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Cary Baker
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Product details
- ISBN 9781916829107
- Dimensions: 150 x 215mm
- Publication Date: 12 Nov 2024
- Publisher: Outline Press Ltd
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Paperback
- Language: English
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One day around 1970, my father announced to me that he d like to take me to Maxwell Street Market, an open-air flea market adjacent to Downtown Chicago. He wanted to show me where his parents used to take him shopping as a child. When he parked his car in the University Of Illinois lot, the first thing I heard, long before I could see where it was coming from, was the sound of a slide guitar -- not just any guitar but a National steel resonator guitar. We followed the music and found ourselves standing on the west side of Halsted Street, midway between Roosevelt and Maxwell, where Blind Arvella Gray was playing the folk/blues song John Henry -- a song that seemed to have no beginning and no end. Sensing that his audience was generally passing by rather than gathering around, Gray kept playing that one song for his entire shift. He d even altered the lyrics to refer to the local streets. In that moment, I developed a lifelong affinity for the informality, spontaneity, and audience participation of busking. Down On The Corner 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. Drawing on years of interviews and eyewitness accounts, veteran journalist and music-industry publicist Cary Baker 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, Down On The Corner tells the complete history of these musicians and the music they play, from tin cups and toonies to QR codes and PayPal.
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.
