To Drive Or Not To Drive

I've been thinking about Duster Bennett a lot. For two reasons. One is because Russ Payne and the Shark Dentists have been playing his great song Jumping At Shadows at recent gigs, and I've just about got the playing of harmonica (and drums) on it sorted. (Duster, of course, played harmonica, drums and guitar and sang — all at the same time, as he was the one-man band of the blues.)

The other reason is because he died in March 1976, aged 29, when he is thought to have fallen asleep at the wheel driving home from a gig. He's not the first or last musician to do that. It's an occupational hazard when you spend nights driving long distances, setting up, playing, taking down, and then driving off into the night, often along unfamiliar roads.

I almost nodded off a couple of times on my way back from a gig this week. I should have stayed over but had decided I needed to get back. Arriving home at just after 130am, I found the front door locked and ended up sleeping in the back of the car. The musician's life has more than one occupational hazard...