Sounds of the Streets

For some people, music plays an important part in their everyday lives.  I’ve never been one of those people. I’ve never really felt the need to carry a personal sound system and have an ongoing personalised soundtrack.  I prefer Radio 4 to Radio 1.  The one exception was my time in America.  I was given an Ipod as an early birthday present and a friend had loaded it up with “road trip” music.  It became a tradition on my adventure that I would have my Ipod primed and ready as the Greyhound pulled out of the bus station so that the sound of Canned Heat ‘Going up the Country’ would play to accompany the excitement of setting off again, scenery changing, and new States opening up around me.

For a time, my itinerary took on a music-centric theme too.  I enjoyed Nashville during the Country Music Awards, moved from there to Memphis and went to Graceland and the Gibson guitar factory.  Almost every destination had a song to accompany it; from the obvious New York to the lesser-known Saint Louis.

Music was everywhere I travelled.  But when the headphones are removed, music is still all around if you take the time to look.  Here are three of my favourite musicians from Beale Street, Memphis, outside the baseball stadium in St Louis, and on the pier in Santa Monica.