Talking American Spirit with Fancy Hagood, considering the impact of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter and much more
STREET VIEW: LAUNCH PAD’S IMPORTANT WORK WITH YOUNG LGBTQ NASHVILLIANS
>> PAGE 7 NEWS: GUN REFORM GROUPS PREPARE FOR EXTENDED EFFORT IN STATE LEGISLATURE
>> PAGE 8 FILM: THE BRUTALIST IS A LONG, BREATHTAKING, PRO-IMMIGRANT JOURNEY
>> PAGE 34
This fiddle with hand-painted riverboat scenes on the back and sides was built by violin makers Mac Barnes and Kenny Lamb for John Hartford after meeting him at a mutual friend’s party and playing old-time fiddle tunes together.
From the exhibit Sing Me Back Home: Folk Roots to the Present
Street View: Launch Pad’s Important Work With Young LGBTQ Nashvillians
Now 10 years old, the nonprofit provides resources including cold-weather shelter, community spaces and case workers BY
LENA MAZEL
Gun Reform Groups Prepare for Extended Effort in State Legislature
Advocates face stiff opposition from Republican supermajority after Covenant School shooting BY
ELI MOTYCKA
Sen. Lamar Plans Family-Focused Bills
‘I want to at least make sure they’re going to make it out alive,’ says Memphis Democrat of expectant mothers BY
HANNAH HERNER
University School of Nashville Fires
Director After Chaotic Six Months
Amani Reed’s dismissal heeds student, parent and faculty calls after school’s handling of alleged sexual misconduct by a teacher BY ELI
MOTYCKA
A Joyous Thing
Fancy Hagood discusses the journey to his stunning LP American Spirit BY
RACHEL CHOLST
Gardening Lessons
Reflecting on the Country Music Association’s second rejection of Beyoncé BY SHERONICA
HAYES
Singing the Hell Outta It All
Talking with Nashville native Saaneah, whose banner 2024 is just the beginning, if she has anything to say about it BY MARGARET LITTMAN
Passing the Mic
In our survey, journalists weigh in on the present and future of country music
COMPILED BY STEPHEN TRAGESER
Artists to Watch
From Wyatt Flores to Angie K and beyond, our writers have 10 picks to keep an eye on
The War and Treaty feat. the Nashville Symphony, The Meteors, Sheer Terror, Claudine and more
AND DRINK
BrickTop’s Keeps Pleasing
The West End standard is nothing new, and that’s starting to stand out BY ELI MOTYCKA
MUSIC
The Spin
The Scene’s live-review column checks out Brittany Howard’s hardcore benefit show at The Basement East BY P.J. KINZER
FILM
Yearning to Breathe Free The Brutalist is a long, breathtaking, pro-immigrant journey BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD AND THIS MODERN WORLD
MARKETPLACE ON THE COVER:
Fancy Hagood; photo: Angelina Castillo; photo assistant: Sandi Harrison; location: Margot Cafe & Bar
nashvillescene.com/site/forms/subscription_services
nashvillesceneshop.com CONTACT TO ADVERTISE: msmith@nashvillescene.com
EDITOR: prodgers@nashvillescene.com
In my 35+ years living and working in Nashville, I’ve navigated the twists, turns and now expansive growth of this wonderful place. Let me help you make the best choices in your biggest investment — real estate. I’m so grateful for my clients’ great reviews, repeat business and continued referrals. I’d love the opportunity to help make your Real Estate Goals a reality!
Buy • Sell • Invest
Proud to now be with Onward Real Estate, a locally owned and focused firm.
WELCOME TO THE TEAM, JULIANNE!
