Keep Streets Live - Victory.. of sorts!

Following on from my previous (here and here) posts it has been announced today that controversial Liverpool City Council policy to charge buskers to pay and regulate when and where they can play has been thrown out.

Although they don't admit it i'm pretty sure this has quite a bit to do with the KEEP STREETS LIVE campaign which achieved over 5000 signatures to support it.

Councillor Steve Munby admitted: “The policy wasn't thought through properly and we ought to have realised at the time. “Many of the regulations as they stood, were unenforceable. We had no team in place, no officers to go around checking people. I hold my hands up and admit that on this occasion, we got it wrong.” 

But he refused to admit defeat: "I haven't seen a busking community behind it, just one or two very loud voices."

I don't think it has occurred to Cllr Munby that one or two voices can speak for many.  Saying that, it's hard to believe that any politician thinks that they speak for anybody but themselves.

See their report from this years Wash Out Mathew Street Festival.

Keep Streets Live - Church Street Mass Busk 2

Following on from yesterdays post I took myself down into the city centre to witness the 'Keep Streets Live' mass busk.

It was a great turnout with a diverse group of musicians and instruments, guitars, violins, drums a trumpet and a digeridoo... one percussionist even began drubbing a beat on the street furniture.

Remember, please sign this petition: http://keepstreetslive.com/

One notable absence was the groups of eastern European musicians who can often be heard with trumpets and accordions.  Perhaps they were not aware of this new legislation?

If it wasn't for the Keep Streets Live campaign I wouldn't know about the full scope of this legislation.  Although it has been announced in the Echo and other news sources I was not aware that the legislation would also effect non-musician street performances such as street art (see the painting below) and the chap with the little owl.  The council has said very little has been said about these types of street performance.

In between songs, the musicians would give their opinions on the forthcoming legislation and one comment in particular struck me: 'It's our city, not theirs.'


As I hope the image above shows, the crowd that gathered was a great mix of young and old.  It was so typically representative of Liverpool.  Old guys stumbling from the Beehive to the Blob Shop stopped to roll a fag and enjoy an acoustic version of Jessie J's 'Price Tag' then a few minutes later a group of tweenagers start tapping their feet to 1920s classic 'Minnie the Moocher'.

Each one of those people stopped of their own free will to be entertained. If they didn't like the music, they simply walked away.

It was music by all sorts of people for all sorts of people.  They were not asked to be there, many didn't know just why they were there... but they stayed.


Meanwhile, a hundred yards away River Island was still blasting out its speakers.

Remember, please sign this petition: http://keepstreetslive.com/

Al Jolson and Liverpool

It has recently been mooted that Liverpool should have a National Migration Centre, sort of like a British Ellis Island.  For nine million people the Liverpool waterfront would be their last view of the grim Old World. 

Many of those emigrants were fleeing poverty and persecution.  They were not just from Britain but from all over Europe.  In 1894 a young Lithuanian family arrived in Liverpool on their way to begin a new life in America.   The family, Naomi Yoelson and three young children had ridden on hay wagons, trains and packet steamers to reach Liverpool where they would board a grand ocean liner to take them to New York.

'RMS Umbria' - the Cunard liner that took the Yoelson family to America.

They must have been anxious, the father Rabbi Mosel Reuben Yoelson had already reached America in 1891 and had been saving money so he could afford to bring his family over with him.  Times had been hard and it had taken four years before he could afford it.

Whilst waiting for passage in Liverpool, Naomi let her children wander the teeming cobbled streets full of sailors, entertainers (like Seth Davy), hawkers, costermongers, prostitutes and the human detritus that so characterised 19th century Liverpool.  Her youngest child, eight year old Asa Yoelson was fascinated by the street life of the city and the day before they were due to board the Cunard ship 'RMS Umbria' he wandered off and got lost.  Naomi was distraught. 

'A young Asa Yoelson'

Luckily no harm came to young Asa, a policeman returned him.  Little did that policeman know that the young Jewish emigrant he had helped would become one of the greatest stars of film and stage in history.

The young Asa and his brother would perform on street corners for coins which they would then spend on buying theatre tickets.  It would be years before Asa Yoelson became 'Al Jolson - The Worlds Greatest Entertainer'.

Did the star of stage and film remember his brief time in Liverpool?  

Later in his career, when filming the seminal film 'The Jazz Singer' a Liverpuddlian would enter the story.  George Groves a Lancashire lad who studied at Liverpool University would become a pioneer of sound recording and so impressed Jolson that he dubbed him 'the quiet little Englishman' and insisted he recorded all his later pictures. 

 Liverpool was the greatest emigration port in the world and it is no wonder that many prominent Americans can trace their origins through Liverpool at one time or another.

The Beat of the Street

This blog aims to be about the more obscure, uncelebrated and forgotten music history of Liverpool.

There is no aspect of music history more forgotten and uncelebrated than the art of busking.  It's one of the oldest types of performance, from the moment a cave man first picked up a bone-flute there was probably a crowd around him throwing brightly coloured stones at his feet.

The sheer amount and quality of buskers in Liverpool at the moment is staggering, from the top of Bold Street to bottom of Lord Street - less than a mile there were about 10 of them.

A musical mile. 17th March 2012. Liverpool

It is claimed by the council that this is too many.  There are plans afoot to start charging buskers for one of 25 slots in the city centre.  Charges should be around £20 per anum.  Is this needed regulation, or simply a cynical money spinner for the cash-strapped council?

My worry is that with only a limited number of pitches there will be very tight competition and newer artists may never get the permit to perform.

Some of the proposed busking spots?  Are there enough?

They've always lived in a strange nether-world between professional and amateur, some buskers make a living through selling high-quality CDs from the pavement, others are barely able to hold a guitar.  Buskers in all their varied mixes give a colour and depth to a street that would otherwise be missing.  Let's hope this charging scheme doesn't affect it too much.

Thank god they're still here!