I haven’t been to many “name” concerts lately, but I’m fortunate to live in an area where there is a constant supply of good local acts.
Most often, I visit Gruene Hall and other venues in the New Braunfels area, but there are also several quality country venues in Austin. You can throw a dart at a calendar for Gruene Hall or the Broken Spoke and find good music.
I’ll especially put in a good word for Geezerfest, an annual charity event at Gruene Grove. This event has been around since 2009. This year, three dozen or so acts donated their time and talent over three days. The only downside is that it was 105 degrees. Next year’s Geezerfest will be in October. A lot of these acts have regular, full time jobs. They make music because they enjoy making music, not because it’s especially profitable.
The term “independent artist” means different things to different people. A lot of artists who are sold to the public as “independent” because they’re not on terrestrial radio have a management team and a promo team and a social media team and a merchandise team and a publishing deal and a distribution deal and in some cases are even signed to big labels. Terrestrial radio no longer has a stranglehold on the industry, because of the rise of streaming, social media, satellite radio, corporate booking of festivals, popular TV shows like Yellowstone, and other avenues to success. As I have said for years, we need to take a closer look at how artists are able to get placed on the curated streaming lists, etc. Some of the so-called “major independent” artists sound no better than the “mainstream” people and I’m not convinced that their “organic rise” is really all that organic.
I like good music, no matter whether it comes from the biggest names or the smallest. I enjoy Chris Stapleton’s music a lot, but I could take or leave most of the other big names, including the “major indie scene.”
In other news, Herb Alpert recently released a cover of “East Bound And Down” and will make his debut appearance on the Grand Ole Opry on August 18th. I’m reminded of Danny Davis and the Nashville Brass . Country music with brass instruments is its own vibe, but brass instruments have been used in country music for about as long as there has been a country music industry.
I’ve mentioned the Ozark Jubilee Digitization Project before, but I will brag on that project some more. They’re making it possible for everyone to see classic country music videos that haven’t been seen by the public for over sixty years. One thing that stood out to me from the recently uploaded episodes from 1960 is seeing Bill Anderson and Leroy Van Dyke, who are still performing in 2023.
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