Austin
During five days in March, the South by Southwest festival (SXSW) turns Austin into the centre of the musical universe.There are more than 75 live music venues in downtown Austin, most within walking distance of one another, a feature SXSW has been built on since 1987. In 2009, more than 1,900 acts from 45 countries played the festival.
In 2002, the Texas capital added the Austin City Limits Music Festival, named after the 33-year-old PBS music program, to its yearly schedule.
During the 357 days of the year when neither SXSW nor ACL are happening, the Austin music scene is still vibrant. If you like such American roots forms as honky-tonk, blues, western swing or rockabilly, there’s someone worth seeing every night of the week, especially at the Continental Club and the Saxon Pub. And you can dance nightly to live country music at the Broken Spoke.
In a town made famous by Willie Nelson, who held his first Fourth of July picnic near Austin in 1973, you can be sure there’s a healthy community of singer-songwriters. Austin is home to Alejandro Escovedo, James McMurtry, Hayes Carll, Joe Ely and Kelly Willis. This is where Lucinda Williams, Townes Van Zandt and Steve Earle learned to write songs that move people.
Many of these musicians owe a debt to the late, great Doug Sahm, who had a vista in a city park named after him. The leader of the Sir Douglas Quintet, Sahm had several top10 hits in the ’60s and celebrated Austin in song with Groover’s Paradise. Doug Sahm Hill looks down on a statue of Stevie Ray Vaughan, the local blues great who died tragically in a helicopter crash in 1990.
The true roots of the Austin music scene can be traced back to 1933, when fillin’ station owner and yodeller Kenneth Threadgill filed for the first licence to sell beer in Travis County following the repeal of Prohibition. Threadgill would sometimes host “guitar pulls,” where musicians would pass around instruments. It was at one such session in the early ’60s that University of Texas student Janis Joplin first sang in public. The original Threadgill’s—a short drive from downtown on North Lamar—is still open, and you can still get a fine chicken-fried steak there. And they’re still passing around guitars at night.
— Michael Corcoran is the music critic for the Austin American-Statesman.
More to see and do:
Stubbs Bar-B-Q features a Sunday gospel brunch and a lineup of musicians including upcoming shows by the Indigo Girls and Jenny Lewis.
The Texas Music Museum displays collections of artifacts and memorabilia from the history of Texas music. Admission is free.
See where guitars are crafted for Keith Richards, Joni Mitchell and Emmylou Harris—The Collings Guitar Factory offers public tours on Fridays.
Halifax
During the early 1990s, Halifax was declared “the next Seattle,” thanks to the success of post-grunge bands like Sloan, Jale, Eric’s Trip and Thrush Hermit. In 1993 the first Halifax Pop Explosion festival was held. Record executives, music fans and international journalists arrived in droves, anxious to experience “the Halifax sound.”
But when the buzz eventually faded, the music didn’t—this year’s 16th Pop festival takes place from October 20 to 24. According to Mike Campbell, former host of MuchEast and Going Coastal on MuchMusic and co-manager of singer/songwriter Joel Plaskett, the scene simply grew up. “Fifteen years ago it was pretty much impossible to win an East Coast Music Award if you didn’t have a fiddle in the band. Now it’s exactly the opposite.This does not mean that the traditional scene has disappeared; it’s just that the city is also recognized nationwide as a place that great rock music comes from, too.”
Today, indie rockers like Plaskett, Matt Mays & El Torpedo and Wintersleep receive national airplay alongside Halifax-originated hip-hoppers like Buck 65 and Classified. There are also crooners such as Jill Barber. Banjo sensation Old Man Luedecke honed his chops on Halifax stages, and new voices are emerging almost every week.
There are plenty of opportunities to see Haligonian musicians in their hometown. Make dinner reservations at The Carleton a cozy downtown bistro, and catch acoustic shows from artists like Plaskett or folksy-rock singer Christina Martin. Head downstairs toThe Seahorse Tavern, a Halifax institution that has welcomed musicians like jazz diva Erin Costelo and rocker Matt Mays. Jenn Grant fans will recognize her paintings on the walls of The Company House (2202 Gottingen Street), an intimate north-end haunt.
If rock or folk music isn’t your thing, the Atlantic Jazz Festival which runs from July 10 to 18 this year, draws lively crowds every summer to its mix of jazz and international sounds in an outdoor setting on Spring Garden Road.
And if down-home Celtic music is what makes your feet tap, head closer to Halifax’s waterfront, where most of the pubs, like The Old Triangle and the Lower Deck, host house bands that play all the Maritime classics.
— Sue Carter Flinn is the arts editor at Halifax weekly The Coast.
Check out Joel Plaskett's favourite places in his home town!
Montreal
In many ways, the story of contemporary Montreal music begins with the U.S. temperance movement of the early 1920s, when the city’s proximity to the border led to its popularity as a “wet” destination for thirsty Americans with a bit of mischief on their minds.
By the 1930s, Montreal’s musical character had been imbued with the soul of cabaret. There were hundreds of nightclubs in Montreal, and the likes of Frank Sinatra, Cab Calloway and Sammy Davis Jr. performed at places such as Rockhead’s Paradise. Burlesque, vaudeville and variety theatre dominated the entertainment landscape and gave rise to historic venues like La Tulipe, in the Petit Plateau district, and the Olympia Theatre on Sainte-Catherine Street East.
