Abby “The Spoon Lady”

Abby first started street performing and busking as a means to make money traveling across the United States, primarily hopping freight trains. She taught herself to play the spoons and traveled all over the United States by hitchhiking and railroad. She states that landing in Asheville, North Carolina, was completely an accident and that she took the wrong train. Today she hosts storytelling events where she discusses the lifestyle of the American hobo. She spent a good amount of her time traveling recording the stories, interviews and songs of other American travelers.

Abby is an advocate for street performance and free speech. In 2014, she was instrumental in developing a group called the Asheville Buskers Collective which advocates for street performance within the city of Asheville, North Carolina. She also recorded buskers through a local Asheville program called Busker Broadcast, which included interviews and songs of travelers passing through Asheville.[6]

In 2012, she was filmed in the horror film Jug Face playing spoons, and in 2015 she was filmed for Buskin’ Blues, a documentary about the street performance scene in Asheville.