Music of Maryland - Popular Music

Popular Music

Maryland has produced popular musicians from many fields, including doo wop and hardcore punk, as well as the gangsta rap of Tupac Shakur, the contemporary R&B of Toni Braxton and the pop of Cass Elliott. Though doo wop can be traced to many urban areas across the United States, especially New York City, Sonny Til's 1946 band called The Vibranaires, later known as The Orioles, can be considered the first doo wop group. The genre-crossing Frank Zappa was also from Maryland, as was Tupac Shakur, who was born in Harlem, though he began his career in Baltimore, eventually becoming one of the most famous rappers in hip hop history. Maryland has also produced many renowned jazz musicians, such as Eubie Blake, Elmer Snowden and Billie Holiday. The Urbanite magazine describes Baltimore jazz as variously a wildly varying array of styles or a "hard bop town, where R&B, gospel and bebop meet"; during the middle of the 20th century, Baltimore produced a vibrant local jazz tradition characterized by the use of the B3 organ. Many modern Baltimorean jazz musicians are renowned saxophonists, including Gary Thomas, Gary Bartz and the Afro-Caribbean influenced TK Blue. Internationally acclaimed jazz ensemble Fertile Ground lead by Baltimore native James H. Collins Jr. are also based in Baltimore. Famed Talking Heads lead singer David Byrne lived in Baltimore. Jimmie's Chicken Shack, Good Charlotte, All Time Low, and O.A.R. are other popular American rock bands with strong ties to Maryland.

Mama Cass Elliot of The Mamas & the Papas was from Maryland, and began her singing career there. Another Maryland band similar to the Mamas and Papas, the Peppermint Rainbow, was discovered by Mama Cass and had a top forty hit with the song "Will you be staying after Sunday". Maryland-based band The Ravyns are also notable for having their song "Raised on the Radio" appear on the soundtrack to Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The Dundalk-based Chorus of the Chesapeake won international championships in 1961 and 1971.

Baltimore's hardcore punk scene has been overshadowed by DC's, but included locally renowned bands like Law & Order, Bollocks, OTR, and Fear of God; many of these bands played at bars like the Marble Bar, Terminal 406 and the illegal space Jule's Loft, which author Steven Blush described as the "apex of the Baltimore (hardcore) scene" in 1983 and 1984. The 1980s also saw the development of a local New Wave scene led by the bands Ebeneezer & the Bludgeons, Null Set, and Here Today (later Vigil (band)). Later in the decade, emo bands like Reptile House and Grey March had some success and recorded with Ian MacKaye in DC. Some early Baltimore punk musicians moved onto other local bands by the end of the 1990s, resulting in local mainstays Lungfish and Fascist Fascist, who became regionally prominent. The Urbanite magazine has identified several major trends in local Baltimorean music, including the rise of psychedelic-folk singer-songwriters like Entrance and the house/hip hop dance fusion called Baltimore club, pioneered by DJs like Rod Lee. More recently, Baltimore's indie rock scene has produced performers like Slot Racer, Cass McCombs and Mary Prankster.

Maryland has had a thriving doom metal scene since the early 90s, and is now considered to have its own "Maryland doom" sound. This scene was started in the late 70s with The Obsessed, a band led by Scott "Wino" Weinrich. During this time, Northern Virginia's Pentagram also had a heavy influence on the Maryland scene. After disbanding The Obsessed in the mid 80s and moving to California to sing with doom legends Saint Vitus, Wino reformed The Obsessed and signed to the German based Hellhound Records. With The Obsessed on board, Hellhound began to sign other Maryland bands, such as Wretched, Iron Man, Unorthodox, Internal Void, and Revelation (who already had an album on Rise Above Records). After Hellhound's demise in the late 90s, many Maryland doom bands were picked up by various other labels, including Southern Lord Records. After The Obsessed second break up, Wino formed Spirit Caravan and The Hidden Hand. Both have been very successful in the doom genre. Other current Maryland doom bands include Earthride, Nitroseed, and Black Manta.

80's metal band, Kix are from Hagerstown. Death metal band Dying Fetus are from Upper Marlboro. Heavy Metal band Incision are from Maryland. Progressive metal band Periphery are from Bethesda.

The annual Maryland Deathfest has become a popular festival for extreme music.

Maryland has a thriving experimental music scene, based around Baltimore. The local scene is led by artists and groups such as Dan Deacon, Double Dagger and North Carolina imports Future Islands. Famed group Animal Collective had their beginnings in the suburbs surrounding Baltimore, and named their breakout 2009 album Merriweather Post Pavilion after the famed Pavilion in Columbia.