San Francisco’s ‘Bucket Man’ has Died at Age 64

Whether you recognize the name “Bucket Man’ or not, you’ll definitely recognize what he sounded like.  For decades Larry “The Bucket Man” Hunt played drums, buckets, pots, and frying pans downtown San Francisco, usually near the Powell Street Bart entrances, you know, where the Westfield Centre, Bart station, and the cable car turnaround form a triangle of tourism traffic…

Larry appeared on “America’s Got Talent” and in the Will Smith movie, “Pursuit of Happyness.”  He’s originally from Kansas but has been busking in the Bay since the 1980’s, there have been dozens of impromptu interviews and documentaries made about him and countless social media posts about his drumming over the years.

He even added a fire show to his act, where he’d light his drumsticks on fire and lick the flame.  Sometimes he played with a bass player, sometimes with a traditional set of drums, and sometimes with a dozen or so 5-gallon buckets, but rain or shine Larry was out on there hustling.

Busking is hard work.  On the streets you can get your equipment or your tips jacked, you can have the cops called on you repeatedly, often you have to compete for prime locations with other buskers and vendors, and you get fucked with in every imaginable way, it’s a hard life.

At one point so many store owners complained about his drum playing that the cops arrested Larry, and while in jail he lost his apartment, and was homeless for two months, before a fellow musician put him up at their place and got him back on his feet.

Reporter Nora Mishanec interviewed a friend of Larry’s this week, Brian Compton, a fellow street musician and bassist that Larry played with over the years, starting on the UC Berkeley Campus and then downtown SF.  Compton said friends were organizing a memorial service at the end of the month that would incorporate the pots and drums that Hunt was famous for.

Chronicle columnist Heather Knight did a story and podcast recently about SF buskers coming back after COVID quieted the streets, she mused that Larry and other street performers are “The underrated heartbeat of S.F.”

Larry ‘The Bucket Man’ Hunt passed away this week at age 64, the SF coroners did not release a cause of death but they confirmed it.

So next time you see a drummer working an SF sidewalk, throw them a fiver and tell them “this one’s for Larry”.

RIP Bucketman, your rhythms will be missed.