Norton Buffalo Biography from his official website:
Norton passed away October 30th, 2009 in Paradise, California from a cancerous tumor in his lung. Norton's wife, Lisa Flores indicated that they would continue to make Norton's music available and carry on his work and that we carry him in our hearts and minds in the cheerful and loving way he lived. Following is the biography directly from his site (who could tell it better?)
Norton Buffalo is regarded as one of the most versatile and talented harmonica players in the music business. Having performed and recorded across nearly every style of music, he has been widely acclaimed as the finest multi-genre harmonica player of all time. His recordings, going back to his first releases on Capitol in 1977 and '78 have all been received with great reviews, are revered by his fans, and are a must in every harmonica player's collection. While his talents on the harmonica have been the most major part of his success, Norton is known as a strong and soulful vocalist (Steve Miller introduces him each night as his "Partner in Harmony") and is as well regarded as a notable songwriter, engineer and producer.
For the last thirty three years Buffalo has been a highly celebrated member of the Steve Miller Band, has recorded and toured with some of the top names in music, worked in movies and television, and stayed very busy performing and recording with his many diverse musical ventures many of which will be noted below.
In addition to his work on record and on stage with Steve Miller, who spotlights Norton’s playing in his shows Buffalo has also been highly sought after as a recording artist, having played on over 180 albums by artists as diverse as Bonnie Raitt (he did that searing harmonica solo on "Runaway"), Kenny Loggins, The Doobie Brothers (including the
Grammy Award-winning "Minute By Minute", The Marshall Tucker Band,
Johnny Cash, Kate Wolf, David Grisman, Kenny Loggins, Juice Newton, Laurie Lewis, Elvin Bishop and Hawaiian Slack Key Guitarist George Kahumoku Jr.. Norton and George had a duet cut on a CD that was nominated for a Grammy this year (2009).
Besides performing live with his own groups and before the millions of Steve Miller fans he has played for in more than three decades of touring, Norton has also been recruited by notable musicians such as Kenny Loggins, The Doobie Brothers and Olivia Newton-John, who have enlisted the harmonica ace and vocalist for concerts and touring.
This man was blessed with a musical gene pool. Born in Oakland, California into a musical family - his father, a harmonica player, and his mother a vocalist in nightclubs in San Francisco in the early 1940's. Buffalo’s great-uncle, Herbert Stothart, won an
Academy Award for his contribution to the music of "
The Wizard of Oz", and was one the main composers during MGM's golden years of musicals from the 1930s through late 1940s, nominated for 12 Academy Awards, co-authoring many well-known, hits and scoring many of their classic films of that wonderful cinematic era.
Norton grew up in the post-war housing of Richmond, California, a tough blue-collar, industrial town on the San Francisco Bay, giving him a culturally mixed and musically diverse background. When he was seven, Norton started learning harp from his father, and won his first talent contest in the sixth grade (1963). In high school he began playing in rock and roll and soul bands as well as in the school symphonic band, marching band, jazz band and pep band on both trombone and harmonica. During this time he was also singing a lot in his church choir. In his later school years he began listening to jazz day and night. Though he continued playing primarily in rock and roll bands his musical mistress was jazz...Norton was writing horn charts and having a ball fitting his harp into all types of offbeat musical arrangements and jazz-rock compositions. While in college as a psych major, Norton was performing in bands as well as working a full time graveyard shift job at a bank. Buffalo moved to San Francisco, Berkeley, then in 1972 having left college and his bank job behind, Norton chose to devote his life to playing music and migrated north to Sonoma, in the heart of California's wine country. At the time Norton was performing around the Bay Area in a rock and roll band he had helped form back in his college years, called
The Chaos Chorus. This band featured some great talent from the Richmond area where he grew up. As that band built its popularity, performing all original songs, the music Norton was writing began to shift away from the rock base that was being played in "Chaos". Although he was still playing mostly rock and roll in his band, Buffalo was expanding his musical horizons, by getting more into Bluegrass, Western Swing, Country, Reggae, Latin and R& B styles of writing
During this time, Norton began going to country western shows around Richmond and through Greg Lasser, a pedal steel player he had worked with while working at the bank, he connected with local Country artist
Tom Rose and His Country Moderns, Tom was performing a lot around the Bay Area and Norton began doing a lot of shows with him and later recorded on Tom's first single. During this time, Norton also appeared frequently as a special guest on local radio shows that were broadcast from country western clubs in the area. On one of these shows, hosted by Cecil Mehan, (who could never say enough kind words about Norton's talent), he was always welcomed to perform on air. He spent many a Sunday hanging out with these cats, soaking in the true blue country western world. During this time, having moved onto a hay farm, living in an old barn between the railroad tracks and the sloughs, Norton's new music began to seriously take shape. Its shape was helped by all of the new musical friends he was meeting and playing with. A lifelong friendship was formed when he met the wonderfully talented Singer Guitarist, Piano man,
Tommy Thomsen, who has since those days, gone on to be inducted in the Western Swing hall of fame. Norton Played in Tommy's Bluegrass/Swing band
Sonoma County Line at clubs from Sonoma County to San Francisco and in the process met some powerful pickers.
