Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Journeys of a Street Musician: Adventures in Busking [Episode 249]

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Journeys of a Street Musician: Adventures in Busking [Episode 249] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

0:00
Speaker 1: We're totally booked rock and roll. I think I'll leave you.
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Speaker 1: You're reading Little Hands says it's time.
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Speaker 2: To rock and roll. Roll up, I totally booked. Welcome
0:16
Speaker 2: back to Booked on Rock, the podcast for those about
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Speaker 2: to read and rock Online of Booked on Rock dot com,
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Speaker 2: hat t shirts, tote bags, sweaters, hoodies, and more. Find
0:36
Speaker 2: it at Booked on rock dot com. This episode's guest
0:39
Speaker 2: is Kerrie Baker, a first time appearance for Carrie. He
0:42
Speaker 2: is the author of the new book Down on the Corner,
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Speaker 2: Adventures in Busking and Street Music. This is the story
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Speaker 2: of music performed on the streets, in subways, in parks,
0:51
Speaker 2: in school yards, on the back of flatbed trucks, and beyond.
0:55
Speaker 2: From the nineteen twenties to the present day. Anybody who's
0:59
Speaker 2: lived in or try through a city has encountered street
1:02
Speaker 2: musicians of one kind or another. For the first time,
1:05
Speaker 2: veteran journalist and music industry publicist, Carrie Baker tells the
1:09
Speaker 2: complete history of these musicians and the music they played,
1:14
Speaker 2: It's great to have you on, Carrey, thank.
1:15
Speaker 1: You for being here, great to be here.
1:17
Speaker 2: Street busking this book now I know so much about
1:21
Speaker 2: street musicians. I feel like I feel cool. Now I
1:24
Speaker 2: can talk about this and I can go I can
1:26
Speaker 2: tell people that this goes all the way back to
1:28
Speaker 2: ancient Rome. In the US, it dates back to the
1:30
Speaker 2: eighteenth century. Benjamin Franklin was a street performer. This is
1:35
Speaker 2: all in your book. Where did the term busker originate?
1:38
Speaker 2: That's kind of not a definitive story behind that busker.
1:42
Speaker 3: That comes from a Latin word that spelled something like busca.
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Speaker 3: I'm not versus in the Latin that I couldn't tell you,
1:49
Speaker 3: but it came from a Latin word and took on
1:52
Speaker 3: It actually took on its meaning rather early. As you mentioned,
1:55
Speaker 3: the ancient Greek, ancient Roman performers were called buskers. There
2:00
Speaker 3: was Shakespeare in the park, Benjamin Franklin. My book takes
2:04
Speaker 3: up about nineteen twenty. There's an existing book called The
2:08
Speaker 3: Buskers published in nineteen eighty one that actually details it's
2:12
Speaker 3: very early history. But for me, being a kind of
2:16
Speaker 3: a fan of blues, rock and roll and other such
2:19
Speaker 3: forms folk, my storyline really begins to pick up steam
2:24
Speaker 3: about nineteen twenty.
2:26
Speaker 2: What got you interested in doing the book on this
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Speaker 2: particular topic.
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Speaker 1: Well, here's the story.
2:30
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's the backstory on me and busking. So I
2:34
Speaker 3: was a middle class kid from the Chicago suburbs, a
2:37
Speaker 3: nice upbringing, but my father had been poor as a child,
2:41
Speaker 3: and his immigrant parents, as your Eastern European immigrant parents,
2:45
Speaker 3: took him to a place in Chicago called Maxwell Street,
2:49
Speaker 3: and Maxwell Street Market was a place where you could
2:51
Speaker 3: buy and shop and trade. You'd see all your friends,
2:55
Speaker 3: you'd meet your neighbors. I don't know if there was
2:57
Speaker 3: music back then, and my father's not around to tell me,
3:00
Speaker 3: unfortunately anymore, but he wanted to show me where he
3:04
Speaker 3: where he as a kid, had had done all these things.
3:07
Speaker 3: And in the time that had elapsed, with my father
3:10
Speaker 3: going to college then and becoming a doctor in the suburbs,
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Speaker 3: Maxwell Street had changed from Eastern European and Jewish and
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Speaker 3: German and Austrian and Russian to black. And in that time,
3:25
Speaker 3: in the forties, late forties and the fifties, some of
3:28
Speaker 3: the notable black performers that we know and love started
3:31
Speaker 3: playing on Maxwell Street. Muddy Waters, Chuck Berry, Little Walter
3:37
Speaker 3: Robert Nighthawk where some of the blues artists back then,
3:40
Speaker 3: So it became a blues hub. It's where artists would go,
3:44
Speaker 3: you know, hone their chops and if they played the
3:47
Speaker 3: Chicago taverns, which closed at five am, they would they
3:50
Speaker 3: might make a bee line to Maxwell Street and started
3:52
Speaker 3: playing on Sunday mornings for the crowd. They would assemble
3:55
Speaker 3: about seven aen. So my father took me there, not
3:59
Speaker 3: knowing any of this, and we came across a first
4:02
Speaker 3: thing we heard, actually as we approached Maxwell Street from
4:04
Speaker 3: the parking lot, was a steel guitar and I'm a
4:09
Speaker 3: slide steel guitar, and it was just an amazing sound
4:12
Speaker 3: and it carried for blocks, many blocks. So we followed
4:15
Speaker 3: it and it turned out to be a performer named
4:17
Speaker 3: Blind Darvella Gray, and he changed my life. He was
4:20
Speaker 3: a born in nineteen oh six in Texas. He had
4:25
Speaker 3: his eyes shot out in a gun battle over a woman.
4:28
Speaker 3: He never told it quite the same way in any
4:30
Speaker 3: two interviews, but that was basically the story. And learned
4:34
Speaker 3: to play guitar because he knew he had to support
4:36
Speaker 3: himself and got a steel guitar knowing that he could
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Speaker 3: clobber anybody who attacked him with it, and it made
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Speaker 3: an amazing sound. And he also lost a few fingers
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Speaker 3: in that gun battle. So he played a slide guitar
4:48
Speaker 3: with his remaining fingers and sang. And he would sing
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Speaker 3: this one folk work song called John Henry, a traditional,
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Speaker 3: very well known traditional song. Maybe for an hour. He
5:00
Speaker 3: would just repeat himself, and we stood there for an hour,
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Speaker 3: and when he took a break just to catch his breath.
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Speaker 1: I was this.
5:07
Speaker 3: Teenager, but I introduced myself and my father had a
5:10
Speaker 3: pen on him, and we asked if he could give
5:13
Speaker 3: me his phone number, and I called him and talked
5:16
Speaker 3: to him a bit and interviewed him. And I wasn't
5:18
Speaker 3: yet a freelance writer. I wasn't any kind of writer.
5:21
Speaker 3: I was a high school student, maybe aged sixteen. But
5:24
Speaker 3: I wrote an article about him and sent it to
5:26
Speaker 3: the Fledgling Chicago Reader, which after fifty years is still
5:30
Speaker 3: around as the alternative weekly of Chicago, and they published it.
