Live Music Archive

Most people who enjoy seeing live music acts take for granted that live entertainment do not come cheap. Music festivals again and again have a high price tag, but are generally well value the cost. If you attend local/regional shows at concert halls the ticket price may be twice as much as one would pay for say, dinner and a movie. Even clubs 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  all of us  all expect to pay a price for. Free live music is not a common experience.
One place where you could go see major national acts in concert for a price and furthermore see much free entertainment as well is Nashville Tennessee. Nashville has an advantage over a lot of other music oriented tourist towns. It’s a working music city. Folks go there to make it big in the music business. The place is full of musician s. And, since there is so much competition in town, a lot of of them are quite wonderful at their craft.
On Broadway street downtown Nashville, you will find club following club with the sound of live music pouring from their interiors. All you got to do is step in, have a drink or two, enjoy the show, and then mosey on down to the next bar. You could do this all day if you want because a lot of of these clubs have live acts starting early in the day.
With so much recording being done in town and so a lot of musicians making their home there, Nashville is one place where al most everybody you pass on the street could 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’s a heavy Americana scene as well as Bluegrass clubs 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 amazing live music. I’ll give an example of something that happened to me that proves that the most unexpected things could happen in a city so centered in the music business.
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 compact disc ’s in a south 8th a Club 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 big fan of the Swamp Fox for a lot of years and thought it would be amazing to get him to sign his latest disc for me. I was there early the next day.
The record retailer 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 session 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 session. I was amazed. I’d have been glad to part with a hundred big ones to get a opportunity 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 was that Tony Joe had offices in the same building and was companions with the retailer owner. That’s just Nashville, folks. That kind of thing is possible in a town overflowing with music. could be you won’t have the same kind of luck but when you are in Nashville, the possibilities are always there.