Outside the famed Reading Terminal Market, musician Walker Ferguson enchants passersby with his soulful blues. His fingers dance over his guitar strings, while the harmonica adds a rich layer to his symphony.
Ferguson has been sharing his love of music with Philadelphians since 1980.
“I’ve been out here before those buses started coming,” Ferguson said, referring to the tour buses circling the city’s tourist hotspots.
Ferguson learned to play music when he was a young boy in Washington, D.C. He recalled meeting rock and roll legend Chuck Berry who showed him his guitar.
“He came down with a guitar, and I started rubbing the strings,” Ferguson said of his coffee shop encounter with the star.
At the time, Ferguson didn’t know that he had just met one of the major pioneers in the creation of rock and roll. Ferguson hurried home to tell his father about the man with the guitar. Quickly realizing that his son had just met one of the greatest stars of the decade, he bought Ferguson a guitar.
“You know, everybody’s probably got somebody who encouraged them to do something,” Ferguson said. “My father encouraged me more and more.”
A few years later in Philadelphia, Ferguson assisted a young girl in tuning her guitar. Before she put it back in its case, he played the instrument for a while, and as he did, people began to drop money into her guitar case.
That’s when Ferguson realized he could earn good money performing on the street. To this day, he plays on the same corner where he met that girl tuning her guitar 40 years ago.
“I wasn’t always a street performer; I always had a job as a welder,” Ferguson said. “I don’t have to do this, but I enjoy playing music, and that’s why I come out and do it.”
Ferguson urges those who are young to get an instrument and start practicing.
On the other side of the street, the melodic voice of local artist BLCK rings out, accompanied by the strumming of her guitar
For the past three and a half years, BLCK has been sharing her love of music with Philadelphia.
“My mom used to tell me I used to sing in the crib,” BLCK said.
BLCK was inspired by her grandfather, Buddy Mac, a West African artist from the 1960s.
A lot of his music was popular with everybody, BLCK recalled. “It’s not necessarily for a certain group.”
BLCK appreciates the support that Philly has given her and other artists.
“Having some kind of artistic talent, a lot of people will support you,” BLCK said. “There’s also a lot of talent to engage with.”
The street performing scene in the city has changed a lot in recent years. According to BLCK, it’s not as “taboo” as it used to be. Today, it’s hard to walk around in the tourist hotspots of Philadelphia without the sound of music filling the air.
Inside the Reading Terminal Market, Laura DiFrancesco owns Contessa’s French Linens, a stall that sells imported fabrics such as French jacquards and Provençal tablecloths.
“I’ve been here for 18 years,” DiFrancesco said. “It’s exciting because I love the diversity of all different people, and it’s also very historic.”
In fact, the Reading Terminal Market opened in 1893 and has been home to over 800 merchants in its 131-year history.
But what mainly fascinates DiFrancesco was her experience with a ghost. She believes that the Reading Terminal Market is haunted.
One night, while waiting for a shipment from France, she saw a figure dressed like the American Revolutionary hero, Paul Revere. As the man walked closer to her she heard a clip clop sound, until he walked right past her. He turned around, looked at her, and disappeared.
Originally, DiFrancesco thought that man was some Revolutionary War reenactor and called over the security guard.
“That’s a ghost,” the guard said to her. “That’s not a reenactor.”
DiFrancesco once bought a machine called a “spirit detector” to confirm her supernatural suspicions. The machine began beeping, showing that the market was full of spirits roaming the century-old stalls and alleys.
“People don’t talk about it,” DiFrancesco said. “Nobody says anything.”
