Will Scriven

I don’t usually talk much about popular music because I don’t know it. Music passed me by while I was going to graduate school and teaching, grading papers, leading rehearsals, rearing children, writing up my research, and trying to change the world. I mean I heard music, in passing, as you do; but I didn’t stop and listen, like some people.  I didn’t have my own collection of music, and I can’t even say what my preferences are because I don’t know what’s out there. I have always grabbed a little music on the way somewhere else. I’m so ill-informed about music that I don’t want to embarrass myself by talking about it. 

But I think even the most informed music-lover would agree that Will Scriven is an exceptionally fine musician. I first encountered him at a benefit for unhoused people about two years ago, and I was taken then with his sensitivity and brilliant fingering. Fast, deft, surprising, original (think Jimi Hendrix, think Elizabeth Cotten). When he adds his voice, mellow and sexy (think honey and sand, think Lou Rawls, think Keith Sweat riffing on Ray Charles), the man is a phenomenon. So imagine my delight when Sue and I walked down a street near my apartment last night and there he was, leaning against a blue post, making music like something out of a dream of music heaven. We stopped to listen. Put some money in the jar. I called his name and he made eye contact, smiled, and then went on playing. Some others, like us, stopped. Gazed in wonder. Listened for a while. Others rushed on as if they hadn't just walked through a miracle on 23rd Street.

I think he must have some unique and wonderful story to tell. I don’t know why a man of his ability is busking on the street. Maybe it's an experiment he's running. Maybe he just needs a quick buck. But I looked at the people on the street in his vicinity, and I noticed that many paused, stopped, took it in. You could hear them whisper, “Wow!” and “Damn, that guy is GOOD.” 


I think it was a moment like when the classical violinist Kennedy Joshua Bell played in the New York Washington, D.C. subway. People were paying hundreds of dollars to hear him at Carnegie in a concert hall, but they rushed by him in the subway, not making eye contact. Still there were a few who paused, stunned. I'm going to take that with me, that moment of listening to Will Scriven in the street last night. That's a moment to keep. 

Edit: Thanks to MichaelPlaice and Kranhu, I found a youtube site with him SINGING and another one here! See what you think.

Second edit: I posted this on Facebook, and a local person organizing an event has hired him to perform for it. How splendid.