The Sound & Soul of the South

What if your next road trip followed the music? In this episode of The Sound & Soul of the South, we explore Music Roadtrip, a free travel app built for music fans looking to discover the places, people and stories behind the songs. From legendary museums and historic recording sites to record stores, album-cover locations, hidden venues and tonight’s live music, discover how Music Roadtrip is connecting travelers with music history—and helping them find the music being made right now.

Key Topics
  •  The inspiration behind the Music Roadtrip app 
  •  Why music tourism goes far beyond Nashville, Memphis and other established “music cities” 
  •  Finding hidden music landmarks and off-the-beaten-path experiences 
  •  Macon’s Allman Brothers and Otis Redding connections 
  •  Music museums, historic markers, cemeteries and iconic album-cover locations 
  •  Connecting travelers with emerging and local musicians 
  •  Finding both ticketed and free/non-ticketed live music
  •  Using technology, geolocation and Spotify to bring music history to life 
  • The Seeker weekly music-travel newsletter 
  •  Building trips around music festivals and destinations 
  •  Booking tickets and accommodations through the app 
  •  Planning the ultimate Southern music road trip
Chapters
00:13 Meet the Team Behind Music Roadtrip
01:25 Why Music Travelers Needed Their Own App
03:07 Discovering the Music You Never Knew Was There
05:02 Hidden Music History from Tulsa to Macon
08:02 Why Music Fans Want to Stand Where History Happened
10:01 Finding Local Artists & Off-the-Beaten-Path Venues
13:12 The Seeker: A Weekly Guide to Music Travel
16:17 What’s Next for Music Roadtrip
19:04 Finding Live Music Wherever You Are
23:32 Building the Ultimate Southern Music Road Trip

Resources
Music Roadtrip — https://musicroadtrip.com/
The Seeker — https://musicroadtrip.com/ (select “The Seeker”)
DiddyTV — https://www.diddytv.com/

Ready to follow the music? Download the free Music Roadtrip app and turn your next getaway into a journey through the places, stories, landmarks and live sounds that shaped the music you love. Start planning at MusicRoadtrip.com.
★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

Creators and Guests

Producer
Charles Davis

What is The Sound & Soul of the South?

The Sound & Soul of the South spotlights destinations as they share the stories behind their community’s musical roots, legends, attractions, and vibrant live music scenes. Each episode explores how music shapes local identity, culture, and economic impact in destinations throughout the South—appealing to music fans and travelers seeking authentic, music-driven experiences.

Charles Davis:

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Sound and Soul of the South Charles Davis over here, Susan. How are doing, Susie?

Susie Cowan:

Fantastic.

Charles Davis:

Good. Good. Good. Well, we take a lot of musical road trips as we've been going along our journey to the South, but this one is gonna be a little more encompassing with the conversation that you had. Talk a little bit about Susie.

Susie Cowan:

I mean, it is so cool. It is Music Roadtrip app and they have a newsletter called The Seeker. They're just doing great work. They're actually global now. So it is not just about the South, but it has a lot of destinations in the South.

Susie Cowan:

Lots of, so you pull up on the app and you can see whenever you're going somewhere, you can see where they have live music, where they have heritage sites, record stores. Just it's all encompassing and it's absolutely amazing. So it was really fun to learn about. And so, yeah, let's learn more from Amy. So hello, Amy.

Susie Cowan:

I'm so excited to have you here and learn more about Music Roadtrip.

Amy Wright:

Susie, thanks so much for having me. We're very excited about Music Roadtrip and I look forward to like having a conversation here.

Susie Cowan:

Yeah, absolutely. So tell me about the inspiration. Let's, let's go back to the beginning. What started all this for you?

Amy Wright:

So we also own DiddyTV, which is a music television network focused on Americana music. So we've been in the music business for quite a while. Also the technology side of things. We are musicians ourselves, for fun, and we're those kinds of people that when we travel, we look for shows, we look for music museums, anything sort of musical. And we just, found that there wasn't a definitive sort of comprehensive resource that was available to music travelers and music fans.

Amy Wright:

We thought for sure there had to be. And there just wasn't. There's so many apps out there. Right? Right.

Amy Wright:

We thought for sure there was a travel app that, that, that was focused on music, but there wasn't. And we thought about it for a while and we decided that we were gonna, we were gonna create one, for ourselves. And then it became a much bigger thing. When did you first create it? So we, launched it earlier this year in, early February, but we spent, probably six to twelve months before that in the concept and development phase of the app.

