Key West has always been a hot spot for live music. When tourists finally get to the end of the road following making the long trek down the Keys, it does something to their psyche. Normally respectable citizens of the mainland tend to breathe in the free air of the tropics and start doing some pretty uncharacteristic things – things like drinking rum runners and stripping down to barely perceptible clothes. And they naturally congregate on Duvall Street, where the Local/Regional clubs are happy to contribute to the anything-goes atmosphere. Live music pours out of nearly every bar.

The music leans heavily towards a Jimmy Buffett, island-flavored sound, and you’re sure to hear “Brown-Eyed Girl” at least ten times a night from ten divergent club s. And that is as it ought to be, because everybody is usually in an island kinda mood. But there is much more to be found. You can hear jazz, reggae, hard rock and blues, from places like Rick’s, Sloppy Joe’s, The Bull, La Concha, The Hog’s Breath, and, if you don’t mind walking an extra ten blocks or so, Jimmy Buffett’s own Margaritaville Cafe. What makes the whole scene so appealing is that most of the clubs are open to the outside, and all this music makes a potent gumbo of sound in the humid air as you walk down the street.

Long ago, before there has been ever a road to Key West, most of the town has been populated by pirates, who endorse ed to ‘salvage’ wonderfuls from ships that were wrecked on the reefs because someone had switched the signal lights around. Everybody knew who switched those lights in the first place, of course. But salvaging has been a tempting, lucrative profession in those days. That outlaw spirit still lives in Key West, and it may be heard in the music of performers in the venues and from street performers on nearly every block.

I personal ly got to experience Healthy doses of Key West music every April for 15 years, when I played at Sloppy Joe’s with the duo Faust and Lewis.

We developed our music and comedy act on that famous stage, and wrote gobs of funny tunes about life in the islands. all of us always did the 5-9 PM shift, so after our show there was plenty of time to do the Duvall Crawl and check out the other acts in town. I became a wonderful fan of Hugo Duarte, who was performing at the Hog’s Breath Saloon late one night in early April. It was uncharacteristically cool that night, with the temperature all the way down in the low 60’s, but my wife and I braved the chill to listen to Hugo for over an hour. His original tunes are nearly perfect, and tell wonderful stories about life in the islands, and about ship captains heading somewhere down south.

I likewise got to know Terry Cassidy, who still does after noons at Sloppy Joe’s. He adds a smooth, bluegrass feel to his island music, and his song “Hooked On the easy Life” just about sums up the attitude of the Local s.

Pete and Wayne currently handle the 5-9 shift at Sloppy’s, and you can be sure they’re continuing the “What Me Worry?” attitude down there, with their adult humor and tunes.

There are so a lot of more artists that have made a real splash on the Key West scene. Pat Dailey, the legend of Lake Erie, has been performing in February and March at Sloppy Joe’s for over twenty years. Bill Wharton, The Sauce Boss, one of the finest blues players I’ve ever seen, also makes hot sauce during his shows and serves it up in gumbo to individuals who stay around until the end. He makes regular appearances at Margaritaville. Ben Harrison, who with his wife Helen own Harrison Gallery, is also a renowned singer-songwriter who puts on mini operas about some of the colorful characters in Key West history, including a guy who kept his wife’s body in his parlor for years following she died.

All of us who have performed and written songs about Key West owe a tremendous debt to Shel Silverstein, who lived in Key West until his death a few years ago. Shel wrote a lot of famous songs, including “The Unicorn Song,” and “Cover of the Rolling Stone,” as well as countless award-winning kids’s books, including “Where the Sidewalk Ends.” He generously gave of his time and talents to mentor songwriters that made their way to Key West. I personal ly spent an after noon at his house, and I knew I was truly in the presence of greatness.

I recently did a weekend back at Sloppy Joe’s for the 1st time in four years. You can rest assured that the music and fun continue on, as vibrant as ever. can be it’s the gulf breeze. can be it’s the rum runners. Whatever it is, I hope it goes on forever.