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF D. Patrick Rodgers
MANAGING EDITOR Alejandro Ramirez
SENIOR EDITOR Dana Kopp Franklin
ARTS EDITOR Laura Hutson Hunter
MUSIC AND LISTINGS EDITOR Stephen Trageser
DIGITAL EDITOR Kim Baldwin
ASSOCIATE EDITOR Cole Villena
CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jack Silverman
STAFF WRITERS Julianne Akers, Logan Butts, John Glennon, Hannah Herner, Hamilton Matthew Masters, Eli Motycka, Nicolle Praino, William Williams
SENIOR FILM CRITIC Jason Shawhan
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Sadaf Ahsan, Ken Arnold, Ben Arthur, Radley Balko, Bailey Brantingham, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Rachel Cholst, Lance Conzett, Hannah Cron, Connor Daryani, Tina Dominguez, Stephen Elliott, Steve Erickson, Jayme Foltz, Adam Gold, Kashif Andrew Graham, Seth Graves, Kim Green, Amanda Haggard, Steven Hale, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, P.J. Kinzer, Janet Kurtz, J.R. Lind, Craig D. Lindsey, Margaret Littman, Sean L. Maloney, Brittney McKenna, Addie Moore, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Katherine Oung, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Daryl Sanders, Nadine Smith, Ashley Spurgeon Shamban, Amy Stumpfl, Kay West, Nicole Williams, Ron Wynn, Kelsey Young, Charlie Zaillian
ART DIRECTOR Elizabeth Jones
PHOTOGRAPHERS Angelina Castillo, Eric England, Matt Masters
GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Sandi Harrison, Tracey Starck, Mary Louise Meadors
PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Christie Passarello
MARKETING AND EVENTS DIRECTOR Robin Fomusa
BRAND PARTNERSHIPS AND EVENTS MANAGER Alissa Wetzel
DIGITAL & MARKETING STRATEGY LEAD Isaac Norris
PUBLISHER Mike Smith
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Michael Jezewski
SENIOR ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS MANAGERS
Teresa Birdsong, Olivia Britton, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Niki Tyree
ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS MANAGERS Maddy Fraiche, Kailey Idziak, Rena Ivanov, Allie Muirhead
SALES OPERATIONS MANAGER Chelon Hill Hasty
ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS ASSOCIATES Audry Houle, Jack Stejskal
SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR Susan Torregrossa
PRESIDENT Mike Smith
CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Todd Patton
CORPORATE CREATIVE DIRECTOR Elizabeth Jones
IT DIRECTOR John Schaeffer
CIRCULATION AND DISTRIBUTION DIRECTOR Gary Minnis FW PUBLISHING LLC
JANUARY 24 - 26 JANUARY 24 - 26
SUNG IN ENGLISH WITH SUNG IN ENGLISH WITH ENGLISH SUPERTITLES ENGLISH SUPERTITLES
TICKETS START AT $30 AT NASHVILLEOPERA.ORG/PINAFORE
TICKETS START AT $30 AT NASHVILLEOPERA.ORG/PINAFORE THE NASHVILLE OPERA ORCHESTRA PLAYING THE FULL, ORIGINAL SCORE! THE NASHVILLE OPERA ORCHESTRA PLAYING THE FULL, ORIGINAL SCORE!
Inglewood’s East End Village offers 2+office and 3 bedroom move-in ready modern townhomes with fenced yards, walking trails, a dog park and pool (coming 2025). These progressively designed homes feature upgraded spray foam insulation, EV charging outlets in garage, high efficiency water heaters and healthier heat and air systems.
TOWNHOMES STARTING AT $420K INGLEWOOD
LEARN MORE ABOUT EAST END VILLAGE
Modern 3-bedroom townhomes offering spacious floorplans and convenience. Located just 5 miles from downtown Nashville. Select units include a 2-car garage and an inviting outdoor space or rooftop terrace. Only two units remaining!
TOWNHOMES FROM $365K NORTH NASHVILLE
LEARN MORE ABOUT TOWNHOMES AT WHITES CREEK
Now 10 years old, the nonprofit provides resources including cold-weather shelter, community spaces and case workers
BY LENA MAZEL
Street View is a monthly column taking a close look at development-related issues affecting different neighborhoods throughout the city.
CHRISTMAS DAY AT Nashville Launch Pad’s cold-weather shelter looks a lot like the holidays in many places. Guests can sleep in and watch movies. They eat whenever they feel like it and take naps in the middle of the day, says Corrine Elise, Launch Pad’s associate director of engagement and administration. There are even gifts to open. “There’s a celebratory nature of being together, and not having to leave that day,” says Elise.
This sense of normality is one of many services Launch Pad provides to housing-insecure young adults ages 18 to 26. Their mission is to “create a network of temporary, safer, street-free sleeping shelters for unhoused young adults which are open and affirming to LGBTQ+ individuals and their allies.” In the past 10 years, Launch Pad reps say they’ve served more than 1,600 people.
LGBTQ people are particularly at risk for housing insecurity: A 2018 University of Chicago study found they were more than twice as likely to experience homelessness as other members of the general population. For transgender and non-gender-conforming people, the numbers are even higher.