Amy Wright:

And we've been super excited about the reception. Lots of fans that are downloading it. It's a free app. It's very easy to use, very intuitive, and it geotags to your phone. So, you travel, you can actually, easily find these music destinations or live music events, or in your own hometown.

Susie Cowan:

That's so amazing. So have you got to go on any of these road trips?

Amy Wright:

Oh yes. Well, we almost every road trip that we go on is somewhat of a music road trip. And actually we do a lot of research on these destinations. It's highly curated. And one of the things we're finding ourselves is things we didn't know about.

Amy Wright:

You're going to Charlotte, North Carolina, and you know, there's a punk club there that you weren't aware of. And that's amazing. It's big partner of ours and Memphis has so many outstanding places that tourists wouldn't necessarily know about. And that's one of the beauties of the app. One of the things that we find is there are cities like Nashville and Memphis and Detroit, Austin, Chicago, places that consider themselves music cities, largely do the history of music there.

Amy Wright:

But when we talk to cities, we try to talk to them about the fact that every city has music. Every area has music. It doesn't have to be this long past with musical history, but you have venues, and you have, children learning instruments, and, record stores, and, instrument stores, and, you know, just all kinds of music going on in parks and other areas. And so, think that's been kind of eye opening for a lot of the folks we talk to, is that there is music everywhere. And if you have music fans, and they come to your area as a destination, then, that's what they're looking for.

Amy Wright:

And we're just finding, providing an easier way for them to find those spots.

Susie Cowan:

What's been like one of the most fun things you've learned that most people wouldn't know about, as far as like a destination or a music place to go?

Amy Wright:

So, a lot of people know about Oklahoma and they've heard of Tulsa, Oklahoma, but, there is a lot there that is not just the music. There's Route 66, but there's the Bob Dylan Center and the Woody Guthrie Center that a lot of folks wouldn't know are there. There's actually an instrument museum in Phoenix that I find fascinating. I think that's just something that people should take advantage of. There are just so many places that are behind the scenes.

Amy Wright:

Oh, you know, I don't know if you're a, Allman Brothers fan, but, the Allman Brothers recorded a lot and wrote a lot of their music in Macon, Georgia. And there is the big house there that they all lived in when they were young and writing the music for one of their first albums. And that's a great fun place to visit. And while you're there, oh, by the way, Otis Redding was from Macon, Georgia as well, which I wasn't aware of. And his daughter has, she discovered a box of his things.

Amy Wright:

He died so young. He was in his mid twenties that his, his wife at the time put everything in boxes and put it in an attic. And his daughter discovered this, many, many, many years later and, unboxed it and made a little museum out of it in Macon, Georgia. And that's something not to miss. It's very small, but it's great to see these beautiful old items that are now on display.

Amy Wright:

So these are the types of things that you can discover in the app. It's not really just about live music. That's in there too. There is a live music feed, you can find the ticketed events and the non ticketed events very easily in the app. But it's all of the other cultural things, I think, and the smaller, record stores and, historical markers, grave sites.

Amy Wright:

We even cover where iconic album covers were photographed, for example. Yeah. These are the types of things that music fans really love and enjoy. And when you open up the app and you look on the map and you I've had more than one person say to me, gosh, I didn't know this was right there. Yeah.

Amy Wright:

You know, Central Park in New York City has an amazing number of album covers that were photographed there, probably due to the large number of studios and artists that lived there and they were recording there. Yeah. So they happened to, also, shoot the album covers as well, but that's a really fun, scavenger hunt to go on is all over New York City, discovering all these album covers.

Susie Cowan:

That is fun. So I guess you went to the

Amy Wright:

Rosehill Cemetery when you were here in Macon. Oh yes. Yes. Absolutely.

Susie Cowan:

I said Arkansas because that's where I was previously currently in Macon. So when you said album cover, it made me think of Rosehill.

Amy Wright:

Oh yes. Well, no, I went there and I took a picture of myself in that same spot, which is what I think a lot of music fans do. Yes. It's, it's really, inspiring to go to that cemetery and you see that all of those artists, chose to come back to Macon. They weren't from there originally.

Amy Wright:

And that's where they chose to be buried because it was such a big part of their life. Yeah. Richard Brent from The Big House, we had him on one of

Susie Cowan:

our other podcasts, Ripple Makers, and he said, you know, Macon was on all the road cases. Like this is, Macon is where they considered home. So that is a very sweet, sentiment there. But yes, so you're right about music fans wanting to, just get a glimpse of what inspired the musicians and the world that they were in. Just previously we had the boyhood home of Johnny Cash on here, and I don't know if you've had a chance to visit there, but, we talked a lot about how they were so intentional about how his sister, Johnny's sister helped find the exact decorations, the house of how they were decorated, how it was decorated when they were young and how just amazing it is to stand in the space, and just be surrounded by what our, our mentors, our icons, our, the, you know, the musicians that we look up to so much, what, what kind of world they lived in and, and what kinds of things inspired them.