This was the bold old world into which internationally renowned jazz pianists Oliver Jones and Oscar Peterson were born and later flourished, and the spirit of which is recaptured every year with the Festival International de Jazz de Montréal, Canada’s largest music festival. The festival also caters to blues, pop, world and electronic tastes, and closes down the heart of the city each July. This year the festival runs from July 1 to 12.
Pop Montreal, an expansive indie rock festival (this year, September 30 to October 4), caters to eclectic tastes and lesser-known talents, though many of Montreal’s best-known exports in recent years—indie rock and pop artists like Wolf Parade, The Stills, Martha Wainwright and Stars—have all benefited from Pop’s integrity and reputation.
To catch tomorrow’s next big thing today, head to smaller clubs like La Sala Rossa, Casa Del Popolo and Café Campus in the Plateau area. Better-known names generally play larger venues downtown in the entertainment district, such as Metropolis and Club Soda.
But Montreal isn’t just about one community. Vibrant French and English music scenes vie for the attention of the city’s culture-hungry inhabitants, and both thrive.Young francophone vedettes (stars) like Pierre Lapointe, Dumas, Ariane Moffat, Malajube, Les Trois Accords and Les Cowboys Fringants bask at home in the adoration of an extremely loyal Quebec fan base and shine increasingly abroad.
And on a sunny summer afternoon, it’s still possible to find Leonard Cohen strolling the streets of his beloved hometown, shoulder to shoulder with the new cool. That’s Montreal. — Jamie O’Meara is the editor-in-chief of Montreal alternative weekly Hour Magazine.
More to see and do:
The Montreal Chamber Music Festival (May 1 to 30) features reknowned international musicians and performers.
Catch Live salsa and samba performances while feasting on authentic Brazilian fare at Senzala.
Barfly on St. Laurent is a gritty bar that hosts bluegrass and rock bands almost every night.
Nashville
Nashville isn’t the birthplace of country music, but it is country music’s home. Influenced by Irish folk songs and African banjos, country wound up in Nashville because the Tennessee capital grew to house publishing companies, studios and the most influential radio station in America, WSM-AM 650, which still broadcasts today.
By the 1950s, a little area called Music Row was growing to produce the bulk of commercial country music, eventually developing what came to be known as the “Nashville sound,” a modern, marketable blend of pop and country. (When asked for a definition of the Nashville sound, Chet Atkins jingled the change in his hand.) The Row is still important as a business centre but is of little interest to a tourist. Better to walk to Lower Broadway, where honky-tonk bands still rule the night, or to the Station Inn, the nation’s most hallowed bluegrass club, found a few blocks south of Broadway, on 12th Avenue. Then head over to Ryman Auditorium, the much-vaunted “mother church of country music,” downtown, near the Cumberland River.
Though country is a constant in Nashville, it does not tell the whole story of Nashville’s music scene. One of the town’s most famous ensembles is the Fisk Jubilee Singers, a choral group based at Fisk University that broke racial barriers beginning in the mid-1800s and that continues to preserve the song form known as the Negro spiritual. Jimi Hendrix honed his guitar chops in Nashville clubs. And most every corner of Nashville feels the impact of the rock and pop musicians who have moved to Middle Tennessee in search of fine studios, world-class musicians and a decent quality of life. Michael McDonald, Sheryl Crow, Kim Carnes, Jack White, the Kings of Leon, Duane Eddy and others live in or near Nashville.
And while the Top 40 country acts do their thing, an astoundingly creative community of singers and songwriters works outside of the country radio norm. Emmylou Harris lives and performs here, as does John Prine.
Bill Lloyd, acclaimed songwriter and half of the duo Foster & Lloyd, sums up the scene this way: “The one thing that hasn’t changed in Nashville is the amazing community of talented singers and writers...and the friendly nature of the town is due in part to the welcoming attitude within the music community.”
— Peter Cooper is a Nashville-based recording artist, teacher and journalist.
More to see and do:
The Nashville King, a triute to Elvis, is Nashville's longest running musical.
The Musician's Hall of Fame & Museum features artifacts from performers such as Jimi Hendrix, The Mamas and the Papas and the Beach Boys.
The historic Ryman Auditorium, opened in 1892, has hosted great musicians including Dolly Parton, patsy Cline and James Brown.
New York
Show tunes, jazz, salsa, punk, hip-hop and disco were all incubated in New York, engendering bragging rights that residents prize in exchange for high rents and dirty streets. As Brooklyn native Nelson George, author of Hip Hop America, says: “It’s the biggest, most vital artistic city in the world.”
The huge influx of immigrants passing through New York’s harbour during the turn of the last century crossbred sounds from different shores. That influx, coupled with the distinctive echo of former African slaves who moved north after the Civil War, fostered distinctly American music.
George Gershwin, son of Eastern European immigrants, is perhaps the most influential product of this flood of new citizens. The Brooklyn-bred Gershwin got his start churning out breezy hits at the infamous Tin Pan Alley popular music-publishing hive, moved on to Broadway and, finally, to the classical music world.
