Duster Bennett: Justa Duster -1969

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* I have posted the track listings for The Complete Blue Horizon Sessions below. The review refers mainly to the Justa Duster album but also to Duster's work in general.

The British blues rock boom of the mid-late 1960s certainly produced some names - Eric Clapton & The Yardbirds, Eric Burdon & The Animals, Van Morrison & Them, The Rolling Stones, Peter Green & Fleetwood Mac, The early era Kinks, Steve Winwood, Rod Stewart, Zoot Money, John Mayall's Blues Breakers. 

One that is not always mentioned, but for some of the cognoscenti is maybe the best of them all was Anthony "Duster" Bennett, who unfortunately died in a car accident in 1976, aged only 26. He began as a blues rock "one man band", playing guitar, a bass drum via a pedal foot and a blues harmonica strapped round his neck. The sound he produced was full and pounding and passes as a full band if you didn't know. This was his second album.

He was joined on some recordings by bluesmen friends Peter Green and Top Topham and the result is blues rock of the highest quality. The sound quality on these recordings, especially considering their age, and the fact that some were recorded in Bennett's own home studio, is pretty good. He differed from a lot of the artists recording blues material in that most of his songs were his own compositions as opposed to covers of blues standards. 

His covers are good too, and are not always the obvious ones others were doing (like Hoochie Coochie Man or I'm A Man). Elmore James' It's A Man Down There is particularly impressive. As indeed is Willie Dixon's Just Like I Treat You. Bennett is joined on keyboards by Ham Richmond who is none other than Bennett himself, I believe. 

Raining In My Heart (not the Buddy Holly song) has a retrospective rock 'n' roll sound to it. Bright Lights, Big City was also covered by Them and other highlights are Sugar Beat, Rock Of Ages, What A Dream and Talk To Me. Duster Bennett was a true, raw talent and left this world far too early.

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