Violin is the life, livelihood of James Floyd

When James Leonard Floyd plays his violin at the corner of Market and Meeting Streets, few of the passing shoppers realize what kind of symphony they have joined. A pair of headphones planted in his ears plays a hard rock radio station, providing the backdrop to his soaring improvisations.

"It's basic to me — whatever goes in my ears comes out my hands," said Floyd, 45. "It's happened since I was a little kid."

Today he is an afternoon fixture at the west end of the City Market, sitting cross-legged on a seat cushion and playing for tips. But his musical career began long ago in the Sears Roebuck store on Calhoun Street.

The year was 1968, and 5-year-old James had a hearing problem. A doctor told his mother, Idell Floyd, that music lessons could help restore his ears to full function.

Having recently adopted James from St. Francis Hospital in downtown Charleston, she took him to adopt something of his own: a piano from the Sears music department.

But James gravitated instead to an electric organ, on which he picked out the first few notes of "Mary Had a Little Lamb." Idell and husband James C. Floyd bought the instrument for him, and their son proceeded almost immediately to dumbfound his instructors.

"He had one lesson and played in a recital and didn't miss a note," said Idell Floyd, 73.

In the third grade, James was introduced to the violin by the Charleston County School District's band program. When the band needed a viola and nobody owned one, he adapted all the viola parts for his violin.

Young James's hearing was restored to normal, just as the doctor had promised — and what's more, he had gained a lifelong passion.

But that passion would lie dormant for more than 20 years. At age 18, he set down the violin during what he calls his "long-haired" phase, opting instead for the bass guitar. Floyd had recently left Stall High School with a GED, and he soon entered the workforce.

In all the years he spent landscaping and driving a parking lot sweeper, he did not touch the violin. But in 2002, at a then-girlfriend's insistence, he picked it back up at age 39.

Now, the violin is both his life and his livelihood. He takes the CARTA bus into Charleston most mornings, tunes into Q104.5 or 98X, and gets to work.

He has moved back to Summerville with his mother and sister and covers his own living expenses with the contents of his tip jar. With his father dead since 1988 and the two women collecting disability payments, he is the only one in the family with a regular job.

"There are days in wintertime that I've came out here and I've made a dollar and it would feel like you played the whole day for yourself," Floyd said. "I've gotten to the point where I don't care if I make a dollar or a hundred dollars as long as I make the ones who walk by me and hear me smile."

"It's all I am. I'm just a fiddler."