Live Music – Musicians Fascinate UK Youngsters-In the UK for the last 18 years at least, a whole generation has been virtually starved of live musicians for a variety of reasons. The advent of computers being a standard household utility with their accompanying music production and downloadable music format devices, together with widespread video and latterly DVD technology has kept many a youngster indoors for most of their leisure time. Coupled with the rising overheads and prohibitive licence fees and conditions imposed on UK venues such as pubs and restaurants to house live artistes (or even play recorded music), this has had a devastating effect on professional musicians and potential artistes alike. The biggest losers are the members of our younger generations – many of whom have never even heard a live musician or band.
It is easy to see why therefore, that during my live gigs lately, I am frequently faced with a young person totally agape watching the live musician at work. They have no doubt become conditioned to accepting music as an impersonally generated medium and find it fascinating to witness the live, hands-on music creativity. Fortunately, this seems to be having an inspirational effect. Having spent most of my career working with theatre orchestras and larger musical combos, I have recently returned to working a lot of solo gigs as a cocktail pianist playing a variety of music styles but often older standards such as Cole Porter, George Gershwin, etc. The thing is, not only am I now finding I’m being booked by the youngster that first saw me a few years ago, but they are requesting that I play the same style of music for their wedding reception or birthday party. It seems that they have got into this sort of music through being made aware of it when I first played for them and they were so intrigued by it.
There is very little coverage on UK radio or television of any music style other than the most recent commercial music. The sad thing is that if younger people do not get the opportunity to witness other musical styles because it is not in the mainstream broadcasts and because live music is so rare, we are not giving them the chance to decide if they like it or not. We have therefore been creating a generation for many years that is one-tracked in its musical culture, when we should have been giving our youngsters much more choice.
138.The Live Music Scene in Austin Texas
There is more live music going on in Austin, Texas on any given night than there is in any other city in the world. That’s why the city has put a trademark on it’s slogan “Live Music Capital of the World.”
There are hundreds of live music venues in the city and its immediate environs. Many are situated in three main entertainment districts: Sixth Street/Red River, the Warehouse district and South Austin. Sixth Street/Red River is the famous sector in downtown Austin that is known around the world for it’s live music scene and often boisterous crowds that fill Sixth Street on the weekends when it is closed to traffic. The Warehouse district runs west from Congress Ave. along Fourth and Fifth Streets. That’s where Antone’s is located, the venue that USA Today has named the best blues club in the country. In South Austin, there are a number of clubs on South Congress, South First St. and South Lamar that offer up some of the best new and original music in town.
The road to its live music capital status began way back in the 1960’s when a spirit of eclecticism appeared with the hippies and anti-war protesters of that era. Inclusion was in and exclusion was out, no pun intended. With the 70’s, this eclectic spirit gave birth to a form of music that was often called progressive country. Joe Ely, along with co-Lubbockites Jimmy Dale Gilmore and Butch Hancock, brought this music down to Austin and hooked up with Marcia Ball and Delbert McClinton and cosmic cowboys like Jerry Jeff Walker, Michael Martin Murphy, Rusty Weir and Ray Wiley Hubbard. Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings came back from Nashville during that time to settle in Austin where they could take control of the production of their songs. A wild and powerful musical vortex formed that saw psychedelic rock and roll mix with straight out country and blues at venues such as the Armadillo World Headquarters, Threadgill’s, the Soap Creek Saloon and the Broken Spoke. It was cool to dig the psychedelic sound of the 13th Floor Elevators and the uncompromising country licks of Alvin Crow at the same time.
Then, in 1975, a 30-minute University of Texas music program was accepted by a number of PBS affiliate stations and Austin City Limits was launched and has become the longest running program in the history of PBS. It has propelled Austin to the forefront of the music industry’s consciousness in the US and around the world. That first program featured Willie Nelson, but has since put Texas music notables such as Marcia Ball, Lyle Lovett, Robert Earl Keen, Asleep at the Wheel and many, many others in the national and world spotlight.
In more recent years, the South by Southwest showcase every Spring that brings nearly 1500 musicians and musical acts to town to be seen and heard by industry executives and AR types, along with the Austin City Limits Festival in September, have kept the city on the national music map. In addition, dozens of other smaller festivals are held each year, as well as a number of nationally significant ones in the surrounding Hill Country such as the Kerrville Folk Festival and the Old Settlers Reunion in Buda, just south of town.
The Austin music scene has always been a free-wheeling, break-the-mold, think-out-of-the-box kind of affair. That early eclecticism lives on in the current scene, although some characteristics of the town’s soundscape seem to have become entrenched. Sixth Street/Red River attracts a younger, party animal type of crowd with it’s rock and roll, blues and punk scene. The Warehouse district caters to a bit older and more professional crowd in general. And South Austin retains the feel of Austin in the 70’s with its nouveau hippie coffeehouses and crowds and its preference for good singer/songwriters. Still, there are always exceptions to those general tendencies just about anywhere you go.
Austin remains a city where musical creativity and talent thrive and defy expectations. That can be experienced close up and personal in any number of live music venues on any given night.