TScottHilton - Posted - 03/09/2026:  10:02:42

I used to busk regularly. In fact there were periods where I was doing it multiple times a week. But over the years you get busy with full time jobs and other things that make it hard to find the time.

I just took a new job which will open up my afternoons during the week. I'm excited to start busking again. It's a skill I have always really enjoyed honing.

But it has me thinking about all the fun and interesting things I've experienced in the past while busking. So: what are some of your best (or craziest) busking stories?

randybartlett - Posted - 03/09/2026:  10:27:17

I went to South Korea for business. I bought a Washburn B16 from a music store and would play over by the stream park. You were supposed to have a permit to busk. The "permit" was just a lapel button that had the year and that you were authorized. Some guitar player pulled an extra one out of his case and gave it to me. I think people gave me about $2, commiserate with my skills at the time. I think that now that with my skills now and by singing, I could double that.

I left that banjo in Seoul and sold it to a guy who came to teach English. One of my friends claimed it from the hotel check room and sold it for me.

Owen - Posted - 03/09/2026:  10:56:57

Probably not yer typical (?) busking tall-tale, but nonetheless >>> My lovely and talented assistant made a special trip [across Halifax harbour] to take in their waterfront Buskers' Festival some years back.  But, but, but, once off the ferry, it was wall-to-wall people  .... so "to hello with this noise"  and instead we went to a restaurant a block or two "inland."   A guy on the sidewalk there was singing and playing his guitar .... pretty good, IMNSHumbleO.   We got to B.S.ing a bit with him.  He had started out at the waterfront, but was given the heave-ho, as he didn't have a "permit."   All's well that ends well, I suppose.

banjobob36 - Posted - 03/09/2026:  12:09:33

Air Force sent me on a busking tour to study at the University of NAKON, Phenom, Thailand on the Mekong river right across from LAOS. Met a guitar busker there and with my busking Gibson we busked for a year while the flying buskers cleared a path on the Ho Chi Minh trail. After the year ( 70-71) I made it back and have been happily busking since. Happy Busking BHO.

banjo bill-e - Posted - 03/09/2026:  13:30:37

A talented friend was "busking" without a tip jar, just playing music on the street for those passing by. Police told him he had to have a permit. A quick online search revealed that no such permit existed and no such law prohibited music, other than a noise ordinance, and my friend was playing acoustic guitar! My (somewhat intoxicated) friend began aruging the law with the cop, and was winning the argument but losing the war as the officer changed the offense to "public intoxication" and if not for the intervention of my wife, who promised that she would drive him home RIGHT NOW, he would have gone to jail on some bogus charge, with the real offense being daring to challenge an officer who was clearly in the wrong. We all went to the next city council meeting and discovered that the mayor was fine with the police making up laws as they see fit, and that was that, no more free public music, which had offended no one other than this officer who had nothing better to do. 

Edited by - banjo bill-e on 03/09/2026 13:31:59

chuckv97 - Posted - 03/09/2026:  13:48:41

I’ve busked off & on since the 1970’s,, Waterloo, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, & Victoria. I’m back at it since retiring, at an indoor farmers market, 3-4 hours a week on solo banjo. It got me a gig playing in the Calgary Stampede Parade a few years ago,,, 300,000 people saw/heard me plus a national TV broadcast.
But really I love it for the kids most of all - they’re entranced by the stream of banjo notes and most start dancing and jumping around.

 

Tim Jumper - Posted - 03/09/2026:  17:09:06

Not quite busking, but back in the fall of 1970 my buddy and I were in Belfast, No. Ireland during "The Troubles," and broke out our instruments in a Falls Road pub to add to the tipsy merriment with a couple of songs, after which some guy yelled out for "The Battle of New Orleans." At first we were puzzled by the request until it dawned on us that it was all about the Brits getting their arses kicked by Andy Jackson!

Ira Gitlin - Posted - 03/10/2026:  06:46:49

Not a big deal story, but Brian Setzer threw a dollar into my case outside the Hard Rock Cafe on 57th Street in NYC back in the mid-1980s.