5:34
Speaker 3: So suddenly I had a bit of a career as
5:38
Speaker 3: a freelance writer. And I hope I helped Arvella Gray,
5:41
Speaker 3: who he didn't live on the streets. He actually had
5:44
Speaker 3: quite a comfortable little apartment on Chicago's South Side, and
5:48
Speaker 3: I was happy for him, but I hope I was
5:50
Speaker 3: able to get him some better gigs.
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Speaker 1: I later introduced him to a.
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Speaker 3: Record company, a small one that dealt in folk recordings,
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Speaker 3: and we went down to the rockabilly studio in the
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Speaker 3: South suburbs of Chicago. I ended up picking him up
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Speaker 3: at his apartment and we cut an album all night.
6:09
Speaker 3: The sun was shining by the time we left the
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Speaker 3: studio and we had an album in him. It didn't
6:15
Speaker 3: sell a lot of copies, but you know, just having
6:18
Speaker 3: it there for the archive and for posterity, it meant
6:21
Speaker 3: a lot to me.
6:22
Speaker 2: Sure, you have a long history as a publicist.
6:24
Speaker 1: Right, I did so.
6:27
Speaker 3: A few things happened leading up to that. I went
6:30
Speaker 3: to college, I studied journalism.
6:32
Speaker 1: I came back.
6:33
Speaker 3: I actually wrote about a group of buskers called the
6:36
Speaker 3: Violent Fems for Trouser Press, and I put in a
6:41
Speaker 3: resume for a job at IRS Records, my favorite indie
6:45
Speaker 3: rock label. They had Ram, the Go Gos, the Alarm,
6:49
Speaker 3: the Flesh Tones, DB's Concrete Blonde, the English Beat. Sixty
6:53
Speaker 3: people put in resumes and lo and behold, and I
6:57
Speaker 3: went to LA and spoke to them, but I got
6:59
Speaker 3: the gig. So they told me, though, that I needed
7:02
Speaker 3: to make the move from Chicago to LA, like in
7:04
Speaker 3: two weeks. Suddenly I was head of publicity for this
7:07
Speaker 3: great label that had bands like Iram and not a
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Speaker 3: lot of buskers on the label.
7:11
Speaker 1: But all of a sudden.
7:13
Speaker 3: Now I was living in Los Angeles after a lifetime
7:16
Speaker 3: in Chicago. And you know, when you move to LA,
7:19
Speaker 3: you take a walk down Venice Beach. And that was
7:23
Speaker 3: another eye opener for me because once I walked down
7:26
Speaker 3: Venice Beach, there was a guy, a guy who sounded
7:29
Speaker 3: like Otis Redding or Wilson Pickett or Marvin Gay. And
7:33
Speaker 3: I turned around and it's this this old black man
7:36
Speaker 3: with a white beard and a guitar, and I thinking, wow,
7:40
Speaker 3: this is a little like Maxwell Street. Here's this guy
7:43
Speaker 3: playing soul and a little bit of blues and some
7:45
Speaker 3: folk songs. And his name was Ted Hawkins. And Ted
7:49
Speaker 3: actually had a stroke of luck. He had been in institutions,
7:54
Speaker 3: he had been imprisoned, he had a life of prime
7:57
Speaker 3: and addiction. But he was spotted soon after I saw
8:02
Speaker 3: him by a talent scout from Geffen Records who had
8:04
Speaker 3: signed Beck and then he got to make a record
8:09
Speaker 3: for Geffen Records, just one and it didn't sell a
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Speaker 3: lot of copies. But from from the streets to Geffen Records,
8:14
Speaker 3: and while I was there, I saw that there was
8:17
Speaker 3: a sky on roller skates with wearing a turban and
8:22
Speaker 3: a seek outfit, and that was Harry Perry, and there
8:25
Speaker 3: were others. So suddenly I'm back in the busking business.
8:29
Speaker 3: It was to return for the theme in my life.
8:31
Speaker 3: But yeah, that's what I did. Then for forty years,
8:34
Speaker 3: I was a music publicist. I worked for IRS Records
8:37
Speaker 3: for a while, Capitol Records, and about four other labels, Enigma, Discovery,
8:42
Speaker 3: Morgan Creek, and then I started a couple of my
8:44
Speaker 3: own companies, of the late last of which was called
8:47
Speaker 3: Conquer Route. I just decided to give it up. I've
8:50
Speaker 3: done it for forty two years. I was only going
8:52
Speaker 3: to do publicity for a few years and then get
8:53
Speaker 3: back to writing. I did it for about forty then
8:58
Speaker 3: decided we just saw to make a big change. My
9:01
Speaker 3: wife and I we we we left l A and
9:04
Speaker 3: I left close my business. It's a lot of change.
9:07
Speaker 3: As my therapist will tell you, I knew that I
9:11
Speaker 3: wanted to write books, and I knew that. I didn't
9:15
Speaker 3: know that I was going to write one on Busking.
9:16
Speaker 3: I wasn't thinking of that. I was now living in
9:20
Speaker 3: the California Desert, which is well known for Ram Parsons
9:24
Speaker 3: and Flying Burrito Brothers. That he had his final moment
9:27
Speaker 3: in Joshua Tree. You two, it's famous for Joshua Tree.
9:31
Speaker 3: There was a Palm Desert run scene Caius, Queens of
9:35
Speaker 3: the Stone Age, there was a rat pack in Palm Springs,
9:38
Speaker 3: Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Triny Lopez, Sonny Bono, Elvis Presley,
9:43
Speaker 3: List goes on, Johnny Mercer. So I approached an academic
9:48
Speaker 3: publisher about doing a book about the California Desert, and
9:52
Speaker 3: he actually.
9:52
Speaker 1: Liked the idea. I said, you know, it's a little
9:54
Speaker 1: bit niche maybe, but go for it.
9:58
Speaker 3: So I started to reach out to sources, and the
10:01
Speaker 3: first thing I've found is that there was a very
10:03
Speaker 3: scholarly book in existence already called The Song of Joshua Tree,
10:09
Speaker 3: that had everything you know, from Native tribe music of
10:12
Speaker 3: Native tribes to pioneers settling the wild West, to Graham
10:17
Speaker 3: Parsons and.
10:20
Speaker 1: Queens of the Stone Age.
10:21
Speaker 3: And then I met the guy who was the music
10:25
Speaker 3: critic for the Palm Springs Daily Paper and told him
10:29
Speaker 3: about my book, and he said, well, that'll be interesting.
10:31
Speaker 3: I have forty years worth of interviews with the Frank Sinatra,
10:35
Speaker 3: Dean Martin, Peggy Lee.
10:37
Speaker 1: Elvis Presley. It will be interesting to see what you
10:39
Speaker 1: come up with.
