{"version":1,"tree":{"n":"html","c":[{"n":"head","x":"\n ","l":"\n ","c":[{"n":"title","x":"Desconocido","l":"\n \n "},{"n":"link","l":"\n","a":[["rel","stylesheet"],["type","text/css"],["href","../../stylesheet.css"]]},{"n":"link","l":"\n","a":[["rel","stylesheet"],["type","text/css"],["href","../../page_styles.css"]]}]},{"n":"body","a":[["class","calibre"]],"c":[{"n":"div","x":"| ","a":[["class","calibre_navbar"]],"c":[{"n":"a","l":" | ","a":[["rel","articlenextlink"]]},{"n":"a","x":"Menú de sección","l":" | ","a":[["href","javascript:void(0)"],["data-eueMZIbjjuCPX9e9np7aa2","{\"name\": \"feed_17/index_u44.html\", \"frag\": \"article_0\"}"]]},{"n":"a","x":"Menú principal","l":" | ","a":[["href","javascript:void(0)"],["data-eueMZIbjjuCPX9e9np7aa2","{\"name\": \"index_u63.html\", \"frag\": \"feed_17\"}"]]},{"n":"hr","l":"\n","a":[["class","calibre6"]]}]},{"n":"div","a":[["class","calibre-nuked-tag-article"]],"c":[{"n":"div","x":"Notes from underground","a":[["class","calibre8"]]},{"n":"h1","x":"Alice Tan Ridley knew how to make New York’s subways ring","a":[["class","calibre9"]]},{"n":"div","x":"The busker-turned-star died on March 25th, aged 72 ","a":[["class","calibre19"]]},{"n":"p","x":"may. 08, 2025 01:49 ","a":[["class","calibre10"]]},{"n":"div","a":[["class","calibre-nuked-tag-article"]],"c":[{"n":"img","a":[["src","images/img1_u2.jpg"],["title","Alice Tan Ridley busking at the 34th Street subway station, New York, United States, February 6th 2010"],["class","calibre3"],["data-calibre-src","feed_17/article_0/images/img1_u2.jpg"]]}]},{"n":"div","a":[["class","calibre11"]]},{"n":"p","a":[["class","calibre12"]],"c":[{"n":"span","x":"O","a":[["data-caps","initial"],["class","calibre13"]]},{"n":"span","x":"RPHEUS WAS","l":" surely the first of the underground buskers. Carrying only his lyre he walked through Hades, soothing the lost souls, charming Sisyphus in his rock-shoving and Tantalus in his food-cravings, until even Pluto granted his requests. The acoustic may have been dodgy and the listeners preoccupied, but the sheer power of music worked its wonders all the same.","a":[["class","calibre14"]]}]},{"n":"p","x":"So it did in the New York City subway system, where for 30 years Alice Tan Ridley sang gospel, ","a":[["class","calibre12"]],"c":[{"n":"span","x":"R&B","l":" and Motown to the lost souls and tormented beings emerging from or racing for the cars at Times Square, Grand Central Station, Herald Square, 34th Street/Sixth Avenue, etc, etc, etc. Seeing their glum, frowning faces, worrying about their jobs or their mortgages or just the day ahead, she wanted to replace them with smiles. She did so well at it that travellers sometimes seemed to forget their destination and stayed listening to her, sweltering in the heat or as cold as the dickens, for hours on end.","a":[["class","calibre14"]]}]},{"n":"p","x":"She took rather more than a lyre, though. Into the ","a":[["class","calibre12"]],"c":[{"n":"span","x":"A","l":" Train south from Harlem she heaved a blue valise containing a microphone, an amplifier, a set-list of 100 songs, a folding chair, her flyers and a cushion. When emptied out, the valise gratefully accepted quarters and dollar bills. Her Metro card was lodged in her bra, to save fumbling for it in a bag. For most of her career she didn’t care about her look too much; she wore her hair in tiny braids that hung down if it rained, no make-up, simple black leggings, light top or jacket. Since she was heavily proportioned, hot weather made her shine with sweat. It all added to the drama of “I Will Survive” or “Proud Mary” as she filled the halls and passageways with song.","a":[["class","calibre14"]]}]},{"n":"p","x":"Her usual time-slot, arranged through the Transportation Authority with Music Under New York (","a":[["class","calibre12"]],"c":[{"n":"span","x":"MUNY","l":") was 4.30pm, and she usually played a three-hour set. That gave her a decent living. She worked most days, and on a good one she could get $300: enough to pay the bills and feed her two children, which was the main reason she was there. At first she busked for an hour or so after making dinner, to supplement a teaching job. It brought in so much more that she quit the school, for music’s sake. People thought that if she was “down there”, she must be a beggar; but no, this was absolutely a proper job. She was definitely not begging. Nor was she homeless. She might be divorced and a single mother, but she kept a roof over them all, for sure. Her husband Ibnou Sidibe might have taken another woman as his wife for six years without her knowing, but she could move up and on from that, even to the point of still considering him a friend.","a":[["class","calibre14"]]}]},{"n":"p","x":"The simple fact was that she loved both the subway and New York. On her first