Border Wars

Friday night saw a big benefit concert to raise money for the people in New York and New Jersey affected by Hurricane Sandy. Due to the fundraiser's geographical focus, it probably shouldn't surprise you to learn that local boys-made-good such as Bruce Springsteen, Billy Joel and Jon Bon Jovi were the main attractions. Also performing were people like Sting and Mary J. Blige. The show was broadcast on NBC and ended up raising a very healthy total of $23 million for the Red Cross. Now, the concert's focus on musicians from the area made me start to wonder what would happen if a city could only rely on people who had been born there for a concert - which area would have the best line-up? In other words, what area has pumped out the most legendary musicians? Obviously, New York is up there. When you can skip people like Jay-Z and still field a line-up with legends you are doing alright. But while Sting may live in the area now he certainly isn't local. The benefit show also featured Steven Tyler, who clearly should be included on Boston's roster of rock legends. Boston's legacy includes bands like the Boston (obviously), The Cars, The Mighty, Mighty Bosstones and Dropkick Murphys. While I will concede the fact that a couple of those bands are more beloved around here than in other parts of the country, I contend Boston would do just fine.

The problem I came up with while trying to answer this question is what to do about cities such as Los Angeles and Nashville? As you can imagine there are dozens, if not hundreds, of musical acts which trace their roots through those locations, but most of them moved to those cities just to pursue a career in music, so I don't know if they should count for that city or where they were from originally. Alas, the more I thought about this kind of thing the farther away from an answer I got. Much like asking basketball fans to come up with a list of the best player at a specific position, I started to realize everyone would just favor the town they were from. Plus, some places are known for one type of music and that could sway the argument. For example, anyone who is a big jazz fan is going to vote New Orleans or Kansas City while country fans would fight for Nashville or Austin. And what if we open up the competition to include International acts? Obviously London would be in the mix. It's simply too subjective to come up with any type of real answer. All I know is that I'm pretty sure North Dakota is out of the running.