Rolling Stone

The heart of music in Memphis — and, arguably, of Delta Blues, jazz, R&B and gospel as we know it — was born along this three-block strip downtown. But its significance as an entertainment district stretches all the way back to the 1860s, when the street (once known as Beale Avenue) became a popular pit stop for musicians, traders and merchants. For blues fans, however, W.C. Handy, now revered as the Father of the Blues, crafted the genre's definitive statements in the early 1900s thanks to singles like "Blues on Beale Street" and "Memphis Blues." Even today, his legend looms large: the W.C. Handy Memphis Home and Museum is a shrine to his one-time living space (it was relocated to Beale in the Eighties) while a statue showing Handy holding a trumpet presides at 140 Beale.

Blues continued to flourish along the strip long after Handy. Throughout the Twenties and into the Fifties, Muddy Waters, Louis Armstrong, Rufus Thomas and others all performed in its down-home clubs. And Sam Phillips' Sun Records in the city ignited the careers of Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash. Even B.B. King was dubbed the Beale Street Blues Boy as he made his musical ascent, and Elvis Presley picked up moves watching artists at the Ellis Auditorium.

Perhaps more so than any other area in the country, Beale Street has been recognized for its contribution to music history. It was named a National Historic Landmark in 1966 and, in 1977 Congress issued a declaration naming the street Home of the Blues. But economic downturn during the Seventies turned the area into a wasteland, and as the city has bounced back, so has its vibrant nightlife. Rum Boogie Café, which opened in 1985, hosts live music daily and serves up BBQ and lethal rum concoctions. B.B. King's Blues Club is the original location of the widespread chain and showcases regular gigs by B.B. King's Blues Club All-Star Band. And the New Daisy Theatre has hosted everyone Nirvana to Bob Dylan.

There are still nods to the street's long history, though. The A. Schawb dry goods store, established in 1876, is Beale's last-remaining original business and still sells food and souvenirs.

Artists & Locations of Memphis

Elvis Presley

Born in Tupelo and raised in Memphis, the legend turned pop music on its head with a shake of his legendary hips.

Johnny Cash

The Man in Black worked as an appliance seller in Memphis before getting up the courage to audition for Sam Phillips at Sun Records.

B.B. King

Before he became a blues legend — and the namesake of Beale's popular club — the guitarist worked as a disc jockey at Memphis' WDIA radio station.

The New Daisy Theatre

The venue hosts national touring acts — and is also the site where Bob Dylan filmed music videos for his album Time Out of Mind in 1997.

The Beale Street Brass Note Walk of Fame

The strip honors hometown and blues legends like B.B. King, Ma Rainey, Justin Timberlake and Elvis.

W.C. Handy Memphis Home and Museum

Tour the humble abode of the man who cemented Memphis as one of the definitive blues scenes.

Bob Dylan definitely wouldn't recognize the Bleecker Street of today, but back in the '60s, the strip in New York's West Village (often dubbed "the Left Bank of America") served as the birthplace of the folk scene. Smoke-filled dive bars and coffee shops offered intimate spaces for Dylan and Joan Baez to find their voices — not to mention jazz legends like Miles Davis and John Coltrane.

It may not seem easy to locate relics of Bleecker's hey-day, but clues to the street's storied past remain. Le Poisson Rouge — a gorgeous multi-level space that hosts buzzy indie-rock acts and other performance artists — was once the home of the Village Gate, a venue where Billie Holiday, Duke Ellington and Nina Simone performed, plus comic greats like John Belushi and Chevy Chase. (Fun fact: Bob Dylan wrote "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall" in the basement apartment of Chip Monck, who was the Village Gate's lighting engineer.) And Cafe Wha?, a subterranean joint around the corner on Macdougal Street, now hosts mostly nostalgic cover bands, but it served as the training ground for Dylan, Jimi Hendrix and Bruce Springsteen, who played afternoon sets with his band the Castiles for two months in 1967. (Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary, was actually once a server there.)

After folk music's peak in the '60s, Bleecker Street's venues were still vital: Legend has it Bob Dylan started his Rolling Thunder Revue at the Bitter End. And throughout the Seventies and Eighties, Patti Smith, Billy Joel, Hall & Oates — plus comics like Lilly Tomlin and Bill Cosby — electrified audiences in the intimate 230-capacity space. Music fans shouldn't neglect Bleecker's far-eastern end, too: the street's nexus at the Bowery hits square upon CBGBs, the legendary venue that served as the birthplace of New York City punk and New Wave bands like the Ramones, Blondie, Television and Talking Heads.

