Synopsis
'BUSKER - Tales of a Renegade Harpist' is the first full-length modern memoir about the life of a busker and an inside look at the much-maligned yet honorable busking lifestyle. In August of 2007, officials from Washington State Ferries booted the author, Celtic harpist David Michael, off the ferryboats for reasons of Homeland Security. The capsizing of his seventeen-year career performing free on-board concerts aboard the Port Townsend to Whidbey Island run touched off a media storm that prompted him to write this book. Through his personal experiences, historic anecdotes and a look at other famous buskers, Michael makes the case that busking plays a vital cultural role in society. The book encompasses far more than just Michael s struggle with the nation s largest ferryboat bureaucracy. There are outlandish and often hilarious details of his forty-year career entertaining around the globe...from cafés on the isle of Crete to the walking streets of Scandinavia as well as the ferryboats of Puget Sound. Much of the book is a gritty and humorous travelogue of five summers of street music exploits and misadventures in Europe. BUSKER also includes colorful coming-of-age stories of Michael as a teen, venturing through the turbulent sixties culture of anti-war uprisings and psychedelic voyages. He reveals character shaping events and epiphanies as a young man when he honed his music performance skills from an Israeli kibbutz to the seamy underbelly of Hollywood Boulevard. Especially relevant in hard economic times when old models for gaining artistic recognition may no longer be effective, these are gritty and enticing stories of how the author did whatever it took to find an audience for his music often through improper channels. A fascinating view of the travels and adventures of a northwest regional icon and instructive to those few brave souls wanting to try their hand at this ancient art form, BUSKER takes us on a wild ride from the fairs and ferryboats of Puget Sound to the castles and cobblestones of Scandinavia. Sociological observations comparing European and American attitudes about art are interlaced with the adventure tales. In Europe, creative artists are thought of as national treasures in need of encouragement. By stark contrast, making a living as a performing artist in the United States requires considerably more drive and a knack for self-promotion. On either continent, one must hone one s skills. The book celebrates the busking model of engaging the public directly regardless of the degree of state support for the arts. As an aging busker approaching his 60th birthday the author passes on wisdom gleaned from the streets in a bonus section: 50 HOT TIPS FOR BUSKERS with invaluable pointers and lessons for novice and expert buskers alike. He thought it would be fun for armchair buskers too! The book also contains a 73-minute compilation CD of the author s best tunes, drawn from some of the 23 CDs of original music he has published over the past quarter century.
About the Author
As a new author at age 59, David Michael has been known primarily as a musician, composer of instrumental music, producer and international performer for decades. A natural storyteller, many of the anecdotes in BUSKER have been tested on live audiences for years. The author is also considered a pioneer in World Fusion music. He seeks the common ground between styles from all over the globe and creates an eclectic blend. His worldly travels as well as his early training as an actor add depth to his ability to reach audiences and has made his decades-long career as a busker effective and enjoyable. The author relishes multi-media readings where he intersperses stories with tunes played on his Celtic harp. David Michael holds an M.A. degree in Arts and Media Technology from Antioch University West and a B.A. from The Evergreen State College in Olympia. Since then, his focus has been on publishing and marketing original music CDs, so most of his writing skills before writing BUSKER have been devoted to press releases, liner notes, descriptions, reviews, advertisements and conducting interviews. Some of his travelogues have been published in small journals (International Folk Harp Journal, Victory Review and others). He s also written lyrics for hundreds of songs and worked as a singer/songwriter, although performing instrumental music, coupled with storytelling has taken him further. (He prides himself as being a better song writer than singer.) David Michael is a prolific composer, producer and multi-instrumentalist with over twenty CDs of original music published by his record label, PURNIMA PRODUCTIONS. His book BUSKER is published by PURNIMA PRESS a subsidiary of Purnima Productions. It was therefore only natural that he put together a compilation CD of his finest musical recordings as a bonus, inserted into a sleeve at the back of the book. David and his wife Dari also present a multi-media slide show called Castles and Cobblestones (about their busking adventures in Denmark in 2008) that has received rave reviews. They recently released a CD by the same name to display when they perform this show BUSKER is the author s first book.
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