Brilliant, innovative drummer Buddy Miles has died at age 60. Watch some of his memorable live performances here.

Buddy Miles, the rock and R&B drummer who worked with Jimi Hendrix, Carlos Santana and was best known for the song “Them Changes,” died Tuesday at his home in Austin, Texas, according to a report on Miles’ website. He was 60.

Among the first artists to fuse psychedelic rock with soul, blues and jazz, Miles got his start performing with his father George’s jazz band the BeBops at the age of 12 in and around their hometown of Omaha, Neb. He played with a number of performers and toured with Ruby & the Romantics, the Ink Spots and Wilson Pickett. It was after a gig in Brooklyn, N.Y., where guitarist Michael Bloomfield, who had just left the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, inquired if Miles would be interested in forming a new band. The band became the Electric Flag, which issued only one album with Bloomfield and Miles.

After the break up of the Electric Flag, Miles created the first edition of Buddy Miles Express and recorded “Expressway to Your Skull,” with Hendrix producing. The two alternated in returning favors: Miles played on Hendrix’s “Electric Ladyland”; Hendrix produced Miles’ “Electric Church”; and the two created Band of Gypsys after Hendrix broke up his trio, the Jimi Hendrix Experience.

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Buddy Miles with Carlos Santana, live performance in Japan.



Buddy Miles and Carlos Santana performing “Them Changes”


Buddy Miles and Randy Hansen performing “I Don’t Live Today”