Abby the Spoon Lady

History

Abby first started street performing and busking as a means to make money traveling across the United States, primarily hopping freight trains. She taught herself to play the spoons and traveled all over the United States by hitchhiking and railroad. She states that landing in Asheville, North Carolina, was completely an accident and that she took the wrong train. Today she hosts storytelling events where she discusses the lifestyle of the American hobo. She spent a good amount of her time traveling recording the stories, interviews and songs of other American travelers.

Abby is an advocate for street performance and free speech. In 2014 she was instrumental in developing a group called the Asheville Buskers Collective which advocates for street performance within the city of Asheville, North Carolina. Today she records buskers through a project called Busker Broadcast, and records interviews and songs of travelers passing through Asheville.

In 2012 she was filmed in the horror film Jug Face playing spoons, and in 2015 she was filmed for Buskin' Blues, a documentary about the street performance scene in Asheville.

Radio

Abby the Spoon Lady hosts a radio show on WSFM-LP in Asheville, North Carolina called Busker Broadcast. The show centers around street performance and public space law.

Genre

Her repertoire consists of a mix of Americana, early jazz, ragtime for string instruments, country blues, jug band, Western swing, Vaudeville, and Appalachian folk.

Influences

Musicians that have influenced her include Artis the Spoonman, Jimmie Rodgers, Bill Monroe, Milton Brown and the Musical Brownies, Sleepy John Estes, Fats Waller, and Emmett Miller