“Busking happened back in the early days of blues and rock, and it’s still here – and always brings the authenticity and primitivism of the past into the present day. That’s one of the reasons I’m drawn to it.”

Cary Baker: Down On The Corner

Adventures in Busking and Street Music

Born on Chicago’s South Side, Cary Baker began his writing career at sixteen with an on-spec feature about Chicago street singer Blind Arvella Gray for the Chicago Reader. His return to writing follows a forty-two-year hiatus during which time he directed publicity for six record labels (including Capitol and IRS) and two of his own companies, working with acclaimed artists such as R.E.M., Bonnie Raitt, The Smithereens, James McMurtry, The Mavericks, Bobby Rush, Willie Nile, and more. Prior to his PR years, Baker wrote for the Chicago Reader, Creem, Trouser Press, Bomp!, Goldmine, Billboard, Mix, Illinois Entertainer, and Record magazine. He has also written liner notes for historical reissues from Universal, Capitol/EMI, Numero Group, and Omnivore. He has been a voting member of the Recording Academy since 1979. He lives in Southern California. Journalist and publicist Cary Baker’s book “Down On The Corner: Adventures in Busking and Street Music" (Jawbone Press, 2024) is the story of music performed on the streets, in subways, in parks, in schoolyards, on the back of flatbed trucks, and beyond, from the 1920s to the present day.                         (Photos: Cary Baker and his book “Down On The Corner")

Drawing on years of interviews and eyewitness accounts, it introduces readers to a wide range of locations and a myriad of musical genres, from folk to rock’n’roll, the blues to bluegrass, doo-wop to indie rock. Some of the performers he features—Lucinda Williams, Billy Bragg, The Violent Femmes—went on to become international stars; others settled into the curbs, sidewalks, and Tube stations as their workplace for the duration of their careers. Anyone who has lived in or travelled through a city will have encountered street musicians of one kind or another. For the first time, veteran journalist and music-industry publicist Cary Baker tells the complete history of these musicians and the music they play, from tin cups and toonies to QR codes and PayPal.

Interview by Michael Limnios

Currently you’ve one book titled DOWN ON THE CORNER: ADVENTURES IN BUSKING & STREET MUSIC. How did that idea come about?

I had three busking revelations in my life. The first came at age 16 in the early 70s when my father took me to Maxwell Street to show me where his parents used to take him to shop. All the Eastern European immigrants in Chicago – including my father’s parents – used to shop and mingle there. In the ensuing decades, the area had transitioned from white and European to Black. This was amidst a major migration from the Deep South to the northern industrial cities like Chicago. So there I was, age 16 in 1972, and when we parked the car, I immediately heard slide guitar. We followed the music, and the performer’s name was Blind Arvella Gray. We stood there for about an hour listening to him play mainly one song, “John Henry.” During a break, I asked him for his phone number. I called him that week and we did an interview, which I typed up and mailed unsolicited to the fledgling Chicago Reader. We saw many other street singers that day: Big John Wrencher, Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis, Jim Brewer and Little Pat Rushing. So that was my first encounter with street music.

A decade later, and now holding a journalism degree, I was called by the punk/new wave magazine Trouser Press and asked if I could go to Milwaukee to interview a new band from there called the Violent Femmes. They were described to me as “folk/punk” – punk played on acoustic instruments.  Because this was 1982 and there was no Soundcloud nor Spotify, I drove to Milwaukee and met the band not having heard their music. No problem: They took me to the streets of downtown Milwaukee and played it for me…right outside the Oriental Theater in Milwaukee. It was there that they’d been discovered a year prior by Chrissie Hinde and the late James Honeyman-Scott of the Pretenders. I got to see the dynamic of street musicians modulating to their audiences of passers-by. It was a powerful moment for me, as a listener.

And finally, I moved to Los Angeles in 1984 and took my first stroll down Venice Beach Boardwalk. I was taking in the sights, sounds, smells and tastes when I heard a sonorous soul singer akin to Otis Redding. I looked around and there was a black man with a white beard, seated as he sang and played a whole repertoire of original folk-soul songs for an audience of bikini-clad ladies and surfer dudes. His name was Ted Hawkins. I thought he was good enough to be recording, and it turned out that he had recorded. But his big break came a decade later when Michael Penn discovered Hawkins, and called his friend Tony Berg – a Geffen Records A&R rep and producer. Ted got to make an album for Geffen. It didn’t sell Guns ‘n’ Roses kind of numbers, but it did bring him a ton of press, and the ability to tour ticketed indoor venues for the rest of his life.

So Blind Arvella Gray…the Violent Femmes…Ted Hawkins…that was really my introduction to busking…my trifecta, if you will.

