07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Press and Journal
Beloved Inverness busker John Casey on tough start in Highlands, 30 years at Victorian Market and how city centre has changed
It was 1992 when John Casey jumped on a train to Inverness with only his dog Frank and his guitar.
Heartbroken after splitting up with his girlfriend at the time, he needed to get away from Edinburgh where he had lived for the previous 10 years.
He has never left the Highland capital and today, 32 years later, he is well-known by pretty much every man and woman in Inverness.
Mr Cassey, now 69, can often be seen busking at the Victorian Market with Moby, his five-year-old Dalmatian.
He sings and plays the guitar under a sign that reads: 'Mr John Cassey is the only busker authorised by the private traders to busk in this private section of the market.'
Mr Casey was born in Blackburn, West Lothian, but moved to Edinburgh in 1982.
While staying in the capital, he made a living from pub gigs after previously being in a band in his teenage years and then as part of a duo named Stella's Baby with his friend Metcalfe.
Mr Casey told the P&J he 'was born with a musical brain'.
He added: 'I was just born lucky, because I can't read or write music but if I hear a song I can learn it just by memory and I'll get the chords.'
He started playing the guitar at age 12 and wrote his first song at 16.
Mr Casey explained: 'I wrote it after a breakup with my first girlfriend, and it was my first sad song.
'It was the late 60s, early 70s when I was teaching myself how to play the guitar, so I was listening to songwriters who were becoming big, James Taylor, Don McLean, Ralph McTell. It was all about singer-songwriters at that time.
'And that's what I started doing, you know, introverted, lonely, sad singer, writing all these songs about how miserable they are.'
The 69-year-old still sings what he considers his best hit, That's the Difference, a country love song he wrote aged 17 inspired by the music of Kris Kristofferson.
After a decade in Edinburgh, Mr Casey decided to move up to Inverness following a break-up.
He said: 'I was heartbroken, I had to move away. I'd been up here before. I first came up when I was 17.
'I hitchhiked up and sang at the Market Bar. That would be around 1973. And during the 70s, I hitchhiked up and down a lot because I always loved it.'
The night before his big trip, he was beaten up by a bunch of guys near Cowgate.
'There were random things happening between different factions and I was walking and got jumped by about three guys and they just kicked me for a while and then ran off laughing,' he explained.
The pain didn't stop him from jumping on the train to Inverness the day after.
However, he started having second thoughts by the time the service reached Aviemore.
He said: 'I started to see the white on the ground. And I was thinking, am I making a mistake? Should I have stayed where I was?'
Things did not get easier in the following months, as he slept in a tent near the Ness Islands for the first months from November until March.
He added: 'It was a bad winter, with a lot of snow and frost'.
But the musician said 'stubbornness' kept him going.
'Once I'd made the move, I wasn't going back,' he said.
When he arrived in Inverness, he could not get any gigs at pubs because dogs were not allowed in for most of them.
Mr Casey had travelled to Inverness with Frank, his first dog, an 11-year-old semi-stray named after Frank Sinatra.
He said: 'I found that hardly any places let dogs in, so I couldn't get any gigs, so I decided to try busking.
'I was really nervous, of course. I mean, I'd sung in front of people, and I never got nervous, but for some reason busking made me really nervous at the beginning.
However, he soon found his rhythm and started making a living out of it.
He explained that busking was 'successful straight from the start.'
He said: 'The fact is, it's gotten less and less and less over the years because there are a lot fewer people in the town centre.
'A lot of the shops closed down, a lot of the offices moved away from the centre. I made more money during the 90s than I do now.'
The experienced busker started playing six days a week, three and a half hours per day.
He is now doing about an hour and a half three days a week.
'My voice won't go any further than that. I want it to last,' he said.
However, he does not think about retirement.
He said: 'Busking is absolutely the ideal way to make a living, because it's not work.
'I just walk out with my guitar and start singing, and that's it.'
Mr Cassey initially busked outside the Victorian Market entrance on Union Street.
However, he said there was another busker coming to town who started bullying him.
He explained: 'He started bullying me out. Two or three of the traders got to hear about this, and that's when they put the sign up for me through there. So that put a stop to him.
'It means I've always got a pitch, you know, and it's dry. So, it's a fantastic thing.'
Most of the songs he plays are from the 1960s and 1970s, as he says that 'everybody is still into the 60s'.
'I get a lot of attention from the high school kids on Fridays, when they leave school early, and they ask for the Beatles, the Stones, Pink Floyd and Dylan,' he explained.
Mr Casey's favourite band is the Beatles and his favourite singer is Frank Sinatra.
However, his preferred song at the moment is Piano Man by Billy Joel.
He said: 'It's a great song, and everybody knows it. And it's one of those songs that every time I sing it, at least one person walks past mouthing the words.'
Over his more than three decades of busking, Mr Casey has collected several generous donations while performing.
Many years ago, a lady in her 90s gave him an envelope with £1,000 in £50 notes.
Another woman once gave him a £100 voucher for shoes.
'I must have looked as if I needed them,' he joked.
He added: 'Somebody gave me a basket of fruit once.
'I don't drink anymore, but when I drank somebody bought me a bottle of malt whisky.
'I've also had flowers. All sorts of random strange things.'
After over three decades in the Highland capital, Mr Casey describes the people of Inverness as exceedingly 'friendly'
He said: 'I noticed that when I first came up. People said good morning to me and that had never happened to me before.
'People that I'd never met, you know, saying 'good morning' and 'It's a lovely day.' The people are just so friendly.'
Meanwhile, he thinks Inverness is a good city for busking.
He said: 'I don't know financially, because that's never been a priority for me.
'I've never really had a burning ambition to be world famous or anything like that. So, this is just ideal for me.
'You know, it's just ideal. I feel like I did make it. And I've spent the last 30 years doing this and having a nice time.'
