DanielGBallard’s ‘Raw Talent’ Micro Documentary-Busking in Los Angeles
I first saw Patrick at a local Red Line station playing his heart out. He was doing great, had quite a few bucks in his guitar case. The most real blues player I have heard live. He was down in the station where the walls are tiled. A certain echo helped the acoustics a lot. After a tune I put some bucks in his case and gave him my number to call. He did finally call, I saw him again at the station and I pitched him to let me record some. He agreed. Days later we got together.
I cut this fortuitous meeting into three parts. Many (thanks!) of you have seen the first part/preview I put up before. Maybe the most visually interesting part, his performance at the end of our evening.
This Page entry is the two part busking micro documentary that I chose to do as I absorbed the real import of the footage. I saw this was no ordinary street musician. Not At All.
Little known to me his guitar had been stolen, he got another but it had broken strings. By the time we got a set of strings it was late afternoon. A couple beers & pizza later we talked while he re-strung the guitar. He proceeded to tune by ear as we talked about busking and what he is up against to make a public living as a musician. By then it was evening. A rainy windy evening. We shared a couple more brews and he began to play.
If I may please present to you an example of one of my favorite things on the whole planet-Raw Talent.
Mr. Patrick Takashi Polk.
Part 1-Our chat and a little music. I’ll let his works say it as I could not say any of it better. We had so little light. So I pushed my 7D for all its worth in low light HD.
In Part 2 he just plays his heart out. A Robert Johnson classic and a nice song of Pat’s. Pat and I do plan to get together again. What may come of that I do not know. I do hope to encourage you each to support street music and performances. In general this improves a scene and provides a shot at an honest income for the artists. I think I want to just dress down and hang with him for a day of busking. A little guerrilla video. Heh, why the hell not?
If I can garner the support via LGF (thanks Charles!) Twitter and Digg to help this guy along even a little it would be a very cool thing. Support your local street performers.