Oral historian Erin Derham’s documentary “Buskin’ Blues”, on the Asheville busking scene is now screening at film festivals around the world, after making its world premiere at the Nashville Film Festival, through April 25. It is also being screened at the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival (read Philly’s City Paper review here).

The 60 minute documentary, shot entirely in Asheville, discovers a subculture of street performers awakening passersby to musical traditions across space and time. On one corner, a stride pianist bangs a chord out with his elbow to deliver the sounds of Prohibition-Era jazz. On another, a lady runs a pair of antique spoons down her fingers in a centuries-old fashion kept alive almost exclusively by her. Across the street, the sounds of ancient India are heard from a man hypnotizing crowds with a didgeridoo and handpan. Asheville, NC is a unique music town, where buskers come from as far as Europe and Asia to play, learn, and receive the famous hospitality of the American South. Derham is allowed a rare and intimate glimpse into their lives. Filled with passionate live performances, arresting personal insights and hilarious stories from the street, Derham illuminates the culture and personalities that are to destroy the invisible barriers we set between ourselves and our streets.

Yet to screen in its home city, Derham told the Asheville Citizen-Times she hopes to have a free showing of Buskin’ Blues downtown sometime this summer.