Buddy Harman - Drummer Extraordinaire (MP3s)

Recently (well, August 21) the music world suffered a catastrophic loss when drummer Buddy Harman died of congestive heart failure at age 79. 

For many years, Harman was the drummer for Nashville's "A-team" of session musicians who recorded with almost everyone who booked time in a local recording studio, or at least those whose budget allowed for hiring the best.  Peter Cooper (of the Nashville daily The Tennessean) put together an obituary that pointed out that Harman played on over 18,000 recording sessions.  Records featuring Buddy's drumming include Roy Orbison's "Oh, Pretty Woman," Patsy Cline's "Crazy," Johnny Cash's "Ring Of Fire," Tammy Wynette's "Stand By Your Man," and Elvis Presley's "Little Sister."  And that's just barely scratching the surface of his musical contributions.  Perhaps best of all, he was the drummer on Ray Price's "Crazy Arms," thus helping give birth to one of the most enduring and irresistible sounds in all of recorded music: the country shuffle.

Until I serendipitously stumbled across this 45 last Saturday, however, I must confess that I had no idea that Buddy Harman released any records in his own name.  Upon making this discovery, I fired up one of the search engines and learned that The Hound played one side of this record on his WFMU show in 1987, so let's just say I'm a little bit behind the learning curve on this one.

Buddy Harman  -  Third Man Rock  (2:13)

Buddy Harman Combo  -  Noisy Reservation (2:08)

Comments

[webhositng]

A wonderful blog~

[Krys O.]

At this link, you'll find R. Stevie Moore's remembrance of Buddy. They did many sessions together and Stevie's dad, Bob was part of the A-Team.

http://www.moorestevie.com/2/harman.html

We've got that 45 on display at home.

[Listener Greg G.]

Thanks for the link to R. Stevie Moore's Buddy Harman tribute, Krys. I especially enjoyed the great BH photo gallery found here:

http://www.moorestevie.com/2/harman2.html

[Krys O.]

I'm happy to oblige. My favorite pics on that page include the pics of Buddy with Burl Ives (above the Vince Gill pic) and the jazz combo set up with Chet Atkins, Bob Moore, Floyd Cramer and Buddy (B&W next to Beacoups of Blues cover).

[Ted Hering]

I remember Buddy had another 45 rpm in the early 1960s called "Marchin' Thru." It contained a wonderful drum-and-bass bride. I wonder what ever happeded to that record? It was a green label DJ copy, possibly on Mercury.

[Mike Barber]

I wish My Wife had been a Drum-and-Bass Bride.

[Al Beany]

You're thinkin of Buddy Rich, perhappededs? Where's that confounded bridge?

[Mark]

Listen to Harman's muted cymbal riff at the very beginning of "That's What You Do To Me" by the Everly Brothers. It always gives me a thrill!

[Ben W.]

was always a fan of buddy harman,along with some of his peers,like karl himmel and kenneth buttrey.They dont make em like those guys anymore.