”I can’t think of what made me laugh on Maxwell Street – maybe some of the pitches of the hawkers selling wares while the musicians were playing around the corner. No one talks about the merchandise.” (Blind Arvella Gray, Maxwell Str, Chicago IL 1971 / Photo © by Cary Baker)

Why do you think that busking and street music continues to generate such a devoted following?

Many buskers were arrested…for being beggars…for disturbing the peace. And many buskers and busking advocates (Stephen Baird, Mary Howell, Harry Perry and the late Destiny Quibble come to mind) fought city halls and won. In New York’s Washington Square, the spontaneous Beatnik Riot brought busking to the forefront of city politics.

Let me say this: We don’t actually need to shop on Main Street for anything nowadays. We can order it from Amazon with a minimum of clicks, and it will land on our doorstep that evening or at least the next day. But…street performers give people a reason to drive (or better yet in a subway) to Main Street to shop at brick-and-mortar retail establishments. You might see a busker outside the store, in the town square, or in the subway (Tube) station. So busking can help keep a city’s commercial business district alive. You can’t order a spontaneous street performance from Amazon. At least not yet.

What do you miss most nowadays from the music of past? What are your hopes and fears for the future of music?

Well gosh, there were many reasons music was cooler in the past than in the present – which is not to say that there isn’t cool new music as well. But I love the sound of the past – the old tube amped guitar and primitively echoed vocal effects on a record like Howlin’ Wolf’s “How Many More years,” or, advancing many decades, the buried vocals and cryptic lyrics amidst the jangle of R.E.M.’s “1,000,000.”  I try not to live in the past, however, and am always open to being turned on to great new music. Busking happened back in the early days of blues and rock, and it’s still here – and always brings the authenticity and primitivism of the past into the present day. That’s one of the reasons I’m drawn to it.

What has made you laugh and what touched you from the famous Maxwell Street? Which meetings have been the most important experiences for you?

I can’t think of what made me laugh on Maxwell Street – maybe some of the pitches of the hawkers selling wares while the musicians were playing around the corner. No one talks about the merchandise. But I do remember a home-made insect repellant called Bug Out which was being hawked by a high-pressure salesman one day on Maxwell Street. I also appreciate the graciousness of Blind Arvella Gray’s sister, Granny Littircebey, also was also a performer. Also interesting: Interviewing Bernie Abrams, the owner of the Ora Nelle Records label which recorded Little Walter and Johnny Young, only to find out he was never a blues fan. He was merely recording the neighborhood talent for the neighborhood market. And in the course of so doing, he archived a time and a place.

”I had three busking revelations in my life. The first came at age 16 in the early 70s when my father took me to Maxwell Street to show me where his parents used to take him to shop. All the Eastern European immigrants in Chicago – including my father’s parents – used to shop and mingle there. In the ensuing decades, the area had transitioned from white and European to Black.” (Clara Littricebey, Maxwell Str & Halsted, Chicago IL 1972 / Photo © by Cary Baker)

What are some of the most important lessons you have learned from your experience in the music industry?

I was a music journalist (Trouser Press, Creem, Chicago Reader, Billboard, Bomp!) from about 1974-84, during which time I received my college Journalism degree. In 1984, I began what I thought might be a two-year hiatus from writing to join I.R.S. Records as head of publicity. It was the greatest job in the world. From there, I went to Capitol Records and three other labels, and then launched two of my own publicity companies. So a purported two-year foray into music publicity became 40 years.

My greatest pride during my publicity years was to preserve my “inner journalist.” I always tried to comport myself more like a journalist than a publicist. I tried to be the “anti-Bobbi Fleckman.” When I was out to lunch with a journalist I was ultimately pitching, I tried to keep the conversation focused on good music the journalist might have heard – and not necessarily from among what I was pitching. It helped brand me as more of a “music guy” than merely a shallow flack.

Let’s take a trip with a time machine, so where and why would you really want to go for a whole day?

I was fortunate to tour Chess Studios – both at 2120 S. Michigan Ave., and 320 E. 21st St. in Chicago. But I try to imagine what it must have been like to attend a session like Little Walter’s “Off the Wall.” How DID Leonard and Phil Chess mic that harmonica? Or…hearing doo-wop vocal groups on the Harlem street corners. How cool would that have been? Fortunately, I was able to be at the right place and the right time during many key moments – like Cheap Trick’s years as a Midwest bar bad with three sets a night at a local tavern. Being there as R.E.M. performed “Driver 8” for the very first time. So ultimately I have no regrets.

(Maxwell Street Jimmy Davis, Maxwell Str. Chicago IL 1972 / Photo © by Cary Baker)