Most of us spend our time with recorded music. We buy and trade CDs, download music files and search for old 45s and LPs. Most of our concerts come to us via DVD or cable. It's convenient and available but it leads us away from something that I know we once valued highly.

I'm talking about live music. Maybe you first heard it in a tent revival or at picnic or an armory. Maybe in your own home, if you were lucky. It's a whole different thing from something that comes from tiny ipod earphones.

It's City Stages that makes me think about live music. I go every year, each day and no matter where I go, any stage, I hear wonderful music from people of all ages, colors and degrees of success.

But most of the people that I know don't go to City Stages. Reasons vary: It's too hot..there's too many drunks..there's nobody I care to see. Some are afraid of Downtown. Some don't like crowds.

Here are my answers to those exuses. Wear a hat and shorts and comfortable shoes, bring a lawn chair. $3 bottled water and $5 beer help keep the ticket cost down. I spend most of my time at one stage-the schedulers have learned the lesson of having a stage for 20-somethings and a stage for 50-somethings and an oldies stage night and a R&B night and a country night. I've seen a few drunks but my stage is well-behaved, with people mostly just like me. I'm sure that was not the case at Hank, Jr's show. But that crowd got what they wanted too, and the police are never very far away.

The best thing about City Stages is that you can hear great music from people you've never heard of. If you're depending on Birmingham radio to provide you with artists to follow, you've lost the war. I talked a buddy of mine into going for the fist time this year. He discovered James McMurtry and John Hiatt and the North Mississippi Allstars and Tommy Emmanuel and Los Lonely Boys without moving his chair. Never heard of any of those artists? Many haven't, but the people who know showed up and had a great time in the streets of old Birmingham.

So here's my challenge. Next year buy a ticket to City Stages. Support Live Music and be richly rewarded for it.