One of the pleasures of our 10-day stay in Lisbon was the quality of the street music all over the city. Best of all was a really fine ensemble from Cabo Verde playing near the waterfront, Nôs Raíz. We listened to their concert for about 40 minutes and bought a CD, which turns out to be very well produced. The woman on the left had the job of selling the CDs.
Joni Mitchell sings a lovely song called “For Free”, about seeing a street musician playing a clarinet.
And I play if you have the money
Or if you’re a friend to me
But the one man band
By the quick lunch stand
He was playing real good, for free.
But these days, things are somewhat reversed. A lot of musicians are playing real gigs for free, or just about. And all those downloads that pay tiny fractions of a cent? Out on the street, the busker can actually make some real cash. And sell the CDs, and get some real money.
Busking is an ancient and honorable tradition. I am reading a book about Johann Sebastian Bach, Music in the Castle of Heaven, by John Eliot Gardiner, and I came across this item on page 67:
It is often assumed that, in addition to his singing in church, Bach, like [Martin] Luther, was a Currender, a member of those street-busking choirs in Eisenach, Ohrdruf and Lüneberg which collected charitable money…
We have a busker festival in Dundas, but I’m underwhelmed. The one real busker, our friend Michael Leech, who plays fiddle real good, was shooed by cops off the street playing outside the confines of the festival a couple of years ago. And he’s been chased away from the sidewalk near the LCBO on Dundurn, so there’s no music anymore outside. Just panhandlers.
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