Brody Buster plays the blues

Tuesday, June 10, 2003

Nobody mentioned the fact that the harmonica player who was playing inches away from the enthralled crowd on Friday night is just 19 years old. It didn't matter. "Awesome, just awesome," said Preston Messenger, referring to the music that filled the room. Messenger's comedy act had opened for Brody Buster and his band an hour earlier at Gordon's Pizza Theater in Nevada. That comment effectively summed up the emotions of a wide-eyed crowd listening in a blues-induced euphoria. But in the world of blues, Buster's age prompts an obvious question. The blues, after all, is music you feel. It's about life and the joys and pain that go along with it. How can one so young know enough about life to pour out the emotion that marks the performance of a truly great blues musician? The answer may be that he's a blues prodigy -- that the music itself gives him the life energy he needs. But it's more likely that he's gathered a form of understanding from the tales and experiences of the many he's performed with and associated with throughout his short life. According to news accounts he provided -- there have been several of them written since he first entered the national spotlight at age 10 on Jay Leno's Tonight Show -- it all started when his mother found an old harmonica in the closet and gave it to 8-year-old Buster. She'd played the harmonica, also known as the blues harp, to many blues aficionados -- with a blues band called Cotton Candy. At first he tried to play it by the wrong end, so his mother turned it around for him. That was his first and only lesson on the technical aspect of playing the instrument, but he credits the many other musicians he's worked with and a few who mentored him as teaching him everything he knows. Through jams with area musicians, Buster met Eugene Smiley, a guitar player who helped to foster the talent Buster was already displaying. He rattled off a long list of blues legends he admires. Among them are BB King, Little Hatch, and Muddy Waters, but one couldn't describe his style as mimicking any of them. From traditional blues to rock with a blues flavor, he's developing his own style. At age 9, he opened at B.B. King's club in Memphis. At age 10 he appeared on the Tonight Show. Since then, he's appeared on numerous television shows, and at fairs and blues festivals -- he's even performed the White House. He's performed with dozens of musicians, including B.B. King, Bonnie Raitt, Quincy Jones, Toby Keith, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and numerous other names most everyone would recognize. Don't misunderstand. It's true that when a harmonica's in his hand, it becomes almost an extension of him as he pours sound through it as though funneling a piece of his soul to the crowd, but he also sings, plays the guitar and can play drums as well. He plays to the crowd naturally, easily, literally as though he were born to do so and involving them in the performance by stepping out among them, taking the music so close the notes seem to form an invisible thread connecting musician and listener. The crowd at Gordon's Pizza responded with an enthusiasm previously unmatched in the venue, but the crowd was well-behaved. A few, however, were put off by the unexpected intensity of the performance. Gordon's proprietor, Blake Coleman, agreed the performance was intense. "These people really seem to go for this," he said, noting he'll continue to bring the blues to town while maintaining a comfortable place to have dinner and get together with friends. Buster's band consists of Robert Frost on the drums, Robbie Brogan on the guitar, and Ethan Cline on the bass. It's an eclectic group. Cline's a 22-year-old Los Angeles native with a host of tattoos and a lip ring. Frost is a 38-year-old drummer with a laid-back, well, rhythmic attitude. Brogan's a bartender at Kansas City's Grand Emporium, where the band frequently appears, by day and a guitarist with a flair for showmanship by night. It was Frost who explained some of the band's popularity. "Blues cures what ails you," he said, and Brody Buster can play the blues. Although all of its members know they're privileged to play the music they love and get paid for it, the band has big plans for the future. A new CD is planned this year, and the group's hoping for a booking on a late-night show within the next year.

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