Songs of San Antonio

Walking through the streets of San Antonio, I found it remarkable that on every corner and venue the scene was energized by the sound of music. Musicians, vocalist and entertainers seemed to overflow into every inhabited pocket of this metropolis of nearly 1.5 million. Music, with its eclectic ability to inspire and sedate, to energize and lull colored every turn of my journeys through San Antonio’s historic byways.

I was first greeted with this experience upon entering my hotel in which the lobby and common areas where electrified with festive melodies of the Latin variety, not the prepackaged jazz synonymous with American hotel lobbies and elevators. My evenings in San Antonio ushered me through a smorgasbord of restaurants, pubs, martini lounges and even a gospel revival service, each new environment offering up to me its own slice of musical variety. Many of the restaurants employed table roving musicians who serenaded guest, the British pub was home to a ‘Best of the 80s-90s’ live band, and the lounges seem to prefer live brass and strings nestled in a dimly lit corner. To my good fortune the gifted notes weren’t contained to service environments but spilled into the streets, treaded the famous waterways, and wafted through the dry Texas air. Street performers and ambitious panhandlers, infected with the city’s melodious spirit, engineered mobile sudo-orchestras, roused dreary inner city bus stops with the sound of spoons and harmonica and even bagpiped on the corner of Commerce Street.

Music has always been a powerful force rocking the cradle of humanity. Men and women rise and fall to the melody of lyrics and tunes and a city like this one cultivates this essential art to the betterment of everyone. San Antonians have a voracious appetite for the musical arts and its set their city ablaze with commerce, culture, tourism and pride.