Artists & Locations of New York City

Bob Dylan

Rock & roll and New York City would never be the same once Dylan arrived in the area in 1961, performing his first gig (a set of Woody Guthrie covers) at Bleecker's Cafe Wha?.

Joan Baez

The singer-songwriter dubbed the "Queen of Folk" met and fell and in love with Dylan in the Sixties while performing around Bleecker Streets clubs.

The Ramones

They hailed from Queens, but they became kings of punk performing at Hilly Kristal's now-defunct CBGBs, located at the end of Bleecker Street.

Le Poisson Rouge

Forget Brooklyn; the buzziest indie bands make a pit stop at this "multimedia art cabaret," once the home of the iconic Village Gate venue.

Cafe Wha?

Dylan, Hendrix and Springsteen all got their start at this cozy basement venue — and Van Halen performed there in 2012, their first show with David Lee Roth since firing him in 1985.

The Bitter End

Jackson Browne, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell and even Taylor Swift have performed at this nightclub, which earned its reputation for its open-mic "hootenannies" (attended by Dylan) when it opened its doors in 1961.

Patchouli, protests and pot: No region of the United States captured the hippie culture of the late Sixties like San Francisco. And the center of one of rock & roll's most vital eras — not to mention a groundswell of anti-Vietnam War protests — happened right along the hilly Haight-Ashbury district, once dubbed "Hashbury" by Rolling Stone's own Hunter S. Thompson.

But while most identify the corridor's countercultural peak with the free-love era, the seeds of Haight-Ashbury's liberal bent were sown in the mid-Fifties thanks to beat poets like Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, who owned and operated the still-standing City Lights Bookstore downtown. Still, it was rock & roll that electrified the area and the Grateful Dead's unofficial headquarters at 710A Ashbury St. served as ground zero. For about three years, members of the band and its entourage lived in the Queen Anne-style home, which, according to legend, was bankrolled by the notorious LSD manufacturer Owsley Stanley and served as a flophouse for beat icons like Neal Cassidy.

Other legends roamed the nearby streets, too. Janis Joplin inhabited a home at the corner of Lyon and Oak, a few doors down from where Jimi Hendrix once crashed and where Patty Hearst was famously held prisoner by the Symbionese Liberation Army. Today, Haight-Ashbury still has a strong hippie vibe, despite soaring real estate prices. Cafes, record shops and bookstores, yoga studios and head shops line the streets. Most notable: the sprawling Amoeba Records — a must visit for even the most causal music head — and the Red Victorian Hotel, a low-key bed-and-breakfast that was hot in the Sixties and still has themed spaces like the Flower Child Room.

Artists & Locations of San Francisco

Janis Joplin

Born in Texas, the rebellious singer moved to San Fran because, as she said, "my head was in a much different place." She found a kindred spirit with her band Big Brother and the Holding Company and songwriters like Jorma Kaukonen from Jefferson Airplane.

Jefferson Airplane

Formed in San Francisco, the psychedelic rock group defined San Francisco's free-love era with their 1967 album Surrealistic Pillow.

John Phillips

The Mamas & Papas singer wrote "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" — the defining tune of the Summer of Love in the city (and the world).

Amoeba Music

One of the nation's best record stores, Amoeba houses 24,000 square feet of new and used CDs and vinyl — and has also hosted surprise concerts from Paul McCartney.

The Grateful Dead House

Jerry Garcia and Co. inhabited this gorgeous Victorian-style home in the Sixties, and oftentimes offered free lodging to strangers who needed it.

The Red Victorian Hotel

The Summer of Love lives on at this intimate bread and breakfast, which hosts art shows, joint dinners and other participatory events.

When Berry Gordy scored an $800 loan from his family to set up shop for his burgeoning Tamla Records label in 1959, he probably didn't know he would change the face of pop music forever. But when Tamla became Motown later that year, he helped launch the careers of some of the world's most famous musical talents, from Michael Jackson to Marvin Gaye. And it all happened at the former photographers' studio located at 2648 West Grand Boulevard, now known as Hitsville U.S.A. Its most famous room might be Studio A, the cramped space in the converted garage where more than 180 Number One hit singles — including the Supremes cut "Stop in the Name of Love" and the Marvelettes' "Please, Mr. Postman" — were recorded.

The property also became something of a cottage industry for the music that became known as "The Sound of Young America." Gordy, who previously worked at Lincoln-Mercury cars, oversaw every aspect of Motown's product from here. He set up a system he called Quality Control and held weekly meetings with producers to discuss songs and product. Staff writers like Smokey Robinson, Holland-Dozier-Holland and Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson plonked away at tunes throughout the halls. Maxine Powell, meanwhile, was busy running the Artist Personal Development Department, which functioned as a finishing and etiquette school for their budding stars — the first kind of department at any record label. And Esther Gordy Edwards was brought on as a corporate secretary and often gave curious passers-by sneak peeks at artists recording in Studio A. While all this commotion was happening, Berry and his family lived in the tiny second floor flat. Gordy's empire started to increase in the area too, and over the years he acquired nearby properties, which served as everything form management offices to rehearsal studios.

