Brody Buster is only in his early 30s, but he is already a music industry veteran, one preparing to give success a second chance. “I started so young,” he told The Star recently. “I played ‘The Tonight Show,’ I played with B.B. King a bunch of times. But I was just a kid. And then I didn’t want to do it for a while. When I was a teenager, I wanted to play rock ’n’ roll. I wanted to skateboard and party. And then I had kids.”
These days, Buster, 32, is the father of a 5-year-old and a 2-year-old. He’s also trying to revive a career that started when he was 9 and a blues-harp prodigy from Paola, Kan. His career included several moments of celebrity and fame, with guest appearances on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno,” the TV shows “Full House” and “Baywatch,” and an endorsement from King, who called the young Buster “one of the greatest harmonica players of our time, despite his age.” Music remained a consistent component of his life, but not the primary focus. “I’ve always played music, but I wasn’t really pursuing it,” he said.
He is now, and at the 2017 International Blues Challenge in Memphis, Tenn., this month, his pursuit received a significant boost after Buster placed second in the solo/duo category and won best harmonica player. “It has already kick-started my career,” he said. “My email and phone have been flooded with too many offers to get back to. I’m looking for an agent to help me get through it all. I’ve had offers all over the U.S. and Canada to play blues festivals.”
Buster advanced to Memphis after winning a spot through the Kansas City Blues Society’s local competition. Fellow Kansas Citians Amanda Fish and the trio the Old No. 5s also competed in Memphis. Neither made it past the semifinals. It was Buster’s second attempt at the IBC. The first attempt inspired him to change his approach from working in a trio to performing as a one-man band (drums, guitar, harmonica, vocals). “I entered the challenge two years ago as a full band but didn’t make it out of Kansas City,” he said. “All the judges said, ‘You’re really good, you’re just too much rock.’ So I started this one-man-band thing Monday nights at the Westport Saloon. And I built it there. It’s pretty much the same music, but it’s toned down, not so loud and in-the-face. It’s a lot bluesier.”
Buster has released an album on Mudstomp Records as Brody Buster’s One Man Band, and he performs regularly around Kansas City beyond his regular Monday night gig at the Westport Saloon. He also has a weekly Wednesday night gig at the Oak Bar in the InterContinental Kansas City at the Plaza.
UNIVERSAL CITY — Janet Buster understood things would somehow never be the same for her son after that night last fall at the Universal Amphitheatre.
She and 9-year-old Brody had been given backstage passes to a concert by blues guitar master B. B. King, and the two found a spot at the side of the stage, hoping for a chance to say hello again to King when the show ended.
That's when King saw the boy, raised his hand to stop the concert, and directed the spotlight to suddenly fall on young Brody. "Ladies and gentlemen," King announced, "I'd like to introduce to you one of the greatest harmonica players of our time, despite his age, believe it or not."
A stunning pronouncement, and from a man who should know what he's talking about. Here was the great B. B. King, who has led the charge on more than one blues revival, landing this tow-headed child squarely within some esteemed company. Howlin' Wolf. Sonny Boy Williamson. Shakey Horton. Brody Buster?
This surely has not been some passing fancy, either, since Brody Buster and his band, the Bluesbusters, perform every other weekend at B. B. King's Blues Club on the Universal CityWalk. At the club's grand opening in June, young Brody was even invited on stage to blow his harp alongside King himself.
"You see your 9-year-old stand up there and play with B. B. King and the crowd goes wild, you take notice," his mother says now. "I could never have dreamed of such a thing happening."
This career of Brody's has been an unexpected detour in the life of the Buster family of rural Paola, Kan. What began as a nice hobby for the boy has within two years exploded with unexpected consequences. There was his appearance on ABC-TV's sitcom "Full House." And this week, Brody began filming a guest spot on the syndicated hit television series "Baywatch."
