Duster Bennett

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Anthony 'Duster' Bennett (born 23 September 1943, in Welshpool, Powys, Mid Wales died 26 March 1976, in Warwickshire), was a British blues singer and musician. He was a session musician in the early 1960s playing harmonica. Based around London, his first album Smiling Like I'm Happy saw him playing in an almost one-man band type scenario, playing a bass drum with his foot, a harmonica and guitar. With his girlfriend Stella Sutton and backed by the original Fleetwood Mac on three tracks, the album was well-received among blues fans. He was very popular on the local blues club scene but died in a car crash in 1976.

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[edit] The musician

Emerging in the late sixties from the Kingston/Guildford art school music scene, Tony 'Duster' Bennett was a one-man blues band whose virtuosity and co-ordination on drums, guitar and harp was as riveting as it was unique. His live sets would combine his own compositions with Jimmy Reed-style blues standards often aided and abetted by friends Peter Green and Top Topham. Between 1968 and 1970 he seemed ever-present on John Peel's Top Gear and Sunday-repeated-on-Wednesday shows, gigged prodigiously and eventually joined John Mayall's Bluesbreakers as band member/solo act on a US tour in 1970. Drifted off in the Seventies into more whimsical mainstream material, never landed the hit record his catchy and accessible tunes deserved.

[edit] The music

Country blues with the occasional gospel offering. Recorded three albums and a string of singles for Blue Horizon. Bright Lights, recorded live at his beloved Gin Mill Club, is a powerful testimony to his popularity among the blues cognoscenti while his legacy on Smiling Like I'm Happy is the haunting 'Jumping at Shadows', covered by Fleetwood Mac and recently revived by Gary Moore - surely the best blues composition ever penned this side of the Atlantic. Attempts to gain wider appeal with Mickie Most were unsuccessful. For decades, a clutch of live and home recordings on Indigo seemed to be all that remained of his work in the CD public domain until the 2006 first-time CD release of the Complete Blue Horizon Sessions reminded us all of what we had lost.

[edit] Death

Bennett died in a car crash after performing with Memphis Slim on March 26, 1976. He was asleep at the wheel.

[edit] External links

For info about the authorised Duster Bennett biography published in June 2007, visit www.jetmartin.co.uk