Ten, maybe even fifteen years ago people started talking about a guy they’d seen playing banjo. He was all around the Financial District; in the subway, at Union Station; day or night, day and night. Sometimes he was with a fiddler. With all their sightings he became something of a celebrity to them, (and to me).

The first time I saw him, I observed without being noticed. I spied him, two blocks away, on Front Street near the St. Lawrence Market; he had that banjo stance. He was playing old-time; he didn’t look up when people went by. He was the epitome of the “Banjo Tramp.” He played like he was in another world, like his heart couldn’t beat without it, and the notes were fresh and fluid, the music: beautiful.

Chris Coole is the lead guitarist and singer with Toronto’s popular Foggy Hogtown Boys, a founding member of the traditional bluegrass jamming ensemble Crazy Strings, has a duo gig happening with old-time fiddler Erynn Marshall and, combining student lists with Erynn, has about twenty-five budding musicians under his wing. As it turns out, when Chris made his living for more than ten years busking he learned a lot in the maze under the city.

Busking’s not a gig like others where you show up, play a couple of sets then buzz off. “It was nothing,” comments Chris, “to play banjo in the subway for seven hours a day.” Given he didn’t want to play tunes the same way over and over again, he learned to improvise. “People think” Chris notes, “in old-time music there isn’t any improvisation, but improvisation is happening just by pushing certain notes out or introducing just a slight variation in the melody.“ Laughing, he adds: “I’m not interested in trying to figure out what John Coltrane would have done with ‘Leather Britches.’

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