The buskers' songbook

Caught beneath the dreaming spires of Woolworths, where a man noisily informs me about the wise cracking Mother Mary who speaks words of wisdom.

As it happens, Let It Be is one of the few Beatles songs that I can cope with on an empty stomach and I hurriedly depart before he begins The Long and Winding Song.

I am not mocking the buskernot at all. In fact, I suggest it takes a good deal more courage to stand amid the lunchtime hordes while stating, "Bang, Bang Maxwell's Silver Hammer" than it does to perform at the MEN Arena in front of 17,000 lost in blind adulation.

I admire him, although I would advise that he uses my 50p to invest in some kind of non-FABS songbook. Maybe Morrissey, whose entire repertoire regularly flows from a younger chap, not without talent, who alarms elderly women by telling them that, "Hector was the first in the gang to die".

Sometimes I think that buskers, however talented, should take more time to consider their material (some buskers, including those wielding bagpipes, might also consider a change of instrumentor, in the case of one such bod seen in Manchester last weeka change of lower body clothing, perhaps?).

Some buskers are little short of divine. Rob Gray, who performed blues nuggets for many years in the guise of The Little Big Band' is such a talent (I have purchased tickets from slimy-git touts in Sackville Street at hugely bloated prices for lesser artists). You can still catch him, on Market Street, Manchester, where he fills the vast area with atmosphere altering Americanaglorious blues chords bouncing around the architecture. Gray even once secured a Factory Record release although this was predictably lost, somewhere between Thick Pigeon and Crawling Chaos.

Few buskers are so adept. That statedand I have to say thisI have nothing against the kind of non-busker who has a mouth organ and wants a drink. Fair enough and, frankly, I would rather toss a 50p his way than pour money into the opened instrument cases belonging to a string quartet of girly Chetham's students who, frankly, never strike me as being particularly impoverished. One of the most entertaining aspects of buskers is to watch the effect they have on passersby. I have to state that the people of Warrington do tend to be a little ambivalent towards the finer aspects of this street art. As they scowl and hurry past, I am always reminded of the scorn that Doctor Hook used to receive when, in heavy disguise, they would attempt to busk to the people queuing to catch their own show.

While this story is absolutely true, there is one aspect that always makes me worry. How could Doctor Hook, surely one of the most distinctive acts of all time, possibly manage to disguise themselves? These concerts were, I swiftly add, during their early period as an anarchic, genuinely hilarious satirical band who performed the insane songs of Shel Silverstein and not the tepid M-O-R superstar band of later years.

A few years ago, an idiosyncratic Manchester promoter named Chris Coupe decided to gather together the buskers and pub performers of Manchester and present them together under the umbrella of "The Legendary Manchester Busker".

These rolling nights would see a dizzying conveyer belt of acts who would spill onto the stage for 10 minutes before being speedily replaced. The effect of this was to narrow the talent down to the coreto a quick-fire delivery and it proved supremely entertaining. Many people mocked this notion, although it swiftly gained momentum. It might be noted, next time you hurry past the cacophanous racket made by some guitar/recorder duo, that the Manchester Busker showcased such talents as Steve Coogan, Henry Normal, Caroline Aherne (as Mrs Merton), Johnny Bramwell (Later of I Am Kloot), George Borowski, journalist Jon Ronson, Frank Sidebottom, Dave Gorman, Jo Brand and The Macc Lads! A disparate and hugely talented gathering captured within the humility of initial performance.

Back then, immediately prior to the Madchester explosion, busking was generally regarded as the sad domain of the singer-songwriter, an art form unwisely deemed unhip at the time. Not so now, of course. Song-driven acoustic music fills the radio play liststhink of Jim Noir, Liam Frost, Cherry Ghost and, it seems, several thousand others.

The art of the song has survived the electronica revolution and nowhere is it more at home than on the pavement. Folk music? Punk rock? Pop? All one and the same, really.