On your way to and from work or simply out strolling the streets of your town you can't avoid meeting the odd busker now and then. In a world of disappearing lifestyles, crushed by modernity and technology, it’s good to see that the centuries old art form of performing live music on the streets is alive and well. Some rely on amplification, adopt stylish acts and unusual instruments but others prefer to keep it pure and simple with just acoustic guitar music and vocals.
My busker spotting tour begins in Cork City where I met “Mad” Mike singing a stone's throw from the banks of the Lee. Originally from England Mike was classically trained on the piano and violin as a boy but took up the guitar in his teens and has literally busked for his crust all over the world from Tipperary to Taiwan. Performing mostly sixties ballads, folk with a bit of his own stuff thrown in, Mike’s most recent port of call was North Cyprus where he combined gigging in bars, restaurants and hotels with work as a journalist. Time to move on he returned to Ireland in March where he has been hitching from town to town staying either with friends or in backpacker hostels. Asked for explanations about how he got his nickname Mike looks puzzled before donning a freshly painted traffic cone on his head and walking into a nearby lamp post.
Still trying to work out if that’s part of Mike’s act or a cue to phone up the shrink I kept going until I ran into Pete TDB (That Damned Busker) and his music somewhere between Rosslare and Roscommon. Arriving in Ireland at the close of the millennium Welshman Pete expected to stay no more than 6 months having toured Europe, North America and the Carribean as a professional self employed musician. He admits to playing “about six”' instruments including the banjo, bodhran and button box with great vocals besides, and can perform anything from folk to blues. A true traveller with a reservoir of repertory that’s enlivened the cobbles between Cork and Carlow, bars and restaurants (if you’ve a PA on a tap) and even your television screens, Pete takes and makes accommodation as and when required. His expressive renditions of ballads such as “The Fields of Athenry” and Shaun South will doubtless see him prosper through 2006. Future plans include “another instrument”.
Up to Dublin on a corner of Grafton Street I met two buskers with tremendous talent and very different tales to tell. Sheltering from the pouring rain outside the entrance of the Gaiety Theatre Victoria “Mollie” is the adopted great granddaughter of none other than former Taoiseach Sean Lemass whilst her birth mother was a talented accordion player. Now enrolled on a course at Dublin Business School “Mollie’s” busking career began at 15 and assumes greater regularity whenever “I’m broke or feel like a good laugh”.
Busking’s still got to be the toughest gig with more than occasional hassles from lecherous men and people posing as great names offering bogus recording contracts. As for a real contract “It’s unlikely it’ll happen. I may have my dreams but I’d have to be in the right place at the right time with the right people”.
If anyone needs a lucky break right now it’s got to be Willie Moore. London born Willie first hit the streets with a guitar when he was just seven years old. Now 49 with l,000 songs and plenty of poetry at his disposal Willie’s roaming lifestyle has taken him round several European capital cities where he combined his love for music with work as a carpenter even running a bar in Amsterdam. A fluent Dutch speaker, his last excursion to the continent was meant to be a short vacation but he ended up staying eight years. “Even if the venues were different I’ve probably played more gigs than the Rolling Stones or Eagles combined”. Back in Ireland Willie’s fortunes took a tumble and he’s back to working the patches where he once played over 40 years ago suffering from pleurisy and homeless. “Some days are diamonds, others are dust but all I care about now is getting a home” says Willie before launching in to an emotionally charged cover of the Tennessee Ernie Ford Classic “Sixteen Tons”.