Launch Pad started as an occasional emergency shelter on cold-weather nights. It was “a pizza here, a night on the church floor there,” says H.G. Stovall, Launch Pad’s executive director. In 2014, community members came together with help from the Music City Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence (a local chapter of the nationwide group of drag nuns), the Rev. Becca Stevens (who founded local charity Thistle Farms) and a few local religious organizations. The organization quickly grew from the occasional cold-weather shelter to a full-time winter shelter that operates seven days a week. Now, between Nov. 1 and April 1, Launch Pad provides a place to sleep for the night, including a bed, a hot meal, a shower and some basic supplies. Two local churches provide space for the program, which can accommodate up to 20 people (or 25 during the city’s designated extreme coldweather nights).
The emergency shelter is Launch Pad’s largest program with the lowest barrier to entry: It’s open to anyone ages 18 to 26 who needs a place to sleep. And the program is growing rapidly. Last year, Launch Pad hosted a total of 95 people at the shelter between November and April. This year, they’d already hosted 80 people by Jan. 1.
Launch Pad also provides supportive living
through a mobile housing navigation center, a dorm-style program where residents stay an average of 120 nights, and desk chairs, storage and community spaces. The organization also provides access to case workers and runs independent supported living in apartments for six months at a time with similar supports in place.
It’s clear that the need for Launch Pad’s work is significant. But it’s less clear how that work might change under the Trump administration. Last time Trump was in office, the Department of Housing and Urban Development rolled back a number of protections for LGBTQ people seeking shelter, even proposing a change to the Equal Access Rule, which legally protects transgender people seeking shelter accommodation. Some impacts of the incoming Trump administration “have already begun to show,” says Stovall, as “corporations we have leaned on to serve communities like ours have already begun to fall.” While he says it’s “perfectly rational to expect that we might find a ban on LGBT shelters,” he stresses that Launch Pad wouldn’t
be impacted by that ban because it’s not an LGBTQ-only shelter. “We are a place of mutual respect,” Stovall says.
Stovall expects that Launch Pad will lose some volunteers and supporters who have the ability to leave Tennessee for places where they feel more safe, particularly if they or their children need to receive gender-affirming health care.
Elise says that while many volunteers at Launch Pad’s training assume people become homeless due to a of lack of resources, most young LGBTQ people become homeless due to a lack of acceptance: The top reasons listed in a recent survey by the Trevor Project were being forced out or having to run away from home, family issues, and mistreatment at home — often because of their LGBTQ identity.
“With an administration that is emboldening people with those perspectives, I unfortunately think that could lead to an uptick in the number of guests,” Elise says.
But whatever happens, Launch Pad will still
be there in any capacity it can be — serving a hot meal and providing a safe place to sleep for many people who desperately need it. Organizers will keep leaning on the help they receive from local churches, the Society of Friends, local Jewish congregations and community members like chef Arnold Myint from International Market, who has cooked a hot meal for the coldweather shelter every week for years.
Elise tells the Scene that Launch Pad is always looking for more community involvement. People can volunteer in the mornings or evenings at the cold-weather shelter, provide a hot meal, purchase items off the Amazon wish list on Launch Pad’s website or make a monetary donation. Launch Pad is also eager to hear any creative collaboration ideas people have.
Most of all, says Stovall, the young people at Launch Pad just need “someone to care.” “If they could have found someone who cared enough, they wouldn’t need us,” he says. “Someone who cares makes all the difference for these young people.”
Name: HUGO
Age: 1 years
Weight: 71 lbs.
Sex: Male
Meet Hugo!!!
A sweet and lovable dog with a passion for his stuffed toys!!!
Hugo is gentle, affectionate, and loves spending quiet moments with his favorite toys or cuddling up beside you. He’s a wonderful companion for anyone looking for a dog who’s not just playful but also calm and loving. If you’re ready for a lovely furry friend who will keep you entertained with his playful spirit and stuffed toy obsession, Hugo is the perfect match! Adopt him today and watch as he fills your home with joy and cuddles.
Call 615.352.1010 or visit nashvillehumane.org
Located at 213 Oceola Ave., Nashville, TN 37209
Adopt. Bark. Meow. Microchip. Neuter. Spay.
BY ELI MOTYCKA
ATTENTION ON THE Tennessee General Assembly erupted like a fire hydrant in spring 2023. The Capitol grounds became a bustling forum where grief and protest collided in the days and weeks following the Covenant School shooting, which left three children and three adults — as well as the shooter — dead. National media joined local journalists in filing daily reports.