Six months after arriving in Los Angeles, Brody is represented by the same management firm (Morra, Brezner, Steinberg and Tennenbaum) that handles the massive careers of Robin Williams and Billy Crystal.
But Brody, who is now 10, seems the least surprised of anyone. Even before he first picked up a harmonica, Brody would watch the Grammy Awards with his parents and practice his own acceptance speeches, thank ing Mom and Dad.
"He can actually play," says guitarist Vincent Labauve, 37, musical director of the Bluesbusters. The veteran sideman for such artists as Ike Turner, Solomon Burke, Barry White and the Coasters, adds, "We're not lacking musically. I wouldn't care if he was 2. The musical content is what I go for. I go for the talent.
"I don't feel any kind of stigma because we've got a 10-year-old kid in front of us. That doesn't bother me in the least. I'm more relaxed on this gig than I am on the big professional gigs that I've done."
On one recent Friday night, the self-taught Brody stomped to the stage in a purple double-breasted suit and with a case full of harmonicas, ready to blow through the standard blues repertoire. Among those songs was Willie Dixon's "(I'm Your) Hoochie Coochie Man," where the boy was most convincing as both player and singer, actually finding a grinding edge in his voice, and blowing his harp with real force.
"It's a novelty to a lot of people," says Labauve. "But what's so cool about it is that he delivers. He's not just 'Oh, how cute!' He's actually playing. That puts a whole other slant on things."
After his shows at B. B. King's Blues Club, Brody and his band stroll over to Lucille's, King's sports bar next door, where the young musician plays another three sets that last half an hour or so.
While waiting for his band to set up, he's asked who his favorite musician is. Brody does not hesitate. "B. B. King," says Brody, his blond hair neatly combed. "I also like Eric Clapton."
But it was his mother's collection of old blues, country, and rhythm and blues records that first fascinated Brody. His father, Curtis, one day brought home an acoustic guitar from a garage sale. Then his mother brought out her old harmonicas for Brody to try.
Suddenly, Brody, who was then 7, was playing the thing everywhere: in the car, in the grocery store, on the porch, in the treehouse.
"I quit playing," remembers his mother. "Brody put me to shame. In a couple of months he could do everything I could do.
"He has the music in him. He's always banging on something, in a rhythm or a pattern, making music somehow. And when he's not making music he's drawing designs for stages. He says that relaxes him."
Brody's guitar teacher soon recommended that Brody try out his blues harp chops at the various jam sessions and talent contests in nearby Kansas City.
"He never had any stage fright," says Janet Buster, 40. "I didn't know what would happen the first time he got up. I didn't know if he would start crying and run and sit down. I was really nervous about it. I didn't want him to have a bad experience. But he just really enjoyed it."
The family eventually decided to spend last year's spring vacation in Memphis, where Brody could find audiences amid the euphoric atmosphere of Beale Street. There, he blew his harp on street corners and in the occasional club, while other kids danced.
Spring break ultimately stretched into summer, with Brody's father commuting on weekends--which he continues to do--from his car dealership back in Paola. Fans were throwing money at Brody, who earned a couple hundred dollars a night, enough to buy himself a fine electric guitar at the end of the summer.
The family's extended vacation away from their old life finally led late last year to Los Angeles, where Brody was soon booked at B. B. King's club. He prepares for his late-night schedule by taking afternoon naps. Along with his 9-year-old sister, Brody attends fourth grade at a public elementary school in Burbank and insists, "I get straight A's and Bs," which his parents make clear is a prerequisite for his music career.
His parents say they have also been careful to have Brody perform only in the least rowdy of clubs. (So far, the most unpleasant experience has been Brody's arm growing tired from too many autographs.) Only venues that serve food--as opposed to bars that just serve alcohol--are considered.
"I think it holds no glamour for him," says Janet Brody. "When he's 16 and his peers are cruising and out drinking, I don't think that will hold any attraction for him because he's seen what it really does. We always point out the artists who ended their careers sadly and too soon by overdosing or drinking too much."
