Steve, you have a brilliant strategy for collecting money for busking!
I have enjoyed the busking posts, and it reminded me of my heyday in busking. I was an art student in London in 1974, and at one point I went to American Express to get a wire transfer of money and it did not come through, so I was almost totally flat broke and that overcame my severe stage fright about playing on the street. I put my hat down, my last few coins in it and started blowing my brains out on my harmonica and in twenty minutes I had enough money to buy dinner, a pack of cigarettes, some beer and bus fare to another part of town. I was hooked. I had no strategy, no sense of show biz, all I did was play and hoped people would like it.
I ended up playing on the streets fairly often while I lived there, and had some great experiences. I was not one for talking much, or working the crowd like some of the best entertainers, but I did develop some great medleys. One time I saw some guys playing some jug band music for a line waiting to get into a theatre, and I started playing along because I knew the tunes, and they danced past me and without missing a beat or a lyric told me "we ain't givin you any money"....
I ended up traveling for a few months on a bicycle in Europe, Greece, England, Wales, and Ireland, and busking kept me from starving on more than one occasion. Plus I met some great musicians from time to time. There was one crazy kid I met from Columbia that was playing guitar in Heidelberg on the streets and in the bars that left town with Canned Heat. I can't remember his name, but the calluses on the ends of his fingers were so pronounced that they looked like frog fingers. He was an amazing blues musician. We ended up playing some in a bar called Bistro 2001.
Anyhow, thanks to everyone in this thread for kicking up some great memories!
Richard Sleigh
shop address: 205 E. Pine Street Philipsburg PA 16866-1623
814 342 9722 (w) http://www.customharmonicas.com/ http://isthmusofchristmas.com/ http://www.myspace.com/richardsleigh http://www.youtube.com/rsleighharp
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