Street music a high note of summer on South Street

Sipping a strawberry smoothie from the comfort of his stroller, 5-year-old Harvey McMullin nodded to the beat of the music coming from the corner of 10th and South Streets.

The youngster - in town with his mother, Lisa McMullin, on vacation from Manchester, England - was listening to the band Saint Mad, one of the many performance acts playing this summer throughout the South Street Headhouse District.

Earlier this year, the district launched its inaugural South Street Performer Series, bringing in street entertainers on summer weekends.

About a third of the 35 acts that tried out - most of them musicians - made the cut. As the summer heads to a close, spectators will soon be able to vote on the best acts through the district's Web site, www.southstreet.com.

As the sun set over South Street on a recent summer night, Saint Mad played covers of mellow songs like "The Girl From Ipanema" and the Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da."

"I like the sound," Harvey said. His mother agreed, lingering for a few minutes before continuing west along South Street.

The band was set up in front of Whole Foods, and many shoppers coming out of the store paused to listen.

"We thought, well, this would be an opportunity to play several times a week, and maybe put the hat out and make a few bucks," said Saint Mad guitarist Jim Harris, 61, who has played in bar and dance bands and in orchestral groups. "We tried out and got the job."

Tim Fitts, 39, balanced his 17-month-old daughter Olivia in his arms as he walked out of Whole Foods. The two crossed the street to listen to the band.

Fitts, a writing teacher at Temple University, put a $1 bill in Olivia's hand. He swung her down so she could drop it into the sagging black hat in front of the band.

"There need to be more musicians," Fitts said. "Anything to uplift people is good."

A few blocks down from Saint Mad, solo performer Mary Kate McNulty, 21, of Northeast Philadelphia, strummed her guitar under the awning of a vacant building at Sixth and South Streets.

She was sharing the corner with firefighter Jeff Kemm, 33, who was outside with several coworkers raising money for a local charity.

Kemm overheard McNulty say she had forgotten to bring water. He ran over to the fire truck stationed across the street to get her water and continued to listen to her play.

There was street performing on South Street in the early 1980s and '90s, said Rakia Reynolds, a South Street Headhouse District spokeswoman. "We wanted to bring it back to its roots and take it to the next level."

The top two performers or acts will be recognized Sept. 13 at GreenFest Philly, Reynolds said. "This is a very, very new program. We're trying to recognize one of the last true forms of art.

"We wanted [the performers] to all be from Philly and be people who had done street performing in Philadelphia," she said.

The performers began busking around Memorial Day and will continue through Labor Day, Reynolds said.

Saint Mad - Jim Harris, Lynda Chen, Martha Michael, and Molly Mahoney - plays on Fridays and weekends.

Street performing was a whole new experience for him, Harris said.

Busking "was not something I'd ever done. . . . It felt like being naked out there, without a stand, microphones, and amps."

Band members, who met through their Mount Airy church choir, play covers of popular songs, children's music for passing young folks, and original compositions.

And there are the Maurer sisters, Kate, 12, and Bina, 10, of Fairmount, who usually play a 90-minute set on Saturdays in Headhouse Square.

The pair started playing instruments early - Kate picked up a violin when she was 4 years old. Bina studied the cello, but now sings and plays the piano and drums.

Their interest in rock isn't as strange as it might seem, said their father, Richard Maurer, and mother, Judy Song, both of whom studied at Juilliard before becoming lawyers.

The sets that his children play now come from the music he listened to, Richard Maurer said.

"I got obsessed with the Ramones and wanted to play the guitar," Kate said. Then a 6-year-old, she had to wait until she turned 8 before her parents let her play.

Both sisters took lessons at the Paul Green School of Rock Music and have taken other music classes. "We had a lot of experience performing," Kate said, "and wanted to do something more often."

After a (short) lifetime of playing music, the sisters say the 90-minute sets they play near Second and Lombard Streets aren't too taxing.

"You have to pace yourself," Bina said. "You can't just blow yourself out, because by the end you'll be tired."

Lisa Spera, a professional photographer from Northern Liberties, goes by the stage name Lisa Sunshine. She plays original songs on her guitar near Reese and South Streets.

Spera tried the open-mike circuit, but "I don't like people staring at me." Playing for a moving street audience is different. "When people walk by and smile," she said, "it's a beautiful thing."

McNulty, now studying music therapy as a senior at Immaculata University, started playing guitar at 13.

"Virtuosity is great," she said, "but what's really important is making connections with people" passing by.

"I had been hoping to busk this summer, [but] I wasn't looking forward to getting booted or arrested, so I was happy for the opportunity for street performers to do their thing freely."