They are, to quote Mark Knopfler, down in the tunnel trying to make it pay. Transport for London has this week been holding auditions for buskers, assessing the performers for licences that allow access to pitches on the Tube and, for the first time, the Elizabeth line. It’s a bureaucratic approach to a traditionally informal activity, but passengers will get their tunes and buskers will get their money.
Knopfler wrote his Dire Straits hit ‘Walk of Life’ after seeing a photo of a busker turning his guitar towards the subway wall to improve the echo. It’s the sort of attention to detail you need. Busking is the ultimate ‘give the audience what they want’ test – forget artistic merit, you have to entertain. Succeed and you eat, fail and you don’t.
These days performers have card readersbut 30 years ago, when I was a busker, cash was king.
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