visit, when she was 12, she was delighted to find it was not a bit like Charles City, Georgia, let alone Lumpkin, Georgia, where she grew up, but full of lights, cars and people. In music terms, it was like a cathedral. By contrast Lumpkin then was a country place, once all cotton, now mostly pine trees. Her father was a lumberjack, and the Ku Klux Klan stalked the woods. But they were a notable family in spite of segregation, all eight trained by their mother to be skilled at music and singing. They were something in the world. Her brother Roger, who played guitar with her early on, started a political party in New York; her sister Dorothy, who also lived there, co-founded ","a":[["class","calibre12"]],"c":[{"n":"i","x":"Ms","l":" magazine. And she, little Tan, seventh of the eight, sang Aretha Franklin numbers at the top of her voice. Her mother would tell her to go sing outside, but there she just amped up her voice higher and louder still.","a":[["class","calibre18"]]}]},{"n":"p","x":"At the back of her mind the dream hovered: could she be a star? She was earning her living by covering “I Will Always Love You” and “Billie Jean” among the screeching trains, but with all those hundreds of people passing by, wasn’t there one who might want to be her agent? She had proved herself in 2002, when she won the pilot of “30 Seconds to Fame”, earning $25,000. Yet nothing much changed until in 2009 Dvir Assouline, a young Israeli, heard her and was astounded. He pushed her to do “America’s Got Talent”; in 2010 she made the semifinals in Las Vegas. Her rendition of “At Last” floored the jury, drove the audience wild and introduced her to the nation. Sharon Osbourne asked her what everyone was thinking: what on earth was she doing, hiding underground?","a":[["class","calibre12"]]},{"n":"p","x":"Sadly, she didn’t win. But fame had arrived, with tours, trips abroad and shows in more than 20 states. Dressers squeezed her into wonderfully vivid robes and draped her with jewellery, in full bloom to face the ","a":[["class","calibre12"]],"c":[{"n":"span","x":"TV","l":" world. Best of all, she had her own seven-piece band to sing with. She headlined at B.B. King’s. All this attention was coming just after her daughter Gabourey Sidibe had won an Oscar nomination for her performance in “Precious”. They had always been close; now photo after photo showed them together, thrilled to pieces for each other.","a":[["class","calibre14"]]}]},{"n":"p","x":"Yet after a while fame palled. She had come to it in her late 50s, so travel wore her out. The band needed paying and the tour bus guzzled gas. As time passed, she had fewer engagements, save her regular slots at Harlem’s Cotton Club. She went on a crash diet, but it put her in hospital. In 2016 she released a ","a":[["class","calibre12"]],"c":[{"n":"span","x":"CD","l":" of her subway standards; it sold fairly well, though she admitted she couldn’t push her sexuality in the modern way. It wasn’t her. Besides, by then she was back to busking.","a":[["class","calibre14"]]}]},{"n":"p","x":"The subway had always been her saving grace. It still was. What she missed up above was the closeness to her audience. She would hug them and sing duets, encouraging the shy ones; she must have hugged hundreds of those weary souls. Having them distant, somewhere beyond the lights, did not feel right. No need for lights in the subway, nor any of that slick packaging (except the great auburn wigs and a touch of that gold eye-shadow). She just opened up her mouth and sang the emotion and meaning of the songs. And to Herald Square, Times Square, 86th Street, 14th Street and New York generally, she brought a loud peal of joy. ","a":[["class","calibre12"]],"c":[{"n":"span","x":"■"}]}]},{"n":"div","x":"\n","a":[["class","calibre_navbar"]],"c":[{"n":"hr","l":"\n","a":[["class","calibre6"]]},{"n":"p","x":"This article was downloaded by ","l":"\n","a":[["class","calibre16"]],"c":[{"n":"strong","x":"calibre","l":" from ","a":[["class","calibre13"]]},{"n":"a","x":"https://www.economist.com/obituary/2025/05/08/alice-tan-ridley-knew-how-to-make-new-yorks-subways-ring","a":[["href","https://www.economist.com/obituary/2025/05/08/alice-tan-ridley-knew-how-to-make-new-yorks-subways-ring"],["rel","calibre-downloaded-from"]]}]},{"n":"br","a":[["class","calibre-nuked-tag-article"]]},{"n":"br","l":" | ","a":[["class","calibre-nuked-tag-article"]]},{"n":"a","x":"Menú de sección","l":" | ","a":[["href","javascript:void(0)"],["data-eueMZIbjjuCPX9e9np7aa2","{\"name\": \"feed_17/index_u44.html\", \"frag\": \"article_0\"}"]]},{"n":"a","x":"Menú principal","l":" | ","a":[["href","javascript:void(0)"],["data-eueMZIbjjuCPX9e9np7aa2","{\"name\": \"index_u63.html\", \"frag\": \"feed_17\"}"]]}]}]}]},"ns_map":["http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"]}