Amarillo holds ceremony to receive its music friendly designation

Leaders of the Amarillo arts community, visitor’s bureau and Amarillo Mayor Cole Stanley were on hand Monday at Arts in the Sunset as the Texas Music Office officially presented the city of Amarillo with its “Music Friendly Texas Certified Community” designation.

The state program started in 2016 was created to spur music business-related economic growth to create jobs and cohesion in the Texas music industry. Amarillo became the 52nd city in the program, joining Dalhart as the only city in the Texas Panhandle with the designation. South Padre Island was announced as the 53rd city in the program Nov. 9.

As Stanley approached the lectern to address the audience on the certification, he placed a sticker on it stating the music-friendly community.

“As we are the Yellow Rose of Texas, we are also now designated as a music-friendly city,” Stanley said. “There is so much talent here in our community, so many fantastic artists, so many entrepreneurs, so many people that are not afraid to put themselves out there that this is very fitting for us to have this designation.”

Stanley said that it’s a great compliment to receive an honor like this from the state.

“A designation like this is always a hoorah,” Stanley said. “It’s super cool to be honored this way from the governor’s office. It accentuates that in Amarillo, we truly do have a very eclectic population full of artists and all different genres of music coming out here.”

One of the artists that has gotten much praise from promoters and fans alike in Amarillo is Jonathan Guidi of Touching Voodoo, who has been a staple of the local music scene playing in venues across the city. In attendance at the event, Guidi said that this will be a great benefit for artists like himself.

Chip Adams, the community relations and outreach specialist for the Texas Music Office, opined on the rich history of Amarillo music and the importance of the designation for the cities named as such.

“With the musical history of this town, with the musicians that have come through here and from here, Amarillo has always been on my personal music map,” Adams said. "So, for me, just having this music-friendly certification can help elevate the city to spread the message even greater.”

Adams said that this program connects these cities with the music-friendly designation to have them learn from each other and establish best practices and share information that improves tours and other music-related business.

“Welcoming Amarillo into this network is a huge win for the city,” Adams added.

Camille Day-Nies, the chair of the Music Friendly City Amarillo Board, said that the road to the designation had been a few years in the making and credited Sherman Bass along with Kashion Smith for being two of the biggest driving forces in having the designation come to fruition.

"We are hoping that this helps to spotlight what we all know we have here with the great variety of different artists, venues, and culture where we bring these things together so well," Day-Nies said. "We are hoping to bring that to the forefront so the things we hold dear are not taken for granted.”

Day-Nies believes that the designation will help the city coordinate with other cities so that they will all be resources to each other to make all of the city's music scenes thrive.

Smith, the executive director of the Amarillo Convention and Visitors Bureau, expressed that this was a project that her office had been talking about since 2018.

“We have put a lot of thought into it, but really the effort did not come about until this last year,” Smith said. “We have great partners throughout the city that really wanted this to happen. This means a lot of different things for the city. For our office, it means branding and storytelling a cohesive message about the music in Amarillo to send out to visitors. For the musicians, I think it means community and means a way they can come together and celebrate their art and know that they are recognized for their contributions. This brings all these stories together under one mission.”

Bass, the Amarillo Film Commissioner and head of the music program for the Amarillo Visitors Bureau, spoke about his group's efforts to get the music designation.

“We have had great volunteers behind the scenes making this happen,” Bass said. “We were fully staffed for the first time since pre-COVID, so we really concentrated on making this happen. We have always been music-friendly in our community with lots of great collaboration with musicians and organizations, so now this means the state recognizes it.”

Bass said that this will only help the musicians and the music community to be able to benefit from the collaborations that will result from the designation and networking.

This article originally appeared on Amarillo Globe-News: Amarillo Texas music friendly status celebrated at ceremony