An Excellent New Read: "A Brief History Of Why Artists Are No Longer Making A Living..."

^^^ what geoff was saying, that is

@orpheus10 

Thanks for the arrogant history lesson that nobody wanted or asked for.

You're quite welcome Ivan.

Offhand, the only city in that video that played a significant role in the pop music scene was Detroit. Motown moved to the West Coast by 1972 and in its wake were a lot of seasoned players left without work. One of them, Wendell Harrison, formed Tribe Records, which tapped into a vein of so-called "spiritual jazz"- a mix of post bop/modal jazz that mixed soul and funk. Wendell is alive and well, and that scene is still thriving. The Grande Ballroom, a major venue for hard rock, closed in the early ’70s.
Other cities, like Pittsburgh, had a notable local jazz scene, but that was true of many US cities. Jazz started a decline by the ’70s as a form of popular music. Detroit, Pittsburgh and Cleveland had great symphonies, but I don’t attribute the decline in classical music to the economy, then or now. The audience has aged out and sadly, there is little interest among younger generations. Almost all of those cities, and many more, had local rock bands that typically moved to NY or LA at the time to get a break. That’s changed, since the industry changed. Blame it on Pro Tools.
Youngstown was famous for studio wrestling. I don’t know why that isn’t popular any more.

@n80 - I mean, my great aunt and uncle were the founders of Angel Records, and the latter was the Chair of the Met. They spearheaded classical recording, classical fidelity, and identification of and signing of classical artists. This was, of course, in that "golden age" the author mentioned - the 40's-60's, when there WAS no other rival for consumer audio: no Xbox; no Youtube; no cable or satellite; no Netflix.