BG Banjo - Posted - 03/10/2026:  08:49:11

Back around 2010 we owned a condo in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico near the Malecon, which belongs to the National Parks Service. In the afternoon I would go out with a rum and Coke to sit on a stone wall on the Malecon to play so that I didn't disturb the neighbor kid who would nap in the afternoon. So while I was out there playing and singing, a woman and a man came along and stopped to listen. I hammed it up a little for them. When they left, the lady stuck a fiver in my rum and Coke. A busker was born. Busking was actually not allowed on the Malecon, but it wasn't enforced. We sold the place in 2019 and I really miss walking out there to play.

TScottHilton - Posted - 03/10/2026:  09:07:10

The two that are most memorable for me:

I was busking with some friends one afternoon on our downtown square, and we were playing a cover of "The Boxer" when a gentleman walked up and asked if we knew who wrote the song we were playing. Long story short: he turned out to be affiliated with Art Garfunkel in some capacity (he was either his tour manager or was on the booking staff at our local theater that was hosting his show) and he told us he'd try to get us tickets for the show Art was playing that evening, and see if he could get us in afterwards to meet him. He came back about an hour later and unfortunately there wasn't a single seat left. But still kind of a cool story.

The most memorable was a time in highschool when we busked outside of our local theater the night that Arlo Guthrie was playing. We played mostly Woody Guthrie tunes until the show started. Our highschool music teacher pulled some strings and arranged for everyone taking his class to get tickets, and we got to briefly meet Arlo after the show. The show was great and he was incredibly good natured and down to earth.

The Old Timer - Posted - 03/10/2026:  15:54:00

banjo bill-e, your story immediately made me think of quaint "customs" in certain US cities (till I noticed your location) where if you do ANYTHING that generates a little income on a cop's beat, he feels entirely within his rights to get a little something "for his nose" if you catch my meaning, if you get my drift.

I have kind of a pitiful busking observation from "The Big Easy", New Orleans. I was there one spring for a work meeting, enjoying walking around in the warmth. Plenty of New Orleans jazz performers busking on very corner in the French Quarter where all the tourists were. I twigged pretty quickly that certain groups had certain corners that they owned or had permits for. Too many musicians and too well organized to think otherwise.

We walked out of the Quarter over toward Jackson Square and came upon a lone young feller (with his girlfriend lurking nearby in a doorway) along an otherwise empty street and I'll be damned if he wasn't play bluegrass on a 5 string banjo!!! I guess it was the only place he could set up without getting R.U.N.N. O.F.T. It was a pitiful situation. I threw him a fiver in his banjo case after listening to a tune. I murmured some words that I hope were encouraging.

I have a banjo picking friend who busked in downtown Nashville years ago, staying in a youth hostel on 1st or 2nd Ave (it got damaged by that wacko who blew up his own RV early one morning years ago). He was having the time of his life until CBS tv news did a piece on the Nashville street life, and tagged him as "homeless"! Back home in Maine, everyone who knew his mom and dad immediately panicked and deluged them with phone calls offering to help bring him home!

Ira Gitlin - Posted - 03/11/2026:  08:04:24

quote:

---

Originally posted by banjo bill-e

A talented friend was "busking" without a tip jar, just playing music on the street for those passing by. Police told him he had to have a permit. A quick online search revealed that no such permit existed and no such law prohibited music, other than a noise ordinance, and my friend was playing acoustic guitar! My (somewhat intoxicated) friend began aruging the law with the cop, and was winning the argument but losing the war as the officer changed the offense to "public intoxication" and if not for the intervention of my wife, who promised that she would drive him home RIGHT NOW, he would have gone to jail on some bogus charge, with the real offense being daring to challenge an officer who was clearly in the wrong. We all went to the next city council meeting and discovered that the mayor was fine with the police making up laws as they see fit, and that was that, no more free public music, which had offended no one other than this officer who had nothing better to do. 

---

Back in my NYC busking days, I once played near the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in a place where a Central Park police officer told me it was OK to set up. As I was playing, a NYPD officer issued me a ticket. I contested it on the grounds that a LEO had told me it was OK to play there, but ended up having to pay the fine.

Paul R - Posted - 03/12/2026:  14:32:56

quote:

---

Originally posted by chuckv97

I’ve busked off & on since the 1970’s,, Waterloo, Ottawa, Toronto, Edmonton, Calgary, Vancouver, & Victoria. I’m back at it since retiring, at an indoor farmers market, 3-4 hours a week on solo banjo. It got me a gig playing in the Calgary Stampede Parade a few years ago,,, 300,000 people saw/heard me plus a national TV broadcast.

