Charles Furman Phillips Jr “Buster”

Charles Furman Phillips, Jr.—Buster—joined the Heavenly band this week at the age of 74.

Buster was a painter, a carpenter, a mechanic and a fisherman; he was a jack of all trades and a master of one. He was a father, a cut-up, a gardener and a shaky heart with a kind soul. He was a doer of puzzles, a maker of things, a collector of pictures, model trains and stories. He was a renegade, a nuisance, a burden and a blessing. He was a cat with ten lives and he was almost indestructible.

More than anything he was a drummer, and a damn good one. He started his life’s work at age 16 and it lives on in a thousand recordings made over the course of decades spent in studios and on stages all over the world.

He is preceded in death by his son, Charles Furman Phillips, III, and survived by his daughter Paula Teal, his son Buster, his grandchildren Harper, Margot, Lockhart, Jacob, Adam and everyone else who couldn’t help but love the guy as he bounced rhythmically around our lives.

In lieu of flowers the family asks that you put on an old record you forgot you loved and turn it up a little louder than usual.