U.S. musician Marcus Miller hurt in Swiss bus crash

U.S. jazz bassist Marcus Miller performs onstage during the tribute to Miles Davis evening at the 45th Montreux Jazz Festival in Montreux July 13, 2011.

Credit: Reuters/Valentin Flauraud

ZURICH | Sun Nov 25, 2012 9:30am EST

ZURICH (Reuters) - U.S. jazz musician Marcus Miller was injured on Sunday along with members of his band when their bus crashed in Switzerland, killing the driver, police said.

The two-time Grammy winner was travelling with 10 members of his band from Monte Carlo in Monaco to Hengelo in the Netherlands when the bus crashed on the highway near the town of Schattdorf in central Switzerland.

A Swiss police spokesman said the driver died from his injuries. The reserve driver, Miller and the members of his band were all injured but not seriously, he said, declining to give further details.

Miller, who plays keyboard and clarinet as well as electric bass, has collaborated with Miles Davis and Luther Vandross and was on tour to promote his album Renaissance.

Earlier this year, 22 children and six adults returning from on a ski trip organized by a Belgian school were killed in a bus crash in Switzerland.

(Reporting by Emma Thomasson; Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Doc Watson, Grammy-Winning Folk Musician, in Critical Condition

Grammy-winning folk musician Doc Watson is in critical condition Friday at a North Carolina hospital after falling at his home in Deep Gap earlier this week.

A spokeswoman at Baptist Hospital in Winston-Salem says Watson remains in critical condition Friday morning.

Watson's daughter, Nancy, told The Associated Press the 89-year-old Watson fell Monday. She said he did not break any bones.

The blind singer and guitarist, whose legal first name is Arthel, has won several Grammys, including a lifetime achievement award. He also received the National Medal of the Arts.

He's known as a master of the flatpicking style of guitar playing. He also started Merlefest, an annual gathering of musicians in North Wilkesboro named after his son, a musician who died in a tractor accident in 1985.

Doc Watson's wife of more than 60 years, RosaLee, has been in a nursing home since last year, Nancy Watson said. The two married when she was 15 and he was 23.

"She saw what little good there was in me and there was little," Doc said in an interview with the Associated Press in 2000. "I'm awful glad she cared about me, and I'm awful glad she married me."

Wayne Martin, executive director of the North Carolina Arts Council, said Watson takes southern Appalachian forms of music, such as ballad singing, old-time string music and bluegrass, and makes them accessible.

"He takes old music and puts his own creativity on it," Martin said. "It retained its core, yet it felt relevant to people today."

Video: Doc Watson playing "Deep River Blues"

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