In a Memphis magazine interview, Tonya Butler, three-year resident who’s teaching music business at University of Memphis, made this prescient statement: “There’s lots of music in Memphis, but there’s no industry.”
Her point is made powerfully clear in a recent report for the Chicago Music Commission on the state of the music industry in the Windy City. In graph after graph, Chicago measures its performance and compares it to America’s other famous music cities. Sadly, Memphis is essentially a footnote.
For the report, the Chicago Music Commission developed a set of indicators, and then compared itself to nine other music cities – New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Las Vegas, Memphis, Nashville, New Orleans and Seattle.
On The Last Rung
Chicago ranked third in most measurements, but that’s not the reason we were interested. In indicator after indicator, Memphis ranked in the bottom two in every measurement, suggesting the grim reality facing the Memphis Fast Forward alliance which has set music/film as one of the four main areas of emphasis for economic growth in the coming years.
Here are some telling details from the report:
* Musicians – In the category which the report rightly calls the “Core of the Core: Employed Musicians,” Memphis finished last in the number of groups and artists who make their living in music. We have 202 people who make their living in music, compared to Nashville’s 2,761; Seattle’s 828; Atlanta’s 530, and Austin’s 362.
* Grassroots musicians and bands – This is the measurement of the grassroots music scene, and Memphis actually beats out Nashville – 1,122 to 1,103. Atlanta has 4,061 and Seattle has 5,744.
* In total music employment, Memphis finished in last place with 4,762 total employees. Atlanta has 16,940 working in its music industry and Seattle has 22,908 people.
Live In Memphis
* Tickets sold for live performances – Memphis finished in last place with 146,000 tickets, compared to 483,000 in Nashville, 501,000 in Austin and 1,087,000 in Seattle. It’s stark evidence to the validity of the complaints of countless music promoters who have lost their shirt in Memphis. Receipts from live performances was $6.5 million, about half of the next lowest city.
* Music firms – Memphis finished last in the number of music businesses (recording studios, stores selling instruments, radio stations, instrument manufacturers, etc) with 283. That compares to 623 in Austin; 1,662 in Atlanta; and 1,943 in Seattle.
* Music payroll – Memphis finished last with $73.32 millions, compared to $119.85 million in Austin; $403.58 million in Seattle and $422.96 million in Nashville.
* Music industry revenue – Memphis finished last with $77.07 million, compared to $192.17 million in Austin; $360.40 million in Atlanta; and $309.23 million in Seattle.
Grassroots
* Total records sales – Memphis finished last with 3.27 million units, compared to 5.49 million in Nashville, 13.51 million in Seattle and 13.55 million in Atlanta.
* Venue capacity – Memphis finished last with 81,609 seats, compared to Austin’s 108,812, Seattle’s 234,005 and Seattle’s 234,005. There is a little bit of a bright light here: when venues are measured per thousand people: Memphis is tied for fifth.
* Median venue capacity – Attesting to Memphis’ vibrant club scene, the average venue has capacity of 700, compared to 699 in Nashville, 750 in Seattle and 950 in Austin. Unfortunately, Memphis is last in the amount of gross receipts generated by each seat – $80 – but just barely behind Nashville at $90.
* Musical format – Memphis is second behind Las Vegas in the lack of clubs and small venues devoted to a discernible genre. While country music holds the largest shares in Austin, Nashville, and even Atlanta, 86 percent of Memphis clubs have no specific kind of music, meaning that if you’re looking for a diversified music scene, we’ve got it. One proviso from the report: “the lack of specialization also reflects the basic economic principle that larger markets can support more niches than smaller ones.”
Get Real
Conducted by the Cultural Policy Center at the University of Chicago, the report is one of the most thorough that we’ve ever seen on the strength of the music industry in various cities, and it goes the extra mile to make sure measurements are comparable.
All in all, it paints a disturbing picture of how difficult it will be to catapult Memphis into the top tier of cities with vibrant, healthy music industries. If nothing else, it suggests that if Memphis Fast Forward is to build music into a dominant growth industry for Memphis, it will be brick by brick over many years.
If there’s any encouragement to come from the report, perhaps it’s the fact that in the past 15 years or so, Atlanta has come from nowhere to become one of the top music cities in the U.S. That fact alone salves our bruised pride, but we just have to remember that whatever we do here will take more than a decade.
Climbing The Ladder
Another interesting aspect of the report is that the city just ahead of us in most of the rankings is Austin, which calls itself “Live Music Capital” and with little to back it up, staked out that brand for itself. A number of Memphis business leaders have looked admiringly at Austin for inspiration for our strategies for Memphis music, but as the report shows, Austin is barely a rung above Memphis and is itself a distance from breaking into the top five cities.
Then again, perhaps the Austin model is more relevant than we would like to admit. Without a traditional infrastructure for the music industry, it’s carved out its niche in live music, a funky music scene, a reputation for weirdness that inspires the musicians there and industry showcases.
Memphis has the same strengths, plus we have a music heritage that can’t be duplicated by any city on the globe. In other words, without too much effort, we should be able to push past Austin on the top 10 list, but the real test is moving up to the levels of Seattle and Atlanta.
Price Of Neglect
It’s hard to imagine that we have fallen so far from our glory years, but eventually, we have to pay the price for neglecting our music assets, giving up Stax without even a fight and failing to support the other studios that gave Memphis its distinctive sound. The price for the neglect is clear: it’s seen in our last place finish on the list.
But it also suggests that we need to be more realistic about our expectations, and as we proceed, we need to tattoo one sentence from the Chicago report on our arms. It said: “What (we) become in the future depends on the genius of our music makers…”
It sounds basic, but it’s a fundamental fact of life that we tend to overlook here. If we’re really serious about reviving our music industry and becoming known once again as a hub of music creativity, it’s the musicians, stupid.
Tomorrow: A Few Ideas
