One of these is Johnnie Mac, a 40-year-old Australian singer-songwriter who, after some initial success playing with bands in Sydney in the late 1980s, decided to take his act to the streets of Europe. ("What are you doing that for?" he said his family asked him. "Are you mad?") For years, he roamed the Continent, exploring the newly opening east and making it as far as Siberia and Mongolia.
Today, after decades of busking, he's back in Australia, where he runs BuskerWorld.com, a Web site that offers advice to street performers of all types (and also sells his $47 eBook, "The Busker's Bible").