Cary Baker – Down On The Corner: Adventures in Busking & Street Music
Jawbone Press
256 Pages Softcover Edition
As we learn in Cary Baker’s “A Brief History of Busking,” the introduction to Down On The Corner: Adventures in Busking & Street Music, street singing and public entertainment, particularly musical entertainment, have been around since the days of ancient Roman. In fact, there were recorded instances of street singing in ancient Greece as well.
Baker goes on to explain the etymology of “busking” and how the term described those street musicians: The term busker may have its root in the Italian word ‘buscare,’ along with the Spanish word ‘buscar,’ meaning to look for. The Spanish word traces its origins to the Indo-European word ‘bhud-sko,’ meaning to win or conquer. From there, it seems to have entered the English lexicon as what Merriam-Webster defines as ‘a person who entertains in a public place for donations.’
After this highly informative introduction, Down On The Corner (DOTC) takes the reader on a historical journey through both time and place. The book is divided into five (5) key sections: Part 1 is the origins of street music from Baker’s personal perspective as a youngster growing up in Chicago; Parts 2, 3, and 4 tell the story of street music and busking through the eyes of individuals from the East Coast through the South and Midwest and, finally, to the land of California, while Part 5 touches on the street musicians of Europe.
Cary Baker is a highly-regarded music industry insider…a publicist, journalist, author, and reissue record producer.
The forward by Dom Flemons, titled “Feeding the Street,” is a terrific piece of self-reflection and insights. Flemons, a Grammy Award-winning artist and music scholar, and a co-founder (now, a former member) of the Carolina Chocolate Drops, the groundbreaking all string Black band. Flemons explains the term “feeding the street” as busking in his home state of Arizona helped him develop as a musician and performer:
“Once I began to play in clubs and bigger venues, I never forgot the lessons in resilience and stagecraft I learned feeding the street. When you know that the audience doesn’t have to give you their attention, your method of delivering a performance changes drastically to get it.”
Flemons goes on to tell how live musical performances affect audiences, even those just passing by.
“Music has always been about connecting with one another. Whether vocal or instrumental, there is nothing like a live musical performance and the impression it leaves on the audience. It can change the mind, melt the heart, or bring the hairs of the arm or head up on end in sheer excitement. There are many ways to experience music, but none are more organic and visceral than the sound of the busker standing out on the street and entertaining for everyone to hear.”
The book kicks off with Baker’s memories of Chicago’s Maxwell Street, located west of The Loop and close to the downtown campus of the University of Illinois. Maxwell Street may best be remembered as the iconic urban neighborhood scene from The Blues Brothers movie. In the 1940s, Maxwell Street and its outdoor markets and became the “outdoor stage” for many Chicago blues greats, including: Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Bo Diddley, Robert Nighthawk, and Chuck Berry.
Maxwell played a key role in Baker’s interest in the blues and the Black musicians who played in the legendary neighborhood on Sundays. Baker provides the reader with vivid details of the music and activity on Maxwell Street, right down to flea market merchants loudly hawking their wares to the sound and smell of Polish sausage frying in vendor stalls. For Baker, it was the music, mostly blues music, that drew him back to Maxwell almost every Sunday, and one of those local musicians, Blind Arvella Gray, became the subject of Baker’s first published article. As Baker puts it, I was sixteen, and my life as a writer had begun.
Part One continues with a history of urban “doo-wop” groups that performed on the streetcorners of major U.S. cities, primarily in the North and Midwest. Of particular interest is the territoriality and rivalries among doo-wop groups and their rising stars, which was based on neighborhood pride and, often times, on ethnicity. Famous doo-wop crooner Dion, for example, was a member of a Bronx-based Italian gang.
DOTC returns to the blues with a chapter on three bluesmen from the pre- and post-WWII eras who started out busking and eventually influenced a new generation of blues artists. Blind Lemon Jefferson, born and raised in Texas, performed on the streets of the Deep Ellum neighborhood in Dallas. Reverend Gary Davis played and preached in front of storefronts for most of his adult life, starting in Durham, North Carolina, and making his way to New York City. The Reverend Pearly Brown was from Abbeville, Georgia, and made his home in Americus, about an hour by car. Brown’s slide-playing style was said to have influenced both Duane Allman and Dickie Betts of the Allman Brothers Band.
Part Two begins with anecdotes about the folk music revolution in New York’s Washington Square Park, including the likes of Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Oliver Smith (out of Atlanta), Moondog (Louis Thomas Hardin), and, of course, the men on DOTC’s cover: Satan (Sterling Magee) and Adam (Gussow). The unlikely duo came to prominence when briefly featured playing on a Harlem street in U2’s 1988 Rattle and Hum concert movie.
The historical journey moves to the South and Midwest in Part Three with anecdotes about Cortelia Clark, a blind street singer who performed in Downtown Nashville. Founding members of the Nashville-based Old Crow Medicine Show reflect on their origins, playing on the streets. Busking in New Orleans is given prominence with two (2) chapters detailing street singing in the Big Easy for more than a century. Of particular interest is the brief profile of Grandpa Elliott, a soulful blues singer who, during the 1980s and 90s, became a fixture in the French Quarter.
DOTC’s journey finally goes west to the land of California, where the reader learns about modern-day troubadours like Peter Case, the re-birth of Grammy-winner Fantastic Negrito, and the beachfront carnival that is Venice Beach.
Elvis Costello is featured in the beginning of Part Five: Europe, which, frankly, could be an entire book by itself. This part contains more interesting anecdotes, including award-winning Irish musician Glen Hansard being encouraged in his early teens to take his “guitar into town and start busking” by the headmaster of his school. Other noteworthy stories include American-born satellite-radio DJ ‘Mojo Nixon’ recalling his early twenties as a busker in London.
For the music history enthusiast, Down On The Corner offers remarkable insight into the world of street musicians and singers, some of whom went on to commercial success and some whose legacies have faded with time. A highly recommended must-read and must-have.
