Buddy Miles, the drummer who had recorded tracks with the one and only Jimi Hendrix and sang in the claymation commercials featuring the California Raisins in the 1980s, has died at the age of 60.
According to his publicist Duane Lee, he died on Tuesday evening after a long battle with congestive heart failure.
“He loved to laugh,” Lee told The Associated Press on Wednesday night. “We spent more time laughing than anything else. He was a great joke teller.”
Over his lengthy career, Miles played with his father’s jazz-influenced combo, The Delfonics, The Ink Spots and Wilson Pickett, according to his Web site.
He is probably best known for his work that saw Band of Gypsys, an all-black group put together by Hendrix in 1969. “All the shows were bad-ass,” Miles told Seconds magazine in 1995. “It was the highlight of my life, and I had a good time playing those shows. That was vintage James Marshall Hendrix.”
Miles also worked with Stevie Wonder, Muddy Waters, Barry White and David Bowie.
When he was asked by Seconds how he would like to be remembered, Miles said: “The baddest of the bad. People say I’m the baddest drummer. If that’s true, thank you.”
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