Diary Of A Busker Day 82 Friday April 15th Winchester High Street (opposite Clarks, Time: 2:35-6:25pm.)
On inspecting the goings on in the high street, I find Frank down at the corner – at the bottom end, and a young strummer in the middle – at the bottom end of The Pentice. That leaves only one place for me to go, which is fine, as one place is all one needs. Before I set up, I chat to the sad French lady – Marie Therese, who’s sitting on a bench. She bemoans the impatience of the local taxi drivers, tells me she was a qualified nurse for fifty years and was married to an accomplished musician.
So, almost four hours in the same place – just like the bad old days at Southampton and the cold months here. Same spot as yesteday, and the five workmen from yesterday are here but making a lot more noise today – there’s an intermitant drill, but it’s not too intrusive on my playing time, so I needn’t go over and have words. My very smartly dressed man, late sixties, who I often see, always generous with coinage and compliments, comes up. “I’ll have to become a tax exile! – giving you all this money every time I see you!” I thank him very much – “You’re very generous!”
After La Vie En Rose, an old couple come up. “It’s great to hear someone play that here!” “Thanks, it’s a Chet Atkins arangement.” I always tell people that as it’s not one of his better known recordings. “Ah yes”, the man says – “We saw him at The Albert Hall in sixty-six. We hadn’t been married long, had we?” he turns to his wife. “No, in the early days, it was”, she laughs. “Wow, and that was a great period for him, some great recordings around then.” “Yes, I’ve been listening to him years – got twelve albums!” “Right, well I’m afraid I’m going to trump you on that – I’ve got about thirty-five!” “Well, he made alot – over a thousand tunes, apparently.” “Yep, I know he made over one hundred albums – AND he is the most recorded musician – EVER!” (No one’s going to out-Chet me!) “Yes, and he turned country music right ’round – did all those albums with Jim Reeves, produced him…” “Yep, AND produced Elvis – played guitar on Heartbreak Hotel!” “Yeah, and did that album with, what’s his name…Knopfler.” “I haven’t heard that one.” ” One thing he couldn’t do – sing!” “Oh, I don’t know – he had a good country voice, I thought.” “Thing is, all these young people – the musicians, don’t know about him.” “No, I agree – mind you, when I started out playing the guitar – when I was alot younger!, I didn’t play this fingerstyle stuff. I didn’t even know about it, never heard of people like Chet Atkins. I was playing all that blues stuff (I play a fast, boring blues guitar passage).. that’s what all young players do when they start out and most of them just carry on doing it till they’re, well, my age! I’ve heard them in the guitar shops, here, in London, everywhere. They do it ’cause it’s easy, that’s why you hear it everywhere, but you can’t play stuff like that out here – just a guitar solo! It sounds crap! It’s not like any Chet Atkins stuff, which sounds easy – some of it! But you try and learn it, there’s loads of things going on. It’s easily as hard as any classical guitar or Spanish guitar. I know! I’ve been doing some of his songs for years and I still really struggle.”
Just after this nice couple go off, I’ve got my head down, playing Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring and when I look up, who should be standing, or rather dancing in front but the small hurricane of yesterday – it’s Charlotte, age five! She’s adjusted her tempo according to the tune so it’s the same dance as yesterday but in slow motion. I finish and she asks me “Are you going to play another one?” “For you? Sure.” Charlotte gets The Third Man…and she dances away to this fun tune and then her mother drags her away. Two meetings with Charlotte in as many days – it’s more than an innocent busker can handle.
There are a few large groups (or packs?!) of foreign students out today – one stop to listen to me, respectful for the most part – there are a few noises of impatience – I’ll ignore them. When I finish the song I’m playing, many of them step up and contribute to the cause with cold, hard coinage. I’m thanking them and looking in the bucket as they are pouring their coins in, HARK! – I see an unfamiliar shaped coin lying there and notice three of the boys who have walked off, laughing hysterically and looking back at me. No, I’m not having this. I do something I’ve never done before – I call a contributor back. “Whoa! Wait, come back!” I shout, not too loudly, and hold my arm out, extend my forfinger then slowly curl it back towards me – twice. They return, smiling but not laughing. I pick up the alien coin and hold it out to one of them – they’re 14/15 years old, I reckon. I say slowly “I CANNOT TAKE THIS COIN, THE BANK WON’T TAKE IT. YOU HAVE TO GIVE ME ENGLISH MONEY, ONLY ENGLISH COINS…PLEASE” I’m not sure they understand me but I think they do, because, in what I take as a collective gesture of apology, they ALL now put money in the bucket, many of them making sure I see the money they’re putting in IS English money, and I’m pleased to see a great many pound coins – the best kind of coin, apart from the sacred, scarcely donated £2 variety. When they’ve all given, I say a big thank you and ask where they’re from. I have to ask three times before a voice says “Czech Republic”. “Ah” I say, “and when are you going back?” No answer. Anyway, in the end, all tolled up, they gave me about fifteen pounds. And yet they still managed to get one of their own coins in there, past my eagle eye. It’s a 5 K(?) silver coin, very similar to a fifty pence piece, found later on at home. Still, I’m grateful to my cheeky Czech friends – they jacked my total to just over sixty pounds. Without them, it would have been about forty-five…
Earnings: £62.18p
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