I started out in Greenwich Village's basket houses. I performed for about four or five sets a night and then passed the hat. You want to learn how to work an audience, that was the way. I had evenings where I made as little as two or three bucks. Had some others where I made over $50. One night I got a basket with a hundred dollar bill in it. I'd never seen one before. I held onto it for about thirty-two minutes. That paid rent where I lived for over two months. Sometimes ya win, sometimes ya lose and sometimes ya play in the rain.

Busking is the street version of the basket house. I never felt like I was begging. There is certainly a 'market economy' at work when one is playing--or maybe a market economy at play when one is working--but begging it is not.

I learned that if I was gonna take requests, it would be a good thing to know the regular requests very well. Occasionally, it took me outta my comfort zone, but hungry bellies don't really care a helluva lot about 'artistic integrity' (whatever THAT is). If an older couple wanted to hear "A Bicycle Built for Two", I could do that. And if someone wanted "Sheila" by Tommy Roe, I could do that also. I even did "Walk, Don't Run" one evening, strumming that great Am, G, F, E progression and using my voice to imitate the lead guitar. I got the people who had asked for the song to do the drum break, and we had lotsa laughs and a heckuva good time. There was an older Village lady who used to come in and ask for this or that song from her younger days, and I learned most that she requested. She couldn't afford to put anything into the basket, but every now and then she brought this starvin' young performer some home-cooked food or pie, and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven, because there were times my stomach thought my throat had been cut.

To quote a comedian I heard on a TV show years back, "Them's mean streets for a wiener dog in a cardigan." Yep, them's true words. It is also true that buskers offer their art for people's consideration, whether that be in the form of their voice, playing, performance or whatever. It isn't begging to produce a product and offer it for sale. The side benefit is that there is a Darwinian process at work, and ya learn to adapt or ya won't be at it for all that long.

It takes a serious set of cajones to put your talent on the line that way, and I admire people who have the 'brass' to do just that.

Bruce Murdoch