Tennessee,” can legally lobby and has hired firms JohnsonPossKirby and Bivens & Associates. It has positioned itself as the gun reform movement’s big tent — a coalition-building peacemaker searching for politically feasible alignment between Republicans and Democrats.
More than 80 percent of the organization’s $60,000 political donations went to state Republicans last cycle, piquing gun reform advocates whose efforts have repeatedly been blocked by the same politicians. Frist sits on the group’s advisory board, and Katy Dieckhaus — whose daughter Evelyn was killed in the Covenant School shooting — serves on its board of directors.
“Safer TN brings together Republicans, Democrats, and Independents united by a shared goal: saving lives,” says communications director Jessica Jaglois in a statement sent to the Scene. “Our members include parents, grandparents, teachers, hunters, doctors, business leaders, veterans, nurses, music industry professionals, and many others, all committed to reducing preventable firearm tragedies.”
an independent bookstore for independent people
UPCOMING EVENTS
PARNASSUSBOOKS.NET/EVENTFOR TICKETS & UPDATES
6:30PM
THURSDAY, JANUARY 16
KWAME ALEXANDER
with ROD MCGAHA at PARNASSUS How Sweet the Sound
6:30PM
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17
JENNIFER MOORMAN & JENNI L. WALSH at PARNASSUS
The Vanishing of Josephine Reynolds & Ace, Marvel, Spy
10:30AM
SATURDAY, JANUARY 18
SATURDAY STORYTIME
with SUSAN EADDY at PARNASSUS Papa Fish's Lullaby & Sir Drake the Brave
6:30PM ANDY CORREN
MONDAY, JANUARY 27
with STEPHANIE SILVERMAN at PARNASSUS Dirtbag Queen
TUESDAY, JANUARY 28
6:30PM LAUREN KUNG JESSEN with CLARE GILMORE at PARNASSUS Yin Yang Love Song
8:00PM
NEKO CASE with ANN POWERS at OZ ARTS The Harder I Fight the More I Love You
FRIDAY, JANUARY 31
3900 Hillsboro Pike Suite 14 | Nashville, TN 37215 (615) 953-2243
Shop online at parnassusbooks.net
It was the rare political moment when elected officials — in this case a Republican supermajority capping a decade’s worth of expansive and permissive gun laws — appeared legitimately sympathetic to opposing points of view, in this case students, parents and citizens concerned about more school massacres and preventable shooting deaths in general. The broader parental coalition active in post-Covenant gun reform advocacy included actual parents of children who had survived the Covenant School shooting, offering crucial tragic and strategic moral high ground.
But the legislative changes that many showed up for, including red-flag laws and universal background checks, did not happen, either during the 2023 legislative session, during the August 2023 special session on public safety convened by Gov. Bill Lee, or during the 2024 legislative session. Certain gun-related bills made it through in 2024, including Jillian’s Law — legislation that facilitates firearm dispossession for individuals deemed mentally incompetent by a court — which was named after a Belmont student who was shot and killed in 2023. The chambers also passed bills loosening gun regulation.
“How did we come from a tragedy like Covenant to this point?” asked Claire Jones, a nurse and gun reform advocate who watched from the gallery as lawmakers passed a bill permitting teachers to carry firearms in school, as reported by Chalkbeat.
of individuals, the most vocal figures organizing protests and speaking publicly, several of whom ran on the Democratic ticket as first-time candidates for elected office in November. Jones lost to Republican Gino Bulso in Tennessee state House District 61, Maryam Abolfazli lost to incumbent Rep. Andy Ogles in Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District, and Shaundelle Brooks narrowly won Tennessee state House District 60, a suburban chunk of Nashville stretching east to the Wilson County line. Covenant parents Sarah Shoop Neumann, Melissa Alexander and Mary Joyce became widely quoted political subjects for their committed campaign trying to get through to GOP lawmakers at the state legislature. All featured prominently in Meribah Knight’s Supermajority, the NPR and WPLN production that chronicles their steely resolve and political disillusionment during the 2024 Tennessee legislative session.
At least three nonprofits emerged in the past 18 months that explicitly credit their origins to post-Covenant organizing. Covenant Families for Brighter Tomorrows and Covenant Families Action Fund were launched directly by parents at the school in July 2023. Besides an expired web domain and an IRS determination letter issued Sept. 27 to Neumann, little remains of the organizations, which were set up to promote mental health support, particularly for the impact and prevention of school shootings.
