the rest of the Butterfield Band, performed with Dylan at the 1965 Newport Folk Festival. Dylan committed heresy and abandoned his acoustic guitar for an electric, plugged in, and proceeded to unload his stream of consciousness, Kerouac influenced, loud, aggressive, folk-rock, to a completely unsuspecting audience of youthful sycophants hoping to hear Dylan in his Woody Guthrie phase. Maybe if Woody had hooked up with Muddy Waters Blues Band and dropped some acid, otherwise, they were out of luck. What they got, instead, was the baby boomers musical version of Moses coming down the mountain.
Mike Bloomfield left his footprints all over the soundtrack of 1960’s popular music. He was also a major influence on Carlos Santana—and by extension Carlos’ band—making the connection between Buddy Miles and Carlos Santana a natural gathering point for like-minded musicians.
All of the music on this record was new, then, a cutting-edge mixture of extant forms, freshly redefined, and deeply rooted in current and older American musical traditions, including Latin music, which has been a reality in N. America for more than a century. “The Flag,” as they were called, back in the day, officially defined themselves as an American music band. Santana, was more of the same, with a distinctive Latin flavor, owing more to Tito Puente and B.B. King, than Richie Valens.
They were explosive times.
There are some youngsters out there, today, who really do this kind of music right. But they are seldom heard in the mainstream. Most have gone underground, like mole men and mole women, heading to subterranean climes, places where the music can thrive, unencumbered by the record label chieftains, who dominated the music business, not so long ago. Today, the bands might not make much money, relative to the few high-profile pop stars who dominate the public consciousness, but they are free to play the music as they please. In that sense, the new bands are closer to the jazz musicians of the 1960’s and 1970’s, who suffered through the rock & roll era, managing against all odds, to make a living, and keep a band on the road.
Yes, those were the days my friends, we thought they’d never end. And they haven’t, I can still hear them, echoing in the distance.
“Well, my mind is goin’ thru them changes….I feel just like committing a crime.”
Mark Magula