Susie Cowan:

So I love this so much. So you talked about that there is heritage on there. There's heritage sites, museums, even music stores and record stores. What other kinds

Amy Wright:

of things can we find on the app? So, think it's really interesting. So, one of the things that we're really proud of is that there's a lot of really amazing up and coming musicians in all genres of, music. And the app really connects fans to those artists as well. So, you have all of the iconic places that people know about in a lot of towns.

Amy Wright:

And then you have the hidden gems that, if as a tourist, if you go to Memphis, let's take Memphis as an example, and you know of Bill Street and you're staying downtown and you say, okay, I'm going to go to Bill Street and that's your musical experience. The local artists aren't necessarily playing there. They might be, but there's all these other places around town that host a lot of these local artists that are making their way up the food chain, so to speak. And I think that a lot of, music tourists are hungry for some of the off the beaten track places. And this is just pointing out to you that only ten minutes from downtown are other places to go.

Amy Wright:

And these artists are very excited about the fact that this app is pointing people towards a lot of these up and coming musicians. And in Memphis, for example, there is the Memphis listening lab and that's a really amazing experience, at Sears Crosstown, which is a really big project that was, um- So cool. It's a very cool place. And they have music studios there, They have venues there, and then they have the listening lab. And that's something I always say to people, Hey, get in your Uber and Uber over there because it's worth the ten minute ride, you know, and to cover these things.

Amy Wright:

Or go to Stax Records. Stax is not downtown. Those are the types of things that people can discover. And sort of like back to Megan, where you are, there's also historical markers in the app. And, these are the places that aren't necessarily there anymore.

Amy Wright:

There's a marker. But one of the things that we're doing in the app is we're including where we can, and over time we're building this out, historical photos that show you what was there. So if you see a marker and it says muddy waters, childhood home was here, but there's nothing there anymore. Yeah. If there was a photograph of it that we can use, then you can stand there and see what used to be there, what that looked like.

Amy Wright:

And then we're doing some integrations with Spotify, for example. And right there, can listen directly to, the top tracks of that artist. So you're seeing Muddy Waters Childhood Home in the app. Now you're also listening to his music and all of a sudden historical marker comes alive and it's no longer just a marker. It's a really cool place to visit discover what was Very cool.

Susie Cowan:

And I know that we've talked previously about the Seeker. Tell me

Amy Wright:

more about the Seeker. Okay. The Seeker is a very exciting addition to, the Music Roadtrip platform and ecosystem because we feel like, it's, it's one thing for music fans just to travel and discover, but telling them in advance what is in all these places has been really a lot of fun. And so, The Seeker comes out once a week. You can sign up to receive it.

Amy Wright:

It's a free music travel e newsletter. And we feature different areas of the country, and now we are a global app, and I'll get to that in a second. So, will be features about other countries as well, but certainly cities within The US, and we go through some of the places we suggest that you can go, whether they're venues or a festival or a record store, we think that you should check out, anything musical. And then we have a list of about another 10 things that you can do when you're there, including some bars and restaurants that we can suggest and real sort of travel planning information. And then at the very bottom of each newsletter, we include a playlist that actually, includes from Spotify, that includes music from historical artists from that area, paired with new artists from that area so that, we're hoping to help these artists connect with new fans.

Amy Wright:

But it certainly shows the history of the type of music that was in that area. And then also that new music is coming out of those areas as well. And then once a month, we have a festival feature of the, edition of the, newsletter. And we talk about festivals that are upcoming in the following month to give people time to travel there, learn about them. But we cover the entire country.

Amy Wright:

We cover all genres of music. So if you are a jazz fan and you wanna go to jazz festivals, that's in the app. And you can search all those things in the app. And The Seeker, we have really found, people to, to say they're really enjoying finding out about all these other areas of the country they weren't aware of, and discovering new destinations to check out. And we're also getting feedback that they're planning vacations around some of the issues of the Seeker, which is very exciting.

Amy Wright:

That's exactly what we want to happen.

Susie Cowan:

That's fantastic. And you said they can sign up for the Seeker. Where, where can they sign up at?

