MISSING YOU

When I was college, I spent many nights at a dive bar on University Avenue called Bodies watching a roots rock band called The Beat Farmers (see related memory). I had met Buddy Blue, one of the guitarists, when we both worked as writers on the college newspaper. I heard once that he was in a band and, after I went to see them, I was hooked. The Beat Farmers came this close (my index finger and thumb are about a half inch apart) to being For Real Rock Stars, but due to personnel changes and questionable record deals, it was never quite destined to happen. Nevertheless, The Beat Farmers will always be my favorite rock band, local or not, famous or not.

They had many songs I enjoyed including the originals "Bigger Stones," "Lonesome Hound," "Goldmine," and "Show Business." But one of my favorites was the slow bluesy balland, "Missing You," which Buddy didn't officially record with The Beat Farmers, but that they played at most of their shows. It was a song of yearning about a lost love and the emotion built to the chorus when Buddy wailed, "and you don't know how much. . .I'm missing you." And as good as his vocals were, Buddy's guitar solo in the middle was all guts and emotion and I remember dancing with several women to this song over the years, but there was one dance I remember because for almost four minutes a good friend of mine became a little something more.

I loved listening to Buddy play guitar. He played angry blues, stripped down roots rock and R&B, and kookie country and western. And when it came to slide guitar, he was gifted with a small piece of metal pipe. So when I was on a break one day at my job as an usher at the local movie house and I saw in the entertainment section of the newspaper that he was leaving the band due to those pesky "artisitic differences," I felt my world spin. By that time, it must have been late 1985, I'd been seeing The Beat Farmers play almost every weekend for years. I saw the band with friends, on dates, and by myself. I couldn't get enough, and now Buddy was gone.

By the time of their falling out with Curb records, and the death of Country Dick Montana (their drummer and a true showman himself), I had finished college and was starting my career as a high school English teacher. Buddy had continued to make music--both as an individual artist and with a variety of backing musicians collectively known as The Buddy Blue Band. But the other Beat Farmers were also making music in various incarnations. Consequently, my loyalties--and therefore, my time--was divided.

Buddy rode the early wave of the Swing fad of the nineties, which was never my cup of tea exactly, and the other Beat Farmers, now in a band called PowerThud, favored a harder rock sound that I didn't care for as well as the old stuff. So it was close, really close, but it was never quite MY Beat Farmers. I would alternate gigs and clubs, sometimes going to see The Buddy Blue Band and sometimes going to see PowerThud. Buddy played some of the old songs, and so did PowerThud, but I had to wait a long time to hear them.

But then, almost twenty years after Buddy left the original Beat Farmers, an amazing thing happened: PowerThud
disbanded and Buddy swallowed his pride, and the three remaining members reunited and started playing gigs around town. Suddenly it was like the old days. True, Country Dick was no longer with us and his absence was tangible at all of the shows, but I would take it. They boys were playing the old songs again.

Before long, the new band, re-christened The Farmers in deference to Country Dick, had enough new material to record a new album. "Loaded" featured a song Buddy wrote called "Watching the River," a sad song about the passage of time. When I talked to him once, I told him that I thought "Watching the River" was the "lost" Beat Farmer song and that it was exactly where I thought they would have gone if he had stayed in the band nearly twenty years ago. Later in that conversation, he told me that, when it came to music by The Beat Farmers, I actually "got" it.  It was a great compliment.

So it was a miracle. I was hearing songs again, by the original musicians, that I never thought I'd hear live again. Songs like "Powderfinger," "Reason to Believe," and "Gun Sale at the Church."  I felt like I had stepped into a time warp.

Then, during my Spring Break in 2006, I got an e-mail from a friend telling me of Buddy's passing--his heart gave out on him one afternoon at his house. Again, my world spun. I was so grateful for that second chance to see and hear my band from the old days and witness that amazing guitar playing.

Again, Buddy was gone. This time for good.

And Buddy, "you don't know how much. . .I'm missing you."