To that end, the Busters were determined to form a backing group for their son, free of drugs, alcohol and cigarettes. The Bluesbusters--which also includes bassist Jerry Chambers and drummer Cheron Moore--are determined to "shield him from the crap that goes on, the negative part of the show business world," says Labauve, the father of three. "We definitely want to shield him from that, because it's really not necessary to expose the kid to that."
For now, Brody Buster and the Bluesbusters continue to play their mix of blues classics and blues-rock covers from the 1960s. Brody today says he's only interested in the blues, while the more modern rock sounds of MTV have so far failed to impress him.
But Brody is still only 10, and Labauve, for one, is expecting some changes in the coming years. "You know when Brody hits his teens, he's going to want to rock a lot more," he says with a laugh. "That's just something that happens to you."
Alabama-born artist Kendall Buster (1954-) is widely regarded as one of the most innovative sculptors in the United States because of the unusual merger of art and science in her work. Trained as a microbiologist, Buster creates sculptures that have been described as "biological architecture," that reference the molecular world by recreating its shapes and forms on a massive scale. Buster sometimes collaborates with her husband, South African artist Siemon David Allen (1971-), whom she married in 1997.
Kendall Buster was born in Selma, Dallas County, on September 15, 1954, the only child of Ralph DeWitt Buster and Jennie Kendall Traylor Buster. Raised outside of Selma in the town of Sardis, where her father served as postmaster, she attended Selma's John T. Morgan Academy from 1965 to 1972. In 1972, Buster entered the University of Alabama, where she studied microbiology, receiving a bachelor's degree in medical technology in 1976. Upon graduation, she moved first to Tampa, Florida, where she worked as a medical technologist in the laboratory at the All Children's Hospital. In 1977, she moved to Washington, D.C. During this time, she visited art museums in Washington and New York City, experiences that by 1978 led to her take art classes at Washington's Corcoran School of Art (now Corcoran College of Art and Design) and the University of Maryland in College Park. In 1979, Buster enrolled full time at the Corcoran, receiving her BFA in 1981. In 1984, she completed the Independent Study Program of New York's Whitney Museum of American Art and in 1987 received her MFA in sculpture from Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.
While still working in a clinical medical laboratory, Buster became captivated by the beauty of what she observed with her microscope and began to make drawings of what she has called the "landscape" she saw through her lens. In art school, she shifted her focus to creating large-scale sculptures resembling cellular structures. The transition from flat to sculptural works occurred when Buster began to configure her two-dimensional paintings into three-dimensional architectural spaces, accessible by the viewer.
Buster's works typically consist of a semitransparent shadecloth "membrane" stretched over a large cage-like frame constructed from bent and welded steel rods. In some works, the membrane is made of paper, insect screening, thin steel sheeting, or beeswax. Many of Buster's works encourage the viewer to walk inside of them. Many of Buster's works are commissioned for a predetermined natural or human-made setting and are designed specifically for that particular locale by considering and responding to the environment in which the work will reside. One such site-specific sculpture, Garden Snare (1998) created for the Kreeger Museum, in Washington, D.C., is a shade house consisting of two conjoined chambers resembling a dividing cell. The chambers have low, discreet entrances that require the viewer to stoop down to step inside. The inconspicuous entrances help preserve a sense of total envelopment once inside, and the shade cloth membrane provides shelter from the sun but still enables the viewer to see the surrounding garden. A square opening at the top of each chamber permits natural light to enter and also frames a view of the sky.
Buster also has created a number of site-specific hanging sculptures. One example, Resonance (2010), housed at the Frick Chemistry Laboratory at Princeton University, in Princeton, New Jersey, was designed and built in collaboration with Siemon Allen. It consists of six groupings of interconnected translucent circular and oval forms, ranging in size from 8-by-3 feet to 16-by-10 feet, suspended from a 75-foot-high glass atrium roof with stainless steel aircraft cable. According to Buster, the forms, which resemble cells splitting and dividing, were partially inspired by the models used to represent molecular structures.
