Buddy Miles (September 5, 1947 – February 26, 2008) – We Got To Live Together (1970)

The powerful funk bomb title track to Miles' fourth solo album reminds us to reject demagogues who try to divide us.

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The multi-talented drummer, singer/songwriter and producer Buddy Miles played with Mike Bloomfield in the Electric Flag and Jimi Hendrix in his Band of Gypsys.

After playing with the Electric Flag alongside guitarist Mike Bloomfield, Miles formed his own band in 1968, the Buddy Miles Express. The same year, he also played on Jimi Hendrix’ classic double LP Electric Ladyland, released in October, 1968. Miles was one of a number of guests artists featured on the album, and drummed on one long jam that was eventually split into two parts. It became “Rainy Dream, Dream Away” and “Still Raining, Still Dreaming,” with “1983... (A Merman I Should Turn to Be)” sequenced between the two cuts.

Miles and Hendrix had first met in 1964 at a show in Montreal, when Miles was only 16 and playing drums with one of the R&B groups he toured with in his teens, a list that included Wilson Pickett and the Delfonics. In 1967, Hendrix and Miles played together at Stephen Stills’ home in Malibu. The following year they also played together in Los Angeles and New York before Miles guested on the recording session for Electric Ladyland.

Hendrix went on to produce several tracks on Electric Church (1969), the second album by the Buddy Miles Express. One of them was the superb soul-jazz-funk jam “69 Freedom Special,” a title Hendrix supposedly came up with. It was co-written by Express guitarist Jim McCarty, bassist Bill Rich and trumpeter Tom Hall.

After the Express split up, in 1970 Hendrix and Miles formed a new group, Band of Gypsys. They were joined by bassist Billy Cox, Hendrix’s longtime friend and former bandmate. The group was short-lived, recording only one live album together, but their few live dates were legendary.

For his fourth solo studio album, We Got To Live Together, recorded in 1970 and released late that year, Miles wrote the powerful funk bomb title track. The LP went to #14 on the R&B charts. While recording it, Miles learned of his friend and mentor Jimi Hendrix’s death and included a tribute to him in its liner notes.

“Some of us knew him well and all of us knew of Jimi and his music. With sadness we shall miss him, with admiration we will never forget what he gave to us all.”

“We Got To Live Together” featured top session musicians like Andre Lewis on clavinet, Marlo Henderson on rhythm guitar, David Hull on bass, and Billy McPherson on tenor sax. Like the rest of the album, it was co-produced by Miles and Robin McBride, who was a producer and A&R exec at Mercury Records.

The track’s timeless message reminds us that love conquers hate and we’re all in this thing called life together.

#soul #funk #JimiHendrix #BuddyMiles