10:40
Speaker 3: I called my publisher the next day a little bit discouraged, saying,
10:43
Speaker 3: you know, I don't think this California Desert book is
10:47
Speaker 3: going to work out. There's a book that exists, and
10:49
Speaker 3: there's a guy who's got all these interviews of you know,
10:51
Speaker 3: dead legends who have passed on, and I'll never be
10:54
Speaker 3: able to get, you know, an Elvis Presley interview where
10:57
Speaker 3: Frank Sinatra interview, and this guy hasn't he wanted the
11:00
Speaker 3: book anyway. And I said, well, that's very kind of you,
11:03
Speaker 3: but I'm going to think of some other topics. And
11:05
Speaker 3: I started calling managers of legacy artists to see who
11:09
Speaker 3: needed a biography, see who was lacking a biography. And
11:15
Speaker 3: I happened to talk to a college friend of mine
11:17
Speaker 3: from Illinois now living in California, who said, well, you know,
11:21
Speaker 3: I managed the estate of Ted Hawkins that street singer
11:24
Speaker 3: he saw in Venice. He's deceased now, but he left
11:27
Speaker 3: a lot of notes and he is two kids who
11:30
Speaker 3: have a lot of memories. Maybe a book on him.
11:32
Speaker 3: So I went back to my publisher at the Academic
11:35
Speaker 3: publisher and I said, you know, very nice of you
11:39
Speaker 3: to still want my California Desert book. But I've come
11:42
Speaker 3: across another topic, Ted Hawkins and the guy in Texas.
11:46
Speaker 3: So my publisher says, who's Ted Hawkins? A good question?
11:50
Speaker 3: I said, he was a busker, a street singer. There
11:53
Speaker 3: was a pause. There was a long pause, and the
11:56
Speaker 3: guy said, well, what about a book about busker's plural
11:58
Speaker 3: and street singer plural? And I said, you know, that's
12:03
Speaker 3: a brilliant idea, and I actually have some background in that.
12:05
Speaker 3: And I told them about Maxwell Street. I told him
12:08
Speaker 3: about meeting the violent femmes. They busked for me in Milwaukee,
12:12
Speaker 3: just to show me how they had been discovered by
12:15
Speaker 3: Chrissy Hind of the Pretenders during a concert. She was
12:18
Speaker 3: walking the streets of Milwaukee and found them. And I thought, well,
12:22
Speaker 3: there must be a lot of other stories where those
12:24
Speaker 3: came from. And as I began to reach out, I
12:26
Speaker 3: found that there were. You know, lots of buskers, many
12:28
Speaker 3: of them very famous. Billy Bragg who send to Williams
12:32
Speaker 3: Ramble and Jack Ellie At, Olvis Costello, Glen Hansard who
12:37
Speaker 3: in the movie Once About Busking, Tracy Chapman Jewel. The
12:43
Speaker 3: list went on and on, and there were some obscure
12:44
Speaker 3: ones that I knew and liked, and some old blues
12:48
Speaker 3: people like Blind MoMA Jefferson and the Reverend Gary Davis,
12:50
Speaker 3: an unculsion of duat music from the fifties, of vocal groups,
12:55
Speaker 3: the street corners of Harlem and folk folk was very
13:00
Speaker 3: big in Greenwich Village and Washington Square was a big
13:04
Speaker 3: home of buskers.
13:05
Speaker 2: And there's now a book in the early sixties.
13:07
Speaker 3: Yeah, David Brown's book about the Greenwich Village folksing just
13:13
Speaker 3: came out, but mine delves into it a little bit,
13:15
Speaker 3: not into the table which does so. I did about
13:19
Speaker 3: one hundred interviews for that book. And I also switched publishers.
13:23
Speaker 3: From an academic I hired a literary agent who got
13:27
Speaker 3: me to jab On Press, and I was thrilled to
13:30
Speaker 3: be with Jabow Press. They've got books on everything from
13:34
Speaker 3: a Cheap trip to oh Gosh, Steve Winn of Dreamson
13:39
Speaker 3: to get to Kathy Valentine of the Go Gos all
13:42
Speaker 3: kinds of books on music, and I really felt like
13:45
Speaker 3: I was in good company, and not only that they
13:47
Speaker 3: wanted to get it out that year, like WHOA Okay,
13:51
Speaker 3: So we gathered up the photos and did the contract
13:53
Speaker 3: and the book came out. I'd say we did our
13:56
Speaker 3: contract in February and the book was out on November fourteenth,
13:59
Speaker 3: So that was a fast turnaround, and I think it
14:02
Speaker 3: probably helped that I know a little about publicity. I've
14:05
Speaker 3: been able to work with a publicist that we hired,
14:08
Speaker 3: and you know, we're doing a lot of things, including
14:11
Speaker 3: this interview plus NPR and a few other pretty good things.
14:17
Speaker 2: Booked on rock podcasts. We'll be back after this.
14:20
Speaker 1: Don't go away, gentlemen. We may need all of you.
14:29
Speaker 2: One story you have in the book is about do
14:32
Speaker 2: wop musicians and how they got signed just by location
14:35
Speaker 2: there with an earshot of label owners.
14:38
Speaker 3: I actually have a friend out here in the desert
14:40
Speaker 3: who's friends with a Liber and Stoller. Liber has passed on,
14:44
Speaker 3: but Mike Stoller is still alive, and she'd set me
14:47
Speaker 3: up with him, and I spoke to him about Duop.
14:51
Speaker 3: He had worked in the Brill Building, a big, big
14:54
Speaker 3: hub of songwriters in New York City, and he told
14:57
Speaker 3: me how he had seen a few out in the world,
15:01
Speaker 3: but he mainly heard a lot of harmonies in the
15:03
Speaker 3: men's room, so the real building. So I decided that's
15:06
Speaker 3: worth including. And then I stumbled around some more. I
15:09
Speaker 3: was talking to Daryl Hall's manager, who happened to I
15:12
Speaker 3: happened to tell him about my book, not thinking that
15:15
Speaker 3: all and Oates had been buskers. But he happened to
15:17
Speaker 3: be friends with Jay Siegel of the Tokens. So the
15:21
Speaker 3: Tokens had that big hit, The Lions Sleeves tonight and
15:24
Speaker 3: went away and I spoke to him, and he told
15:27
Speaker 3: me we used to play on the Rockaway Beach in Brooklyn,
15:34
Speaker 3: Live Street corner of music in the fifties, something I
15:37
Speaker 3: never got to see. But it was hard to find
15:39
Speaker 3: survivors of that era that were willing to talk that
15:42
Speaker 3: I was able to find. I spoke with Billy Vera
15:45
Speaker 3: very well known for being an R and B artist
15:49
Speaker 3: once upon a time and from Riverside, California, but grew
15:53
Speaker 3: up in the streets of New York and heard some
15:55
Speaker 3: duop groups. I went over to his house and he's
15:57
Speaker 3: back in LA for quite some time, and spoke to
16:00
Speaker 3: him about some of the artists that he'd seen.
16:03
Speaker 1: He'd seen quite a few.
16:04
Speaker 3: He really thought that, you know, this was this was
16:07
Speaker 3: a way that, in fact, they could put themselves out
16:10
Speaker 3: there for for record companies to discover. And and quite
16:13
Speaker 3: a few of them, and in quite a few cities too,
16:15
Speaker 3: not just New York, but Philadelphia, Baltimore, Chicago, and even
16:19
Speaker 3: Los Angeles had a du op scene.
