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When I was 9, I was mesmerized by a juggler performing
outside Faneuil Hall in Boston. It was not the performance so much as the crowd he
attracted with just a couple of bowling pins. At the end of his act, he
flipped his fedora and collected dollar after dollar with a certain ease.
While traveling through Spain with my family at age 11, we walked passed a man jamming
away on an electric guitar in the middle of a plaza. He seemed oblivious to
the world around him despite the fact he was obnoxiously loud. I was
transfixed. My parents had to drag me away. That was all I thought about for
the rest of the trip.
One time when I was a teenager visiting
relatives in Chile, I spotted a guy strumming a flamenco guitar on a park
bench. He was a bohemian, an alternative presence. He was surrounded by
friends and pretty girls and didn’t have a care in the world. I envied him.
It wasn’t until I enrolled into Berklee College of Music that the idea of performing on the streets
became an obsession.
At the time, a singer/songwriter by the
name of Mary Lou Lord was creating a buzz around town. She was known for
playing outdoors and underground all over Boston and Cambridge. Donations never ceased to flow into her guitar case.
When I heard a rumor that major record label executives were going into the
subway to check her out, it was clear what I had to do.
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