Street Musician Quotes

I grew up in a really rural town, Stratford, Ontario, with 30,000 people. There's a big festival thrown in the town. A lot of people travel from all over the world to see it, and growing up, I actually used to busk on the street. I'd play my guitar, sing, and people would throw money in the case.

One night I was standing on Third Avenue playing my guitar, when this big Irish policeman came strolling by, and stopped to listen to my singing and playing. When I was done, he politely handed me a ticket for disturbing the peace, while at the same time telling me how much he liked my voice. I wish I still had that ticket.

Maybe if you see me begging on the streets, you might find me doing The Stone Roses the next day.

Well, everything about singing, I learned from busking. Everything I learned about songwriting, I learned from busking.

When a street musician lowered his violin to inquire, 'Hey lovely, what you got there?' she said, 'Musicians who ask questions,' and kept on dragging.

I was on the train; I did play, but I also played in bars, in the streets, at birthday parties for people who discovered me on the train.

In Irish law, busking is considered vagrancy - you can be arrested for it. It's risky asking people for money in public. So it's not like it's a high-art job. And people who do it as a high-art job make very little money.

When I was playing for tips in college, I felt a fire in my soul. I had the same principle of focus that I had learned playing football.

I'd get a train to some town and wander about to find a decent spot. Sometimes I'd play for three hours; sometimes I'd get moved on after three songs.

I used to play in the subway. If everyone tossed in a quarter, at the end of the day it would add up. It shows you aren't invisible. And it's better than being ignored, or kicked in the head, or worse.

My standing gig in college was playing the El Chico patio on Murfreesboro Road. I got $100, tips, and free quesadillas.

With time, art developed Bip, my alter ego. He was not only a lion tamer or a street musician but a soldier revealing the tragedy of ephemeral life.

When I was little, I had concerts on the subway, and old ladies came up to me like, 'You are so good!'

In a typical day, I would wake up about 8 A.M., pile all my stuff into my mom's minivan - my guitar, my amp, CDs to sell, a table and a rug - drive it down to the street, and unload it all. I'd wait until about 12, then play for two hours. You could only play in two-hour intervals, so then I would move it all somewhere else.

When I moved to the East Village in the late seventies, I wanted to be a street performer, so I practiced daily. I never did work up the skills or the courage to perform on the street, though.

I have a thing: I will always put money in for any street musician anywhere in the country, anywhere in the world. It's like giving back the money I got.

I'd keep the bay windows open, and neighbors would walk by and say, 'Oh, that's Gina playing music.' They were fascinated.

Jimi was always at The Scene when he was in New York and we played many times together. He was just everywhere - he went out and jammed everywhere he was.

I'm a complete and utter busker.

I used to be a street singer in San Francisco.

I left Edinburgh to follow the London punk scene in 1978, singing and playing guitar in various bands. My income was sporadic, so I did anything to eke out some kind of subsistence - laying down slabs, working as a kitchen porter.

Without busking, there is no Fantastic Negrito.

You get way better from playing to the passing public. You learn how to entertain. But it took me a good three years out on the promenade to figure that out. You also learn what makes them stop dead in their tracks and what doesn't.

When I went to England on my own, I became a busker. I played guitar for money in Leicester Square. And the guys who are supposedly blind and crippled, who aren't, got me after I'd collected a lot of money, took my money and threatened to break my arm if I ever came back to their 'kip,' their turf.

When I was a street performer, before I had any songs of my own that anybody would stop and put in money for, I would always be doing covers. Even with covers, people wouldn't stop in the beginning.