Book Review: ‘Down on the Corner’ by Cary Baker

Busking and Buskers

Down on the Corner, by longtime music writer and publicist Cary Baker, is a loving, intelligent and endearing look at life performing on the streets, or busking. Traveling musicians have been a part of the fabric of life throughout human civilization as groups and individuals roamed providing entertainment in exchange for food, shelter and cash around the world.

While busking may not seem as romantic as tales of troubadours from France or court musicians from the Asian dynasties, it is an echo of a time when music was not constrained by venue or Ticketmaster. Certainly traveling musicians and buskers were, and are, dependent upon the vagaries of sponsors and folks willing to place a quarter in their hat, but there’s a certain immediacy and joy to be found for both performer and audience which the commercialization and codification of performance has destroyed.

No conversation about busking in North America would be complete without Chicago’s Maxwell Street. As Baker is a native of Chicago it’s no surprise that one of his initial exposures to buskers was this redoubtable couple of blocks. While, like many other music institutions Maxwell Street is long gone, a victim of gentrification, it lives on in the hearts and minds of blues music enthusiasts. 

Baker has interviewed a number of buskers and musicians around the world for this book. Each chapter gives us an individual’s or group’s perspective on how they started busking, their experiences as a busker, and, if they’ve moved on, how they feel about it now. 

After his opening chapter about busking’s origins and his introduction to Maxwell Street, Baker divides his book by geography: East Coast, South and Midwest, California, and Europe. Amongst those categories we receive close-up views of particular cities and hot spots for busking. 

New Orleans, New York, London’s Underground, Paris, and Venice Beach are obvious choices to examine. But Baker also checks in on places like Milwaukee, where the Violent Femmes had their start busking. They’re aren’t the only names you’ll recognize from your turntable showing up in Down On The Corner.

Billy Bragg (who toured North America as a one-man band), Elvis Costello, and Lucinda Williams each have their stories of playing on the streets. The iconoclastic Tymon Dogg recounts his early days in London busking with Joe Strummer, and the late great Mojo Nixon adds his voice to these recollections.

Baker has taken all these stories, and more, and created a full picture of busking, from the hardships to the joys and from those who used it as a springboard to greater success to those who just kept on keeping on playing the streets. In one of his epilogues he also introduces us to Playing for Change, who bring buskers and musicians from around the world together to create music. From the Congo to Italy and Venice Beach these musicians who will never meet unite to record songs in virtual busking supergroups.

Even if your only relationship with busking is having dropped a quarter in the hat of a street musician who caught your attention, Down on the Corner by Carey Baker is a fascinating and incredible journey into the world of music on the street.