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Chattanooga boasts plenty of options when it comes to finding live music

AP Photo by Ron Harris / The Caverns in Pelham, Tennessee, is home to the Emmy Award-winning PBS series, "Bluegrass Underground," and is a subterranean venue that lies in an ancient cove with bats, salamanders and no cell phone service.
AP Photo by Ron Harris / The Caverns in Pelham, Tennessee, is home to the Emmy Award-winning PBS series, "Bluegrass Underground," and is a subterranean venue that lies in an ancient cove with bats, salamanders and no cell phone service. AP Photo by Ron Harris / The Caverns in Pelham, Tennessee, is home to the Emmy Award-winning PBS series, "Bluegrass Underground," and is a subterranean venue that lies in an ancient cove with bats, salamanders and no cell phone service.

By Barry Courter 3 min read

Whether you like your live music served up in a smoky bar, on the patio of a nice restaurant or inside a cavern, the Chattanooga area has long been blessed with a vibrant music scene, with plenty of options when it comes to not only artists, but places to find it.

I’m not saying we can compare with places like New Orleans or Nashville when it comes to huge names, but we get our share for a city our size. No, what I’m talking about is the number of options we have when it comes to finding good music in creative spaces.

The Tivoli, Memorial Auditorium and the Walker Theatre are the city’s premiere larger, traditional venues, and that should get even better with the completion of the renovated Tivoli Center in the next year or so. (We’ll have more on that in a future issue.)

We also have downtown bars like JJ’s Bohemia, of course, that have bands play there regularly. Unfortunately, we did lose one of the oldest venues for live bands last month when Ziggy’s and its venue, Music Box, closed.

But then there are such multi-purpose venues as Barking Legs Theater and the Songbirds Foundation that regularly feature live music in addition to classes, workshops and other art performances.