The Ripple Effect: The Music Commentary Radio Show  

It was 1976 when the Steve Miller Band played the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium on the Fly Like An Eagle tour. A thin-framed, long-haired apparition, with no discernible instrument, stepped to the forefront, pulled out a mouth harp and blew a hypnotic soulful rendition of "Mercury Blues." It wasn’t Steve Miller that hooked me on the Steve Miller Band – it was Norton Buffalo. Steve Miller called him his “Partner in Harmony.”

Buffalo’s talent was bigger than one band, even though he remained a Steve Miller Band member for 33 years. He was one of the foundations of rock, blues country, folk and Hawaiian harmonica – every bit as good as, and maybe even better than, Charlie Musselwhite and J. Geils Band’s Magic Dick. Norton Buffalo played on over 180 albums with such greats as Bonnie Raitt, Kenny Loggins, The Doobie Brothers, The Marshall Tucker Band, Johnny Cash, Kate Wolf, Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen, David Grisman, Bob Welch, Juice Newton, Judy Collins, New Riders Of The Purple Sage, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Maria Muldaur, Elvin Bishop, his long time duet partner bluesman Roy Rogers and Hawaiian slack key guitar virtuoso George Kahumoku, Jr. At the very least you probably heard him blow on the Doobie Brothers Grammy award winning LP Minute By Minute or saw him act in Bette Midler’s thinly-veiled Janis Joplin biopic The Rose. The Grateful Dead also frequently played his song "There Ain’t No Bread In The Breadbox." His music and style defy genre classification.

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