THE music business is a long and winding road as Paul McCartney would put it. Just ask Scott Bonnyman. He was once on American TV with the band The Imagineers appearing on Craig Ferguson’s Late Late Show. The other day he was busking in Buchanan Street Subway station.

Well I say busking, but he was paid to be performing, so I’m not sure if technically that is busking.

Scott from Robroyston is a fine musician, a great singer, and while he enjoyed his television appearances, he has split from that band, is writing is own material, and will be putting out his own recordings soon, possibly forming another band. As I say, it’s a winding road.

And there he was in a corner of Buchanan Street Subway station, his voice melodically bouncing off the tiled walls of the very smart entrance, so that you weren’t quite sure where he was actually standing.

It’s not the ideal spot to busk even though the acoustics are rich and nourishing. As Scott says: “People are trying to get on and off the Subway. It’s not like a Saturday shopping day where people might have time to stand around and listen to you play.”

He was there because the Subway operators had organised what they called A Summer of Music, with musicians applying to play at Subway stations, and being paid to do so, although they could also open up their guitar cases in that time-honoured tradition for donations from the public.

Some of them did it for charity, such as 15-year-old Eve Sutherland who was raising money for the bowel charity Chron’s and Colitis UK. A lot of the performers were young like Eve. It’s busking but safe busking under the protective gaze of SPT staff and CCTV cameras. Plus her granny and mum were nearby.

Her first two-hour stint for the charity in a Subway station raised over £100 in two hours. She only took up the guitar after breaking her leg at the age of nine and needing something to pass the time as she recovered.

She seems a quiet girl who is transformed when she hits that first guitar chord, and belts out “a bit of everything” as she puts it.

A young lad passing by plays an imaginary drum solo to accompany her. A sonsie lass heading to the Eminem concert stops to dance in front of her for a few moments. It just cheers everyone up, which is presumably what the Subway people are aiming for.

You see, it’s all very well for us older folk to get all nostalgic about the old Subway. Pensioners almost drool as they try to describe the unique smell of the Subway before it was modernised. I thought the best description was given by Herald reader William Haddow, who described it as: “Warm and slightly stale, a sweet and musty mixture of fag and pipe smoke, vinegar in newsprint chip-pokes, damp and decaying brickwork, Brylcreem, and Alberto VO5, all cut through with the acrid electric smell of hot insulation and burnt carbon.’’

But there is a generation out there disinterested in pipe smoke and Brylcreem. If it is to avoid becoming simply a piece of Glasgow’s history, the Subway has to reinvent itself, showcase its improvements and attract a new generation of travellers.

After all, there are thousands of pristine students settling in Glasgow annually and many don’t even know the city has an underground system. In fact system might be too grand a word. While other cities have seen their underground network spread like burst veins across an old soak’s nose, Glasgow in a rather uninspiring way has stuck with the same circular line, with no obvious extension to the city’s east end for the Commonwealth Games or even out to the new Queen Elizabeth Hospital just south of the Subway at Govan, or further west to the airport.

The only upside of this lack of growth, as writer Cliff Hanley once pointed out, is that if you fall asleep on the Subway you still never miss your destination.

But generating business for the Subway is no laughing matter. There are after all, a few stations that attract very few commuters. West Street for instance. Disembark there and folk watch you leave, wondering what you are up to. I once suggested a competition to rename the station. Perhaps name it after Billy Connolly, or my personal choice Alex Harvey. Or rename it Adam West Street and deck it out like a Bat Cave. They didn’t take up my suggestion.

However if the SPT has failed to extend the Subway, they should get credit for the modernisation of the stations. Go along to Hillhead and take the time to gaze at the eye-catching ceramic mural of neighbouring streets created by writer and artist Alasdair Gray and fellow artist Nichol Wheatley.

It’s not so long ago that the Subway stations looked like fall-out shelters after a nuclear war with huddled coughing masses listlessly filling the platforms surrounded by dripping wet walls.

The modernisation programme continues. Even the ghostly West Street will be upgraded. Driverless trains are now being contemplated which will involve glass gates on the platforms to stop folk jumping or falling on the tracks. But you still have to attract users. Thus the Summer of Music links in with big concerts at Bellahouston Park - use Cessnock station to get there, or shows at Kelvingrove Bandstand - use Kelvinbridge station.

If that gets younger people to use the Subway for the first time then all that enjoyable singing will have served a commercial purpose as well.

As Scott Bonnyman sang at Buchanan Street: “I said maybe, you’re gonna be the one that saves me.” Perhaps it will be the young passengers who will save the Subway after Glasgow’s grand old lady just recently celebrated her 120th birthday.