16:22
Speaker 1: The Dells.
16:23
Speaker 3: It's always interesting when I hear the Dells on on
16:26
Speaker 3: the radio. Stay in my Corner or What a Night.
16:29
Speaker 3: Those are do op songs that have been given kind
16:31
Speaker 3: of a soul arrangement. Uh. And they're and and and
16:35
Speaker 3: they became a contemporary soult group. But they started in
16:38
Speaker 3: the duop and they started on the streets.
16:40
Speaker 2: I think of the movie Rocky too in Philadelphia. Yeah,
16:44
Speaker 2: it's in Rocky one and two, and it's Frank Stallone
16:47
Speaker 2: actually is in those scenes and they're singing around the
16:50
Speaker 2: around the fire.
16:52
Speaker 1: Yeah.
16:52
Speaker 2: It's it's amazing just being in the right place at
16:54
Speaker 2: the right time. You mentioned Washington Square Park in New York.
16:57
Speaker 2: That's the focus of chapter five, right, can you talk
17:00
Speaker 2: about the what happened in nineteen sixty one, specifically April ninth,
17:04
Speaker 2: nineteen sixty one.
17:05
Speaker 3: I think you're talking about the Beatnik riot, right right,
17:08
Speaker 3: And I forget some of the details of that, but
17:11
Speaker 3: in fact there was a riot. There was a city
17:14
Speaker 3: ordinance against singing on the streets and singing outside in public,
17:18
Speaker 3: and artists decided to fight that and actually ended up
17:22
Speaker 3: changing the ordinance. And you know, quite a few artists
17:26
Speaker 3: were involved. I came across a few, including one guy
17:30
Speaker 3: named David Bennett Cone who later performed as a member
17:33
Speaker 3: of Country Joe and the Fish. But I think he
17:36
Speaker 3: was present in the early days of Washington Square and
17:39
Speaker 3: filled me in. Quite a few artists had played there,
17:41
Speaker 3: of Note Ramble and Jack Elliott, Tom Paxton, quite a
17:46
Speaker 3: few people who were significant, you know, along with Bob Dylan,
17:49
Speaker 3: though I'm not sure whether he did or not, but
17:53
Speaker 3: the place you could see a lot of artists that
17:54
Speaker 3: became folk legends.
17:55
Speaker 2: Chapter six you mentioned Ramlond Jack Elliott. There's a great
17:59
Speaker 2: story in there about when he was playing in England,
18:01
Speaker 2: and there's one time that he caught the eye in
18:03
Speaker 2: ear of a future singer named Mick Jagger.
18:06
Speaker 3: Ramble and Jack Elliott told me that he was in
18:08
Speaker 3: the subways in London performing on one platform and then
18:12
Speaker 3: across the tracks he happen to notice a group of
18:14
Speaker 3: school kids who were maybe going to a field trip
18:17
Speaker 3: or something, but it was like a classroom full of students,
18:21
Speaker 3: young kids. And you know, time passes and you know
18:24
Speaker 3: that moment is forgotten, and maybe ten, fifteen, twenty years later,
18:29
Speaker 3: a guy comes up to him and says, Hi, I'm
18:31
Speaker 3: Mick Jagger, and I want to thank you for playing
18:35
Speaker 3: on the sub on the on the two platform. It
18:38
Speaker 3: was very influential to me and wanting to become a singer.
18:42
Speaker 2: So it's a great story.
18:43
Speaker 3: Denounced Ramble and Jack Eldie, who was still with us,
18:46
Speaker 3: helped influence a rolling Stone and.
18:48
Speaker 2: Then you too the film Rattling Hum. There's a thirty
18:51
Speaker 2: nine second composition that you'll hear called Freedom for My
18:54
Speaker 2: People and this has a connection to a street busker
18:56
Speaker 2: duo who played the streets of Harlem, New York. Can
18:59
Speaker 2: you tell us a little bit of about that musical
19:00
Speaker 2: duo known as Satan and Adam.
19:02
Speaker 3: Satan and Adam are actually on the cover of the book.
19:05
Speaker 3: My publisher liked the exposition of black and white and
19:08
Speaker 3: young and old. Satan has passed on, but he had
19:11
Speaker 3: a kind of an interesting story. Satan was a guy
19:13
Speaker 3: named Sterling McGee. Sterling McGhee, once upon a time I
19:17
Speaker 3: had a promising career. He had a couple of singles
19:19
Speaker 3: out on Rae Charles label Tangerine Records. But then, you know,
19:24
Speaker 3: he started playing on the streets. He's on the streets
19:27
Speaker 3: of Harlem, and this this young white guy still in
19:30
Speaker 3: college named Adam Gussow happens to pass him, and Adam
19:36
Speaker 3: is a harmonica player. Didn't want to be presumptuous, but
19:39
Speaker 3: stood and watched, and finally, during a break, asked if
19:41
Speaker 3: he could get up and jam. Very deferentially. Didn't want
19:44
Speaker 3: to steal this guy's thunder or certainly his his money
19:48
Speaker 3: or anything like that, just wanted the jam. And one
19:51
Speaker 3: thing led to another, and they really became a lasting duo.
19:55
Speaker 3: They made about, you know, four to six albums I think,
19:57
Speaker 3: on labels like Flying Fish Records and a few others,
20:01
Speaker 3: and they became a duo up until the time that
20:05
Speaker 3: Satan unfortunately got dementia and really kind of was no
20:09
Speaker 3: longer able to perform. In fact, he fell out of
20:13
Speaker 3: sight and Adam didn't even know where he was. Finally,
20:16
Speaker 3: he was located in a nursing home in a care
20:19
Speaker 3: facility in Florida, and Adam went down to visit him,
20:22
Speaker 3: and I think the music helped bring him back to
20:24
Speaker 3: a degree to which he was actually able. Then, although
20:28
Speaker 3: now diagnosed with dementia, was able to play jazz Fest
20:33
Speaker 3: and maybe even do a little more recording, which is miraculous.
20:36
Speaker 3: But there it was like an encore for Satan and Adam.
20:40
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are studies that show though, that music can
20:42
Speaker 2: do that to those who may have dementia or Alzheimer's
20:46
Speaker 2: music has that kind of power. Didn't members of you
20:49
Speaker 2: two walk by them to? Is that how they ended
20:52
Speaker 2: up using that?
20:53
Speaker 3: That's right, they had walked by. I believe that they
20:58
Speaker 3: immortalized the duo. And there's this along the Angels of Parliament.
21:01
Speaker 2: That's about them. Yeah, Okay. The story of Tim Easton
21:05
Speaker 2: is interesting and east Coaster, who went on to become
21:07
Speaker 2: a street busker in Europe in the nineties. He views
21:10
Speaker 2: the streets as a source of inspiration and although he's
21:13
Speaker 2: released twelve solo albums. He continues to embody the spirit
21:16
Speaker 2: of a busker. Talk about his story. This is a
21:18
Speaker 2: good story.