But really I love it for the kids most of all - they’re entranced by the stream of banjo notes and most start dancing and jumping around.

---

Didja get ta keep the hat?

Too bad I missed you at the Runnymede subway station in Toronto - or did I? I didn't know you then. (We lived two short blocks from Runnymede.)

Not busking, but one sunny day pre-pandemic, the Mrs. and I went north of Kingston to Westport, where I ran into a friend who happened to be carrying a guitar. So we sat on the church steps and passed it back and forth to play. Someone came up and offered us money! We declined it, saying we weren't busking.

I came across this visiting couple in Market Square here some time back. He's playing a Fielding. Some years before that, Sheesham and Lotus set up and did a set, and I bought their first CD.

Visitors busking in Market Square, Kingston (note the Fielding banjo)

 

chuckv97 - Posted - 03/12/2026:  15:22:44

Paul R Yessir , pilgrim , I shore did keep da hat… but I gotta say these wide-brimmed jobs don’t suit me that well; I’d rather the straw look….
Runnymede? ,, ah, I remember it well,, not much moolah at that station. Back then I was busking with my classical guitar and a small ,, gasp! … Peavey battery amp. The best spot for $$ was the Bloor/Yonge station. For whatever reason Union Station garnered meagre donations.
Seeing as you’re a military historian of sorts, you might groan/chuckle at this video below…
youtu.be/76K4TZhbp3g?si=AyMc4LxClqWnrBl3

Paul R - Posted - 03/14/2026:  20:13:26

There was some guy who busked outside our bank (top of our street, across Bloor). Either Ukrainian or Russian (most likely Ukrainian, considering their numbers there), he played the most morbid sounding songs. We didn't know the language, but the agonizingly slow pace and dirge-like melodies made us think of suicide.



Anyway, your video treat reminded me of some history: youtube.com/watch?v=I1583adUqSg

Don Borchelt - Posted - 03/16/2026:  06:43:19

When I was in graduate school, some fifty years ago, in the warm weather I used to join a couple of friends of mine in Harvard Square to busk after my classes. Gene played the fiddle, Rob played the guitar, and I provided the banjo. All fiddle tunes, bluegrass and old-time, no singing. They were doing it full time, I would join them when I could. Sometimes we would play in the evening, too. We did okay, they made just enough to keep well supplied with weed. One evening, a well-healed fellow about sixty stopped to listen. He was short and stocky, wearing an expensive hand tailored three piece suit, and wore a Stetson open road on his head. On his arm, he had a really beautiful young woman in her mid-twenties. He pulled a big role of twenty dollar bills out of his pocket, started fingering the bills, and in a pretty thick Texas drawl he said with some drama, "I'd like you boys to play the Orange Blossom Special." Gene, the fiddle player, muttered under his breath, "No, we've played it three times already, and I'm not playing it again." I turned to Rob and whispered, "Tell him to play the f**king tune!" Rob said, "No, if he doesn't want to play it, that's his choice." The Texan got the gist of it, shrugged his shoulders, put the roll of bills back in his pocket, and said, "Okay, suit yourself." Then he and the young woman turned and walked away. I think that was the last time I busked with them.

chuckv97 - Posted - 03/16/2026:  09:46:44

Don Borchelt Geez Don,, I figured it might’ve been Tex Logan. I saw him with a smashing young doll at Bluegrass Canada in 1974.

RB3 - Posted - 03/17/2026:  07:21:13

chuckv97,



I also once saw Tex at a festival in the Seventies when he was accompanied by a "smashing young doll". It turned out that she was his daughter. However, when I read Don's busking story, I knew immediately that it wasn't Tex Logan. I'm pretty sure that Tex would not have requested Orange Blossom Special.

Edited by - RB3 on 03/17/2026 07:21:33

Don Borchelt - Posted - 03/18/2026:  09:24:44

quote:

---

Originally posted by chuckv97

Geez Don,, I figured it might’ve been Tex Logan. I saw him with a smashing young doll at Bluegrass Canada in 1974.

---

No, Chuck, it definitely wasn't Tex Logan.  I had seen tex Logan sit in with Monroe at a festival a few years earlier, maybe a few other times, and this guy looked nothing like him.  



- Don