Buster Bennett was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 saxophonist

Saxophone

The saxophone is a conical-bore transposing musical instrument that is a member of the woodwind family. Saxophones are usually made of brass and played with a single-reed mouthpiece similar to that of the clarinet. The saxophone was invented by the Belgian instrument maker Adolphe Sax in 1846...

 and vocalist. At various times in his career, he played the soprano saxophone

Soprano saxophone

The soprano saxophone is a variety of the saxophone, a woodwind instrument, invented in 1840. The soprano is the third smallest member of the saxophone family, which consists of the soprillo, sopranino, soprano, alto, tenor, baritone, bass, contrabass and tubax.A transposing instrument pitched in...

, the alto

Alto saxophone

The alto saxophone is a member of the saxophone family of woodwind instruments invented by Belgian instrument designer Adolphe Sax in 1841. It is smaller than the tenor but larger than the soprano, and is the type most used in classical compositions...

, and the tenor

Tenor saxophone

The tenor saxophone is a medium-sized member of the saxophone family, a group of instruments invented by Adolphe Sax in the 1840s. The tenor, with the alto, are the two most common types of saxophones. The tenor is pitched in the key of B, and written as a transposing instrument in the treble...

. He was known for his gutbucket style on the saxophone. He also played the piano

Piano

The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...

 and the string bass

Bass violin

Bass violin is the generic modern term used to denote various 16th- and 17th-century forms of bass instruments of the violin family. They were the direct ancestor of the modern cello. Bass violins were usually somewhat larger than the modern cello, but tuned the same or sometimes just one step...

 professionally.

Biography

James Joseph Bennett was born in Pensacola

Pensacola, Florida

Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, Florida, United States of America. As of the 2000 census, the city had a total population of 56,255 and as of 2009, the estimated population was 53,752...

, Florida

Florida

Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...

.

By 1930 or so, he was working in Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, but spent most of his active career (1938 to 1954) in Chicago

Chicago

Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...

. He was employed as a session musician

Session musician

Session musicians are instrumental and vocal performers, musicians, who are available to work with others at live performances or recording sessions. Usually such musicians are not permanent members of a musical ensemble and often do not achieve fame in their own right as soloists or bandleaders...

 by Lester Melrose

Lester Melrose

Lester Melrose was one of the first American producers of blues records.-Career:He was born Lester Franklin Melrose in Sumner, Illinois, United States, the second of six children of Frank and Mollie Melrose who owned a small farm...

 from 1938 to 1942; he played on recordings

Sound recording and reproduction

Sound recording and reproduction is an electrical or mechanical inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording...

 with Big Bill Broonzy

Big Bill Broonzy

Big Bill Broonzy was a prolific American blues singer, songwriter and guitarist. His career began in the 1920s when he played country blues to mostly black audiences. Through the ‘30s and ‘40s he successfully navigated a transition in style to a more urban blues sound popular with white audiences...

, the Yas Yas Girl, Monkey Joe

Monkey Joe

Jesse "Monkey Joe" Coleman was an American country blues pianist and singer, who recorded sporadically from the 1930s into the 1970s.Jesse Coleman was most likely born in Mississippi, and though the year of birth is not known, he was probably born around 1906...

, and Washboard Sam

Washboard Sam

Robert Brown , known professionally as Washboard Sam, was an American blues singer and musician.-Biography:...

. Concomitantly he played on sessions with Jimmie Gordon under Sammy Price

Sammy Price

Sammy Price was an American jazz, boogie-woogie and jump blues pianist and bandleader. He was born Samuel Blythe Price, in Honey Grove, Texas, United States. Price was most noteworthy for his work on Decca Records with his own band, known as the Texas Bluesicians, that included fellow musicians...

's direction.

In 1945, Bennett signed a three-year recording contract

Recording contract

A recording contract is a legal agreement between a record label and a recording artist , where the artist makes a record for the label to sell and promote...

 with Columbia Records

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

; he was marketed as a Louis Jordan

Louis Jordan

Louis Thomas Jordan was a pioneering American jazz, blues and rhythm & blues musician, songwriter and bandleader who enjoyed his greatest popularity from the late 1930s to the early 1950s. Known as "The King of the Jukebox", Jordan was highly popular with both black and white audiences in the...

 sound-alike. In early 1946, while under contract to Columbia, Bennett appeared, under the name of his trumpet player, Charles Gray, on a recording for the short-lived Chicago label

Record label

In the music industry, a record label is a brand and a trademark associated with the marketing of music recordings and music videos. Most commonly, a record label is the company that manages such brands and trademarks, coordinates the production, manufacture, distribution, marketing and promotion,...

, Rhumboogie

Rhumboogie Café

The Rhumboogie Café, also referred to as the Rhumboogie Club, was an important, but short-lived nightclub at 343 East 55th Street, Chicago....

. He also made an unannounced appearance on a Red Saunders

Red Saunders

Red Saunders was a British photographer and founder of Rock Against Racism. He has specialised in rock music photography. He is part of theatre group Complicite.-External links:* * http://www.reddogonline.eu/mcredman.htm...

 session on Sultan Records

Sultan Records

Sultan Recording Company, headquartered in Detroit, was a short-lived label started c. 1946 by Morton Sultan .Its gimmick was "Double-header hits," meaning that two different artists shared each 78 rpm....

 in 1946, and on a Tom Archia

Tom Archia

Ernest Alvin Archia, Jr. , was a jazz tenor saxophonist. He took "Texas Tom" as his marquee name.Archia was born, in Groveton, Texas...

 session for Aristocrat

Aristocrat Records

Aristocrat Records, sometimes referred to The Aristocrat of Records, was founded in April 1947 by Charles and Evelyn Aron, together with their partners Fred and Mildred Brount and Art Spiegel. By September Leonard Chess had invested in the young record company. Over time, Leonard bought the others...

 in 1947.

At the height of his popularity, in the late 1940s, he was known for his ability to draw customers into a South Side club - and for his cantankerous personality. On one occasion, he and Preston Jackson

Preston Jackson

James Preston McDonald, better known by his stage name Preston Jackson was an American jazz trombonist....

 got into a fistfight at the Musicians Union hall, over a $2 debt.

Bennett recorded his last session for Columbia in December 1947. By 1956 he was out of music, because of the loss of recording opportunities and his own failing health. He retired to Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

, where he lived out the remainder of his life. He died in Houston in 1980, at the age of 66.