Ed Alleyne-Johnson

Ed Alleyne-Johnson is a British electric violinist and prolific busker. He has been busking since he was a Fine Art student at Oxford University in the early 1980s. He uses an electric violin that he carved with a kitchen knife,a custom pedal-board, and an amplifier which he modified to run off rechargeable batteries. This setup has enabled him to perform on the street in almost every major city in Europe, and across the United States and Canada. He collaborated with New Model Army on their Top 40 single "Vagabonds", and toured with them for five years, with several concerts in Germany in over 200 concerts worldwide, supporting acts as diverse as Simple Minds, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, The Cure, Midnight Oil and Faith No More During his time in Oxford in the late 1980s he played bass guitar in local band, Raindance. He can often be seen performing in Chester city centre, near the Grosvenor shopping precinct and the Chester Cross, and more recently on the streets of York. Purple Electric Violin Concerto in 1992 sold over 80,000 copies and has gained a cult following in Greece, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland and New Zealand as well as the UK. His 2005 album Echoes features songs such as Mad World by Tears For Fears and Stir It Up by Bob Marley. In July 2008, Ed performed the Beatles tracks 'Yesterday' and 'Eleanor Rigby' in front of 7,000 people at Liverpool's Echo Arena for a Beatles Day charity gig. The 2011 Arpeggio album led off with a crashing, cover version of The Who's Baba O'Riley and also included another cover of Human by The Killers.