For many years I traveled around the UK to various cities and towns, the way I survived was to use my talent as a guitarist to earn money to feed myself just as many other buskers have and still do, in later years the money I made went toward music and recording equipment and at one time I had a nice collection of old guitars and a fairly decent home studio all paid for by playing my acoustic guitar on the streets.
The money wasn't bad I have to admit on a good day I could make upto £40 on an average day £5-£10 but it wasn't the money that I did it for (except in the early days) I began to find myself gaining something much more satisfactory, a small sense of worth, seeing a smile on someones face or a small child dancing away as I played was much more of a payment then any cash that was thrown into my guitar case.
I never once asked for money, I did have a sign which stated what the money would be spent on and as such people were not under any obligation to give me anything, these days, with home recording being so inexpensive many buskers have taken to selling their own CD's while playing as an extra way to make a living from their music.
I discovered a young man by the name of Johnny Walker on Facebook, as a local-ish lad and a very talented and well known busker around Yorkshire I added him as a friend, I was soon astonished by the abusive way in which he had been treated whilst busking in a few cities by Council officials and police, If a license was required Johnny had paid for it and as such was legally allowed to busk, however as he had CD's available the Council officials were wanting to charge £40 for him to sell his music.
To get around this Johnny labelled his CD's in the box as available free or for people to make a donation of £7.99 if they so wished, this didn't seem to go down well with the big wigs at the Council and as such they revoked Johnny's license for busking in York.
This is yet another blatant attempt of someone wanting a piece of somebody elses pie that they had no input in baking, why should a musician pay an extra fee to sell his/her music while they play?, surely the fact that the public are getting FREE entertainment, often from very professional musicians, should be enough, most buskers don't make a lot of money from it, many do it as a means to survival, others do it purely for the love of performing.
With many live music venues closing down or charging bands to play the streets were the one place, the one haven away from the wolves who pray on musicians until now, and those wolves are no longer the dodgy manager or agent or venue owner, they now wear the guise of a Council official or Police officer.
Below is a video of Johnny Walker giving a speech today in York after having his busking license suspended.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFOPSd-x4-A&feature=youtu.be
And here is a link to his website where you can support the cause.
http://streetslive.org/
Also you can find Johnny on Facebook or at his personal website:
http://www.jonnywalker.co.uk/
https://www.facebook.com/JonnySongs
