He Played Real Good For Free
Unforgettable 90s NYC subway performers
New York City subway musicians are the best. In my travels, I’ve yet to witness better buskers. And by travels, I mean: forty of our fifty states, France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Greece, Spain, Peru, the U.K., Ireland, Mexico, Jamaica, and the Bahamas. It’s not a contest, but NYC troubadours win, hands down.
I’m thinking of the Peruvian pipers, not long after I arrived in Manhattan in 1985. Eerie pan flutes echoing through the labyrinth of tunnels connecting subway lines beneath Times Square.
I heard them before I saw them: sound waves evoking an ancient, faraway time, leading me through the scrum of rushing humanity, to an anonymous crowd encircling eight or so placid-faced Peruvians in traditional garb, as if beamed in directly from the Andes.
The anxious scurrying of commuters ceased. Spellbound, many dozens stood cheek-by-jowl, in a windowless chamber, all of us inside the music, freed from the constraints of time for a little while. The clang and screech of the surrounding machinery, the stench and filth, all receded, as if by magic.
I bought one of their cassettes for five bucks, which I still own. I would encounter them several more times in my 16 New York years. If I had the time to stop and let them fill me up, their music always transported me, often when I desperately needed to be transported, reminded of bigger world out there, possibilities, promise.
Then there was that walleyed acoustic guitar-playing kid with bedhead, and his girlfriend. Maybe twenty years old, both of them. Another subway platform.
Once again: heard it before I saw it. The distinctive reverb offered by the 34th Street R train station expanded the kid’s voice, deepened it. I know it was the mid-nineties because he was singing the Oasis song “Wonderwall.”
Decades on, that song has become a kind of solo acoustic performer cliche, fodder for countless social media parodies. The chords instantly recognizable, like “Sweet Home Alabama” or “Stairway to Heaven,” an addition (perhaps the last?) to a canon of easy-ish tunes that will grab attention at, say, a party, a bonfire, or an open mic night.
But “Wonderwall” was still new then, and I adored it. Was fascinated, as ever, by the combo of simplicity and power.
I followed the sound, mesmerized. The kid’s voice housed the quality one hears in Van Morrison, John Lennon, Jeff Buckley, Marvin Gaye, Janis Joplin, Billie Holiday, Kurt Cobain, Amy Winehouse. I realize now you only hear a voice like that live in a room a few times in your life. No recording technology captures every nuance, though a good engineer/producer can create a compelling facsimile, usually by staying out of the way.
It’s not the hitting of the notes, or the vocal acrobatics. The emotive quality can be honed, but I’m not sure it can be taught. Such a voice is, essentially, the sound of soul released into the air. What follows is the feeling of your soul connecting to the singer, and to everyone around you. That’s the pleasure. The hair stands up on your arms, chills your spine. Time stands still.
Prior to the walleyed kid, I’d heard that sound in clubs and theaters, but never a subway.
I rounded a corner, and there he was, sitting on a box, junkie-thin, one of his eyes gazing on the middle distance, the other a-wandering. He sported ill-fitting clothes, looked like he probably stank. Absolutely killing that song, perfectly thrashing a substandard acoustic. The elfin girlfriend, also junkie-thin, with lank, dark hair, in a tank top, low-slung jeans over protruding hipbones. She smiled wide, with oddly perfect teeth. Money-ed teeth. She walked the semicircle of spectators, held out a battered top hat. With absolute conviction, she said, “He’s going to be famous. He’s going to be famous.”
I gave $10, and reluctantly hurried to my destination. I never saw them again.
I still hear that guy’s voice in my head. Indeed, in my personal pantheon, he is famous.
There are many more, but I’ll leave you with the kid playing the pickle buckets. Late Eighties-early Nineties, my most dramatic street performer memory.
A little Googling, and I think it was Larry Wright.
Once again, under 42nd Street. The percussion filled the entire station, mixing with people hollering, cheering, losing themselves – primal human sound, instantly identifiable deep in the brain as unrestrained, communal joy. I was drawn in to a crowd of New Yorkers agape, yelling and hooting.
A kid – maybe sixteen – bathed in sweat, pounded out rhythms with drumsticks on white plastic pickle buckets, the kind restaurants use. He sat on a pickle bucket, too, in shorts and a drenched white tank top, tirelessly executing polyrhythms, like three drummers at once, ropes of muscle pulsing in his arms, eyes closed as he nodded, perspiration flying. Strangers danced, high fived, and locked eyes with other strangers in that way that says, “We are witnessing something magical, isn’t is GREAT?”
I gave him $10, too. Then hurried to a destination that escapes me now. I’m glad to say I saw him more times over the years, always with a pickle bucket full of happily forked-over cash, which I always added to.
Larry remains NYC-renowned, but neither he nor any of these others became “stars,” of course. And while they all asked for tips and attention, they essentially charged nothing for their music.
I paid them all anyway. Money well spent. Scoring a bargain in the most expensive city in the world evokes a distinctive, spiritual feeling of Lady Luck smiling. Indeed, that feeling was one of the reasons I chose to live in NYC while I could. I did not possess a lot, but chancing upon fabulous NYC subway performers made me feel beyond rich, if only for a few minutes.
…and thanks to Joni, for the title
I have been recording some guitarists I hear at the west 4th street MTA platform.
don't sleep on the subway, baby....