Early career Bennett studied drums with
Max Abrams after returning to London and became the in-house drummer at
The 2i's Coffee Bar in
Soho and was a regular performer on
Jack Good's TV show
Oh Boy! The band split up between 1968 and 1973, but was reformed by Marvin, Welch and Bennett. In addition to his work with the Shadows he has also appeared in
Cliff Richard's backing band and plays piano and occasionally
vibraphone. The band reunited from 2008 to 2010, and played one-off concerts in 2015 and 2020. Bennett along with
Hank Marvin and
Bruce Welch was one of three core members of the group
Other works In 1967, Bennett released a solo album of jazz music, entitled
Change of Direction, in mono and stereo (neither charted). This was the first solo album by a member of the Shadows. Also in the 1960s and 1970s, Bennett played the drums on records by other artists including
Labi Siffre,
Ella Fitzgerald,
Olivia Newton-John,
The Walker Brothers and
Peter Frampton. Bennett has enjoyed a parallel and successful career as a composer of library music, issuing multiple LPs with production music labels such as Bruton and
KPM. He was also a member of
Steve Gray's WASP ensemble, which recorded library music for the KPM 1000 Series. This has resulted in the use of his music for many popular TV theme tunes including
BBC sports themes such as
Rugby Special ("Holy Mackerel") and BBC Golf ("Chase Side Shoot Up"), Channel 9 Australia's cricket theme and police drama
Bluey theme tune ("New Horizons"), the sitcoms ''
Robin's Nest and Birds of a Feather, The Ruth Rendell Mysteries'', In 2017, Bennett and Welch unveiled a blue plaque at the Globe theatre in
Stockton. In 2021, he along with many other drummers, were enlisted by
Don Powell of
Slade to record the charity single "Let There Be Drums". In 2022, he released a single "Name of the Game" with
Dave Richmond, which was on the UK Physical Singles Chart for one week in December 2022, at number 82. == Personal life ==