In mid 1973 Norton left his band "Chaos" and began combining his song writing and musical talents with multi-instrumentalist John McFee, also living in Sonoma. They recorded a demo of four songs at
Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart's studio in Novato, CA. (McFee who was then playing in a Marin County band called Clover, went on to become a member of the Doobie Brothers) All but one of these cuts along with many other songs that Buffalo and McFee wrote together, later appeared on Norton's two Capitol LPs. Together they created a wonderful songwriting and musically challenging friendship that turned out some of Norton's best writing of that time.
Frustrated by the lack of progress in his career, In early 1975, Norton moved to Los Angeles planning on making it a stop on his way to Nashville. For nine months, he traveled all over Southern California sitting in at different Country Western clubs and getting his face seen playing with some great bands in the area. During this time he made his living playing talent contests, performing some solo performances, and even acting in a play, all the while trying to get a recording deal by shopping tapes around to the many connections he made in the music business. After about 9 months in Southern California, Norton moved back to the Valley of The Moon and shortly after, began putting his band "The Stampede together. Rounding up musicians he'd met from his Richmond days as well as his new Sonoma connections, Buffalo forged a unit that made the music he had been writing over the past several years come to life. This band had such incredible talent and through their wonderful devoted rehearsals, together they created the shape and arrangements that were later recorded on Buffalo's Capitol Records LPs.
During this same time he also started playing in an off-shoot of the Commander Cody band,
The Moonlighters. Later that year he was invited to begin playing with Commander Cody And His Lost Planet Airmen which led to an early 1976 tour to Europe and a live album that was recorded on that tour, entitled
We've Got A Live One Here.
It was during this same time that Norton first connected Steve Miller. Meeting at a couple different jam sessions they hit it off great and started hanging out a bunch. This was during the time that Steve was recording his album
Fly Like An Eagle. Hanging out together in the studio during much of the making of that record Steve recorded four of Norton's songs, which never made it onto the album. Buffalo and Miller's musical friendship grew and as the release of that album grew near, Steve asked Norton to join his band and go out on the road for his 1976 summer Fly Like An Eagle tour. Later that year Steve helped to convince Capitol Records to sign Buffalo to their label.
In June 1977, Norton released the first of two superb solo albums for Capitol Records.
Lovin’ in the Valley of the Moon not only highlighted his skills on the harmonica, but also his talents as a songwriter, producer, and a powerful new talent. With this release under his belt, in 1977, Norton continued to tour with the Steve Miller Band, this year, as well as being a member of Steve's band, his own group,
The Stampede, opened up all of Miller's shows at Coliseums across the US. In early 1978 Norton was invited to Hollywood, playing music and acting in
Bette Midler's fabulous screen debut "The Rose". Just as he finished working on that film, in August 1978 Capitol releases Buffalo's second outstanding Capitol LP,
Desert Horizon, which featured some experimental electric harmonica, the celebrated Tower of Power horns and a brilliant collection of tunes that again showed off Norton's writing, producing and of course his prowess as one of the greatest virtuosos of all time on the harmonica.
In the early 80's Norton hooked up again with his friend, Grateful Dead drummer, Mickey Hart and along with Merl Saunders, Bobby Vega, Vicki Randle, and several other Bay Area musical luminaries, they started a band called
High Noon. This was an experimental and extremely diverse group that did performances throughout California for about a year and a half, including several performances with The Jerry Garcia band and often featuring the stellar vocals of Joan Baez as a guest performer. High Noon was a incredible group of great musical friends that created some fine music together. In 1981, High Noon began some great recordings, but before they were finished, the band sadly fell apart due to the complications of so many conflicting schedules.
