It’s really hard for everybody, and if I can make your day a little bit better by playing you a song, and make your kids dance and you smile, that’s the whole point.”

Sunsing Star, STREET MUSICIAN

Over the course of this summer, a time in which COVID-19 has forced the cancellation of music festivals and performances across Port Townsend, one man has become the most constant, and sometimes the only, source of live music in town.

Since arriving in Port Townsend in June, Sunsing Star, the performing name of Mark Hoskins, has become a fixture of downtown Port Townsend and the Saturday Farmers Market uptown. Throughout the week, his amplified voice and acoustic guitar, complemented by the small drum kit he plays with his feet, resonate through the streets of downtown and uptown Port Townsend. His songs, all originals and dating back almost 30 years, fall into a category he calls “folk country reggae.” 

His songs are fun and upbeat, and most of them humorous. The passersby that pause to watch him are often smiling and laughing along to his lyrics as he sings the “Coronavirus Blues” or explains why hippies and loggers have more in common than they might think in “The Hippie Logger Song.”

The guitar case that he sets out in front of him as he plays gives a brief synopsis of how he ended up in Port Townsend: “Tour got cancelled — still playing.”

Port Townsend is just the most recent stop for Sunsing in a decade-long journey across North America, in which he has played on street corners, in bars, restaurants and granges, in big cities and one-street towns. In that time, he has recorded 10 independent albums, in “studios” ranging from his RV to abandoned buildings, with his most recent album recorded in Virginia last year. 

He was playing in New Orleans in March, ready to embark on a nationwide tour, when COVID-19 interrupted his plans. 

“Everything went to hell in a handbasket real quick there, and for a couple months I didn’t have anything to do,” he said. 

He found himself in Arizona playing experimental, socially-distant shows in parking lots, before being drawn back to Port Townsend.

He has lived in Port Townsend off and on since the early ‘90s, when he used to busk frequently in front of Aldrich’s Market. On one hand, he knew this would be the perfect place to busk and wait out the pandemic, but there was another reason for his return.

“This is my home,” he said. “Port Townsend is the only place in this entire country that calls me home. There’s something special about the people here.” 

He said that the local community has been very welcoming and accepting of him so far, with most of his interactions with downtown shoppers and business owners being positive ones. 

“I think the city is realizing that I’m a benefit,” he said, adding that on some days he’s the only live music entertaining the swarms of tourists downtown.

To Sunsing, the joy in busking is providing entertainment to people while also making new friends.

“Every day I grow community,” he said. “Busking is all about building that community up.”

And perhaps his favorite place of all to busk is at farmers markets.

“I just set up on the grass and within 10 minutes there’s just a whole bunch of people, kids, happy and dancing and just having a good time,” he said. “And that’s what music’s all about, really.”

A large part of building community for Sunsing is not just playing music for people, but playing it with people. He often busks and writes with musicians he’s met while in town, although a lot of his collaborators are people he’s never met before. If Sunsing sees someone walk by with a musical instrument, he’ll invite them to join him for a few songs, even pausing his song to do so. 

If someone stops to listen and seems to especially enjoy his tunes, he’ll offer them one of his rhythm instruments he keeps on hand, such as his cowbell or washboard. And if people ask to join him, he never turns them away.

“You can be shy if you want, I don’t care,” he said. “You can be horrible. If you have no rhythm I’ll just say ‘Hey, play that washboard or that cowbell a little quieter’ — but I’m not gonna tell you to stop. Because eventually, you know what’s going to happen? You’re going to have rhythm and you’re going to feel good about it, and all of a sudden I have another friend. 

“So if you look at life like that, we can do a lot more in that fashion.”

To Sunsing, wherever he sets up is his stage, and whoever joins him is his band. 

In the past six months, the instruments in his band have included the trombone, tuba, banjo, washboard, bagpipe and accordion, he said. Sunsing thinks it’s the uplifting and positive nature of so much of his music that attracts people, as well as the humor that sits at the heart of most of his songs.

Sunsing has been busking ever since the age of 17, when he hit the streets of Vancouver, B.C. after hitchhiking from his hometown of Calgary, Alberta. Since then, his music has taken him around the continent, living out of his truck or RV and busking for hours at a time wherever he finds himself setting up. 

Along the way, he’s met Willie Nelson, John Prine, Neil Young, and other heroes of his. He hopes to one day meet Kris Kristofferson and Bob Dylan.

At age 46, early-onset Parkinson’s disease has slowed him down a bit and made him need an amplifier to not strain his voice or hands too much, but with his service dog Mexicalirose always at his side, he continues to live his dream on the sidewalks of Port Townsend.

For most of his life, music was just a side project to his careers in software development, drum carving, and building with reclaimed wood, he said. After a decade of playing music full-time, he plans on getting back into the software industry, this time with a more solid home base in Port Townsend. 

The steady money from busking is helping in this endeavor, he said, although the money isn’t his main reason for coming out almost every other day.

“I’ll play music to help you on the way, because right now it’s really tough,” he said. 

“It’s really hard for everybody, and if I can make your day a little bit better by playing you a song, and make your kids dance and you smile, that’s the whole point. Whether you drop me a buck or not is irrelevant. Money is a side effect, that’s it.” 

You can listen to Sunsing’s music on his website, www.sunsingstar.com.