As Motown's sound became a global and political force and its music and stars helped break down racial barriers in the U.S., Gordy uprooted the label to Los Angeles in 1972, but kept Hitsville U.S.A. as a satellite office. These days, it's home to the Motown Museum, founded by Esther Gordy Edwards in 1985, and hosts rotating exhibits that pay tribute to its Golden Age.

Artists & Locations of Detroit

Smokey Robinson

The singer-songwriter helped shape Motown's sound, working as not only a recording artist for the label, but a staff writer, producer and Vice President.

Berry Gordy

The man who founded it all thanks to an $800 loan from his family inhabited the cramped space with his family on the second floor, while logging long days shaping the Motown Sound in the garage's Studio A.

Michael Jackson

The King of Pop got his start recording the Jackson 5's earliest hits at Hitsville U.S.A.'s Studio A.

The Fox Theatre

One of the most gorgeous venues in the nation, this Art Deco former movie house was the stage for key Motown performers in the 1960s.

Saint Andrew's Hall

Constructed in 1907, this downtown venue features three separate spaces and has hosted everyone from Bob Dylan and Paul Simon to R.E.M. and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Hometown hero Eminem used to rock the mic here, too.

The Roostertail

An event and performance space that's still operating after more than 55 years, the Roostertail once hosted the Supremes, Smokey Robinson, the Temptations and more at its famed club the Upper Deck.

For country music fans, Nashville is Mecca. Its status was cemented all the way back in 1925, when the legendary WSM radio station started broadcasting a show that would go on to become the Grand Ole Opry. Much has changed in those 89 years — you won't find the down-home Shoney's Inn, where Keith Urban first crashed upon arriving in the city from Australia in 1989 — but the heart of the country music industry still courses through the city, particularly in Music Row, the corridor of downtown between 16th and 17th Avenues South that is the center of the country music and gospel recording industry. Founded in the mid-Fifties after brothers Owen and Harold Bradley build the area's first studio, the Quonset Hut, it's largely populated by still-thriving record labels like Big Machine and Sony Music Nashville today.

But storied relics that pay tribute to the city's musical past still stand. Perhaps none is as iconic as RCA Records' Studio B. Built in 1957, it served as a recording space for some of the industry's most revered talents (most notably Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison and Waylon Jennings) and also became the studio to develop what became known as the "Nashville Sound," a more produced version of country featuring lush strings and pop-oriented background vocals. Studio B has also become the stuff of Nashville lore: in the late Sixties, an over-eager Dolly Parton famously crashed her car into the building's wall on her way to record her first songs for RCA. The damage is still visible today.

RCA Records Studio A, which was recently leased by Ben Folds until he was booted this year, was sold to a developer, but its history is as important. Built by studio legend Chet Atkins and next door to Studio B, it most recently served as a production space for the hit TV show Nashville. And while its future remains in doubt, Music Row still has plenty of creative spaces, including Allentown Studios (formerly Jack's Tracks), which is the studio where Garth Brooks recorded most of his records, along with Trisha Yearwood, Crystal Gayle and others.

The nearby Country Music Hall of Fame and the Music City Walk of Fame also pay tribute to the city's rich musical history. The Hall of Fame houses prizes including the Bob Pinson Recorded Sound Collection (featuring 200,000 sound artifacts from pre-World War II) and a photograph collection that tells the visual story of the genre, from the 1920s to the present. The Music City Walk of Fame, meanwhile, is a mile-long span that honors country music legends (Reba McEntire, Hank Williams Sr.) and beyond (Jimi Hendrix and Kings of Leon).

The area isn't just a nostalgic homage to the past. Just outside the defined boundaries of Music Row, Tootsie's Orchid Lounge, the honky tonk where Patsy Cline, Billy Ray Cyrus and Willie Nelson used to perform, hosts live local talent each night. And the iconic Ryman Auditorium (once home to the Grand Ole Opry, which has since relocated to a permanent house outside Nashville) is the city's most storied venues and has featured shows by Johnny Cash, Coldplay and Neil Young, who filmed his 2005 concert documentary Heart of Gold at the one-time house of worship. Other hot hangouts include the Patterson House and Bobby's Idle Hour Tavern, perhaps the only dive bar left in Music Row proper.

