Music row

[crazyBassClown]

Just keep in mind that "covers" is another word for "someone else's originals".

Actually "covers" is another word for the absolute cream of the crop best 0.0000000001% of original music written in the last 60+ years.
You would do well to consider where on that spectrum your originals sit before inflicting them on the public.

 

[4dog]

Printers Alley?

last time i was at printers alley late 90s..it was strippers and hohouses..no lie

 

[BazzaBass]

Don't feel sorry for them... They are pros working their asses off and making money. These guys and girls are Monsters!

So true. The standard of Musicianship is amazing. 4 hour stints non stop. They are fantastic entertainers. I don’t understand the the critique of people making a living from doing what they love and giving the people what they want. What’s the alternative? No gigs and playing original songs in the bedroom?

 

[LowFactor]

Lower Broadway is not indicative of the local music scene in Nashville. No one that lives here actually goes there unless they are working. If you want a taste of the local scene go across the river to East Nashville next time. Broadway is just a drunken tourist trap these days. Sad what it has become.
And the actual music row is about a mile or so from there. 16th and 17th ave south and the surrounding area is the actual music row. Home to record and publishing companies and many studios.

 

[Honkey tonk]

Lower Broadway is not indicative of the local music scene in Nashville. No one that lives here actually goes there unless they are working. If you want a taste of the local scene go across the river to East Nashville next time. Broadway is just a drunken tourist trap these days. Sad what it has become.
And the actual music row is about a mile or so from there. 16th and 17th ave south and the surrounding area is the actual music row. Home to record and publishing companies and many studios.

In my drinking days I've been kicked out of few bars , and somehow being at bar on Broadway totally sober and minding my own business and had just ordered a 40 dollar lunch , got kicked out of a bar for parking my bicycle on the sidewalk. Yeah so I guess in those parts the being sober thing is not beneficial to avoiding being harrassed by security. The security guard was going to let me stay after I told him I had ordered lunch .
But yeah no dice , not doing business with a place after being told to leave .
crazy part , side walks are littered with scooters .
I paid my tab asked to donate my meal to the homeless .
bitter and sober I saw through the hype...
That said it is a fun town but what I saw was a town full of talent playing the same stuff . Over and over ...

 

[Flamingo21]

Playing music people like puts butts in seats and sells drinks.

I thought the idea was to get the butts OUT OF the seats.

 

[two fingers]

Did a 34 in Nashville TN , on the weekends that place has a ton of bands playing at pretty much every store ( bar ) front and pretty much wherever , lots of music happen ...
And it's all covers they are a-playing or so it seemed?

as music rich, as Nashville is you would think ; more originality ...

They're also playing for tips only. Or, rather, most of them are. They will sprinkle in some original material from time to time. But they mostly play from the same list of about 300 songs. They take requests (if they've been at it long enough).

A friend of mine has been down there and made $145 in a shift (two hours). And he's also been down there and played 5 shifts and came home with $35.

In every way you can think of, Nashville is nothing like it was even ten years ago. My buddy has been there for 8 years. He said every musician he knows is looking at getting out of music. There's a trend right now of the young ones going into coding. A 40 year old drummer friend of his went into coding and is now making six figures. He has toured for over 15 years and he just sold down to one drum kit.... and even that one went into a storage unit.

Lots of his friends talk like the downhill run started maybe 10 or 12 years ago.

Short version: There are tons of gigs. There just isn't enough money to go around that town anymore. You can hardly make a living only playing.

 

[JakobT]

I'm certain many of these bands are good but its someone else's ( art ) music

This is, of course, quite true - but remember, bands playing original songs is a compatatively recent musical innovation. Before 1960, the majority of musicians played music written by professional songwriters, which by the way is the reason we have "standards" in jazz. Classical orchestras play music by professional composers exclusively, and I've yet to hear them get criticized for it.

 

[Outbush]

I lived in a tourist driven town years ago and whilst the covers thing didn’t surprise me I was surprised to see virtually nothing original. Just before I left for a sabbatical (that has stretched out 15 years so far) I discovered all the cool stuff was being played in backyards on a Sunday arvo. Lots of it was really good too...

