Lassoing a Busker

In episode 4 of the Apple TV+ series Ted Lasso, Ted (Jason Sudeikis) is walking in London on the way to meet up with “Nate the Great” (Nick Mohammed), who’s just donned an ill-fitting suit to wear to AFC Richmond’s yearly charity auction. (AFC Richmond is the football - aka soccer - team that Ted coaches.) En route Ted passes a ‘one-man-band” busker and drops some money into his money bucket. The scene lasts all of 10 seconds, if that. That evening, when neither Adele nor an Adele personator show as the auction’s featured musical guest, Ted saves the day by having the busker fill in. The crowd is noticeably skeptical of the guy, and then … he kills it.

Maybe everybody knew this, but I didn’t. Cam Cole is in fact “a singer, songwriter, busker and new age traveller from London, UK who roams around performing on streets and venues as his one man band show influenced by Folk, Delta Blues, Grunge and Rock N' Roll.” His opening song at the charity auction was “Mama”, from his debut album I See.

I can’t claim to have ever been a street (or subway) musician, but I did “busk” a little bit in NYC long ago with a singer-songwriter partner named Dan Conley. We didn’t do it much nor achieve any real success. One location that I remember worked pretty well, if only for a day or two, was in a little nook on the northwest corner of 8th Street and 5th Avenue, in the Village. Dan sang lead, and I sang harmony and played my Guild acoustic, which had (and still has) a nice, big projecting sound. Dan and I eventually formed a band and played out for a couple of years, mostly at Kenny’s Castaways but also a few other places. Then I bought a multitrack tape recorder and we began to co-write the songs and record them in my SoHo loft. We almost signed a deal with a fairly successful music producer on the basis of this song — “You Could Be All I Need” — crudely recorded in the loft:

I sing harmony and play drums, bass, and guitar. Dan sings lead and plays a cheap Casio keyboard. It’s a bit rough, but I think it still sounds pretty good, although I do get a little out of sync with myself in the outro. As for the production deal, well, that’s another story, maybe for another time.

I’m not going to try to convince you to watch or like Ted Lasso, but i did eventually succumb to Ted’s unrelenting sincerity and selflessness and become a fan. As for Cam Cole, he’s apparently working on a second album and planning some upcoming tours. I reached out to him in hopes of getting a bit of “inside scoop” on how he got to who and where he is, but I’ve not yet heard back. In the meantime I leave you with this nice slide work, from Cam’s Instagram feed:

Please send me your thoughts about anything, either in the comments on this page or by emailing me directly at guy@storytownband.com. And go ahead and share this post with a friend who might enjoy it - do it! Until next week….

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