A hunt is underway for a beloved busker's street piano as a museum exhibit celebrates his extraordinary life on the 10th anniversary of his death.
Perth Museum wants to track down the piano and distinctive yellow tips bucket used by 'the Pied Piper of Perth', John Gill, who died from a heart attack at age 57 while wandering through the malls he played for decades.
Mr Gill's exploits are legendary - including wheeling his own piano across Perth to play at an open-air wedding for backpacker fans just a month before his sudden death.
But the museum's upcoming exhibition is not the end of plans to honour Mr Gill. His supporters want to build a sound installation as a tribute, Perth Museum executive director Reece Harley told Daily Mail Australia.
A hunt is underway for globetrotting Australian busker John Gill's piano and distinctive yellow tips bucket (pictured above) as a major museum sets out to celebrate his extraordinary life on the 10th anniversary of his death
John Gill was more than a busker, said Reece Harley of the Museum of Perth. 'He's also been referred to as the Pied piper of Perth'
It would use a motion sensor to begin playing his music to anyone who walks through Grand Avenue, just off Murray Street Mall where he mesmerised shoppers with his high-energy performances for 20 years.
If that seems like a big deal for a mall busker, John Gill was not your usual guitar-case wannabe.
He was a world-class talent who decided to play for a few coins to shoppers bargain hunting through the heart of Perth.
'John was more than a busker,' Mr Harley said. 'He is known as 'the piano man', but he's also been referred to as the Pied piper of Perth.
'When people went into shops, they'd expect to see him play. His performances were intrinsically connected to peoples experiences of the city.'
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Perth Museum wants to track down the piano and distinctive yellow tips bucket (both pictured above) used by 'the Pied Piper of Perth, John Gill, who died from a heart attack at age 57
A child prodigy from Grimsby in Britain's north-east, Mr Gill preferred playing in pubs as a 15 year old to stodgy and serious classical studies. A teacher once told him he could only be a 'happy amateur'.
He quit training as a nurse at 17 to live and sleep on the streets of inner London in the early 1970s.
There he began a street-busking odyssey that would last 40 years.
As a four-year-old Gill wowed his parents - mum Joan, a tap dancer who worked in Soho, and dad, Bryan, a concert violinist - on a toy piano.
They bought him a full-sized piano for £2 when he was six, no doubt intending him to play it when he got older.
As they lived in a cramped first flood flat, the piano remained stored in the family's downstairs coal shed.
But little John couldn't keep away from the amazing gift and snuck into the coal shed to teach himself.
With temperatures in Grimsby dropping to zero in winter, John rugged up and pounded the keys in fingerless gloves to stay warm.
As an adult Mr Gill busked all over the world, usually playing a distinctive piano accordion.
John Gill's mother Joan, a tap dancer in London's Soho district, bought him a toy piano when he was just four
Stories of Gill's exploits are legendary - including wheeling his own piano across Perth to play at an open-air wedding for backpacker fans just a month before his sudden death. Gill is pictured above playing at the 2011 wedding of April Wang and Mark Vos. Photo: Medhat Moftah
He played across Britain to the French Riviera to Switzerland, across the US and eventually to Australia.
It was in the US where he toured 16 times, including at the Rocky Mountain Ragtime Festival in Boulder, Colorado and the Scott Joplin Festival in Sedalia, Missouri, that he found