 

[10cc]

Did a 34 in Nashville TN , on the weekends that place has a ton of bands playing at pretty much every store ( bar ) front and pretty much wherever , lots of music happen ...
And it's all covers they are a-playing or so it seemed?

as music rich, as Nashville is you would think ; more originality ...

East Nashville

 

[dwade]

Pull them in with familiarity, then toss in an original tune or 2.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

I shall look it up next time I roll through

Good idea. What

Printers Alley?

I don't know about now, but when I was there in the 70s, Printers Alley was mostly tourists.

 

[bassinflorida]

The Bluebird is as real as it gets for songwriters. Printers alley has the Bourbon Street Blues and Boogie Bar which host a Monday night jam every week...

If you want to see some of the best local musicians letting loose, this is where you need to be on Monday nights. It will blow your mind; forget anything "Nashville", this is all about musicians letting loose.

Simply amazing..

Thank you. I grew up near Bowling Green Ky. In the early 70s I was with a few groups that played at some of the roadhouses between Nashville and Ky in the early 70s. It was profitable, frequently dangerous, but mostly fun. This was before Opryland though.

 

[Gravedigger Dav]

I'm certain many of these bands are good but its someone else's ( art ) music

/[Rant]
Linda Ronstadt did 254 covers and 24 originals.
Writing music and performing music are two different art forms. Those who think that only doing original martial is somehow more noble and artistic than doing covers are shortsighted and a bit arrogant. Leaning a song written by someone else and making it your own is just as challenging as writing new material.
This original/cover rant that goes on constantly is one of the dumbest arguments we have here, well, with the exception of Love Tort/Hate Tort.
\[Rant]
Pardon the derail.

 

[lfmn16]

There are really only two ways to get gigs - play what the audience wants to hear or find an audience that wants to hear what you want to play. The former is easier so that’s what almost everyone does.

Sad, but true, most people’s originals aren’t very good. I’d rather hear a great musician’s take on a cover than listen to their crappy original. Just my opinion.

 

[jdh3000]

You can play a song perfectly that people don't recognize, do a beautiful job of it, and still not move people out of their seats like doing a half#%* job of Mustang Sally.

 

[LowFactor]

If you’ve ever listened to country music 90% of it could technically be considered a cover... most of the artists don’t write the music they play so they are covering someone else’s song....

 

[Rabidhamster]

In my drinking days I've been kicked out of few bars , and somehow being at bar on Broadway totally sober and minding my own business and had just ordered a 40 dollar lunch , got kicked out of a bar for parking my bicycle on the sidewalk. Yeah so I guess in those parts the being sober thing is not beneficial to avoiding being harrassed by security. The security guard was going to let me stay after I told him I had ordered lunch .
But yeah no dice , not doing business with a place after being told to leave .
crazy part , side walks are littered with scooters .
I paid my tab asked to donate my meal to the homeless .
bitter and sober I saw through the hype...
That said it is a fun town but what I saw was a town full of talent playing the same stuff . Over and over ...

Are you sure you were sober?
You either throw me out OR you get paid for the food I ordered and didn’t eat - not both. Never both.

 

[PDGood]

For every bar on Broadway where they are playing covers there are at least 10 songwriter circles taking place around town where you can hear new music not yet on the radio. So many that it gets old pretty fast. As others have said, Music Row is where the business is conducted and some studios are. Berry Hill is known as Studio Row. The best listening music is when those studio cats make an appearance in a club like 3rd and Lindsley. The Players is the name of one of those bands - made up entirely of big name session players doing their own thing after hours and totally cutting loose. Kimbro's in nearby Franklin has good local bands. Whatever kind of music you like is here, it's just not all located in the tourist district on Broadway.

 

[Honkey tonk]

You can play a song perfectly that people don't recognize, do a beautiful job of it, and still not move people out of their seats like doing a half#%* job of Mustang Sally.

That's just it , yep...