By Shaj Mathew
J Camp Live staff!

A brown “Newman’s Own” coffee cup jingles in his left hand. A slender white cane in his right kisses the concrete and pulls back every few seconds. His light blue shirt extends over his loose-fitting black dress pants. Covering the three buttons of his shirt is a laminated blue rectangle, which occasionally bothers him.

“I think I can conjure up something,” he smiles.

Then, for a fleeting moment, a bass voice overpowers the surrounding light banter, moving bodies, and shutting briefcases:

There is nothing for me but to love you,
And the way you look tonight
To-night, To-night

The ballads of Frank Sinatra emanate from George Leh, a musician singing at the Harvard Square T Station. The coffee cup? A place to collect change from passerbys. The annoying rectangle? A permit (“to make sure I’m legit”) for performing at Boston’s subway stations. The cane? His metronome—and the way that the blind 71-year-old ambles around the city.

Leh, a native of Arlington, MA, selects spots around the Boston subway stations and “busks,” jargon for performing for small gratuities. His musical repertoire largely comprises rhythm and blues. He enjoys exposing busy Cambridge-ites to the lush sounds of Ray Charles and Stevie Wonder–but mostly Frank Sinatra.

“I do it for the love of music,” the man with slicked-back gray hair says. “That would be a bold-faced lie if I didn’t mention I’m partially trying to make some sort of living.”

The man, unshaven but not unkempt, said that he has attempted to make singing at Harvard Square a part of a larger routine he goes through most days. When he is not performing at New England clubs with his band “Rockin’ George,” Leh often frequents Boston subway stations like the one near the New England Aquarium.

Weighed down only by a worn blue messenger bag, Leh defines the bohemian musician. But things weren’t always this way. In his younger years, many advised him against pursuing a career in music. The music industry was difficult, they said.

“Tell me something that’s easy,” Leh had quipped at the time. “I knew music was going to be my life.”

After a short stint selling newspapers for Boston’s now-defunct “The Record American”, Leh played for a bevy of bands. His operatic voice dazzled audiences as a member of The J. Geils Band, Swallow, Skyhook, Powerhouse, & The Thrillers before his most recent time with “Rockin’ George.”

Though he has no regrets, Leh could not say that his initial skeptics were completely wrong.

“I haven’t made great money,” Leh says. “Some days it’s good, some days it’s not so good.”

Leh’s undeniable musical talents have still made impressions on people more discerning than those on the streets of Cambridge. He said that he has released records with studios like Warner Brothers and listed some of his tracks on iTunes.

Leh stated it’s his musical talent that attracts listeners—not his disability. And he’s probably right. Eric Brace, a former Washington Post night life columnist, waxed nostalgic at the mere mention of Leh’s name during a 1998 web chat:

I heard George Leh a few times when I was up in Boston in the early ’80s and he TOTALLY rocked…In fact they called him “Rockin’ George Leh”… thanks for reminding me of him… He would stand there, one leg stretched out behind the other as if in mid stride, with his barrel chest poking out, and his big dark glasses reflecting the stage lights…grab the mike and just belt it out. Wow. What a scene.

“I don’t have that feeling that they give because they feel sorry for me,” Leh says now.

His ability to sing and converse fluidly has impressed people he has met. Leh says one person even remarked: “For a blind guy you talk very good.” Leh, who speaks in crisp sentences, noted that he still takes such comments in stride. “I have to realize that everyone’s not in tune.”

He didn’t make it as a rock star, but that doesn’t bother him.
“There are other fish to fry, other things to do.”

He and his wife Cathy recently celebrated their 29th wedding anniversary. He joked that his kids are his dog and a cat. He’s got a life, you know. Rocking forward in his slightly muddied dress shoes, tapping his cane against the ground, brushing his laminated permit aside, Leh clears his throat and Harvard Square heeds for an instant.

Just the way you look to-night
To-night, To-night