Ex-Golden Gate Transit bus driver's unusual route to music

To calm his traffic-jangled nerves after the morning commute up and down, up and down Highway 101, Sherman Caviness would dismount the driver's seat of a Golden Gate Transit bus and lug one of his smaller guitars into the break room.

The longtime Santa Rosa resident would strum a little something from his sizable repertoire, maybe tinker with a concept for a new tune.

“It started out as just a stress reliever,” said Caviness, a compact and fastidious man with a wave of silver hair and a sunny smile. Through most of the 1980s and '90s he'd played professionally with the Sonoma County band Amarillo, so it was reflexive for him to turn to music to decompress in the drivers' kick-back space.

“It's kind of like a disease,” he said of music. “You never get over it.”

One day as he played his three-quarter-size guitar, another Golden Gate Transit bus operator said to him. “Hey, I play.” And another, “I sing.”

Pretty soon, the transit district's San Francisco break room morphed into a music room. A driver who hadn't picked up a pair of drum sticks since high school might jam right next to one who not so long ago played a guitar like a pro.

“Some came just once,” Caviness said, “some just a couple of times and some hundreds of times.”

From those casual sessions was born Bad Transfer. It wasn't so much a band as a diverse confederation of 18 driver-musicians, 11 of them Sonoma County residents. They created a grand array of songs - a fair number of them driving themed - and took turns playing when the style and demands of a piece matched any particular musician's preference and ability.

“There were never more than six people on any given song,” Caviness said.

It was about eight years ago the break-room jamming began. It gave those drivers who joined in, and who otherwise would have had little reason to get to know each other, a whole new reason to come to work. It sweetened the day.

“There really was a good feeling among all the people who came in to play,” Caviness said. “It was just the coolest thing that happened. It changed your whole mood, your whole point of view.”

One subset or another of Bad Transfer played for free at bus drivers' retirement parties and a smattering of public gigs. For years now, several drivers have provided the soundtrack to the annual fundraiser of the Sonoma State University women's basketball team.

Caviness had driven for 16 years when he retired in 2013 from Golden Gate Transit, which runs buses through Sonoma and Marin counties and into San Francisco and Contra Costa counties. But the lead guitarist hasn't retired from driving a beat.

He still jams with other alumni of Bad Transfer, still creates songs and on occasion performs with members of a spinoff foursome, The Drivers. Caviness also played a lead role in the production and recent release of a 14-song CD. Closest to his heart is the selection, “Love Rocks.” He and his fellow drivers had been making music for about a year when, in 2009, his daughter, Celeste, asked if he'd help her produce a song for her wedding.

“Come on,” he said. “When your daughter asks you something like that ... I still get the chills over that.”

Celeste wrote the lyrics, her dad composed the music and several members of Bad Transfer came together to record the song at Cotati's Zone Music.

Contrasting the joyful occasion of that song is the heartbreaking “This Goodbye,” inspired by the death that separated two Golden Gate Transit drivers who were deeply in love. A group of band members performed at their late colleague's memorial service.

The CDs title song, Bad Transfer, is one of several that muse about life behind the wheel of a bus.

“Now wait a minute,

do you think I'm blind?

Do I look drunk or out of my mind?

He said, “Driver, don't you be so cold.”

I said, “Not with a transfer that's two weeks old.”

There's a country beat to that song. Reflecting the range of the musically inclined drivers, the CD also features rock, reggae, smooth jazz, blues, ballads and gospel tunes.

Caviness produced the CD at the studio in the backyard of his home in southwest Santa Rosa.

The collection of original songs is available for sale at sonickitchenmusic.com.

Though many of the Bad Transfer musicians have drifted off, Caviness and Mike Novi, Tom Territo and Henry Hernandez remain active as The Drivers. Other Bad Transfer alumni come back together on occasion for jams or performances.

Caviness expects a total of seven or eight will entertain the mid-November Conference and Expo of the California Transit Association in Oakland.

He's awfully grateful to have discovered that he and so many of the Golden Gate Transit drivers who came from all around the bay and all sorts of cultural backgrounds had music in common.

“It's a bond that has outlasted its time in the workplace,” Caviness said. “We'd have had no reason to hang out together, except for the music.

“I wouldn't have gotten to know these people, which would have been a shame.”

Chris Smith is at 707-521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.