In 1987 Norton teamed up with legendary Bay Area slide guitar player Roy Rogers to form a powerful performing duet. Norton Buffalo & Roy Rogers Having played a lot of shows together in the seventies with Roy's duet "Rogers and Burgin' opening many of Norton's shows. The magic between these two was instantaneous! They quickly built up a following; traveling some of the touring routes that Norton had carved with his band. Buffalo and Rogers took their music to even farther off regions with many trips to Alaska and Australia. The special musical connection between these two virtuosos has been captured on three albums to date, all on Blind Pig Records. In 1991 they released the all-acoustic R&B. One of the tracks from that CD,
Song for Jessica, was honored with a Grammy Nomination as Best Country Instrumental Performance, and the video of another track,
Ain’t No Bread In the Breadbox, got airplay on TNN. Downbeat said of the album, "All it takes is a sampling of the slide guitar/harmonica dialog on any one of these songs to comprehend how potent -and exciting- the chemistry is between Rogers and Buffalo."
In 1991 Buffalo & Rogers released
Travellin’ Tracks, which included some live tracks as well as some studio tracks on which they were joined by a rhythm section. People magazine called the recording "an album with more bounce than a book of bad checks...a spirited mix of souped-up slide guitar and blustery blues harmonica."
In 2003, Norton & Roy Released
Roots Of Our Nature, again on Blind Pig Records. This CD expanded even more, the boundaries of this duet. Crossing more into Americana styles, yet still rooted in the blues this CD exhibits some phenomenal performances by both Norton & Roy. Roots of our Nature, stands out as a different path for this duet, yet still holds solid ground with their Blues loving fans.
In 2000, Norton released the blues based CD
King Of The Highway, on Blind Pig Records. Recorded in his own studio in The Valley of The Moon, King Of The Highway features Norton along with his dynamic and diverse band of R&B-blues-rock veterans. These Knockouts did a stellar job framing the incredible depths of Buffalo’s harmonica, vocal, keyboard, songwriting, and performance talents. This release also features a couple solos by such stellar musical cohorts as Steve Miller, Elvin Bishop, and some great B-3 work throughout the CD by Merl Saunders. These cats all do some smoking performances, yet the fine foundation that
The Knockouts laid down, is the "roux" that helps to make this musical stew so delicious. This CD is a great example of Norton's fine chops as Engineer and Producer. Though being known as a virtuoso across many styles of music,
King Of The Highway, has Buffalo standing firmly and comfortably on the blues side of town, with his deep, soulful and penetrating vocals, that, though unique, also reflect the many jazz, country, rock and blues singers from whom he honed his vocal style, while he takes the harp from a whisper to a scream, with his truly phenomenal brand of blues harmonica both on diatonic and chromatic harp.. There are many who say that Buffalo is indeed one of the greatest harmonica players in the history of the instrument. This CD gives us an intense classroom demonstration of so many blues harmonica stylings, that harpsters around the world will indeed be using this CD to up their chops for years to come. On this recording, Norton Buffalo becomes the king of the blues highway, and his many fans will be thrilled to be along for the ride.
After several years of experimenting with different acoustic lineups, Buffalo put together a trio with his wife Lisa Flores and good friend David Aguilar, calling this aggregation Norton & Friends. It didn't take long for the chemistry to all come together and for Norton's fans including many from his long ago "Stampede" days to begin finding their way to hear this new acoustic Buffalo. Rooted in Folk and Americana, Norton & Friends music has pretty broad musical boundaries. Their songs feature wonderful melodies and sweet vocal harmonies, some of the deepest lyrical and melodic ballads that Norton has ever written, instrumentals from Samba to Bluegrass to Classical, musical styles that include Rockabilly, Gospel, Rock, Island Rhythms, Folk, Country, Reggae, and more. Over all, the music and the energy and lyrical flowing from this group is uplifting and joyous. The trio has since added Percussionist Owen Davis and bassist David Brown to their group. Owen has added a wonderful dimension to their music with his happy hands driving their rhythm on his congas. David, having with Buffalo for over 24 years now, knows the music well and brings his southern groove and soul on the acoustic bass to give a rich addition to their sound.
In 2007 Norton teamed up with his longtime friend, George Kahumoku Jr. to record a tall pile of Hawaiian and original material. Together as a duet these two friends have performed a handful of concerts and have created a special new kind of magic both onstage and in the studio. In the summer of 2008, Norton Joined George at his Slack Key Guitar and Ukelele workshop in Maui and taught Hawaiian style harmonica along with songwriting and improvisation. During that workshop they held a concert from which a recording of them performing Hawaiian War Chant has now become the lead off song in the newly released
The Spirit Of Hawaiian Slack Key Guitar CD. Look for this and other releases to come out soon with this unique and soulful duet.
At home, when he’s not touring with Steve Miller, The Knockouts, Roy Rogers, Friends, George Kahumoku or Lisa Flores, Buffalo stays involved with an annual community benefit performance, global environmental causes, local community programs, as well as bringing harmonica instruction and inspiration into several California state prisons.