Abolfazli’s Rise & Shine formed around the same time.
“After the immense activism that was unleashed during the last legislative session, so many parents, students, and artists reached out who want to do more to prevent gun violence,” the group explained in its initial Instagram post in May 2023. “To harness this energy, Rise & Shine TN was born.”
The organization hosted a “Legislative Learning Session” panel at the Thomas F. Frist Jr. College of Medicine at Belmont University on Jan. 9, featuring former legislators Sam Whitson (a Republican) and Lowe Finney (a Democrat). They spent the time explaining that the legislative process was convoluted and frustrating; working it to your favor requires commitment, persistence, time and etiquette.
“Invite your legislators to come out and see something so that they can actually get an idea of exactly what it is you’re dealing with — and don’t quit there,” said Finney. “Stay in contact with them. Write the note, make the phone call. Don’t assume that one email and one phone call is going to get the job done”
“Advocating 24/7, 12 months out of the year is very important,” Whitson added. “Lobbying and staying in contact with the legislature.”
Tennessee’s 2025 legislative session begins this week. So far, just a handful of bills have been filed that mention firearms. Nashville’s Democratic Sen. Heidi Campbell is carrying MaKayla’s Law, a bill that holds adults liable if their gun is used by children to harm themselves or others.
In April, Tennessee state troopers removed Moms Demand Action volunteer Linda McFadyen-Ketchum from the Senate gallery during a rowdy floor discussion over legislation related to guns in schools. After more than a decade advocating for gun reform in Tennessee, McFadyen-Ketchum has reduced her volunteering commitment with Moms, she tells the Scene In the 22 months since March 2023, other changes have taken place. The mass activism that drew in so many people has been harnessed into traditional partisan campaigns, tax-exempt nonprofits and sharper politicization against the GOP supermajority.
The group’s mission focuses on “civic engagement so every Tennessean can be safe, live free, and have a chance to thrive.” This session, the group will focus on gun reform and opposing the divisive school voucher push from the governor’s office, Abolfazli tells the Scene. In a Jan. 13 email — on the eve of Tennessee’s 2025 session gaveling in — Abolfazli indicates that the group will engage with “specific committees on specific issues” ahead of more “decisive” moments in March and April.
“We’ve run it for three years,” Campbell tells the Scene. “Last year, it got to committee, which was a big deal for a Democrat. [Republican Sen.] Paul Rose [of Covington] voted for it. Every time I run it, people say, ‘Actually, that’s very reasonable.’ Then they vote against it.”
Another bill outlaws gun transfers to a person known to be prohibited from possessing a firearm. Pursuing expanded background checks, red-flag laws and laws controlling assault rifle ownership is not feasible, says Campbell — not even worth introducing.
@parnassusbooks @parnassusbooks1 @parnassusbooks @parnassusbooksnashville
The Covenant School shooting and its aftermath elevated and transformed a tight-knit crop
Voices for a Safer Tennessee has built out a small staff headed by longtime political fixture Claudia Huskey and policy director Erin Rogus, a Republican-aligned legislative aide most recently with former U.S. Sen. Bill Frist. Registered as a 501(c)(4), the group, which has adopted the shorthand “Safer
“I just wanted to run legislation that has a chance of passing,” says Campbell. “We’re focusing mainly on liability. That’s something that’s bipartisan. I’m hopeful we can move forward at least with some liability-related legislation. This is a time, because of the political climate, for us to look at trying to find compromise. To work with each other to see if there’s something we can agree on.” ▼
‘I want to at least make sure they’re going to make it out alive,’ says Memphis Democrat of expectant mothers
BY HANNAH HERNER
SINCE HER START as a legislator, state Sen. London Lamar (D-Memphis) has been on a roll with passing legislation related to doulas.
One of the first bills Lamar filed this session, SB44, seeks again to get doula services covered by TennCare. These professionals provide nonclinical emotional, physical and informational support while serving as advocates for the pregnant person. While much of her official slate for the 2025 legislative session — which gaveled in this week — has yet to be filed as of press time, Lamar plans to focus on a broad goal, she tells the Scene: elevating the quality of life for families.
She’s yet to see results from the $1 million Gov. Bill Lee included in the 2023-24 budget to create a pilot program to try out TennCare doula payment, and she explains that the 2024-created Maternal Health Equity Advisory Committee is still in the works. In 2026, she’ll see results from the Doula Services Advisory Committee, which is tasked with evaluating reimbursement and training in the profession. That law creating the committee passed in 2023, and was amended last year to add more community-based members.