In 2010, Buster was one of eight artists commissioned to create a work for the opening of 100 Acres: The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, in Indianapolis, Indiana. Buster created Stratum Pier, a series of curved and layered platforms along the park's lakeshore that provide a viewing area from which to experience the surrounding environment. The stratified, undulating forms of the platforms are meant to reference the landscape itself, bringing to mind the contours on a topographical map and also referring to the natural process of erosion and growth. The work was constructed from emerald green fiberglass to blend in with the surrounding landscape, with grasses and brush growing around it.
In addition to numerous permanent site-specific works, Buster's work has been exhibited at numerous galleries and museums throughout the United States, including the Hirshhorn Museum in Washington, D.C., the American Academy of Arts and Letters in New York, the Haggerty Museum of Art in Milwaukee, and the Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art in Kansas City. Internationally, her work has been shown at the Bahnhof Westend in Berlin and the KZNSA Gallery in Durban, South Africa. In 2005, Buster received an award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Buster lives and works in Richmond, Virginia, where she is a professor in the Department of Sculpture and Extended Media at Virginia Commonwealth University. She previously taught at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C., and at Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore, Maryland.
The selectors said: Kendall’s monumental installations are at once both diaphanous and industrial, transforming spaces in exhibitions and commissions across the globe. Her commitment to her practice and her research makes her a priceless asset to her VCUarts students and Richmond as a whole.
Growing up in Sardis, Alabama, where her father was postmaster, Kendall Buster built forts in the woods, made her own toys and read everything. Her Depression-era grandfather enjoyed carving. “He was always making tools and contraptions of all sorts,” she recalls.
Her intellect steered her toward the sciences and in 1972, she started studies in microbiology at the University of Alabama. Peering at organic structures through a microscope initiated the ideas that she’d ultimately translate into art. She worked first as a medical technologist at Tampa, Florida’s All Children’s Hospital.
Her 1977 move to Washington, D.C., gave access to a galaxy of museums and galleries. She chose to explore the creative aspect of her scientific interests, taking classes at what is now the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design and the University of Maryland in College Park. She received her Bachelor of Fine Arts there in 1981.
“The Corcoran in the early ’80s was a perfect laboratory environment for finding one’s own practice,” she recalls. “We moved from drawing to film to constructions to text-based works to performance.” Buster cites the late abstract sculptor and Corcoran professor Anne Truitt as a great influence on the way she wanted to live as an artist.
She earned her Master of Fine Arts from Yale University and did further work through the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Studio Program in New York City. In 2002, Buster came to Virginia Commonwealth University to teach in the “incredible” sculpture program. “I was moving between D.C., Baltimore … NYC and even South Africa at the time,” she says, “and was lured here by the program and the community that is VCU School of the Arts.”
A primary material in her work is agricultural shade cloth, which she first discovered in the greenhouse structures of Cape Town, South Africa — her husband, artist Siemon David Allen, is from there — and she uses it for her large pieces that require transparent skin.
Buster’s creations for manmade and natural locations are sometimes large enough to walk into. “Garden Snare” (1998), created for the Kreeger Museum in Washington, is two joined chambers that look like futuristic camping enclosures. One must enter stooped. The visitor is enclosed, but can see through the material, and square openings at the top of each section give a view of the sky. Buster sees this form as a living cell that could split again.
Ralph DeWitt Buster (b.1924, AL) Father
William Russell Buster (b.1884, AL) Grandfather
William DeWitt Buster (b.1857, AL) Great-Grandfather John Buster Jr. (b.1810, AL) 2nd Great-Grandfather John Buster Sr. (b.1762, VA) 3rd Great-Grandfather David Buster (b. 1738, VA) 4thGreat-Grandfather William Bustard (b. 1694, UK) 5thGreat-Grandfather