21:19
Speaker 3: Well, he's somebody that I know from Joshua Tree, near
21:23
Speaker 3: where I live in the California Desert. Tim Easton has
21:26
Speaker 3: gone on to become a pretty successful singer songwriter. He
21:29
Speaker 3: has put a few albums out on labels like New West,
21:32
Speaker 3: and he has a bust all over the world. He
21:35
Speaker 3: was in Prague, he was in Ireland, he was in
21:39
Speaker 3: parts of Europe and throughout the US and Canada on
21:42
Speaker 3: both coasts, and finally has found his home in East Nashville,
21:47
Speaker 3: which is becoming, as we all know, quite the hit
21:50
Speaker 3: place for musicians. But busking is something that he does
21:54
Speaker 3: whenever he feels he's falling out of touch or needs
21:57
Speaker 3: to reconnect with an aud audience prepare for a tour.
22:01
Speaker 3: Perhaps they'll go out and play in East Nashville.
22:05
Speaker 1: You know.
22:05
Speaker 3: It's something that really kind of keeps some spry and
22:08
Speaker 3: keeps him at eye level with his audience. It's a
22:10
Speaker 3: way to try out new songs. He's not alone. I
22:14
Speaker 3: spoke to quite a few people who continue to go
22:16
Speaker 3: out and busk as a way of inspiring themselves. Old
22:20
Speaker 3: pro Medicine show, also from Nashville, started on the streets
22:25
Speaker 3: and occasionally return to the streets, as does POI Dog Pondering,
22:29
Speaker 3: who started in Honolulu, Hawaii, came to the mainland. It
22:33
Speaker 3: chiked to Austin, which was their home for a while,
22:36
Speaker 3: and then up to Chicago, which was their home for
22:38
Speaker 3: a while. Occasionally they'll go out and do that as well.
22:42
Speaker 2: That's what's interesting about the many reasons that why as
22:45
Speaker 2: to why somebody would be a street musician, I wonder
22:47
Speaker 2: what the mindset is and these A lot of these
22:49
Speaker 2: guys are free spirits. They refuse to go into the
22:52
Speaker 2: nine to five world. Some of them do it for inspirations,
22:55
Speaker 2: some of them do it. I guess there are all
22:57
Speaker 2: different types of reasons. There is there a common thread
23:00
Speaker 2: among these guys that they're well.
23:02
Speaker 3: Just one other story I want to impart is that
23:04
Speaker 3: a lot of people do this at the beginning of
23:05
Speaker 3: their career, although some people do it all their lives,
23:08
Speaker 3: but for the most part, is something that an artist
23:10
Speaker 3: does the beginning of their career, especially if I found
23:14
Speaker 3: out about them, and I knew about them because they
23:15
Speaker 3: later on went to become recording stars and played at
23:19
Speaker 3: clubs and theaters and venues and festivals and all that.
23:22
Speaker 3: But occasionally buskin can happen in the middle of a career.
23:25
Speaker 3: For instance, there was an artist on Interscope Records named Xavier.
23:30
Speaker 3: He is a very long African name that I just
23:33
Speaker 3: did not committed to memory. But he was signed to
23:35
Speaker 3: Interscope and he was kind of an artist who resembled
23:37
Speaker 3: Prince a little bit. And when you signed to Interscope,
23:40
Speaker 3: especially in that era, you become a star. You can
23:43
Speaker 3: ask Doctor dre or nine inch Nails or a Snoop
23:48
Speaker 3: Dog or no doubt, you signed to Interscope, you're as
23:51
Speaker 3: good as golden. But that didn't happen to Xavier and
23:54
Speaker 3: his album Stiffed on Interscope and he was a guy
23:58
Speaker 3: from Oakland, CALIFORNI.
24:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
24:00
Speaker 3: He went back to Oakland and became a pot farmer,
24:04
Speaker 3: which is legal here, and while pot farming, he decided
24:07
Speaker 3: he missed music a little bit, so he went out
24:09
Speaker 3: onto the streets again. He's this artist whos that resembles Prince.
24:14
Speaker 3: You know, melodic R and B and a little bit
24:16
Speaker 3: of rap, a little bit of hip hop. And he
24:18
Speaker 3: completely transformed his musical style by going out into the streets.
24:24
Speaker 3: Now he's about forty years old and has already had
24:26
Speaker 3: a recording contract. He's on the streets of Oakland, and
24:29
Speaker 3: he re emerges with a new name. Xavier had now
24:33
Speaker 3: become Fantastic Negredo, and Fantastic Negredo has a couple of Grammys,
24:39
Speaker 3: a few Blues Music Awards, an Americana Music Award this
24:42
Speaker 3: past year, and you know, came up with a whole
24:45
Speaker 3: new style of music and a whole new name and
24:47
Speaker 3: a whole new persona by going out into the streets
24:50
Speaker 3: in the middle of his career.
24:52
Speaker 2: Booked podcast We'll be back after this.
24:55
Speaker 1: If he must not see anybody, want to talk to anybody?
24:57
Speaker 2: An if you do, could have serious papercussins on future events.
25:02
Speaker 2: Kennigh Street musician make a living If that's all they're
25:05
Speaker 2: doing year round? Does it depend on where they where
25:08
Speaker 2: they are living to because West Coast it's easier to
25:10
Speaker 2: do it year round as it is maybe East Coast
25:12
Speaker 2: or in the brutal winters.
25:14
Speaker 1: Yes they can.
25:15
Speaker 3: And that's the case not only in New Orleans, where
25:17
Speaker 3: I interviewed a lot of artists, but since I wrote
25:20
Speaker 3: the book, I became acquainted with a busker that I
25:23
Speaker 3: wish i'd included, but maybe maybe if I do a
25:26
Speaker 3: volume two, I will Her name is Alana Cats Cats.
25:29
Speaker 3: That's that's her name, k A t Z k at
25:33
Speaker 3: Z and I haven't figured. I haven't learned why that's
25:35
Speaker 3: her name. But she is a professional busker. She creates
25:40
Speaker 3: her own line of clothing, She sells CDs, books, paintings,
25:45
Speaker 3: a little of everything. But she is a very savvy
25:48
Speaker 3: busker and she's very passionate about busking. She plays the
25:52
Speaker 3: subways in Boston to this day. Of course, you know,
25:56
Speaker 3: things are a lot different from a busker now than
25:58
Speaker 3: they were in the day of Idvella Gray. When I
26:01
Speaker 3: met him on Maxwell Street, he had basically a ten cup.
26:04
Speaker 3: Maybe maybe he'd be there on Sunday morning, maybe he wouldn't,
26:07
Speaker 3: but a lot of cats. Cats is one of many
26:10
Speaker 3: but current day buskers who post on social media that
26:14
Speaker 3: they're going to be busking at so and so location
26:18
Speaker 3: in the Boston subway. Come come and see me. And
26:21
Speaker 3: by the way, I have some some clothes that I.
26:24
Speaker 1: Made, and.