While tangible results have yet to come to fruition, Lamar says she’s seen progress, and notices that more people are open to the idea of doulas. The most recent state maternal mortality report found that Black women, unmarried women, poor women, women with less education and women living in urban areas died at higher rates during their pregnancies and in the year following. In addition, mortality rates for
Amani Reed’s dismissal heeds student, parent and faculty calls after school’s handling of alleged sexual misconduct by a teacher
BY ELI MOTYCKA
UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF NASHVILLE has fired director Amani Reed for mishandling sexual misconduct allegations brought by a student in the spring. USN board chair Eric Kopstain — a Vanderbilt University administrator who stepped down from his Vandy post as vice chancellor in December — cites Reed’s “actions and inactions” following allegations from a student toward Dean Masullo, a former English teacher, as reason for his firing. The school announced the board decision on Jan. 7, the day classes resumed after students’ winter break.
Chai Reddy, currently USN’s head of high school, has
women on TennCare were nearly three times higher than those on private insurance. Lamar asserts that doulas are one way to address that. She’s had her own personal experience losing a child in 2019, and has seen the deaths of both mothers and babies in her family.
Additionally, Tennessee ranked 49th in the country on policies that benefit families and children, from conception to age 3, according to a recent report.
“I’m not just advocating for mom and babies alone,” Lamar says. “I’m actually the most prolife legislator, because I actually think about the quality of life for our children after birth and for the mothers.”
Lamar’s mission is especially important in Tennessee, she says, because more babies will be born due to the state’s abortion ban.
“I know that because I’m a Democrat in Tennessee, I’m never gonna be able to pass a bill as long as [the Republican supermajority is] in power to reinstate abortion or give women their rights back,” Lamar says. “But what I can work on is for the women who are forced to go through this process, I want to at least make sure they’re going to make it out alive.”
“Most times, people have to choose abortion because of health circumstances, or the fact that they literally can’t afford it, and that is not their own fault,” Lamar says. “That’s the fault of society, that’s the fault of the General Assembly for allowing businesses to misuse workers and not pay them fair wages. That’s a reflection on our minimum wage, a reflection on how we have
stepped in as interim director. Reed has led USN since July 2022, when he came to Nashville from The School at Columbia University, a peer prep school in New York City, following an extensive executive search.
On Dec. 18, attorneys Joy Boyd Longnecker and JD Thomas of Barnes & Thornburg furnished a 78-page report to board members that prompted Reed’s dismissal. The report details Masullo’s tenure at USN, the student allegations against Masullo and the administrative response crafted by Reed and other school leaders. The school dismissed Masullo over the summer in an agreement that included a nearly $30,000 payout; USN has since sued Masullo to recover the money.
Frustrated by a lack of communication about Masullo’s dismissal, the affected student explained her experience with Masullo and Reed in a letter to USN’s board in August. That letter, prepared by attorney Alex Little, was first reported by Connor Daryani at the Nashville Banner. It explained the student’s experience with Masullo and sharpened accusations against Reed and fellow administrator Quentin Walker for how they treated the accusing student. Walker had already announced he was leaving USN at the end of the 2024-2025 school year.
The school formed the Ad Hoc Committee for School Safety, a board subcommittee, in September following outcry from students, alumni, faculty and parents about Reed. Critical letters from parents, a petition from
not done a good job, on price gouging, inflation and all these other issues that impact people’s quality of life.”
Lamar, Sen. Charlane Oliver (D-Nashville) and Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) are part of a small cohort of women who are of child-bearing age in the legislature. Because of this, their legislation often intersects. This year, Oliver and Behn have proposed legislation that would make preschool free for every 4-year-old in Tennessee. Oliver also introduced legislation related to child care last year, which did not pass, while a bill that Lamar filed to ensure TennCare coverage for children met its demise. Oliver and Behn have also filed a bill (SB2/HB2) that would end the grocery tax.
“Every child deserves access to a great education, and universal pre-K is the best way to ensure that opportunity begins at the earliest
spurned faculty and protests within the student body all arrived in September and October. Administrators shifted focus to the new ad hoc committee, which includes prominent Nashvillians like former Metro finance director Kristin Wilson and Strategic Hospitality restaurateur Benjamin Goldberg. The seven-person task force promptly retained Longnecker and Thomas to look into the school’s response to allegations against Masullo.
