5 underrated Southern cities that formed American music

Everyone is aware of the best hits—Nashville, Memphis, Austin, New Orleans. But tucked between these music hubs are locations like Lubbock, Clarksdale, and Macon, which have formed a number of the most iconic musicians of all time. Intrigued by these unsung heroes, I made a decision to discover them myself. I needed to see the place soul lives, the place blues started, the place rock ‘n’ roll first rattled the rafters.

Although these stops simply scratch the floor of the Southern-music report, I left each with a brand new appreciation for the music taking part in via my audio system.

Stop 1: Lubbock, Texas

The Hub City—an enormous small city servicing rural West Texas with healthcare, commerce, wine, a sturdy meals scene, and an much more sturdy artwork scene. The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and so many different large names all have a standard tie to this dust-swept metropolis: It is the birthplace of their musical affect, Buddy Holly.

Holly’s legacy is subtly seeped into each crevice of Lubbock. Murals cowl metropolis partitions, Holly’s iconic glasses (which impressed the eyewear of John Lennon and Elton John) are painted on downtown crosswalks, cocktails are named after his songs, and a glowing state-of-the-art performing arts middle, the Buddy Holly Hall, hosts big names like Bob Dylan. You can really feel the imprint that Holly’s brief, 22-year life left round each nook.

Stay on the Cotton Court, an industrial-chic boutique lodge. Check out a guitar from the foyer to play across the hearth pits within the courtyard and seize a Chilton (Lubbock’s signature cocktail) on the lodge’s Midnight Shift Bar, named after a Holly tune. Make a cease by the Buddy Holly Center, a museum housing Holly’s 1958 Ariel Cyclone bike, his childhood dwelling, and even the black-rimmed glasses recovered from the fatal 1959 plane crash that killed him. Across the road is the memorial stroll, paying homage to different Lubbock-born classics, and some minutes down the street is Holly’s gravesite, the place his gravestone is roofed in pairs of thick-framed spectacles left behind by followers.

Stop 2: Shreveport, Louisiana

For a shining second within the Forties and ‘50s, this river city was the heartbeat of American music. Shreveport is the home of the Louisiana Hayride, a radio show where Elvis, Hank Williams, Johnny Cash, and James Burton cut their teeth. The coalescence of radio power and a hungry live audience gave way to one of the most influential radio shows, second only to the Grand Ole Opry, earning it the nickname “The Cradle of the Stars.”

Stop by the Shreveport Municipal Auditorium, where young Elvis once shook in his boots. Book a night at the Royal Inn, the hotel where Sam Cooke was denied a room (then called the Holiday Inn North Hotel) because of his race, inspiring his civil rights anthem “A Change is Gonna Come”. Make sure you eat at Herby-K’s, a hole-in-the-wall seafood basic that is been run by the identical household since 1936.

(Follow in Malcolm X’s footsteps on a civil rights historical past tour in Boston)

Stop 3: Clarksdale, Mississippi

This dusty Delta city is the place Robert Johnson is claimed to have left his soul at the crossroads. Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and John Lee Hooker all got here from right here, carrying the uncooked sound of the Delta to Chicago and, eventually, the world. “You can’t throw a rock in Clarksdale without hitting a musician,” I used to be advised. It appeared like you could possibly hear blues taking part in round each nook, seven nights every week.

Spend a day on the Delta Blues Museum, the place you may see Muddy Waters’ cabin preserved inside. At evening, duck into Red’s Lounge. For an genuine keep, verify into the Shack Up Inn, a group of shotgun-style sharecropper shacks with corrugated tin roofs and no shortness of character.

Stop 4: Macon, Georgia

Macon is a colourful city caught within the crosshairs of Nineteenth-century appeal and the heavy shadow of its antebellum and Civil War previous. The metropolis stole my coronary heart the second I arrived. The folks, historical past, structure, meals, and music mix collectively like a gospel choir. Macon is known as “the city where soul lives,” and it’s true.

Little Richard, the “Architect of Rock’ n’ Roll”, and Otis Redding, the “King of Soul” himself, had been each raised in Macon. Visit the Otis Redding Museum downtown then take a tour of Capricorn Sound Studios, dwelling of Capricorn Records—the incubator of Southern rock.

(Take a mouthwatering journey down Alabama’s Barbecue Trail)

“There is something in the water in Macon. No town this small should breed this much talent,” stated my server at H&H Restaurant, a must-visit, “stick-to-ya-ribs,” home-cooked haven the place the Allman Brothers would scrounge grub via their struggling years. You may stroll via the bedrooms of the Allman Brothers ’ 1970-1973 dwelling, known as the Big House Museum, preserved and stocked filled with Southern rock memorabilia. After, Grants Lounge is the place it is best to go for reside music. A back-alley dive vibe the place string lights twinkle over a small stage that hosts a number of the greatest musicians within the South, together with the town’s pantheon of greats.

Stop 5: Bristol, Tennessee/Virginia

Bristol is a metropolis cut up proper down the center (half in Tennessee, half in Virginia) and formally designated because the “birthplace of country music.” It appeared like a daring declare for a city I’d by no means heard of, however the pull of Appalachian fiddles and Smoky Mountain ballads earned it a spot on my road-trip record.

Back within the Twenties, Bristol had a railroad, thriving retail and pharmaceutical industries, and a central location that drew in expertise from 5 surrounding states. It additionally sat squarely within the coronary heart of what was then known as “hillbilly music.” In 1927, record producer Ralph Peer of the Victor Talking Machine Company arrange store right here for a two-week recording session that will develop into referred to as the “Big Bang of Country Music.” Thanks to the invention of the microphone within the mid-20s, recording gear was lastly transportable, and Peer captured 76 songs from 19 acts, together with Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter Family. The purpose wasn’t to show Bristol right into a music capital, however to bottle the sound of the mountains and ship it out into the world.

“The country music faucet was dripping across America, and the Bristol Sessions turned it on,” says Erika Barker, curator of the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, a Smithsonian affiliate and a must-visit. Also cease by Bristol native Tennessee Earnie Ford’s dwelling and keep on the Sessions Hotel, a country, historic constructing turned cozy keep that pays homage to nation music via tasteful artwork, decor, and in-room report gamers and vinyl.

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