Busking is the ancient art of street performing. Americans often confuse buskers with pan-handlers or the homeless. Buskers are artists who have taken the world as their stage. They are intrepid entrepeneurs, corageuosly battling so many things in order to make a few dollars at what they do. Busking takes pride, patience, courage, talent, 100 times harder work than you would think. Busking is incredibly difficult.
The real shame of our American culture is that we are so anti-performer. We have by way of legislation and police policy made almost every supposedly public area into a walkway between commercial storefronts. Buskers are, with rarest exception, always forbidden in these supposedly communal spaces. And by whose authority and why?
Ignorant town boards and business councils, isolated and philistine local legislators collude to keep out what they think of as riff-raff. Tax payers supposedly don’t want to see people sitting on the street. Buskers are hard working entertainers, not hobos or vagrants. They are waking up and making alive the placid streets of any town. Bringing real culture where sidewalk signs cannot.
Freedom and liberty are more than just the big ideas. They require a free market and a bill of rights. And that means at the smallest level. A free market place where artists can interact with people in public and participate in the milieu of daily life consecrated by the Constitution.
I challenge every town in America to look in the mirror and ask themselves why they are preventing buskers from exercising their liberty as Americans and humans.
To find more information on busking, search h the name of your town and busking, or the name of your town and street performing.
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August 17th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Thank goodness our area is more supportive of performers and busking- First Friday, The MusikFest, etc. are all about appreciation of street performance . . .
August 27th, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Before the advent of recorded music and personal electronics buskers were known as minstrels. Minstrelcy was the most common form of employment for performers back then. American free speech laws were written then and have not been recinded by any means.
Free speech is an essential civil right of every person. People who conspire to violate a persons or class of persons free speech rights are commiting a crime by violating Title 18, U.S.C., Section 241 Conspiracy Against Rights and law officers and government officials who seek to quash buskers are violating Title 18, U.S.C., Section 242 Deprivation of Rights Under Color of Law.
Some of these anti free speech criminal types should be taken to task for their un-American behavior. Perhaps people who don’t like free speech should move to someplace like communist china.
Where would this country be if artists like Louis Armstrong, Joan Baez, Roni Benise, Irving Berlin, The Blue Man Group, Pierce Brosnan, Jimmy Buffett, George Burns, Cirque du Soleil, Judy Collins, Bob Dylan, Ramblin’ Jack Elliott, Béla Fleck, The Flying Karamazov Brothers, Stephane Grappelli, Woody Guthrie, Bob Hope, Howling Wolf, Burl Ives, Jewel, George Jones, Nora Jones, BB King, Leadbelly, Heuy Lewis, Bernie Mac, Steve Martin, Joni Mitchell, Jimmy Page, Penn & Teller, Charlie Parker, Dolly Parton, Madeleine Peyroux, Edith Piaf, Gerry Rafferty, Jimmy Reed, Lou Reed, Carlos Santana, Pete Seger, Sheilds& Yarnell, Simon and Garfunkel, Rod Stewart, Joe Strummer, Stomp, Hank WIlliams, Muddy Waters, Robin Williams and the thousands of other stars who started as buskers were trashed and derailed as beggars ?
One of the truly great things about America is that
a person with talent can use their talent to earn a living and lift themselves up.
PS.Also just because some bumb or enibriate gets his hands on some bongos or a guitar does not necessarily mean they are a busker either. When the forefathers wrote our free speech laws they assumed people would have enough common sense to determine who is and is not a legitimate artist.
November 17th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
Thank you for your post anm support of buskers! I totally agree. Buskers enhance a city – they attract tourists to an area. You would think shop owners would welcome buskers, because there would be more foot traffic in an area where there are buskers.
Buskers also make people feel safer – not alone in a street or on a subway platform. Are you familiar with the ‘Saw Lady’ – a NYC subway musician? Her blog where she tells what happens when she plays in the subway shows how people open up to buskers and how a dirty subway platform can become a nice, friendly space when a busker sets up to play there.
Smart cities should encourage buskers in stead of stifle it!
December 24th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
What a great site! We are fighting for free speech in Canada as well.
If you google “busking in Nanaimo’ you can catch what our city is doing and has done to buskers.
Peace love and laughter to everyone.
February 4th, 2010 at 12:14 am
Excellent article. Seems that war has declared on performers, for sure. We’re having a similar issue in Corvallis, Oregon. Some have the misconception that all street performers are “indigent” or troublemakers. Not true. I am a mom, a grandmama, a full time gainfully employed law abiding taxpayer..and yes, also an occasional street performer. As far as I’m concerned, any attempt to limit, curtail or ban street performance is an assault on the 1st Amendment of the US Constitution and I for one won’t stand for it!