“Our investigation found no single point of failure or single individual who is wholly responsible for the events that are the subject of this Report,” reads a summary of the investigation, in part. “The exception to this is Masullo himself, who is clearly to blame for engaging in and concealing conduct he knew was inappropriate and in violation of multiple School policies. We found that while some USN employees thought Masullo sometimes behaved strangely, no one was aware of the full extent of his inappropriate conduct.”
The attorneys’ report substantiates the allegations against Masullo. It also determines that his actions were “consistent with ‘grooming’ behavior,” but did not constitute a “sexual offense” under Tennessee law. Exhibits to the report include love letters and gifts from Masullo to the student. Attorneys describe regular instances of one-on-one time between the student and Masullo during school hours and social engagements outside of school, including an overnight stay in a hotel room
stages of learning,” says Sen. Oliver, a working mother of three, in a release. “This isn’t just an investment in our kids; it’s an economic lifeline for working families. Universal pre-K reduces child care costs, boosts family incomes, and strengthens Tennessee’s workforce. It’s time to deliver real relief to families who are stretched too thin.”
Lamar tells the Scene that Republicans have done a better job communicating their message than Democrats.
“I’m going to be encouraging all our Democrats to get back to a centralized message, a unified message, of improving the quality of life of working-class people in Tennessee, so that all of our outcomes can be better,” she says. “We are the party that’s actually doing that, and also exposing many of the hypocrisies of the majority party.” ▼
with Masullo and his wife. On at least one occasion, the student privately recorded her interactions with Masullo on her cellphone.
The report goes on to describe a fumbled response from Reed and other top leaders that “failed to involve critical members of senior School leadership” and “lacked a cohesive plan.” Reed avoided directing some aspects of the school’s response, citing a conflict of interest as his son had formerly dated the student who brought the allegations against Masullo, while directly managing other aspects. Attorneys leveled additional criticism at the board, led by Kopstain, describing a complacent board deferential to Reed that was “unprepared” for the crisis.
“There are significant deficiencies and shortcomings that come to light in the report, including mistakes by us, the Board of Trustees,” last week’s announcement reads, in part. “We deeply apologize for the substantive toll that Dr. Masullo’s behavior and the investigative process have caused our alumna, her family, and the entire community. The Board will continue to work to uphold and improve the protective and principled environment that we all expect at USN. We will hold a series of meetings during the coming weeks to answer questions and share information about the search for a new Head of School and will provide further information in the days ahead.”
Talking American Spirit with Fancy Hagood, considering the impact of Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter and much more
As we wade into 2025, we at the Scene are proud to bring you our fourth annual Country Music Almanac, a look at the state of Music City’s biggest cultural export now and in the year ahead.
In this issue we catch up with phenomenal songsmith Fancy Hagood about how he’s found his voice within country music. We also check in with Saaneah, who was featured on Alice Randall’s My Black Country and made her debut on the Grand Ole Opry, seemingly the first Nashville-born Black woman to perform on the show. We consider what the CMA Awards giving Beyoncé a cold shoulder — for a second time — says about the industry. We recommend 10 artists to keep an eye on this year, and we hand over the mic to journalists and historians for their take on the highs, lows and in-betweens of country in our survey. It’s a big table; pull up a chair and dig in.
Fancy Hagood discusses the journey to his stunning LP American Spirit
BY RACHEL CHOLST
COUNTRY MUSIC IS unique in its insistence on tradition and “doing things the right way” even as artists constantly borrow from pop and underground music to move the genre forward. It’s only when Music Row decides to embrace a chosen few outsiders that they are regarded as having done things “the right way” the whole time. In the weeks since Trump’s election, we are already seeing the country establishment hedge its bets when it comes to embracing diversity and offering a vision of country music that reflects everyone who lives in this country. In 2025, we will need country artists who are unapologetically themselves — like Fancy Hagood, who sings lyrics like: “Wish I knew then what I know now / Never wanna be someone else / Wish somebody would’ve told me / ‘No one’s comin’, you gotta save yourself.’”
“Savior Self,” the thesis statement from Hagood’s 2024 album American Spirit, could easily be performed as an anthem. But Hagood croons the song intimately, singing it like a lullaby in the face of a world that constantly batters a person’s sense of self-worth.
Hagood has always communicated best through music. Growing up a shy kid in Bentonville, Ark., he sang to strangers long before he was willing to speak to them.
