Buzzy Linhart (March 3, 1943 – February 13, 2020) was an American rock performer, composer, multi-instrumentalist musician and actor.
He began playing percussion for symphony at the age of seven, switching to vibraphone at ten. At the age of eleven he forms a Dixieland band called the Five Diamonds.He later formed the Bel-Aires, not the Scottish group of the same name. At fourteen he entered the Cleveland Music School Settlement. Because of this training he led bands all through school and at the age of 18 entered the U.S. Navy School of Music as a percussionist.He caught emphysema during the Cuban Missile Crisis from fighting a fire, also "a guy was killed ten feet from me on watch," creating post-traumatic stress disorder. He was 19 when he was let out of the navy.
In 1963, he moved to New York City and became friends and roommates with John Sebastian. He also became a protégé of the senior guitarist and folk singer Fred Neil. One of his first bands, with fellow musicians Steve De Naut, Serge Katzen, and Max Ochs, was Seventh Sons, who released a raga-rock LP for ESP Records. Linhart later released a series of solo albums from the late 1960s to the mid-1970s starting with his Philips debut buzzy (the title with a small "b") in 1969.
In 1971 Linhart was signed to Eleuthera Records. Although closely associated with the Greenwich Village folk-rock scene for much of his career, he recorded that first complete solo album in London and Wales with the Welsh prog-rock band Eyes of Blue serving as the backing band. Linhart had significant visibility as an actor in the mid-1970s. He also achieved some notoriety from his appearance in the opening sequence of the cult movie The Groove Tube, as a hippie hitchhiker. He was also a regular on the 1976 television show Cos, starring Bill Cosby. However, there appears to be little or no surviving footage from the series, unlike the several subsequent Cosby television series.
His skill on the vibraphone led to work as a session musician on recordings by Buffy Sainte-Marie, Richie Havens, Carly Simon, Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys, and Jimi Hendrix (on the Cry of Love album; he was also credited on Electric Ladyland). In 1977, he was rear-ended on the 405 in a borrowed truck while moving in the LA area — he was temporarily without a union job and had no health insurance. In that accident, he injured his knee, hip and tore the cartilage between his ribs. Things got bad, and Buzzy experienced homelessness and unprovoked police brutality that seriously injured his shoulder.
Thanks to some old “Friends”, and some welfare programs he had stable housing in Berkeley since about 1990, and reunited with his oldest son, Professor Xeno (Linhart) Rasmusson in 1992. Older adult-related health issues have included osteoporosis, a series of mild strokes and moderate heart attacks, but he has recovered well and has excellent health in many ways thanks to many years of studying natural health and yoga. Although mobility challenged and living with chronic pain, Buzzy still had a lot to give.
In 2005 he recorded "Mr. Cool" on the CD Life Goes On, with Monica Dupont and Gary Novak. Linhart was joint composer of "(You Got To Have) Friends," a collaboration with Mark "Moogy" Klingman, which became singer Bette Midler's de facto theme song. This was the end of his major label career, but although he never achieved commercial success, Linhart continued to write, record, sing and compose music for many years afterward. Shelley Toscano created a highly acclaimed film documentary, Famous: The Buzzy Linhart Story in 2006.
He ended his latter days with the aid of a wheelchair due to degenerated knees. On May 29, 2018, Linhart suffered a “heart attack, seizures, and other complications.” He was subsequently hospitalized, then moved to a nursing home in Berkeley. He died at his Northern California home on February 13, 2020.He was 76.
(Edited
from Wikipedia, AllMusic, Best Classic Bands & Buzzy Linhart Memorial Fund)