'Thank you for the beautiful music': Downtown St. John’s community mourns death of ‘accordion man’ Don Tucker | SaltWire

Don Tucker is pictured playing a medley of traditional tunes on his accordion in this April 2016 file photo. -Joe Gibbons/The Telegram file photoST. JOHN'S, N.L. — There’s a sad silence on Water Street this week as the downtown community mourns the loss of accordion busker Don Tucker, who was a fixture in front of the old Velma’s Restaurant for decades.

“So, he ended up with no education because of that. He never had an easy life. And then our mother and father got sick. We were still only teenagers then, but he worked odd jobs over the years. He never made much money. “But he was having a good time down there with the accordion, mingling with people. Every dog that walked by, he rubbed them down. People stopped, and he knew everybody on Water Street — businesspeople, he knew them all.”

O’Brien’s Music Store owner Dave Rowe said he first met Don about 20 years ago when Rowe was a teenager working in the family-owned music store. Blair Walsh, who works at nearby Maverick Sports & Collectibles, said Don was a staple on Water Street. “He was part of the colour, or the fabric of downtown. Local people, I guess, were so used to seeing him there that maybe they didn’t really pay attention to him all that much after a while, but he was really sort of an icon. … He was definitely the most regular street musician in the whole downtown.”

Source: Entertainment Trends (entertainmenttrends.net)

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