Amy Wright:

So if you go to musicroadtrip.com, our website, and click on the seeker, you'll see the past editions and you scroll to the bottom and put your email address in and subscribe to the newsletter. Super easy and it's free. You can also subscribe to it from within the app. So, download the app. The app is also free.

Amy Wright:

And just sign up from within the app. And then you'll get it sent to you once a week.

Susie Cowan:

That's fantastic. And I mean, it's really well done newsletter. I learned a few things that I had no idea about and I love that. So what's the future look like for Music Roadtrip?

Amy Wright:

The future looks, very exciting. So like I mentioned, we are now a global app and we're in 180 different countries to use and also to download, in the Apple or Android, stores, you know, the app stores there. So we're also seeing a lot of adoption from other countries, but I think that's going to be a, a fun expansion for us outside of The U S and you're going to London, who doesn't want to check out the Beatles and Bowie and, you know, all these different artists that came from there. Or, you know, you're going to Australia or South America or Tokyo, and you want Tokyo. Tokyo is known for a lot of really cool vinyl bars.

Amy Wright:

So that would be something that you could take advantage of when you're there. So that's an exciting part of our future. The, app itself, the new version is coming out relatively soon, even though we're only six months into this. This is technology. We're constantly developing and redeveloping.

Amy Wright:

And one of the features of the new version that we'll be rolling out is, tours and games and gamification, and using your phone, for example, and pointing your phone at a location and up pops trivia about that spot, or other games like scavenger hunts eventually, integrating with say Google glasses, some of the, technology that will be very interesting for folks who are very into games. And then also, crowdsourcing. So we want folks to download the app and then tell us about those places that are off the beaten track. Great. For example, you know, you're driving across Arizona and you stop in Bisbee, Arizona.

Amy Wright:

If you haven't been there, a very, very cool town. If there's a place there that has live music and it's not in the app, then we hope that people stop and, you know, send that to us, and we'll curate it and then add it to the app. So there's going to be crowdsourcing. There's also going to be a user community because we're, really interested in having music fans connect with other music fans and creating their own communities of, of fan groups. So it will be a comprehensive ecosystem for music fans and music travelers and make it super easy to find all of these events.

Amy Wright:

And one of the harder things for cities to solve is their music events calendar. Yep. So one of the things that we're doing for our music certified city partners is we are maintaining that, ticketed and non ticketed events calendar for them as a That's huge. Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Wright:

So when you hit the there's a little icon that looks like a ticket in the app at the bottom. And when you click on that, it's geo tagging to your phone. It's bringing up all of the live music events that are close to you, but also over the next week. It tells you, where, you know, within 15 miles of your phone, the, live music that you can take advantage of. You can change those parameters to be a 100 miles out or one mile out so that you're in control of that.

Amy Wright:

But you want those non ticketed events to show up in that feed as well as the ticketed events. So if you're traveling or in your own hometown, and really you just want a burger and a singer songwriter night, then you want those options to come up as well.

Susie Cowan:

That's a huge value to the traveler and to the city. How do you, how do you find all these destinations and how do you find all this stuff?

Amy Wright:

What you're going to find is a highly curated experience. But we, we draw from a variety of data sources, not just the web. You know, there's all kinds of other, ways for us to find these destinations and then with partners. And we work with the cities themselves to help identify some of those places because sometimes we don't know everything. And we certainly also rely on people who are using the app.

Amy Wright:

The users themselves send us locations on a regular basis. Hey, you're missing this, really cool restaurant that has live music and dancing every Friday and Saturday night in the middle of Mississippi somewhere. And that's great. Cause you know what, if you're, if you happen to be traveling there, you would never have known about that.

Susie Cowan:

That's right. Yeah. The first thing I always say is where can we find the local music? And so now we know you go

Amy Wright:

to the Music Roadtrip app. Well, and then a couple of other things you can buy the tickets directly from within the app. Okay. You can book your accommodation directly from within the app. So say that you pull up a music event in San Francisco or a record store in San Francisco, and you want to stay somewhere near there, you scroll to the bottom of the profile page for that particular event or destination, and at the bottom there's a book accommodation button that you can press that automatically populates the address from the destination or music event that you're interested in attending.

Amy Wright:

And then it brings up options that are close to that destination or venue, automatically through like Expedia and Airbnb and VRBO. There's kind of an interesting, sidebar there, which is that I know a lot of people complain about third party resellers that we've all been sort of tricked into paying more for tickets sometimes than than we want to to, suspend. So within our app, you're only gonna have, direct access to the ticketing platforms themselves. You won't see any third party resellers in the app. And so that just gives people the confidence level that what they're purchasing is direct from that venue or, or that, ticketing platform.

