more thoughts on music and knoxville

Last week's post, suggesting that Knoxville could position itself to become the Capital of Bluegrass, got a lot of attention. Many reader's comments offered good information. Some were not so nice. But for the most part a good dialogue got started. Then, a few days later, I found out that Jack Neely was on the same wavelength. Other Knoxvillians have been thinking the same thing. Maybe it was a mistake for me to couch my original question with the term "Bluegrass". Neely seems to gravitate towards "Americana". Maybe just "Folk" would work best? Or do we need a new word?

The main thing that became clear to me is that Bluegrass / Americana / Folk / Old Time / Appalachian Folk scene is spread out. There is a Bluegrass Museum- in Owensboro, KY. There is a Bluegrass Institute- but at ETSU, not UTK. There is a large Folk Music Festival near here, but it's up in Norris at the Museum of Appalachia. It was even suggested that the true "Capital of Bluegrass" was already Hiltons, VA. On one hand, all this means we've been beaten to the punch. On the other hand, I think this is an even stronger argument that Knoxville could easily become the main center of Traditional Music. The spread out nature of the genre is begging for a true capital.

I want to keep writing on this, hopefully adding something meaningful to discussion on Knoxville's future. Full disclosure: I am a sometime mandolin player and casual Bluegrass fan. I'm not hardcore into Knoxville's music scene. I don't know nearly enough about everything that's going on here. But I love Knoxville and I love music. Maybe that's enough.

Here are what I thought were some of the best points made:

I'd love to see something in the same style of Big Ears -- spread shows out among our many great venues and then have a couple of huge headliners.

We're not suggesting making Knoxville the exclusive end-all, be-all of the bluegrass scene. We're just talking about finding ways to harness this great bluegrass scene here in East Tennessee and market it to the outside world.

Knoxville is a city with multiple identities and many of those identities are quite marketable. A city of Knoxville's size and reputation (or lack thereof) should try to capitalize on as many of these identities as possible.

I think what will give this idea a real long-term draw for everyone (along with providing some unique-ness from the other festivals) is providing multiple opportunities for bluegrass musicians to play TOGETHER! The tradition of Appalachian music is to pick up an instrument, learn from each other and start making some music. I think Market Square would be a great venue to invite ALL players, professional and amateur to get together to play, learn from each other, and give us all one hell-of-a show!

...there is currently a lack of organization in communicating all of this in a unified way that is useful to locals and visitors alike. Yes, there are individual concert calendars, newspaper listings, etc., but this is about more than a simple listing or directory. There is a great need for a unified marketing plan that would let each of the stakeholders in this idea have opportunities to expand their audiences and finances.

I think Knoxville needs an identity. And Traditional Music, to me, seems like the best choice. If this was intelligently pursued, what would it look like? What other facets of Appalachian culture could be useful? What are things (like Tennessee Shines) that are here now and can be built upon? What are the best kept secrets in Knoxville's music scene?

Thanks for a all the comments so far, keep 'em coming. Let's see what we can dream up.