You may not know who Big Joe is. You may never have seen his face before. But I guarantee that if you have ever walked through Green Market Square on any given day that you’ve heard him. Perhaps it was his rendition of the jazz classic ‘Summertime’ or the sound of his djembe, or guitar and melodica from his band mates who call themselves The Ganga Muffins.
He’s an easy man to spot. He’ll be playing his djembe drum using a coke bottle full of little white pebbles as his drum stick. Around his neck you will see a bright purple kazoo on some twine. He’ll be wearing an orange or yellow shirt with his band’s name on it: Big Joe and the Ganga Muffins. There will invariably be a small woven basket lid a few steps in front of him that serves as a plate for donations or spare change.
His real name is Joe Petersen. He’s turned 65 recently but at heart he’s still feisty and full of charm. When he isn’t jamming he’s always ready for a chat, and when he speaks to you he gives you his full attention, whether you are the waitress he’s ordering coffee from or a tourist from somewhere he’s never heard of before. Even when he is not singing, there can be no mistaking his voice – it’s the sound of the blues. It’s like the worn-in leather on the back seat of your grandfather’s Mercedes. When taking a seat after a long day on his feet he croons “Ooooh yeeeah” with the weight of a collapsing mountain.
In his quieter moments you can catch a glimpse of his thousand yard stare, though. His life has not been an easy one. He was born a short walk down the road in the infamous District Six. His family was among the 60 000 people who lost their homes during the forced removals that started in 1966 when the area was declared “Whites Only” by the Apartheid government. Their lives were uprooted and they were forced to relocate to Mannenberg. Joe Petersen found work as a dock worker after that, and upon mentioning it he shakes his head mournfully in remembrance of the hardships of those times.
That may well have been the end of Joe Petersen’s story if it weren’t for the radical change he made 35 years ago. It’s clear from his love for all things musical that it’s an undeniable part of him even while he worked on the docks. He spoke of his musical upbringing saying, “My music came from my father. He was a well-known musician in Cape Town and he passed the music down to me. So it was in my blood to play music. In my family you also had to be in the Minstrel Carnival every year so I did that from the age of ten. My grandfather was the troupe leader.”
So one day he quit his job, tucked his trusty drum under one arm and wandered into the city centre of Cape Town in search of prime spots for busking where tourists and locals alike may be moved to generosity by his music. From that day forward, busking was his life. From that moment he became Big Joe, the first busker in Green Market Square. I asked him if that was as difficult as it sounds and he replied, “It took a lot of courage you know, because it’s a hard life.”
His endeavour was not without its dangers. The constant foot traffic in Green Market Square may have made it ideal for his purposes, but of course this was during Apartheid when the colour of Big Joe’s skin made him a Coloured man in a Whites Only area. He spoke to me of the arduous process when getting permission to play in the area saying, “You had to go to the twelfth floor of the City Council building to get a pass if you wanted to play here. You had to wait for hours to get it and many people gave up. There were no books in the government about passes for musicians so they were making it up every time. But I was persistent so I got one.”
Big Joe elaborated that a pass was not enough in a time when rights were given according to race. “As time went on I met up with a few other musicians playing reggae on the Grand Parade and we started playing on Green Market every day. But it was a whites area, so you were kicked around by the police all the time. They would arrest us and throw our instruments on the ground to break them. But tomorrow, we just get another guitar and another drum and we play again.” He chuckles to himself. Music is many things to him, and in this case it’s an expression of freedom.
In the face of these odds, his success is remarkable. Based on the appreciative tips of passers-by and strangers he’s supported his family for all these years. Food on the table, a roof over their heads and even the education of his two children were all paid for from “money on the street” as Big Joe calls it. Seeing as how his family had been too poor to send him to school Big Joe is particularly proud of his children’s education and beams with pride when mentioning it.
I asked him about the choice of song, to which he commented, “We play more commercial songs these days because it’s a lot of tourists and they like to hear what they know. If you go all the way African now, they don’t understand.” This hasn’t stopped him and his band from adding their own twist though. His djembe sounds distinctively African and he wants it to be loud and mobile like the Cape Minstrel Bands he grew up with so the whole band only plays acoustic instruments.
A typical performance will see Big Joe and his band standing outside one of the many local cafes on Green Market Square. The customers sitting nearby are after all a captive audience. Big Joe stretches out his arms to them and sings, “Mama take this badge from me. I can’t use it anymore.” I’ll bet Bob Dylan never imagined that ‘Knocking on Heaven’s Door’ would be covered like this. They play instantly recognizable songs with an original Cape Town twist. Big Joe leads with vocals and djembe while the other two Ganga Muffins David Berman and Dane Jonathan join in on guitar and melodica. When the crowd swells in numbers Big Joe and the Ganga muffins will pull out their show stopper, a cover of Louis Armstrong’s ‘What a Wonderful World.’
You can only imagine the daily struggle of such a life. In a moment of nostalgia he reflects on the journey and reiterates, “It’s a hard life, and I don’t know how I managed it, but I did.” But his journey is not over, and even these days I sometimes walk by him and see that the donation plate is full of spare change – silver and bronze. The unwanted detritus being cleared from wallets. Hardly real money these days. On better days, bank notes make an appearance and on great days, they are US Dollars. Imagine how many coins you’d have to count in a week before the rent was paid.
I believe that the biggest part of Big Joe is music. His love for music acts like an internal propulsion system, and while not immune to hardship, this driving force gives him the will to push on, to sing his heart out just one more time today in the hope that he can go home with something in his pockets. He is one of the bravest people I know.
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