26:26
Speaker 3: Some paintings and some CDs and you know, and also
26:30
Speaker 3: she has Most buskers nowadays have QR codes and the
26:34
Speaker 3: PayPal and Venmo and that's all posted, Whereas somebody might
26:37
Speaker 3: reach into their pocket and come out with, you know,
26:40
Speaker 3: a dollar bill for a busker if you're venmoing and
26:43
Speaker 3: maybe you're giving five, ten, fifteen, twenty bucks to a busker.
26:47
Speaker 3: I know that whenever I passed one of the city nowadays,
26:51
Speaker 3: I'll at least give them a bucket, if just because
26:53
Speaker 3: they're there, and if they're really good, I'll I'll try
26:55
Speaker 3: to give them five, ten, or twenty. There aren't many
26:58
Speaker 3: buskers in Palm Springs where I live, especially in the
27:00
Speaker 3: summer where it can get to be one hundred, one
27:03
Speaker 3: hundred and ten degrees sometimes. Though I did see a
27:06
Speaker 3: man playing at accordion Lady of Spain and in front
27:09
Speaker 3: of the Starbucks in the center of town, and I
27:12
Speaker 3: was I was thrilled just to see him. I was
27:14
Speaker 3: coming out of a yoga class in the Palm Springs
27:18
Speaker 3: suburb of Lakina and saw a guy in the middle
27:21
Speaker 3: of the parking lot the playing the fiddle with a
27:23
Speaker 3: little dog and a violin case, right by where I
27:27
Speaker 3: parked my car. I don't think he was you know,
27:29
Speaker 3: I don't think he knew about me and my book,
27:31
Speaker 3: but just happened to be there by my car, and
27:33
Speaker 3: I just it was heartbreaking to see him and this
27:35
Speaker 3: little dog, and I stood and watched him and took
27:38
Speaker 3: a few photos, and you know, gave him a twenty
27:40
Speaker 3: dollars bill, and I wish I could have given him more.
27:43
Speaker 2: But what about places like Wisconsin, Minnesota the winters.
27:46
Speaker 3: That's right, and the Maxwell Street people. Maxwell Street did
27:50
Speaker 3: not stop in the winter. I'd say he probably didn't
27:53
Speaker 3: do as well in terms of you know, money as
27:58
Speaker 3: this in the Chicago summer. But yeah, the you know
28:02
Speaker 3: elements can be harsh, and people busk in the rain
28:04
Speaker 3: sometimes and in old weather. My forward was written for
28:08
Speaker 3: the book is written by a Grammy Award winning artist
28:11
Speaker 3: named Don Flemons, who was not known not only for
28:15
Speaker 3: his own work, but also as a member of the
28:18
Speaker 3: Carolina Chocolate Drops. He's from Phoenix, Arizona, and he you know,
28:23
Speaker 3: wrote about busking in one hundred plus degree weather and
28:26
Speaker 3: you know, living through that in the summer, of course,
28:28
Speaker 3: that's great book writing weather. When he gets that hot,
28:32
Speaker 3: that's when I get most of my book writing done.
28:34
Speaker 3: He would be out there busking and you know and
28:38
Speaker 3: just hoping that people would be passing him on the
28:40
Speaker 3: street and taking a moment to listen to him.
28:43
Speaker 2: Carrie Baker's Our Guests, first time appearance for Carrie's the
28:46
Speaker 2: author of the new book Down in the Corner, Adventures
28:48
Speaker 2: and Busking in Street Music. What street musicians can do
28:52
Speaker 2: in terms of uniting people through music is inspiring. That's
28:55
Speaker 2: one thing I learned from reading the book. One story
28:57
Speaker 2: I loved was reading about Grandpa Elliott share his story
29:00
Speaker 2: if you could, which takes place in New Orleans, which
29:03
Speaker 2: is a very divided city, and he could bring people together.
29:06
Speaker 3: Street music in New Orleans goes way way back to
29:08
Speaker 3: Louis Armstrong Kidori. I've managed to find his daughter, although
29:14
Speaker 3: he was around in the eighteen early twentieth century. But
29:19
Speaker 3: there was this guy, Grandpa Elliott, who was discovered by
29:22
Speaker 3: a guy who ran an organization called Playing for Change.
29:26
Speaker 3: Playing for Change is an organization that still exists, is
29:32
Speaker 3: there to help buskers and help give them some national
29:35
Speaker 3: and in fact lobial credibility and renown. And Grandpa Elliott
29:41
Speaker 3: was singing a stand by Me and was discovered by
29:45
Speaker 3: the guy from Playing for Change who came by and
29:48
Speaker 3: actually asked if he could do that again. And maybe
29:51
Speaker 3: a week, and they wrestled up a bunch of buskers
29:54
Speaker 3: that they knew from all over the world and simultaneously
29:57
Speaker 3: recorded them and their various in the various spots throughout
30:02
Speaker 3: the world playing stand by Me simultaneously.
30:04
Speaker 1: And mixed it together. It became quite the video.
30:07
Speaker 3: Playing for Change was became a label distributed by Concord Music.
30:14
Speaker 3: Norman Lear was the proponent of Concord at that time
30:18
Speaker 3: and was really into it. So they are an organization
30:21
Speaker 3: the benefits buskers and street musicians, tries to give them
30:23
Speaker 3: a little bit of international exposure, and Grandpa Elliott was
30:27
Speaker 3: the recipient of that.
30:29
Speaker 2: Listen to Williams you mentioned earlier, one of the most
30:32
Speaker 2: celebrated singer songwriters of her generation, received critical commercial acclaim.
30:36
Speaker 2: Her formative years were as a street singer where.
30:39
Speaker 3: The Sindon Williams was not brought up as an army brat,
30:42
Speaker 3: but she was an academic brat. Her father was a
30:44
Speaker 3: professor and he would changed universities every so often, and
30:49
Speaker 3: she grew up in various places including Macon, Georgia, and Austin, Texas.
30:54
Speaker 3: While in Macon, Georgia, she came across an artist, a
30:58
Speaker 3: street singer named Reverend Early Brown. The thing about Reverend
31:02
Speaker 3: Pearly Brown is not only did lucind To Williams see him,
31:05
Speaker 3: but later on What Willie, the group that had a
31:09
Speaker 3: seventies Southern rock hit on Capricorn, keep On Smiling, saw him,
31:13
Speaker 3: and when working on their album cover for that album,
31:19
Speaker 3: they decided this would be a good photo the street
31:22
Speaker 3: singer and he's smiling, and her album is called Keep
31:24
Speaker 3: on Smiling and he's a blind street player, but he's smiling.
31:29
Speaker 3: They gave him about three hundred and fifty dollars to
31:31
Speaker 3: the best of their recollection and used the photo on
31:34
Speaker 3: the front cover of their album cover. But a lawyer
31:38
Speaker 3: want and you know, basically litigated that and said this
31:41
Speaker 3: guy needs more money for being on a hit album cover.
31:44
Speaker 3: And eventually, you know, Capricorn Record settled with Pearly Brown.
