I recently ordered and received the new Buddy Greene DVD/CD. I've met Buddy at several events, terrific guy and under-rated player. This new DVD confirmed what an amazing player, musician, songwriter and humble guy Buddy is. I think what impressed me was his versatility, the guy plays fast like Charlie McCoy at times, but has deep blues tone too, great musical instincts, jazz, gospel, classical, he can do it all well! Worth a look.
Buddy is a great guy and a good friend of mine. He was a huge influence on my playing in my early days. In fact, he got me my gig next week in Atlanta. He played on the album we're promoting (a tribute album to Blind Willie McTell) but was unable to make all the dates, so he recommended me.
The great Charlie McCoy was one of Buddy's influences, but it seems that Buddy has studied Charlie's licks and taken that country style of playing to a whole new level, playing even faster than Charlie at times, and with such clarity and precision. I'm certainly not taking anything away from Charlie, nor am I saying that Charlie isn't a good player, because he certainly is! He influenced us all, and is a true pioneer of today's country style harmonica. Buddy rarely uses overblows, though he can do them, but he's one of those guys who is so good that he doesn't have to play overblows. Check out this clip from 1996 where he's playing a Filisko solid brass harp (embedding was disabled):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f_PWGcDFXag
The album version is even better.
Buddy and Brendan Power sometimes remind me of each other, and though I don't think they've ever officially met, from chatting with each of them, they both seem to have a lot of mutual respect for each other's playing.
Last Edited by Todd Parrott on Aug 20, 2013 11:51 PM
todd my uncle is a great admirer of buddy greene as he has seen him @gospel concerts I am interested in the tribute album to blind willie mctell as he is my all time favorite blues musician despite there was never any harp on his recordings I have 6 cds of blind willie
Great player whose music resonates & communicates. Along with Brendan Power & Charlie McCoy Buddy is one of my favourites.
Buddy proves that there is more to being a great player than just technical wizardry ie being a great person & playing what people love is equally if not sometimes just as important.
OW > Lightning fast. I have his tabs for 1812 Overture & I play it at about 1/4 speed and leave out 50% of the notes. At my age I tend to 'specialise' in much slower simpler tunes.
Thanks for that clip of Buddy Greene. I never get sick of it and it is usually sent to me by the most unmusical, tone deaf, harmonica hating folks. LOL!
And his opening line answers Bhudda "are you good " question. "So what, ho hum." LOL! "Now its time to get sophisticated so stand back..."
Saw Buddy live with my 3 kids at a church in northern Mi. I couldn't afford to take my kids to a concert but Buddy's concerts were free. He gave us the same performance as he gave those folks at Carnegie. Beautiful music and good energy flows out of that man in great abundance.
Since this original post, Buddy and Brendan Power did get to meet and jam together in Nashville, when Brendan was in the states last year. I would've LOVED to have been there and experience that jam session first hand! I'm sure my head would have been spinning from the speed of those two.
Last Edited by on Jan 29, 2011 12:03 PM
@AirMojo thanks for posting buddy is an awesome player when an uncle found out I blow harp he mentioned that he has seen buddy live and could not say enuff about him
Maybe its an "age thing" (56 years old)... I seem to wake up in the middle of the night alot... worrying about work mostly.
I often hook-up my iPod to listen to music that relaxes me into sleeping... Buddy Greene's music, "Simple Praise", and "Praise Harmonica", will lull me back to sleep... He can do that, because he is sooo good !
One thing I admire greatly about Buddy is his ability to play rhythm harmonica. Here's some footage of Buddy playing some awesome rhythm back in 1983:
He also played some rhythm guitar back in those days.When I came across this, it was neat to see Buddy on the guitar and singing falsetto to boot, he's "Roberta" in Jerry's backup singing ladies.
---------- "There are only two things money can't buy - true love and homegrown tomatoes." - Lewis Grizzard
Last Edited by on Jan 31, 2011 10:00 AM
