It's autumn in Nashville. It's a very beautiful time of the year, and it's also a very busy
time of the year. In a few days, the Country Music Association is going to host its nationally
televised awards, and that's the part of, that's the side of Nashville that most of
America is most familiar with, because that music, commercial country music, is on more
than 2,000 radio stations nationwide, and two cable television networks. So America gets
a big eyeful and earful all year round of commercial country music. But there were three
other events here in town just this fall, within the past five or six weeks, that speak
to a much broader array of music and the kinds of artistry that goes on in Nashville every
day, and that speaks to a side of Nashville that people can only really experience if
they come here to visit. The first one was a conference called Next Big Nashville in
its third year. It's a conference for, the easy word is to say it's a rock conference,
but it's much more complicated than that. It's for independent artists of all stripes.
They touch on folk music, hip hop, electronica, a little bit of jazz, and really the only
thing they have in common is kind of independent spirit. They're much more interested in being
heard and building an audience of genuine fans than being on commercial radio, and Next
Big Nashville conference gives them a chance to network and be heard by talent scouts
from independent record labels, or just get briefed and schooled up on how to be their
own record label, release their own music independently and market themselves on the
Internet. The next one that came along was the annual conference of the Americana Music
Association. Americana is music that was a format that was essentially created as a reaction
to country music. It was for people who loved traditional country music and who found that
what was on the radio really didn't feed their souls anymore, and I think they would
hope that if there was a young Chris Christofferson or Johnny Cash who came to town now, they
would find a home in Americana Music. You'd find artists there. We had performances by
Levon Helm, formerly of the band, and even Robert Plant showed up at the awards show
as part of accepting an award for his album with Allison Krauss. The third and most recent
of these conferences was the International Bluegrass Music Association's World of Bluegrass.
It's a week-long, starts as a conference, a business convention, and then shifts into
showcases for fans of basically a big indoor bluegrass festival that lasts for three days.
And again, it's a place for the business to get together and confer on how the business
is going and learn from each other and then for artists to showcase for each other and
for record labels. And it's really an amazing event that shows what a family and community
bluegrass has become. And really, that can be said for these other segments of Nashville's
life, the Americana side and their independent rock side. You know, this is Music City and
while that used to pretty much mean country music, now more than ever, I think it means
music of any stripe. Anybody that writes songs that composes and that has aspirations to
make a career in music, there's something for them here. And there's something for fans
too. All the events I've just mentioned are open to the public. You can buy a wristband
and go club hopping in next big Nashville or Americana or you can go to the Renaissance
Hotel and in one place see the best bluegrass bands in the world right next to the Rhyman
Auditorium where the music was invented by Bill Monroe in the 1940s. So next fall, you
should be here too.
