Busk-Doc-2012

Doc may have strained his voice, but not his harmonica

Busk-Doc-2012
Doc performs at the corner of Lexington Ave. and Walnut in downtown Asheville.
At first listen you might not think much of this ditty by the Walhalla, SC,-based busker known simply as Doc. It’s certainly a well-performed tune, and clearly there’s passion behind this original composition, but something is obviously missing. That something is lyrics, and to appreciate the song in context, it helps to realize that Doc was bone tired from performing, and had completely strained his voice the previous day. He could barely talk, in fact, and was nursing herbal tea between songs in an attempt to soothe his vocal chords.

The song, “Country Girl, Born and Bred,” isn’t instrumental, and if it’s anything like Doc’s other tunes, the lyrics are thoughtful and well-crafted. In fact, he tried to sing me another tune just before recording this one, and it left him so raspy that he simply couldn’t sing another. So, he switched to harmonica and hoped for the best. And, for what it is, it’s awesome fun.

DOWNLOAD THE SONG!

As I mentioned above, this was the second song from the recording. There were some problems with the video, and I didn’t realize until listening to the recordings much later that the actual audio wasn’t bad at all. Because I thought the take was ruined, however, I didn’t actually ask about the name of the song or get any details about it. Right click here and “Save As” to download that recording.

Published by

Steve Shanafelt

Steve Shanafelt used to think he was a writer. Lots of other people thought he was a very good one, and they paid him to write everything from news articles to erotic comic books. Then, a few years ago, he started to realize that writing was just one very tiny piece of the puzzle. He started recording podcasts, producing field recordings of busking musicians, making short video series and learning how to make websites. Along the way, he learned lots of ways not to manage businesses and how to promote those businesses online. Now, people pay him surprisingly large sums of money to show them some of the things he's picked up.