Old Sac performers bring their love of music and magic to the streets

Buskers. Magicians. Caricature artists. Clowns making balloon animals. Street performers are synonymous with Old Sacramento but rarely appear in any tourist brochures like the Railroad Museum.

They have varied histories, like the brick-and-mortar businesses surrounding them. Some are well traveled, some are just seeking experience and some make their living from performing.

Though the experiences and end goals vary, what they all agree upon is the motivation behind their respective art forms. Musician Dominic Gutierrez, 20, has been busking for four years.

“Playing music is the only thing that makes sense to me. I can’t not do it,” he said.

At 15, he was doing yard work for money and started listening to music more than usual. Inspired, he found a guitar and a friend taught him some basic chords. But Gutierrez found it difficult to recreate other people’s music. Making his own, however, came naturally.

Gutierrez’s first busking session was in Charlotte, North Carolina. He wasn’t nervous. It was calming to him, he said. He knew he was doing what he is meant to do. He gets into a different state when he plays. An introvert by nature, performance changes him. He engages with people.

His most personally memorable performance was in Los Angeles.

“I only got to play there for like an hour,” he said, “but there was a whole crowd around me and we were just having this amazing kumbaya moment, you know?”

One-Man Band

Percussionist Tony Harris is a one-man band with turquoise peace sign earrings, jingle bells around his ankles, a washboard on his chest and a harmonica hovering near his chin. He played an African kalimba while giving an interview, sometimes playing it upside down behind his head. He owns 18 kalimbas, having taught himself to play in the 1970s.

He once tried attending music school but got kicked out because the instructor said he wasn’t holding the drumsticks properly.

“I could recreate every rhythm but it didn’t matter because I didn’t do things his way,” Harris said.

He’s been doing things his own way ever since.

Harris’ most memorable busking experience began with a heroin-addicted prostitute listening to him play in a Santa Cruz mall and telling him she heard angels in his music. She kept coming back, and after learning he had no home, she invited him to live with her. Whenever she got the urge to go get a fix, he explained calmly that if she did that he would have to leave, because he couldn’t watch her hurt herself that way. He would play, and she would resist.

He lived there for six months before leaving, not knowing if she would stay clean. When he returned six months later, she was not only clean, she was going to church regularly and engaged to be married. “She really just blossomed into a wonderful person after that.”

The Magician

Harlet the Gypsy Magician doesn’t have any divine connections to his performance art. He specializes in close-up magic like coins, card tricks and rubber band sleight of hand. A 20-year veteran of street performing, he enjoys people’s reactions.

“I saw it in your eyes that was your card before you even said it,” he tells people.

“It was just born into me, I think” he said.

As a child, he fell in love with magic in Reno when a casino magician pulled a coin from his ear. Self-taught as well, picking up the basics quickly and naturally, he read books and practiced for years before taking to the streets. He has performed all over the Bay Area and was in Las Vegas for five years. He had only been back in Sacramento for two weeks when he was interviewed.

His most memorable performance was 10 years ago in a haunted house on K Street. He needed a change and that memory is part of what brought him back to Sacramento. He said people in Old Sac are approachable, not like in other places where competition is stiff or people resist the pull of even the most alluring tricks.

The Veteran

Davey London has been playing most weekends in Old Sac for about 30 years. His regular spread includes a small amplifier, two backup batteries, a cooler, and all 11 albums he has recorded in his independent career. He first began playing music in 1964, at age 15. His first band, shown in a photograph, was with three girls – Little Davey and the Charms. They toured all over the country. London signed with a production company back in 1971 writing for various Elvis Presley television specials, but left when he decided he didn’t like being told what to write.

He moved on to playing corporate events, bars and other night venues when he got a little older, and said he has made a good living from performing his original music over a lifetime.

His first busking experience was after a performance in the penthouse of the Grand Hotel in Anaheim, across from Disneyland. Playing in the posh environment for “really really good money,” he wondered what street musicians experience. After the show ended he made his way down to Hollywood Boulevard and strummed his guitar for two hours. He didn’t make a dime and vowed never to return to busking.

He still doesn’t think of himself as a street musician because he still plays venues, but he has traded the dark nights for the bright sunshine, just as he traded “jumping around like a crazy person on stage” for the opportunity to move people with his music rather than his performance.

London learned over time that “it’s not about making money or becoming famous,” but about doing what you love and living longer because of it. “A lot of those guys have long since died, but I’m still here playing music,” he said. “A true musician is a fish out of water unless he’s performing.”

The love of performing

Gutierrez doesn’t do it for the money, either, and never has. As long as he’s playing music and has food in his belly, he’s happy. He especially enjoys entertaining children.

“They always stop and listen the longest,” he said.

He makes a regular paycheck cleaning churches, sometimes sleeping there or in a train station. “I like to be clean, you know? Plus I love being surrounded by all of the architectural elements and the art in churches.”

He knows he needs to up his street game, though. He has been working on learning to sing better, but he knows two things: He has to start singing the songs he writes if he wants to keep doing this, and he’s not ready.

He hasn’t cultivated any particular look, like Harlet with his carefully crafted facial hair, nonchalant posture and mischievous grin. He doesn’t play very many instruments like Harris, and he’s never been out of the country. He doesn’t have a full spread of albums to peddle, and no feathers or treble clefs hang from his guitar like London. He doesn’t have a backing track or an amplifier to play along with.

It’s just him and his small guitar. His beanie has a Vietnam Veterans’ patch hand sewn onto the front. “You have to learn to do things for yourself because sometimes nobody else is there but you to do it,” he said. He tries to find quiet streets away from other musicians because the sound doesn’t carry far.

“People take pictures of me all the time,” he said, “but I never get to see them--what I look like while I’m doing this.”

Many have recorded him playing and it might be on the internet somewhere, but he doesn’t know. He’s off the grid, while right in the middle of Old Sac.

This story was originally published May 2, 2019 at 2:40 AM.