Washington, D.C. is not kind to street musicians. The most recent and infamous example of this happened a couple years ago when the brilliant violinist Joshua Bell played Bach and Schubert on his 1713 Stradivarius outside the L'Enfant Plaza Metro stop while a crowd of morning commuters rushed by. Almost no one stopped to listen.
But there are exceptions, and one of them happened yesterday at Metro Center when a crowd gathered around three men singing "Under the Boardwalk" and other barbershop favorites. I've heard these guys before, and I know they've been arrested (Metro doesn't allow music on its cars and platforms; that might make the trip too pleasant). But the buskers always come back, sometimes three of them, sometimes four, with their doo-wop melodies and their studied gestures and their hat to collect the day's earnings.
Every time I hear them I think about the first time I heard them. It was late, 7 or 8, and I was blurry-eyed from reading page proofs, trying to get the magazine to the printer. And there they were, singing "What is Your Name?" Every time they reached the refrain, a woman in the crowd would shout, "It's Donna. I already told you — my name is Donna." It was a priceless Metro moment. We all laughed; we caught each other's eyes. In a way, just a small way, we felt as one.