One of the most talented & gifted musicians I've ever seen or worked with was Buddy Miles, who grew up in Omaha. His dad was a musician that played with lots of greats like Duke Ellington, Charlie Parker & Count Basie. Seemed like Buddy played with everyone including Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Billy Preston & Carlos Santana in the 70's & 80's. There's a funny story about Buddy playing alongside the Grateful Dead on a tour and shaking hands with Jerry Garcia, while he was eating a rib out of his other hand. Jerry didn't like that. Drug abuse was a big issue with Buddy, fought that his entire career.
Buddy was a large man, probably weighed 400+ lbs when I was doing shows with him later in his career. Sometimes he had to get around in a wheelchair but always stood on stage. He was mesmerizing to watch during soundchecks. You could see he just had a different understanding and ear for music. He could play any instrument and would regularly correct his band members during soundcheck by showing them on their instrument. He was a perfectionist when it came to the music. Crazy to watch that big bastard put down his guitar kicking the drummer out and then squeeze in behind then drum kit to show him how it should be done. Sometimes he sang while playing the drums, which is rare and not easy to do
Buddy could be a real grump to work with as due to his excessive weight he had serious back and knee pain. Seemed like he was always quite surely. 1 day he was barking at me and I had enough so I snapped back asking is there anything I can do to make you happy? He said it would be great if you had a god dammed TV in this venue so he could watch his fucking Huskers play. You know big guys are always hungry so I asked him what food he was craving to which he responded Chicken Wings. Told him we'd let his band and my sound guys finish setting up the stage plus start sound check so we could go get Chicken Wings and watch the rest of the Husker game. Wheeled him to a restaurant and watched the Husker game, which we won. He ate the fuck out of some food. Buddy was hungry for more than just wings. Seemed like he ordered 1/4 of the menu. Had no idea he was a huge Husker Fan and we got along great after that.
