There's rare energy in Lexington right now behind making vast improvements in the city's arts and entertainment options. Lexington's demographics have undergone significant change as the city's universities and business community attract talent from major markets across America and from points worldwide, including many locally born and bred who struck out in search of experience and have now returned, their horizons broadened and tastes whetted. Expectations of the city are increasingly more sophisticated than ever. It's no longer enough to program mass audience entertainment in such huge and impersonal spaces as Rupp Arena. While the presence of arena entertainment certainly is vital and welcome, people do also hunger to experience more varied and intimate entertainment settings offering a range of talents from up-and-coming local acts to touring regional and national artists. To quote WoodSongs' Michael Johnathan's comment about the artists who appear on his worldwide radio program broadcast from the Kentucky Theater, "You don't have to be famous, you just have to be good." And as Mayor Jim Newberry has often been heard to express lately, there is a palpable sense that we are living in a memorable era in Lexington's history, and that real change is occurring here on many levels and in many ways.
As Lexington looks for ways to breathe new life into its downtown area with the development of a nighttime arts and entertainment economy, it's useful to see that a city renowned for its number and variety of music offerings once faced similar challenges. Connecting the dots between the Austin, Texas, of a quarter century ago and the Lexington, Kentucky, of today is a familiar face and name - former Austinite David Lord, now president of the Lexington Convention and Visitors Bureau. At the time, in '85, Austin's population was similar in number to that of Lexington's today. Granted, many economic and cultural differences existed then as they do now, but the two cities do have in common the presence of their own unique musical traditions.
The article below was published by the Austin American-Statesman in the spring of 1985. It's clear that even then, the business community of the Texas state capitol recognized the value of exploiting the city's musical heritage, and that the local music community more than welcomed the exploitation of their works. The rest is the stuff of modern American history as well as a suggestion for Lexington's future.
- Tom Martin, Editor-in-chief
John T. Davis
American Statesman Staff
Skyrocketing land costs, lack of affordable housing and a lack of communication between music professionals and business leaders are threatening the vitality of live music in Austin, participants in a public symposium agreed Tuesday.
The open meeting at the Austin Opera House marked the first public exchange between music business professionals and members of the Austin Chamber of Commerce as they sat down to address a common goal - the perpetuation of live popular music, played by local and touring bands, In Austin.
Common problems and possible solutions were addressed by panelists and audience members.
The meeting, entitled "Austin Music: Into the Future," was something of a departure for both sides of the issue. In previous years, the Austin music community and the chamber treated each other with, at best, benign neglect. It is high time, everyone agreed Tuesday, to end that counterproductive era.
"This is a tolerant community," said Chamber President Lee Cooke, "and we are learning more and more to work with each other. Music is central to the quality of life here, but it can also be central to Austin's economic development."
The meeting was sponsored by the chamber and its Music Advisory Committee, a 13-member board composed of representatives from various facets of the entertainment community. The goal is to explore ways to preserve the vitality of the live music industry in Austin and to improve communication with the business community.
The symposium was the culmination of 13 caucus meetings held since fall, dealing with various aspects of the live-music industry, including music venues, radio stations, record companies, and recording studios.
It is, said both panelists and chamber representatives time for the various segments of the city and the business and music communities to work together.
According to a survey conducted among voters by the University of Texas, 80 percent of respondents felt live music was central to making Austin a desirable place to live. But rapid growth is challenging the future of the music scene.
"Growth has had an impact on the already fragile music industry," said David Lord, vice president of the Convention and Visitors Council of the chamber. "The industry can't stand still. It must either grow or succumb to the problems facing it."
Among those problems, as outlined in the symposium, are skyrocketing land and property values, which make it hard to open and run clubs. There is also the financial community's failure to recognize the possibilities for potential investments, and the music community's unfamiliarity with traditional investment channels.
"Every bank in Nashville has a vice president who deals solely with the music industry," said committee member Ernie "Sky" Gammage. "There are also music professionals on the board of directors of those banks. You don't find any of that here."
Other problems cited were the lack of a fully developed music infrastructure, poor state and national promotion of the music scene, a lack of affordable housing, a lack of communication among music business professionals, and the lack of a comprehensive directory of Austin musical services.
No action was taken but solutions discussed included creating a permanent liaison office in the chamber to deal with live music; establishing a state music commission along the lines of the Texas Film Commission (a bill to establish such a commission passed the state House and Senate committees Monday); developing a dialogue between the music community and the burgeoning high-tech industry (which is attracted to Austin, in part, because of the allure of live music); and establishing a "medium size" (1,200-2,000 seat) music venue, which will help attract certain acts, which Austin has lacked since the demolition of the Armadillo World Headquarters in 1981.
Members of the Music Advisory Committee are: Gammage, chairman of the Texas Music Association and the leader of the band Ernie Sky and the K-Tels; Susan Jarrett, owner of Austin Record Distributors; Rob Klein of Sidetrack Productions; Phyllis Krantzman, who wrote a University of Texas masters thesis on the effect of the music business on the Austin economy; Dr. L. E. McCulloch of the Music Umbrella; Louis Meyers and Mark Pratz of the booking agency Lunch Money Productions; Andy Murphy, of Panda Productions; Carolyn Phillips and Jeff Whittington of the Austin Chronicle, music writer Ed Ward; entertainment lawyer Mike Tolleson; and Roland Swenson of Moment Productions.
The symposium is only part of an effort to perpetuate live music in Austin. Apart from representing a give-and-take dialogue between the music industry and the city, the exchange makes participants realize just how much they have in common.
"We'll put our money where our mouth is," Cooke said.
And Lord added: "I was at one of the caucuses, and I heard a small voice say behind me, "if we lose music in Austin, we lose the magic in Austin." That's how I feel."
-John T. Davis, American Statesman Staff
Copyright Austin American Statesman - April 24, 1985