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In my opinion, here is the best version of this Neil Young tune that you've probably never heard.Buddy Miles was a very portly gentleman I principally knew of in connection with this band, The Buddy Miles Express, then as the drummer for Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsies. Me and old high school pals had a laugh when we found out Buddy was the lead vocalist for the California Raisins in those 1980s "California Raisin Advisory Board" commercials. And that's the reason I bought four California Raisin figurines at a garage sale some years ago.
It was sad for me to look Buddy up on Wikipedia and find out that he died in 2008. But I was also startled to discover how ubiquitous he was in the music industry during the 1960s, having played with Ruby & the Romantics, the Delfonics and Wilson Pickett, then later forming Electric Flag with Mike Bloomfield. His pop was George Miles Sr., a successful jazzman who had his own band and played with heavy dudes like Ellington, Basie, Bird, and Dexter Gordon. Also was not aware that his mom nicknamed him as a reference to tubs maniac Buddy Rich. But according to the accounts I've read, Miles was an all-around nice guy.
Neil Young fans will disagree, but in my opinion Buddy has always owned this song. I think it could have been a monster Top 40 hit, but six-plus minutes was still too long to play on AM radio in 1969. Could have made Neil a rich(er) hippie.
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