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Issue Date: May 18, 2008
Travel: 10 top places to hear authentic American music
New Orleans? Nashville? Too obvious. We dug even deeper to find great getaways and music festivals. They're diverse, deeply rooted and singular sounds, but together they form a beautiful symphony.
Summer is a great season for parties, and one of our favorite kinds is the many-splendored extravaganza known as the music festival. At venues ranging from whitewashed bandstands to sprawling fairgrounds, communities all across this foot-tapping land of ours take advantage of warm weather to organize concerts and festivals. Whatever your preferred taste in music -- classical, hip-hop or some genre in between -- you can find it in an atmosphere that may be laid-back (community bands performing on a small-town green) or downright wild (Lollapalooza, Ozzfest, and other rhythmic and commercial juggernauts).
All of which got us wondering about the best places to hear authentic American music. For this, our summer travel issue, we decided to make a list. But we soon realized it wouldn't be possible to list all the locations worthy of mention. So, we decided not to include the most obvious and well-known places that represent the best of American music. We figured you didn't need us to tell you about the towering musical legacies of New Orleans and Nashville, of Austin, and Cleveland's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. (But here's a plug anyway: Go!) Instead, we have highlighted 10 cities and towns associated with a particular sound. Together, they contribute essential notes to the glorious symphony that is America. So load up your MP3 player and hit the road. Our foremost musical destinations await your listening pleasure.
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ROCK
Asbury Park, N.J.
"I saw rock and roll's future, and its name is Bruce Springsteen," a critic famously wrote in 1974 after hearing a raw young rocker whose exuberant debut album, "Greetings From Asbury Park, N.J.", bristled with working-class poetry. "The Boss" also turned out to be a big part of Asbury Park's future. Famous in the Gilded Age for a mile-long boardwalk and broad Atlantic beaches, the faded resort town gained fresh notoriety as the place that launched a legend. The boardwalk and beaches still beckon, but today it's the town's storied rock clubs -- notably the Stone Pony, the old stomping grounds of Springsteen and pals like Steven Van Zandt, Clarence Clemons and Southside Johnny -- that draw fans worldwide.
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R&B
Detroit
Cars may be the Motor City's leading export, but music runs a close second. It's mind-boggling to realize just how many of America's musical greats the city has produced, including divas Aretha Franklin and Anita Baker; jazz giants such as George Benson, Kenny Burrell and Kenny Garrett; R&B and soul legends Wilson Pickett and Jackie Wilson; and rockers Bill Haley, Alice Cooper, Iggy Pop, Ted Nugent, Bob Seger and Marshall Crenshaw. Rappers Eminem, Insane Clown Posse and Kid Rock are from Detroit; Sonny Bono and Madonna, too. The MC5, Grand Funk Railroad and the White Stripes are Detroit bands. Techno music originated in Detroit. But its most famous musical export was the incredible sound of Motown (an abbreviation of "motor" and "town"), founded by Berry Gordy on an $800 family loan in 1959. His "Hitsville, U.S.A." headquarters on West Grand Boulevard (now home to the Motown Historical Museum) launched Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, Marvin Gaye, the Temptations, Diana Ross and the Supremes, the Four Tops, Martha Reeves and the Vandellas, Gladys Knight and the Pips, Stevie Wonder, and, of course, the Jackson Five. Today, great music continues to happen nightly at venues such as The Magic Stick, The Majestic Theater and Baker's Keyboard Lounge.
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BLUEGRASS
Bean Blossom, Ind.
Each year, this Indiana town celebrates Bill Monroe's bluegrass legacy.
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Home to the world's oldest continuously running bluegrass festival, rural Bean Blossom also was for many years a second home to Bill Monroe, known as the father of bluegrass. The Kentucky native drew on Appalachian folk music, blues, gospel and work songs to create the virtuosic string-band style that has been called "folk music in overdrive." After fans began flocking to hear the distinctive sound of Monroe and his Blue Grass Boys, he opened a music park in this southern Indiana town in 1951, creating a sort of Tanglewood to showcase the foot-stomping fiddle, mandolin, guitar and banjo music he almost singlehandedly invented. Bill Monroe's Bean Blossom Bluegrass Festival (scheduled for June 14-21 this year) takes place annually on the property he owned. The attractions include a bluegrass hall of fame, a museum and stages for the more than 50 bands that arrive each year to pay tribute to a true giant of American music.
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INDIE ROCK
Seattle
Each year, Bumbershoot offers a chance to enjoy the sounds Seattle made famous.
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There must be something in the water. Or the coffee. Or all the local microbrews. Whatever the explanation, Seattle produces a stunning amount of indie music. Starting in the late 1980s, homegrown bands like Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Mudhoney and Soundgarden exported the city's signature grunge sound around the world. Today, the underground legacy thrives in about 75 performance venues and more than 100 recording studios. City officials estimate that the music industry contributes $1.3 billion annually to the local economy. All of which is a wonkish way of saying that Seattle rocks. Catch current headliners at Bumbershoot, the city's annual arts and music festival, mounted at a downtown park every Labor Day weekend.
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MIAMI SOUND
Miami
Gloria Estefan is the star of Miami's Latin-tinged music scene.
