You Can Take the Band Out of the Street, But You Can’t Take the Street Out of the Band
by G.W. Mercure
Tuba Skinny, the street music phenomenon from New Orleans, achieved a wide following on YouTube despite having no official channel. They have toured internationally without support from radio play or a record label. And they might be the only de facto buskers with a Wikipedia page. I asked Greg Sherman, guitar player, banjo player, singer, and harmonica player for the group, how did they do it?
“It just kind of happened on its own,” he says. “There was never really an active or thoughtful push to make it happen, just sort of like playing on the street. People filmed it, and it ended up on YouTube. It wasn’t until COVID, when we started doing livestreams, that we actually made our own channel on YouTube.”
The possibilities of the digital age, the streaming age, seem to explain the band’s success. Anyone with a decent kit of software and microphones can create music, dig into algorithms, and fashion a discography and hopefully a following. This trick is more often performed in bedrooms and basements, but Tuba Skinny took a different route.
The band formed in New Orleans in 2009, but their roots go back further. Before Tuba Skinny, its members were already part of the city’s busking scene. Sherman arrived a little later. “I was still in high school when Katrina happened,” he says. “Shaye (Cohn) and Todd (Burdick) and Barnabas (Jones), who really are the core founders of the band, they had been in New Orleans before that. I came shortly afterwards.” By 2009, Tuba Skinny had coalesced.
Their rise was quiet. They didn’t build a brand. They didn’t drop singles. They played songs from a century ago, and the Internet found them. Fan-shot videos went viral. Their reputation grew, and so did their opportunities. “It’s just good luck, I guess,” Sherman says.
But “luck” doesn’t carry a band for over a decade. What sets Tuba Skinny apart is focus. They’re not retro for the sake of aesthetics. They’re not novelty musicians. They dig deep into a catalog of early American music: ragtime, blues, jug band, and early jazz.
“There’s well over one hundred tunes overall we might choose between,” Sherman says. “But there tends to be tunes we are particularly into at a given time.”
Their sound isn’t built around nostalgia. It’s built around respect. Sherman came to the music through punk and blues. “By the time I was out of high school, I knew a bunch of Hank Williams and had started listening to Blind Willie McTell,” he says. He joined Tuba Skinny after playing in a jug band called The Drunken Catfish Ramblers. “That band was a lot of Memphis Jug Band, Kansas City Stompers, a lot of Mississippi Sheiks, too.”
That jug band background laid a foundation for his role in Tuba Skinny. “It was kind of a natural fit,” Sherman says. “I learned more about New Orleans jazz in that context. But actually, like the Mississippi Sheiks prepared me for that, because I was playing in B-flat and flat keys. So it’s really a small jump from something like the Mississippi Sheiks to something like New Orleans jazz.”
That depth shows up in the band’s live sets. Tuba Skinny doesn’t aim to put on a spectacle. “We get on stage and we play the music,” Sherman says. “We try and keep it focused on the music. We’ll announce where the tunes come from, where we got them. Then we just play them.”
It’s not about chasing trends. Their success isn’t shaped by industry timelines or pop culture pivots. It’s grounded in a commitment to the material—and a lifestyle of constant performance. Even after international tours, the band returns to the streets. “We have weekly gigs and such in New Orleans,” Sherman says. “And honestly, we still try and get out (to perform on the streets) once a month or so.”
They’ve slowed down a little in New Orleans, but not by choice. “For the longest time, the city was making it hard to busk in the usual spots,” Sherman says. “So we kind of fell off the regular schedule doing that.” Still, the street remains part of their rhythm. “We still end up playing the street in New Orleans quite a bit.”
Even when they tour, the street remains central. “We just spent a month in France,” Sherman says. “It was mostly a bike trip, where we were just playing in the street. We started in Bayonne and went up the coast from there to La Rochelle, and then we took a train from there to Nantes, and we rode from Nantes to Redon along the Nantes-Brest canal.”
This mix of old-world music and a DIY spirit keeps their momentum steady but unhurried. The band doesn’t talk about growth in terms of metrics. “It looks like a lot of numbers on YouTube, but there’s a lot of people in the world,” Sherman says.
Despite a global audience and over a dozen albums, they’ve kept their independence. They don’t tour with backing tracks. They don’t lean on branding. Their lineup spans generations, with most members in their early 40s. Craig Flory, the tuba player, is in his mid-60s. Sherman is the youngest, at 36.
Money hasn’t shaped their direction either. “The money’s been not as good as it used to be,” Sherman says. “People don’t buy CDs as much anymore.” Still, they press albums. They tour. They still play on the streets. “I can’t see a logistical reason why we wouldn’t, and we just love to do it. So I’m sure we’ll find a way.”
Tuba Skinny will perform at Payomet Performing Arts Center, 29 Old Dewline Rd., N. Truro, Saturday, September 13, 7 p.m. For tickets ($35 – $55 in advance; or higher at the door) and information, call 508.487.5400 or visit payomet.org.
