Allentown, Pennsylvania

Everything Allentown is known for

4 songs mention this city 47 artists from here

Allentown, Pennsylvania, the third largest city in the state, has a notable connection to music. While perhaps best known through Billy Joel's song "Allentown," the city is also home to a diverse array of artists across various genres. For instance, jazz musician Rick Braun and indie artist Tim Heidecker both hail from Allentown. The city also boasts the Allentown Band, recognized as the oldest civilian concert band in the United States.

With 47 artists calling Allentown home and four songs mentioning the city, its musical identity is rich and varied. From the rock sounds of Lil Peep to the classical compositions of Keith Jarrett, Allentown's musicians contribute to a vibrant soundscape. The historic Miller Symphony Hall in Allentown regularly hosts performances by the Allentown Symphony Orchestra, further cementing the city's place in the musical landscape.

Music in Allentown

Songs About Allentown

Allentown
Billy Joel
80%
"Well, we're living here in Allentown"
The Scrapple Song
Robbie Fulks
55%
"The mom-and-pop diners 'round Allentown"
Gary, Indiana 1959
Dave Alvin
3%
"But from Birmingham to Pueblo, Oakland to Allentown"
Yikes
Nicki Minaj
2%
"This a Makk truck, not a black truck"

Artists From Allentown

L
Lil Peep
rock Pop: 83
A
Amanda Seyfried
pop Pop: 66
K
Keith Jarrett
classical Pop: 53
P
Pissed Jeans
indie Pop: 47
R
Rick Braun
jazz Pop: 45
T
The Armadillos
americana Pop: 34
S
Sinister Realm
metal Pop: 30
D
Digger
metal Pop: 29
D
Denise Donatelli
jazz Pop: 28
T
Tim Heidecker
indie Pop: 26
S
Susan Alcorn
jazz Pop: 25
T
Timothy Keller
gospel Pop: 23
C
Chris Jarrett
jazz Pop: 22
S
Sue Keller
jazz Pop: 20
S
Steve Brosky
folk Pop: 19
D
Donald Voorhees
classical Pop: 19
E
Ed Metz, Jr.
jazz Pop: 17
A
Adam Richman
other Pop: 16
B
Bob Becker
other Pop: 16
R
Rod Michael
pop Pop: 15

Showing top 20 of 47 artists

History of Allentown

Where 'A Clean Slate' Comes From RoadyGoat

1840

When you say you're starting with a clean slate, you're talking about this exact rock. Before cheap paper, schoolchildren wrote on small framed boards cut from slate, scratching letters with a slate pencil. At day's end you simply wiped it blank and started over, which is precisely where the phrases 'a clean slate' and 'wipe the slate clean' come from. And this is no distant fact for Slatington. The town became the nation's leading maker of school slates and blackboards, its factories turning out over a million pieces a year in the early nineteen hundreds. So the rock under this borough wasn't just on the roofs of America's schools, it was the writing surface inside them. Every classroom blackboard, every child's wiped-clean slate, every fresh start that phrase now means, traces back to gray stone like the kind quarried right here.

12.3 mi away

The Roof That Outlives the House RoadyGoat

Look at an old church or a grand stone house and there's a good chance the roof is older than anyone alive. A properly installed slate roof routinely lasts a hundred to a hundred and fifty years, and some have kept water out for more than two centuries. Compare that to ordinary asphalt shingles, which typically need replacing every twenty to thirty years. Slate wins because it is natural stone, not a manufactured mat. It doesn't fade in sunlight, doesn't crack from heat or cold, and shrugs off the weathering that breaks down made materials. That durability is exactly what made Slatington famous: its quarries furnished some of the highest-quality roofing slate in the country. The next time you pass a steeple still wearing its first roof, remember that stone may well have come out of a Pennsylvania hillside like this one.

12.4 mi away

The Town That Took Its Name From a Rock RoadyGoat

1845

Here's a town that bet its whole identity on a rock. Slatington sits on the west bank of the Lehigh River in Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, and it is named, plainly and proudly, for the slate quarried right under it. In the eighteen-forties two Welshmen are credited with discovering the slate beds here, and the Lehigh Slate Company laid out the town in eighteen fifty-one. No fewer than twenty quarries opened in and around the village, making this stretch the heart of the Lehigh Valley 'slate belt,' one of the great slate-producing regions in America. The stone went out as roofing shingles, mantels, and classroom blackboards. The industry slumped after World War One, but the name stayed. You are standing in a place that told the world exactly what it was made of.

12.5 mi away

Bethlehem Steel Stacks

1857

Once the second-largest steel producer in America, Bethlehem Steel forged the beams for the Golden Gate Bridge, the Empire State Building, and most U.S. warships.

4.7 mi away

Historic Moravian Bethlehem

1741

Founded on Christmas Eve 1741 by Moravian settlers, Bethlehem became a center of early American music and communal living.

5.0 mi away

Everything Near Allentown

48 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Explore Allentown on the Map
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