31:50
Speaker 3: But Lucinda Williams has seen Pearly Brown, and I think
31:53
Speaker 3: he was a bit of an inspiration on her. And
31:56
Speaker 3: then later she found herself in Austin, Texas. She went
31:58
Speaker 3: to school at University of t and I was playing
32:01
Speaker 3: on Gloopy Street gat Loop Street, which is called the
32:05
Speaker 3: Drag as it goes through University of Texas area. So
32:10
Speaker 3: she was playing and in fact cut her teeth. As
32:12
Speaker 3: a street singer, she saw Texas blues legends like Leyton
32:17
Speaker 3: and Hopkins and Man Slipscomb, although not necessarily on the street,
32:21
Speaker 3: but that was the kind of music she was playing. Eventually,
32:24
Speaker 3: of course, she graduated to indoor gigs and tours and
32:29
Speaker 3: these days you know, has been on Saturday Night Live,
32:31
Speaker 3: has a Grammy Award or two, a great big Americana star.
32:36
Speaker 3: But definitely started it as a street singer. And it
32:39
Speaker 3: so happens that a friend of mine, who runs a
32:42
Speaker 3: record store in town in Austin called Waterloo Music, saw
32:46
Speaker 3: her and thought she was cute and wanted to ask
32:49
Speaker 3: her out, but didn't have a lot of money, thought
32:52
Speaker 3: that that wouldn't be a good look to ask her
32:54
Speaker 3: out about putting money in her in her guitar case.
32:57
Speaker 1: They laugh about that.
32:59
Speaker 3: You know, since then he is doing well, Yes, doing
33:02
Speaker 3: very well.
33:03
Speaker 2: The Violent Femmes you mentioned them earlier too. I want
33:05
Speaker 2: to get into this a little bit more. This is
33:08
Speaker 2: the Violent Femes known for Blistering the Sun was the
33:11
Speaker 2: big song. This is the same Violent Fames. Great story,
33:15
Speaker 2: the roots of the band trace back to two of
33:17
Speaker 2: the original members, bassist Brian Ritchie and drummer Victor de Lorenzo.
33:21
Speaker 2: They played on the streets with a railway hobo named
33:23
Speaker 2: Doorway Dave in Milwaukee.
33:25
Speaker 1: Yeah.
33:25
Speaker 3: Well, I don't know much more about him than that,
33:28
Speaker 3: but they definitely came across all kinds of characters there,
33:31
Speaker 3: and they were almost to God's street singers, playing punk
33:35
Speaker 3: rock on acoustic instruments because acoustic instruments were better for outdoors.
33:40
Speaker 3: And eventually they were signed by Slash Records, the home
33:44
Speaker 3: of the Blasters, Los Lobos.
33:47
Speaker 1: Et cetera.
33:48
Speaker 3: That's about the time that I came into the story.
33:51
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm not really part of their story, but
33:53
Speaker 3: in about nineteen eighty three, I was a freelance music
33:55
Speaker 3: journalist in Chicago and I got a call from the
33:58
Speaker 3: editor of Trousers magazine. Trouser Press was a magazine about
34:03
Speaker 3: punkin new wave primarily, and the editor asked me, carry
34:07
Speaker 3: is is Milwaukee anywhere near Chicago? And I said yeah, Why?
34:12
Speaker 3: And he said, because Slash Records has just signed this
34:15
Speaker 3: folk punk group and their street singers, and we'd like
34:18
Speaker 3: a story on them.
34:19
Speaker 1: Well, this is before you.
34:20
Speaker 3: Could send somebody a SoundCloud or a YouTube or email,
34:27
Speaker 3: and they needed the story right away, so I didn't
34:29
Speaker 3: really get to hear the group in advance. But yes,
34:32
Speaker 3: Milwaukee was about ninety minutes away from Chicago, and it
34:35
Speaker 3: took me about ninety minutes to get there, and we
34:37
Speaker 3: met in the streets of Milwaukee and did the interviews
34:40
Speaker 3: on the streets. They did a little bit of a
34:41
Speaker 3: demonstration for me.
34:42
Speaker 1: It was amazing.
34:44
Speaker 3: But more amazing than that is that so they were
34:47
Speaker 3: doing their thing, playing on the streets of Milwaukee, and
34:51
Speaker 3: they were playing it. They used to like to play
34:53
Speaker 3: underneath the marquis of various theaters downtown Milwaukee. There's the
34:59
Speaker 3: Oriental Theater in the Downer Theater. I think it was
35:01
Speaker 3: the Oriental that the Pretenders were.
35:04
Speaker 1: Going to play.
35:04
Speaker 3: And this is their first tour and they're in Milwaukee
35:07
Speaker 3: and they're hanging out doing their sound check and one
35:11
Speaker 3: of the members of the Pretender is James Honeyman Scott
35:14
Speaker 3: who since passed on. Went outside and there are the
35:17
Speaker 3: violent femmes.
35:17
Speaker 1: And he says, wow, I dig you guys, and goes.
35:20
Speaker 3: In and the next thing you know, a woman comes
35:22
Speaker 3: out and it's Chrissy Hind Now the Violent Femmes were
35:25
Speaker 3: basically in the blues and folk and jazz, and they
35:28
Speaker 3: didn't even know who the Pretenders were. But lo and behold,
35:32
Speaker 3: Chrissy Hines said, Hey, we have an opening act already
35:35
Speaker 3: playing tonight at the Oriental Theater, but maybe you could
35:38
Speaker 3: open for the opening act. So they were invited in
35:41
Speaker 3: off the streets inside to the theater and lo and behold,
35:45
Speaker 3: this group of street musicians is doing a three song
35:48
Speaker 3: opening set for the real openers that were opening for
35:52
Speaker 3: the pretenders.
35:53
Speaker 1: Wow.
35:54
Speaker 3: And afterwards Chrissy Hind invited them to stick around, have
35:57
Speaker 3: some food and drink and see the rest of the show.
36:00
Speaker 3: And they hung out and Slash Records was distributed by
36:03
Speaker 3: Warner Brothers. The Pretenders were on Warner Sire and you know,
36:08
Speaker 3: somewhere in that mix, Slash Records from Los Angeles heard
36:13
Speaker 3: about Violin Fems and they were signing.
36:15
Speaker 2: Booked on rock podcast. We'll be back after this.
36:18
Speaker 1: We're going to take a break. Can't be back.
36:23
Speaker 2: Did you mention Wildman Fisher yet, because there was a
36:25
Speaker 2: connection with Frank Zappa there, right, didn't Frank Zappa? Yeah.
36:29
Speaker 3: So it turns out that you know, La had quite
36:31
Speaker 3: a few street singers. We you know, we had the
36:33
Speaker 3: Venice Boardwalk scene. Of course, I say we as a
36:35
Speaker 3: Farmer La resident. The Venice Boardwalk was a place you
36:39
Speaker 3: could hear street musicians, but so was Hollywood Boulevard. Hollywood
36:43
Speaker 3: Boulevard is never never a dull place. You see all
36:46
Speaker 3: kinds of street performers and tap dancers and Charlie Chaplin
36:50
Speaker 3: imitators and Elvis imitators, and it's always a good scene there.
