At 7 p.m. on a normal night in Glendale, you can find Red Benson is his familiar seat in front of the In-N-Out on Brand Boulevard, crooning for a steady stream of passers-by.
This Thursday evening, Benson’s was in place, but his familiar folk and country tunes fell upon the ears of only a few, his rendition of Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” echoing off the storefronts along the typically bustling corridor.
It wasn’t but every minute or two that someone — a jogger, a guy picking up food to deliver, a skateboarder in a mask, another couple of men walking a dog and also wearing face coverings — ventured past.
One man stopped for a few minutes, standing a good 15 feet away to listen. Another man nodded on his way past and thanked Benson for playing. A little later, another dropped some cash in the street musician’s re-purposed spittoon — which Benson calls his “tippoon” — set up several feet in front of the 71-year-old singing guitarist.
That’s as close as anyone got.
Yes, a pandemic makes for a lonely living for a street performer, but not so lonely that Benson is staying home in Granada Hills.
“My tippoon will decide whether I’m going to be out there or not,” said Benson, who’s begun playing fewer hours, starting earlier in the evening, when a few people still are out.
He said he’s stopped playing altogether at the Third Street Promenade in Santa Monica because it’s so deserted, electing instead to dedicate himself to his familiar haunt in Glendale, where he’s been a fixture since 1998. It’s also a city where, as of Friday afternoon, there were 103 confirmed coronavirus cases.
“There’s not as many people out there now,” Benson said. “And the people that come by, a lot of people are scared of this virus. But a lot of them thank me for being there.”
For them, his voice and his guitar chords are symbols of normalcy in a most aberrant time, his renditions of “Tramp on the Street” by Peter, Paul and Mary, or “Why Me” by Kris Kristofferson, feeling at once reassuring and disconcerting.
“I didn’t know if it was gonna work, I suspected it might, but I didn’t know for sure,” Benson said. “I know a lot of people are scared, and when they see me out there I think it helps.”
Once a car salesman, a real estate agent, a Navy crewman and a journalism student at Moorpark College, Benson said carrying on with his favorite job yet during this coronavirus crisis is helping him, too.
“When I’m sitting there playing music, I feel like I’m in church,” Benson said. “It’s a weird feeling. I enjoy it, whether people are there or not. I like it better when there’s people, but I like it either way.
“I just play it day to day; I live day to day. When you get to be older, every day is special and I want to live every day on my own terms.”