Amy Wright:

So we listen to you guys because the music fans are the, the folks that actually drive this app. We get feedback, and people have given us some really great ideas to include in the app. Hey. Would it be great if you just put this in there? Right?

Susie Cowan:

Yeah.

Amy Wright:

And so we're always listening and welcome to any new ideas that people have or functionality that would make it a better experience for them.

Susie Cowan:

Yeah. Well, you're doing a great job and thank you so much for sharing this information with us. I always say we're sound and soul of the South and Tulsa. Right.

Amy Wright:

Right. So, but if it's kind of Southern adjacent,

Susie Cowan:

it's, you know, we're going to claim them or the music's So too good. We're going to claim if you could go on the perfect road, music road trip in the South, what would that look like?

Amy Wright:

You know, I think, that's an interesting question. And I get asked that a lot of other folks that are coming to visit and they ask what I would recommend to them. And, I want to include Kentucky here because as there's some great music in Kentucky. But I would say, perhaps, fly into New Orleans and, you know, kind of start there and then, you know, wind your way through Mississippi. And there's some great, there's for example, the BB King museum in Itta Bena, Mississippi.

Amy Wright:

And you can check that out on the way to, Memphis. And then, and then maybe up to Nashville, from Memphis. And then I would say down to, Muscle Shoals and over to Tamaican.

Susie Cowan:

Yes. For Yonge.

Amy Wright:

Yes, right. But then if you, if you have time, you know, from, from Nashville, maybe head north to Kentucky. They've got some incredible music there as well. But that's a really nice route because you kind of go up and over and then down and over and get to see some of the rural South, but also some of the bigger cities. And it's, it's really very fascinating that all of these music genres came out of this area.

Amy Wright:

You think of blues music, you think of jazz. Even, you know, bluegrass was more towards the Eastern side and country music, but in a very small amount of space. A lot of these very large genres of music that we hold dear today, started there. That's And, it kind of went from there, but, hip hop and rap, you know, right out of, that area too. And then of course everything spread towards Chicago and Detroit and went north, and out west.

Amy Wright:

But, but yeah, there's so much great history in the South and it's a great, easy road trip, from, kind of New Orleans up and over. Absolutely.

Susie Cowan:

That sounds like a dream road trip to me. So let's talk about your website one more time. It's musicroadtrip.com.

Amy Wright:

The musicroadtrip.com is where you can find out information about the app. Yes. Download the app the app or in Apple iOS or Android, and it's free. And then you can start immediately playing with this, the app, use it in your own hometown to discover, live music events and, and other destinations that you're not aware of in your own hometown, and then use it on the road when you're traveling. Use it to connect with other fans.

Amy Wright:

We're hoping that, that, you know, people really have fun with us and, and, connect with other folks that love music as well. Discover some new things. This is so great. Thank you so much. Thank you

Susie Cowan:

for coming on the podcast. Thank you for building the app. You just added so much quality to my life and my future road trips. I just can't wait. And The Seeker, sign up to get a subscription to The Seeker.

Susie Cowan:

Yes,

Amy Wright:

definitely sign up for The Seeker and also check out past editions of The Seeker on the, on the, website. You can check out some of the places we've already covered and then discover some new things as well. And Susie, thank you so much for having me. Was really a lot of fun. It was great talking with you and connecting and, and we'll keep the conversation going.

Charles Davis:

So that concludes another episode of Sound and Soul of the South. We wanna thank Amy with Music Roadtrip app and just for all of the information. That is something that I think should just be adding to anybody's phone if you're on the road and you are a fan of any kind of music, and my personal opinion with that. So great conversation once again, great phenomenal, phenomenal.

Susie Cowan:

It was fun.

Charles Davis:

Yeah, no, no, you can definitely tell it was that. And so you all download the app, get all of those things. Also, make sure you're following us and streaming, the show at streamthecreek.com. And as always, for Sound and Soul of the South, I am Charles Davis. She is Miss Susie Callum.

Charles Davis:

Until next time. Y'all be safe.

Susie Cowan:

This Sound and Soul of the South is in partnership with Music Roadtrip. Check out at musicroadtrip.app on social media or their website musicroadtrip.com. The Sound and Soul of the South is a podcast by Creek Media hosted by Charles Davis and Susie Cowan. This show is produced and edited by Charles Davis. Follow us on social media at Stream the Creek.

Susie Cowan:

Engage with us. Like, subscribe, share with a friend. Be sure to stream this and more podcasts you may love at streamthecreek.com.