Artists & Locations of Nashville

Elvis Presley

The icon famously recorded roughly more than 260 songs in RCA's Studio B.

RCA Records' Studio B

The legendary studio — now a museum offering tours — was Elvis Presley's home during his RCA years and has also been used by Wynonna Judd, Carrie Underwood, the Everly Brothers and others.

Dolly Parton

As a budding talent in the late '60s, Dolly Parton famously crashed her car into the wall of Studio B on her way to her first session. It's the space where she cut her stone classic "Jolene."

Country Music Hall of Fame

The shrine to the genre houses photo collections, sound libraries (featuring proto-country songs pre-World War II) and other rotating exhibits.

Kings of Leon

Even these relative newcomers to the Nashville scene have been honored by the community with a spot on the Music City Walk of Fame alongside stalwarts like Roy Orbison and Elvis.

Tootsie's Orchid Lounge

Legend has it Willie Nelson scored his first songwriting gig after performing at this low-key downtown honky tonk.

If Haight-Ashbury was the epicenter of peace and love, Los Angeles' Sunset Strip was the Mecca for hedonism. The roughly mile-and-a-half strip of West Hollywood, California, was popular for movie-star types in the Forties, but transformed into a playground for rock & roll in the Sixties and lasted until the late Eighties. Bands like the Doors, Guns N' Roses and Love launched their careers at the Whisky a Go Go, an all-ages joint that still hosts up-and-coming rock bands today, while Led Zeppelin played gigs there when they were in town — and hosted raucous afterparties at the Hyatt House (dubbed the Riot House). In fact, the Doors were serving as the Whiskey's house band in 1967 when singer Jim Morrisson launched into his controversial "Oedipus section" of "the End" in front of a horrified, slack-jawed audience.

But it was the 1980s and the era of glam and hair metal that really immortalized the Strip. With androgynous clothes, layers of makeup and enough hairspray to give the city a contact high from the fumes, bands like Dokken, Warrant, Mötley Crüe, Skid Row and Cinderella came to embody the wild times on the strip, and thanks to the rise of MTV, they became household names across the nation. But before earning major-label contracts, most of the hair-metal dudes struggled to get by, earning meager paychecks from day jobs and often living in cramped apartments together. As Jani Lane recalled in the book Louder Than Hell, "I spent a month shrink-wrapping porno videos in a basement in Canoga Park. I had a paper route delivering the L.A. Times in stage clothes at three in the morning. I was stocking 7-Elevens. I did everything I could to survive. But we were literally starving. . .so we formed the band and took over L.A."

While sex, drugs and rock & roll were the way of life on the Strip, it wasn't always fast times. In 1966, the Strip (particularly the now-demolished club Pandora's Box) was the center of the Sunset Strip Curfew Riots, where hippies and scenesters clashed with police over a conservative 10 p.m. curfew. The event was immortalized in the 1967 movie Riot on the Sunset Strip and by Buffalo Springfield in the song "For What It's Worth." And the Viper Room — opened in 1993 by Johnny Depp — was a popular hangout for Hollywood's elite, thought its reputation was marred when River Phoenix collapsed from a drug overdose outside its doors.

The Strip may not be as seedy or thrilling as its peak in the Eighties — you're more likely to find posh hotels than a dive bar — but there are still vital temples to music and celebrity culture. The Chateau Marmont is the Strip's most exclusive hotel, frequented by everyone from Lindsay Lohan to Courtney Love, who played some of Hole's earliest gigs on the Strip. And the Roxy, opened by record producer Lou Adler, still hosts industry showcases for up-and-comers like Ariana Grande and Jessie J and also served as the site of legendary shows for acts like Red Hot Chili Peppers, whose drummer Chad Smith first joined the band for a live gig at the venue in 1989.

Artists & Locations of Los Angeles

The Doors

Jim Morrison's band launched their careers on the Strip, performing as the House Band at the Whisky a Go Go before becoming one of the most defining bands in America.

Guns N' Roses

Axl Rose, Slash and Co. defined the Strip's hard-partying, heavily hairsprayed lifestyle when they launched in L.A. in the late '80s.

Mõtley Crüe

The glam-metal gods were one of the first bands to define excess on the Strip, forming in 1981 and performing legendary, cocaine-fueled shows at the Whisky.

The Whisky a Go Go

The one-time jiggle joint survived decades of gentrification and served as launching pads for everyone from the Doors to Guns N' Roses.

The Chateau Marmont

Hollywood's boldfaced names crash at this exclusive hotel, which first opened in 1926 as an apartment complex.

The Viper Room

Johnny Depp's one-time exclusive club was the hangout for young Hollywood hopefuls like Winona Ryder, Jennifer Aniston and Christina Applegate.