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Local legend Gloria Estefan was right: The rhythm is gonna get you. It definitely will if Miami's world-class DJs have their way. Working a glittery international nightlife scene known as Clubland, the electronic maestros nightly turn South Beach into one big Latin-tinged disco. Hot spots change by the minute in and around the fashion-crazy playground of Collins Avenue; current ones include Mansion, Club Space, Mynt and Estefan's own Bongos Cuban Café. Before debuting salsa, merengue and flamenco moves, newbies may want to drop by Bongos for an introductory lesson. Drink plenty of water along with those $13 martinis -- you're going to sweat.
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BLUES
Clarksdale, Miss.
You can catch bluesman Big Jack Johnson in the cradle of the Mississippi delta.
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Known as the land where the blues began, Clarksdale, Miss., has been, at one time or another, the home of Robert Johnson, Charley Patton, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker. Today, the deep Delta city at the legendary crossroads of highways 61 and 49 attracts music lovers to the Delta Blues Museum, Ground Zero Blues Club and real-deal juke joints where the blues light still burns brightly. Visit during the Sunflower River Blues and Gospel Festival (Aug. 8-10). Be sure to check out the museum's Muddywood guitar, fashioned out of planks from Muddy Waters' sharecropper's shack on the old Stovall Plantation. And definitely pack your dancing shoes.
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HAWAIIAN
Oahu, Hawaii
The musical instrument that's most strongly associated with Hawaii actually came from Portugal. When islanders in the 19th century saw an immigrant field worker plucking a small guitar-like instrument called a cavaquinho, they gave it a new name: ukulele. The English translation: "jumping flea." According to one story, the name describes what the Portuguese player's fingers looked like as they moved quickly over the strings. All Hawaiian music -- and there's a whole lot more to it than Don Ho and Tiny Bubbles -- bears the marks of international influences and homegrown innovation. Another staple of the authentic Hawaiian sound came when Mexican ranchers introduced the Spanish guitar to Hawaii. Local musicians gave it a new tuning, loosening the strings and playing continuous bass accompaniment while also finger-picking melodies on the treble strings. The magical rhythms of ki ho' alu, or slack-key guitar, as the style is called, incorporate ragtime, jazz and other influences. The steel guitar, another oft-used instrument, is also a Hawaiian innovation. Melodic, soulful and deeply original, ki ho' alu can be heard nightly in many of Oahu's best clubs, including Chai's Island Bistro, the Paradise Lounge at Hilton Hawaiian Village and Duke's Canoe Club.
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SURF
Los Angeles
Pop culture exporter to the world, Southern California lists drive-through burger joints, romantic comedies, skateboarding and paparazzi stakeouts among its inventions. Another is surf music. An amped-up mix of rockabilly and R&B, the genre emerged in and around L.A. in the early 1960s, performed by and for surfers. Dick Dale, known as King of the Surf Guitar, introduced a heavy reverb that captured the adrenaline rush of riding a pipeline. Bands like the Ventures and the Surfaris helped make the blissed-out music a coast-to-coast sensation with such hits as "Walk Don't Run" and "Wipe Out." The Beach Boys softened the sound, added luscious vocal harmonies and made the style America's official soundtrack of summer. The best place to hear surf music and the subgenres it spawned -- from pop punk to skate rock -- is still L.A., where the sun is always shining and the next big wave is already building.
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COWBOY
Gene Autry, Okla.
Gene Autry defined cowboy music.
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Forget apple pie. Music doesn't get any more American than singing cowboys. In the 1930s and '40s, Western performers such as Roy Rogers, the Sons of the Pioneers and Gene Autry strummed, roped and crooned their way to superstardom. Autry alone appeared in 93 movies and sold more than 100 million records, dominating the airwaves with hits like "The Yellow Rose of Texas," "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" and "Back in the Saddle Again." The golden age of cowboy music lives on at the Gene Autry Oklahoma Museum in Gene Autry, Okla. (The tiny town named itself for Oklahoma's Yodeling Cowboy, who owned a ranch nearby.) This year, fans from all over will gather there Sept. 24-28 for the museum's annual film and music festival, featuring vintage Westerns, cowboy poets and storytellers and lots of good old-fashioned campfire music.
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HIP-HOP
Bronx, N.Y.
In a housing project rec room, the latest influential American music was born.
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The time was 1973. The place was the rec room of a low-income apartment building in the Bronx. That's when and where a Jamaican-American teenager named Clive Campbell and some beat-mad friends more or less invented rap. Calling himself DJ Kool Herc (the kid was buff, like Hercules), Campbell started organizing neighborhood dance parties. To keep the bodies moving, he bought extra copies of his favorite records, cued up the best riffs on multiple turntables, then stitched the segments together into extended funky interludes. Herc or a sidekick often shouted rhymes over the loops, an innovation borrowed from a Jamaican party tradition called "toasting." According to fellow hip-hop pioneer and Bronx resident Joseph Saddler, "When Herc's bass came in, the whole place would be shaking." Saddler himself -- better known as Grandmaster Flash -- spread the fresh sound to the wider world with his huge 1982 hit, "The Message." For a guided look at the spots where rap was born, led by various old-school emcees, check out Hush Hip Hop Tours (hushtours.com; 212-714-3527). The four-hour tour takes you to the Bronx, midtown Manhattan and Harlem.
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