If you can play on the street, you can play anywhere
singing sensation would use his earnings of about five pounds a go to head to trendy nightclubs, where he would rub shoulders with the likes of Spandau Ballet.
Rod Stewart, 73, is another heavyweight musician with roots in busking.
In 1962, he teamed up with folk singer Wizz Jones to perform in London’s Leicester Square and other well-known locations in the capital.
The duo, with Rod on harmonica, travelled to Brighton and Paris, where they slept by the River Seine under bridges before heading to Barcelona.
Rod was deported from Spain for vagrancy in 1963 but, undeterred, he headed home and secured his first professional singing job the same year.
He has since sold more than 200million records and enjoyed 31 top 10 hits.
As a broke student, Robin Williams took to performing as a mime artist outside New York’s Museum of Modern Art to make some extra cash. The late movie star never forgot his humble origins. “Artists don’t perform their craft just for the money, it’s a gift which burns inside them,” he said in the book Conversations with Robin Williams. “I worked hard for my success and I looked at the poor bastard on the street playing the guitar sounding like Bruce Springsteen with his cap on the ground for coins.
“There is a fine line between living in a mansion and busking on the street for a few cents.”
The actor went on to enjoy huge success with Mrs Doubtfire, Good Will Hunting and Dead Poets Society.
He committed suicide in 2014, aged 63.
James Bond Pierce Brosnan is another actor who took to the streets to show off his creative skills in the early days of his career. Incredibly Pierce, 65, had a talent for fire eating, which he learned in a drama workshop. Women who wowed the crowds with their busking skills include Grammy winner Sheryl Crow and Janis Joplin. Janis lived a beatnik lifestyle and, while at university in Texas, would commute to Austin to perform solo. She became a superstar, known for her unforgettable voice. And modern-day stars continue to turn to street performing in a bid to become famous. Mike Rosenberg, known as Passenger, spent years honing his craft. The songwriter from Brighton began busking when he was 17 and, when his original four-piece band broke up, he headed around Europe with his guitar. In 2012, he released smash hit Let Her Go. “You spend thousands of hours playing on the street – and if you can play on the street, you can play anywhere,” said Mike. “You learn how to talk to people who don’t want to be there, who don’t want to listen to your music, who are going shopping or to get lunch.
“If you can convince those people to hang out or buy a CD then any gig after that is pretty easy, because at least when you walk out on stage, they’re there to listen to the music.
“People generally have a pretty bad take on street musicians, so you have to reinvent the stereotype for them and show them that they do want to hang out.”
Busking certainly paid off for Justin Bieber, who was pictured strumming his guitar and performing for pocket money in Stratford, Ontario, aged just 13.
Justin, 24, turned to uploading his music on Youtube videos, attracting attention from the likes of Usher before becoming a star.
He is now one of the world’s biggest pop stars and worth a staggering £150million.