Diary Of A Busker Day 126 Wednesday July 6th Winchester High Street (1. opposite Vodafone, Time: 1:07-2:37pm, 2. opposite The Body Shop, Time: 3-4:03pm, 3. Outside Debenhams, Time: 4:15-6:05pm).
As usual these days, I head down to the “arse” end to warm up, but am shocked to find someone else there – not outside Debenhams but across the road, playing a guitar and singing through a microphone. I ask the young flower seller -“numbnuts”, as Bertie called him, how long he’s been there. “About an hour. Go tell him to move on – you can, after an hour.” (It’s an unwritten rule – ignored by all, that, according to the council, a busker shouldn’t play for more than 1 hour at any one spot and, if after 1 hour’s time, someone asks them to leave, then they should). “Oh no, I couldn’t tell anyone to move…and Frank’s up at The Buttercross.” “Oh, yeah, that’s Frank’s place.” “Yep, and I’d never tell Frank to move on – he’s the governor.” And halfway up there’s a trio- ukelele, guitar, harmony singers, who I’ve seen alot of recently. They’re quite good. I park myself almost out of earshot of them and open with The Third Man, but not my usual tried and tested many hundreds of times Chet Atkins arrangement. This is a new one I’ve learnt off a young Korean kid on youtube – a more Zither-like arrangement, in the original key of G and much in keeping with the original by Anton Karas. It earns me my first pound – from a man who loves the film, “I’ve seen it 7 or 8 times, Orson Welles, Joseph Cotten, the bit about the cuckoo clock.” “Yeah, and apparently, Orson Welles thought of that line*…and the man’s hands on the grate, at the end – they were supposed to be Orson Welles but they filmed that at the end and he’d left the set – he had to go back to Hollywood or wherever he went, so Carol Reed did that – they were his hands. Have you ever been to Vienna?” “No.” “Neither have I! Actually, I think the music’s the best part of the film.” “Yeah, it’s great – it’s light-hearted, quite a contrast to the film story which is very serious.” Indeed.
The “sad” man from earlier this year walks by, “I’m HAPPY now – today!” he shouts, smiling beaming. Then, all of a sudden it rains, as it’s been doing all week – I’m getting used to this. I pack up, have a break and resume playing up the road a bit for an hour till Frank with his dog and accordion appears. I say he can take over here, if he wants to – besides, there’s a large group of French teenagers outside the coffee shop/restaurant. They’ve been there the whole time and they’re very loud and I want some peace and quiet…somewhere else.
Down at my last spot, I meet Alfie – the pianist busker who I like but can barely understand due to his speech problem. He’s always friendly and always gives me a pound and I know he can’t have much money. He’s wearing a light grey suit and tie. “You’re looking smart today, Alfie.” He’s telling me about a 19 year old pianist who’s doing a recital tomorrow at the nearby church (St. Lawrence, in the alleyway), at 1 o’clock. It’s a Japanese guy – Jason Lam, who Alfie says is brilliant – he’s just been to get a ticket. I decide to go – I can sandwich it between two sessions out here.
Before I pack up for the day, I’m visited by the couple who bought my single the other day. “We listened to your song – it’s good, but I want a recording of THAT (Third Man, new arrangement)” “Yeah, but you liked my song?” “Yeah, I want to hear THAT though,” she says, with extended arm, pointing her finger at my guitar, like a child might do. She looks around, “I bet you don’t get much trouble from THEM,” she nods to the shop window behind me where there are three headless manikins. “Ha Ha, no.” “Anyway, what are you going to play for us?” “Um…Yellow Bird, I’m in the right tuning for it – I’ve got two lowered strings.”
A man and his son watch for 15 minutes from across the road before they come over. The son’s about 16 and is learning the guitar. He’s in a band (or “group” as I prefer to call it) called Dolomite Miner. He likes what I play, the Chet Atkins fingerstyle stuff. I explain the technique – about playing the palm-muted bass, the staccato chordal voicings, the legato melody…it takes sometime to learn, I say, but is very useful, as you can play a whole song on your own, anywhere! He knows about Chet Atkins and mentions a song he did – Sleepwalk, which I’m ashamed to say I don’t know, however, I promise to check it out, on youtube – everything’s on there, even stuff from old TV shows from the 50s that you would think would have been destroyed, or lost forever, it’s all there. People can learn anything now. I say I wish all this youtube stuff was around when I was his age, I would have started playing it back then and I might be alot better than I am now, but there’s no point in “cryin’ over spilt milk.” I offer to give him some lessons but he already takes some from a guy. “Ask your teacher to teach you about Travis picking – that’s what all this is called – after Merle Travis, who Chet learnt from, and if he doesn’t know it, come back to me!” He will, he says.
Earnings: £33.44p.
* “In Italy, for 30 years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaisance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love, thye had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock.”
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