Danny Fitzgerald and the Lost Wandering Blues and Jazz Band
Including: a spotlight on members and former members of the band.
buskersongs.com
In September, 1995, Jim Druid, Vered Ben Kiki and I (buskerbrian) travelled in Jim's old post office van in stages from Antwerp to Basle. Thanks to Vered we passed the Swiss border, as Jim and I were penniless. Vered could show she had money. That satisfied the border guards. We stayed a few days in Basle and Vered (having enjoyed the adventure operating as a duo with me on terraces) returned to Antwerp. Jim and I had got reasonably ahead financially, so we headed for Zurich. Managing to get down to penniless again, we took on the nervous business of playing the lucrative Zurich trams without getting caught and fined. It was a 'cat and mouse' adventure, but satisfying at the end of the day when good money had been made and the 'gestapo' avoided.
It was outside a bar in the evening that I first met Danny and the Lost Wandering Band. Danny swept away the paranoid sensation of being 'behind enemy lines' and restored the idea that the world is a stage and that a busker has a right to perform upon it.
Jim wasn't so lucky. He was caught and fined, so we headed out of Zurich bound for Geneva. There were two girls with Danny when I met him at Zurich - and I was surprised to see one of them singing acapello in a lakeside park in Geneva. She had a good voice and a powerful memory for lyrics, so after a couple of hours teaching her some of my duo songs we played the terraces feverishly over a 24 hour period - earning very well indeed. She was due to catch a flight back to the States, so the duo had a short life. More on this..
After initial struggle, battling with penniless, I finally clicked onto Geneva and amassed a good level of savings. I spent two weeks in Bern and doubled these savings while also having a fling with a German girl to help the nights along. Mid October brought Winter, so I hightailed it home to Antwerp.
It was not until August, 1996, that I met Danny once more. This time it was at the Eichholtz in Berne.
