"Адам Жukebox: Гримс Позниковтың өмірі мен шығармашылығы"

American musician and entertainer

Grimes Poznikov (August 5, 1946 – October 27, 2005), known as "The Human Jukebox," was an American musician and entertainer, a fixture of San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf in the 1970s and 1980s. He was a street performer, who would wait in a decorated cardboard refrigerator box until a passerby offered him a donation and requested a song. He would then open the front flap of the box and play the requested song on a trumpet, kazoo, or one of a number of other instruments.

Posnikov was born in Neodesha, Kansas to Albert Poznik, a lawyer, and Bernie Poznik, a performing artist and singer. From an early age he learned to play any musical instrument from piano to trumpet and drums. He graduated from Neodesha High School in 1964 and continued his education at Cornell College, graduating in 1969 with a degree in psychology. After graduating from college, Poznikov taught elementary school in Chicago, Illinois for three years.

While teaching, he became involved in the peace movement and he was arrested at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago with other war protesters while blowing "America the Beautiful" on the trumpet. Poznikov played as the Automatic Human Jukebox in Aquatic Park near the cable car turnaround, earning, in 1973, about $60 a week working two hours a day. ABC News reported in 1975 that the San Francisco Board of Supervisors wanted to keep musical vendors under tighter control. Poznikov presented city hall with petition of 21,166 signatures asking that musicians and artists be allowed to continue. Voters to decide November 1975. Poznikov played Taps at the vigil held on the steps of SF City Hall after the assassinations of Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, November 27, 1978. Poznikov was featured on Charles Kuralt's “On the Road” show on CBS, “The Mike Douglas Show,” and "To Tell the Truth" in San Francisco guidebooks, in Penthouse magazine, in Newsweek magazine, in Briarpatch Review and the Wall Street Journal. above the sound limit.

Poznikov lost his apartment, stayed with friends and then on the streets. He suffered emotionally, and began abusing drugs.

Broken Jukebox: a short opera about Grimes Poznikov for soprano, baritone, chorus, string quintet, trumpet and piano premiered January 2008 at College of Marin.