Jazz also came of age in the city’s speakeasies during Prohibition and later in cabarets during the Harlem Renaissance. Harlem’s Cotton Club was home to Duke Ellington and the Savoy’s stage introduced Ella Fitzgerald. As time wore on, jazz’s younger brothers and sisters expanded the form in clusters of clubs. Birdland (named for Charlie Parker) anchored the post-war scene in midtown Manhattan; since the 1960s, New York’s jazz scene has been entrenched in Greenwich Village where one long-standing club, the Village Vanguard, still operates. You can also catch a performance at Harlem’s famed Apollo Theater or take an historic tour of the venue, or visit the site where the Savoy once stood (Lennox Avenue and 140th Street).
You can get in the groove at hot spot The Blue Note or class it up at Jazz at Lincoln Center, overseen by artistic director Wynton Marsalis and home to the Jazz Hall of Fame.
Arguably the most fruitful sonic decade in New York’s existence was the 1970s, when punk, disco and hip hop took their baby steps. Like punk, hip hop’s birth in the Bronx came at a time of economic depression. Despite the grim times of the mid-’70s, street parties abounded where teens juiced turntables with electricity stolen from streetlights. From Grandmaster Flash to Public Enemy to Biggie Smalls to Jay-Z, New York’s influence on hip hop is indelible and continues still.
George advises people to take in some of the house-music DJ nights in town. You’ll find music listings in The Village Voice and Time Out New York
— Caryn Brooks is a freelance writer based in New York.
More to see and do:
Servers, patrons and visiting Broadway performers sing along to show tunes at the Don't Tell Mama piano bar.
See where Patti Smith, Blondie and The Ramones got their starts at CBGB.
Toronto
While Neil Young and the power trio Rush are two of its biggest musical exports, Toronto has also contributed acts of major stature in genres ranging from punk (The Viletones, The Diodes, Teenage Head) to indie rock (Broken Social Scene, The Constantines), hip hop (Kardinal Offishall) and classical (Glenn Gould).
Toronto’s greatest impact has been felt in the roots/alternative country genre.That lineage can be traced back to the early 1960s, when youngsters Robbie Robertson, Rick Danko, Richard Manuel, Levon Helm and Garth Hudson came together as The Hawks, the backing band for Toronto-by-way-of-Arkansas rockabilly star Ronnie Hawkins. They would eventually split from Hawkins and go on to become The Band, pioneers of the country-rock movement and a vast influence on everyone from Bob Dylan to The Beatles.
That roots tradition was carried into the 1980s by the likes of Blue Rodeo and the Cowboy Junkies—who recorded their sparse, haunting debut album The Trinity Session at the city’s Church of the Holy Trinity, which you can find in the shadow of the Eaton Centre at 10 Trinity Square—and into the present day with bands like Elliott Brood,The Sadies and Great Lake Swimmers. “Toronto was an important place on the map for that type of sound, and it influenced the world,” says Ian Danzig, founder and publisher of the Canadian music monthly Exclaim! “I think it’s a style of music that’s most anchored here, and what’s happening now is just a cool underground resurgence.”
The city has also been the site of a number of legendary shows over the years, including “secret” gigs by the Rolling Stones—who have used local schools and the old Masonic Temple (now the headquarters for MTV Canada at the corner of Yonge and Davenport) as a rehearsal space for recent world tours—and a young Elvis Costello, whose 1978 concert at the El Mocambo resulted in the widely circulated bootleg Live at the El Mocambo (the album received an official release in 1993). The El Mo, as it’s known to locals, is a storied live venue located on Spadina Avenue—look for the giant palm tree.
The city has also played a prominent role in the history of jazz. The Palais Royale on Lakeshore Boulevard welcomed big bands, including Duke Ellington and Count Basie in the 1930s, while in 1953, Massey Hall (on Shuter Street) was the venue for what has been called “the greatest jazz concert ever,” featuring Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Charles Mingus, Bud Powell and Max Roach. The show was recorded for posterity in the album Jazz at Massey Hall.
Toronto also hosts the annual North by Northeast festival (NXNE), the northern equivalent of Austin’s South by Southwest. Last year NXNE played host to some 500 bands.
In other words, if you can’t find something to your liking in Toronto, you may not be looking hard enough.
— Chris Powell is a journalist based in Toronto.
More to see and do:
The Toronto Music Garden is a collaboration between a landscape architect and cellist Yo-Yo Ma to interpret a piece of music by Johann Sebastian Bach in plants and flowers. The garden hosts concers in the summer months.
The Dakota Tavern serves up live country tunes with their scrambled eggs during their weekly sunday bluegrass brunch.
The Rex Hotel features some of the best jazz musicians in town, plus international greats such as Harry Connick and Wynton Marsalis.
RELATED ARTICLES
+ The Ultimate Family Road-Trip Playlist
+ Love the Nightlife: What to do when the sun goes down in five cities
CONTESTS AND OFFERS
+ Feeling lucky? Enter CAAMagazine.ca's current contests and offers for your chance to win.