Live Music Archive

Most individuals who enjoy seeing live music acts take for granted that live entertainment do not come cheap. Music festivals usually have a high price tag, but are generally well worth the cost. If you attend Local/Regional shows at concert halls the ticket price can be twice as much as one would pay for say, dinner and a movie. Even venues that specialize in Local/Regional or Local/Regional acts have cover charges. You would expect large tourist towns like Branson, Missouri to charge a hefty price for name acts and elaborate shows, and they do. Entertainment is something we all expect to pay a price for. Free live music is not a common experience.

One place where you might go see major national acts in concert for a price and also see much free entertainment as well is Nashville Tennessee. Nashville has an advantage over many other music oriented tourist towns. It’s a working music city. Folks go there to make it ample in the music business. The place is full of musicians. Additionally,since there is so much competition in town, many of them are quite wonderful at their craft.

On Broadway street downtown Nashville, you’ll find venue after venue with the sound of live music pouring from their interiors. All you got to do is step in, have a drink or two, find pleasure in the show, and then mosey on down to the next bar. You could do this all day if you want because many of these venues have live acts starting early in the day.

With so much recording being done in town and so a lot of performers making their home there, Nashville is one place where al most anyone you pass on the street might be a musical star of some kind. And,even though Country music is what the town is known for, a lot of other styles are practiced all around town as well. There is a heavy Americana scene as well as Bluegrass venues and even Blues bars.

Nashville is a center of music production, management, and business in general. This offers a lot of potential opportunities for folks to catch great live music. I’llgive an example of something that happened to me that proves that the the majority unexpected things might happen in a city so centered in the music industry.

During the time of a recent Americana Music Conference I was hanging around town for a couple of days. I was checking out as a lot of clubs as I could and had tickets to the awards show on Saturday night. On Friday following noon I was looking for CD’s in a south 8th a Venue record retailer called Grimey’s. I saw a poster on the wall saying that Tony Joe White was going to be there the next following noon. I’d been a ample fan of the Swamp Fox for a lot of years and thought it would be exceptional to get him to sign his latest disc for me. I was there early the next day.

The record store was full of folks as I expected. They had pushed some of the compact disc  bins back a bit to make some room. I was surprised to see a drum kit performance up. There were some amps too. Some guys wandered in and started giving out free beers. Somebody said they were part of his crew. Tony Joe walked in with his guitar, and sat down about ten feet from me and plugged in. He did an hour performance. I was amazed. I’d have been glad to part with a hundred large ones to get a opening  to see the Swamp Blues King. Here he was, close enough to touch, playing for free and he bought me a beer as well. This never happens where I come from.

The whole story has been that Tony Joe had offices in the same building and has been companions with the seller owner. That is just Nashville, folks. That type of thing is possible in a town overflowing with music. might be you won’t have the same type of luck but when you are in Nashville, the possibilities are always there.