Why 'The Spoon Lady' Abby Roach is recording America's buskers
"Anybody can be a busker, from the most prominent musician ever to kindergarten kids wanting to come out and make candy money," says Abby Roach, who is better known as The Spoon Lady. Roach started busking as a means to travel across America, after leaving home in search of a fresh start. "The smartest thing for me to do was just hit the road and reinvent myself," says Roach. Although she met other people who were hopping trains and living a nomadic lifestyle, Roach was homeless for a time and wondered how she would make money while traveling across the country. When she met a group of travellers who had stolen spoons from a restaurant in Savannah, Georgia, a young man from Peru taught her how to play them. "It's nice and lightweight, and it doesn't weigh down my backpack," jokes Roach of her choice instrument.
Busking has developed a deep culture due to its nomadic roots, explains Roach. She says it's easier to carry a guitar when traveling from city to city rather than carrying products to sell. "A lot of hobos and travelers, ever since the birth of the railroad, have leaned on street performance as a means of funding to get across the country," says the spoons player. But busking is more than a means to get across the country, "it's a way for people to get to see those traditional folk performances," says Roach. How many times would you see a professional human statue pose, or jugglers and mimes perform? It's hard to find this type of art outside of street performance, notes the busker. "Street performance, by nature, brings a lot of those kind of art forms back to the streets and back to the culture," says Roach and that helps build a community atmosphere.
Roach currently collects American busker recordings with the goal of preserving street performance culture.
Listen to more of Abby Roach's music here.
WEB EXTRA | Listen to Abby Roach play on three different sets of spoons and suitcase over clips from a 2010 freight hopping adventure below.