Hillbilly music, country, western music or country and western all refer to country music. This type of music is diverse. Most modern country music artistes have developed their styles from earlier singers. Whether it’s a classic or contemporary tune, for the majority who are new to country music it would be c hall enging to understand the disparate styles. A  guide to country music provides comparisons that allow individuals to identify with inimitable performers. individuals can read guides to identify with the disparate instruments that are used to establish the styles and rhythms. Since country music is a type of filled with a lot of skill ed musicians, a number of guides provide details about upcoming musicians. They are authentic and allow listeners to understand and read about their idols.

people who aren’t terribly familiar with country music can need some advocate divergent iating among the types of music. Guides offer information and advocate comprehend the varieties included. This includes pop country that’s perfected by artistes like Shania Twain. Rebel or rock country music includes songs that are performed by free spirited singers. They are ofttimes independent and use bold rhythms. Texas country has produced singers such as Robert Earl Keen and Pat Green. Old country music is thought to be to be slow whereas real old country included yodelling. This was the original folk derivation and continues to be popular.

Guides offer an insight into new developments, artists, functions and country music shows. Guides help offer information regarding country music legends and compare modern artistes. These guides discuss a singer’s drawbacks and unique skill. These guides may be written by enthusiasts or critics and may at times reflect only the writers point of view. It is easy to find a country music  guide Internet or in magazines, journals and reviews.

Simple results to get yourself known for free…
I read an article in a well known magazine the other day and found that they were advising musicians to invest out 100’s in advertising expenses to get themselves known. True.
Is there another way?
Well yes, there is. What  all of us  have useful to us all is the Internet. This amazing medium is so underrated it’s unbelieveable.
The key to getting yourself known is to spread yourself all over the Internet. Pretend that the Internet is a slice of bread, a bagel….hmm…yum.
Sorry, stay with me, you need to follow this one. If you bought some really wonderful spread, costing $100 and you only spread one quarter of the bagel (this expensive food does not go far). Now you’ve only one bite, only one and a random one at that, so you randomly bite into the bagel, more than like ly you’ll have much less opening  of being found than if you spent less resources on a similar spread and used all of it, all over the bagel.
Now this is what happens everytime someone logs onto the Internet. You’ve one shot, you are being targeted roughly by random and too much resources spent in one area is a decidedly bad idea. So what do you do?
Well, the main thing is not to invest any resources if possible. If you’ve music to distribute then do that. Sign up to all the MP3 hosting web sites that you can find, there are so a lot of now on the Internet that they are free and provide some cool incentives ( like unlimited bandwidth, hardrive space and such like ). The more you apply to, the more like ly that you are not going to be missed by anyone.
This technique furthermore reduces the possibility of your paid web site being shut down, having any failures in the future, or being ranked less in the search engines (with so much competition this is a high possibility).
Phase two, make sure that you’ve your own web site. On each paid web site put a link back to your own web site, this then stimulates your PR rate with the search engines and stimulates your link status (roughly: more links in the higher you rate). furthermore you capture free traffic for a lot of years from these web site s.
Make your homepage appealing, provide ing blogs and newsletters, even “guides and DIY articles”. Why? Well once someone comes to your web site and goes away the like lihood of them returning is decidedly low, and then you’ve lost them. This is why the newsletters and blogs are so necessary, they keep the one-time visitor coming back for check-ups to YOUR web site, without them trying to find you again (very unlikly).
One thing that I can never understand when I’m searching through MP3 hosting web sites is “why do people give a range of their work on one page?” All fair and well, and much kudos for doing so, but I think that this is a has been te of Internet real-estate. Your web site ought to be targeted, your name ought to be targeted. I’m into Techno etc, so it’s rare that I will hunt out jazz songs. But this is what I find when I go onto a techno musicians web site. My tip would be to call yourself something varying for each genre that you do. For example : DJ Harsh for your electronic music, Earthly for your New Age music, The Fields for your Country and Western music…you get the idea.
Having a separate name for each of your styles will then target 2-3 (or however a lot of genres you do) times more visitors- a possible 100-200  percent increase in visitor downloads. But again, you would link each web site to each other just in case. You would even make up separate web sites for each genre anyway. Virtually all people in the artist world do this. For example : Les Rythmes Digitales who made “Jacques your body (make me sweat)”- a cool techno song, and Stuart Price are one of the same. Who is Stuart Price? Madonnas new producer under his real name. The KLF, The Doctors in the Tardis, and The Justified Acients of MuMu (no joke) are all one of the same.
Diversify yourself to get yourself known, apply to everywhere that you can and keep on adding amazing music.