36:54
Speaker 3: I never got tired of that in forty years of
36:56
Speaker 3: Los Angeles. But Wildman Fisher, and say this only because
37:00
Speaker 3: it was documented, was mentally disturbed.
37:03
Speaker 1: But he was this, this street singer.
37:05
Speaker 3: Sometimes he didn't even have instrumental accompany, and sometimes he
37:08
Speaker 3: would just sing a cappella And he started singing on
37:12
Speaker 3: a Hollywood Boulevard and Sunset Strip and really all throughout town.
37:16
Speaker 3: He even went to a store that had just opened
37:19
Speaker 3: called Rhino Records. It was just a store at that point,
37:23
Speaker 3: but it later became a label. But anyway, I'm getting
37:26
Speaker 3: ahead of the narrative. One of the people to hear
37:29
Speaker 3: wild Man Fisher play in the streets was Frank Zappa.
37:32
Speaker 3: And Frank had a label, you know, a couple of labels,
37:35
Speaker 3: actually Bizarre Records and Straight Records. I think Bizarre was
37:39
Speaker 3: mainly him and the Mothers of inventioned a Street had
37:42
Speaker 3: Alice Cooper, who was, you know, kind of a kind
37:45
Speaker 3: of a radical act at the time, and a man
37:47
Speaker 3: with a woman's name Wow. And you know, he had
37:49
Speaker 3: the GTOs who were groupies girls together outrageously, and that
37:54
Speaker 3: included Miss Pamela da Bar who's still around and actually
37:57
Speaker 3: doing quite well as a lecture writing instructor an author.
38:03
Speaker 3: So all these people happened the spot Wildman Fisher. Zappa
38:07
Speaker 3: found out about him and did an album with him.
38:10
Speaker 3: But you know, he was kind of a kind of
38:12
Speaker 3: a strange cat and he he would he would come
38:15
Speaker 3: and play the Rhino Records story, he would play in restaurants.
38:19
Speaker 3: Occasionally he would freak out and think nobody appreciated him
38:22
Speaker 3: or that he deserved to be as big as the Beatles,
38:24
Speaker 3: and he would he was. He was known for these outbursts.
38:27
Speaker 3: You didn't quite know which which Wildman Fisher you were
38:30
Speaker 3: going to get. A friend of mine said that he
38:33
Speaker 3: used to sleep on their porch. He was he was
38:36
Speaker 3: homeless at some point, but yeah, he was. He was
38:38
Speaker 3: an La street singer who got to make a record.
38:41
Speaker 2: Elvis Costello was another guy you mentioned earlier. Let's talk
38:43
Speaker 2: about that a little bit more. He got arrested for
38:45
Speaker 2: unlawful obstruction for a brief street performance in the summer
38:49
Speaker 2: of nineteen seventy seven.
38:51
Speaker 3: What happened, Elvis was on Stiff Records, and Stiff was
38:56
Speaker 3: starting to have a contract with CBS Records for distribution.
39:00
Speaker 1: They hadn't yet.
39:00
Speaker 3: Signed Elvis, and they were convening in London. So CBS
39:05
Speaker 3: had its convention in London, and I believe there were
39:07
Speaker 3: a lot of American people from Columbia, Epic CBS Records present,
39:11
Speaker 3: and he decided that he would do a street performance
39:15
Speaker 3: and he did. He was actually spotted by a couple
39:18
Speaker 3: of A and R people, one of whom was Greg Geller,
39:20
Speaker 3: who ended up signing him to Columbia. I think through Stiff,
39:24
Speaker 3: so Stiff Columbia, which I think was the start of
39:26
Speaker 3: that deal that also benefited a number of other artists.
39:31
Speaker 3: But in the interim, I believe that he was actually
39:34
Speaker 3: because street performance was illegal in that place in London.
39:38
Speaker 3: He was actually taken down to the police station. He
39:40
Speaker 3: was bailed out and he was actually signed as a result.
39:43
Speaker 2: Of that manager like, well he hold on, wait a minute, yeah,
39:47
Speaker 2: well he's you.
39:48
Speaker 3: Know, his manager, Jake Rivera, was actually well known for
39:51
Speaker 3: publicity stunts, and I think he called this the greatest
39:53
Speaker 3: publicity stunt of all.
39:54
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he did make it. Elvis made it in
39:57
Speaker 2: time for rehearsals. That night he at a gig, and
40:00
Speaker 2: he was able to make it in time.
40:03
Speaker 3: I'd call it a good day. I was unable to
40:05
Speaker 3: get to Elvis to talk to that. I just never
40:08
Speaker 3: got through his publicist, and that's often the case. But
40:11
Speaker 3: I did find a story and melody maker, and I
40:14
Speaker 3: traced the writer who's very much still around, and we
40:17
Speaker 3: had a great zoom conversation and he told me all
40:19
Speaker 3: about that day. And then I also had an exchange
40:22
Speaker 3: with the American A and R person artist and artist
40:26
Speaker 3: acquisition person from Columbia Records at the time, Greg Geller,
40:30
Speaker 3: who ended up signing him and got a few more
40:32
Speaker 3: facts about that day.
40:34
Speaker 2: Perfect way to conclude the book is this story of
40:36
Speaker 2: playing for Change that was born out of busking, born
40:39
Speaker 2: out of music on the streets, specifically New York City
40:42
Speaker 2: background two thousand and four. Great story from Mark Johnson.
40:45
Speaker 2: He's an award winning producer, engineer, and film director. The
40:48
Speaker 2: project was inspired by seeing two months performing on the
40:51
Speaker 2: subway while he was on his way to work.
40:54
Speaker 1: Right, that's right.
40:55
Speaker 3: You never know what you'll find in the New York subways,
40:57
Speaker 3: and that's what he found. So that was his moment
41:00
Speaker 3: for busking, just like mine was Maxville Street in Chicago
41:03
Speaker 3: and later Ted Hawkins on Venice. I ended up warting
41:07
Speaker 3: a book, but he ended up starting a label in
41:09
Speaker 3: a multimedia organization that does videos and benefits. He's doing
41:14
Speaker 3: some great works and has a foundation as well as
41:16
Speaker 3: a label and a film company, all inspired by Buskers.
41:20
Speaker 2: Down on the Corner Adventures in bussing in street music.
41:22
Speaker 2: It's out now, it's been out, it's November. You can
41:24
Speaker 2: find it wherever books are sold and where can people
41:26
Speaker 2: find you online?
41:27
Speaker 3: Carrie Kerrie Baker dot com is my website and the
41:30
Speaker 3: book is available both hopefully at your local bookstore, if
41:34
Speaker 3: not bookstores dot org bookshop dot org rather is an
41:39
Speaker 3: independent organization that sells it, and of course I have.
41:41
Speaker 2: His own great Kerrie Baker, thanks so much.
41:44
Speaker 1: Thank you. That's it. It's in the books.