street entertainers - one person band

Europe history: Street entertainers

'one-person-band'

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One person bands using at least a drum and pandean pipes (pan-pipes).
1400 France		1910 illustration from 'Encyclopaedia Britannica (11th ed., vol. 20)’ New York, USA
1804		1810 France		1807 France
19th century Italian player	fashion plate	1815 France	1815 Germany	1814 Signor Rivolta (from his advertisement) in England
Signor Rivolta worked as a one-person-band for at least 16 years from January 1809 to November 1925. Although primarily based in London he went on extensive tours over England, Scotland and Ireland. At one point (1818) he got into financial difficulties, but afterwards carried on with his act. At first he is advertised as playing on 4 or 5 instruments at the same time. By the end he was playing on 8 instruments together. More details of Signor Rivolta's career here.

1820 France		1820-30 England ‘Near the Strand’by George Scharf
1821 ‘the festival of the tutelar Saint of Scotland was celebrated at the London Tavern’Westmorland Gazette - Saturday 08 December 1821
1828 Inverness Courier - Wednesday 03 September 1828
1830 Ignatz Schichtl, Germany		1844 steam band, France		sketch
1845 political satire, England		1845 satire © Punch Limited		1859 playing for dancing bear and other animals
1848-1881 book illustration, Holland		1865 Naples, Italy		9th March 1867 Punch
late 19th century		photograph		1882 Sweden
1867 New York, USA		photograph		1873 France painting
late Victorian, Whitby, England		1909 unknown		1932 England
1931 USA		“Uncle George Wiley, 90 year old hermit of Sutton, N.H. who plays his old organ, harmonica, bass drum and phonograph all at the same time and his services are in great demand when snap dance music is wanted on a Saturday night.”
1849 “…Several old acquaintances who once waked the echoes of the quiet streets have gradually departed. First and foremost, we miss the ingenious professor who shook the hat of Chinese bells, beat the drum and cymbals with his knees, and played the mouth-organ, all at once. He is gone, and albeit he must have left his apparatus behind him, no one has supplied his place…” Sketches of London Life and Character, by Albert Smith et. al., [1849] - Music in the Streets
1850's - 60's "...Another street performer was a foreigner who played, or made a noise on, five or six instruments at once, drum on his back struck by a stick tied to the elbow; cymbals on the knee played by a string from the foot; bells on the head jangling when it was shaken; mouth-organ; accordion, and so on. …” London and Londoners in the Eighteen-Fifties and Sixties, by Alfred Rosling Bennett, 1924 - Chapter 6 - Street Entertainers
early 20th century advertisement		20th century USA
2010 hang drum and digeridoo, England		21st century Indonesia
2022 Ecuador		statuette Russian Federation		21st century figurine, . New Zealand

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the Pipe and Tabor compendium

the Pipe and Tabor compendium

essays on the three-hole pipe

Europe history: Street entertainers

'one-person-band'