“I would sing to anyone, anywhere,” Hagood recalls. “My sister used to parade me door-to-door in our neighborhood to make me sing the national anthem — which is cringe looking back, but very funny.”
Hagood suspects there is some “past-life stuff” at work here. Even as a child, he knew he didn’t quite fit in with the people around him — except when he was performing.
“In my day-to-day life, I felt like a performer onstage without their instrument,” he says. “Onstage, I always felt the most grounded and centered in myself.”
At 17, Hagood moved to Nashville to study at Trevecca Nazarene University. He also began seriously pursuing a career as a singer-songwriter, drew the attention of such industry magnates as Scooter Braun and Scott Borchetta, and dropped out of school. His path took him to Los Angeles, where a campaign to infuse his dance-pop single “Goodbye” with a bit of mystery — he was billed as Who Is Fancy? and his identity was kept secret for several weeks — helped push the track to No. 29 on Billboard’s Mainstream Top 40 chart. When he reached a dead end, he returned to Music City, because country music lies close to his heart.
“Pop songwriting feels a bit more formulaic than it does in country music,” says Hagood. “It’s a different approach to writing. I like writing how I feel. I started writing songs when I was in high school and having a hard time fitting in as a queer kid in Bentonville. Writing became the way I got my emotions out.”
Hagood came out as gay shortly after his initial
move to Nashville. Raised in the Church of the Nazarene, he expected his parents to take the news with some difficulty, so he consulted his religion professors and researched queer theology before speaking with them — developing the scriptural chops to counter arguments he expected them to raise. He returned home for winter break with a plan: Rather than argue, he would show his parents how much happier he was, and that the things they believed about queer people were not true.
“I wanted to show my parents that I’m still me — just a little lighter and a lot happier,” Hagood says. “They were amazing. They came around really quickly and were very accepting.”
From there, Hagood “knocked down the closet door and rode out on a unicorn.” He bleached his hair platinum-blond and wore makeup on and off the stage, earning the nickname “Fancy” (referencing Drake’s hit) from his co-workers at the Forever 21 in the Opry Mills mall. While his vibrant authenticity thrilled audiences, Music Row wasn’t sure how to handle him.
“I ended up moving to L.A. because people were excited about me in Nashville as a songwriter, but my dream has always been to be a performer, performing songs I wrote,” he says. “And a lot of people here didn’t understand how someone like me could be successful in that market.”
Hagood signed a publishing deal with Big Machine in 2013, which led to further opportunities with Dr. Luke’s Prescription Songs and then a deal with Republic Records in L.A. Unfortunately, his experience with the music business environment in the City of Angels turned out just as regressive as people assume mainstream country to be.
“I didn’t feel any shame around my sexuality as an entertainer until I moved to L.A.,” says Hagood. “When you’re having these big meetings about pop songs that are on the radio and being heard across the country, the conversation is all about Middle America: ‘What does Middle America think about this? How can we make you palatable? We need to tone this down.’”
In L.A., Hagood “really started feeling the hard-
ship of being queer in the music industry.”
Although “Goodbye” cracked the top 100 of Billboard’s all-genre singles chart and even led to touring with Ariana Grande and Meghan Trainor, Hagood’s momentum abruptly collapsed when his deals ran out. He returned to Nashville and began tending bar. Humbling as the experience was, Hagood found he had everything he needed to start again. His persistence has led to international touring, appearing on the Grand Ole Opry, befriending beloved actor Leslie Jordan, collaborating with a slew of artists inside and outside the country world — including a standout appearance alongside TJ Osborne (of Brothers Osborne) and Waylon Payne on Orville Peck’s cover of “Rhinestone Cowboy” — and much more.
“My goal is to do music for a living,” Hagood says. “For a lot of people, music is considered a passion — but I’ve made a career out of my passion. Anything past that, including this interview and the tour, are cherries on top. My dream is already manifested into reality.”
That change of perspective is part of what makes American Spirit — Hagood’s second country album, following 2021’s Southern Curiosity — his best work yet. In the aftermath of an intense breakup, Hagood turned to his teenage coping mechanism: songwriting.
“I was needing songs of hope,” he says. “I was needing songs of healing. I did not want to write a bunch of sad songs. I don’t want that to be my story. I want my story to be about reclaiming my power, reclaiming my independence, finding who I am.”
Hagood knows this isn’t an egotistical exercise. He cites Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic as he points out that art comes from something that exists outside of ourselves, something that we all experience, and that it’s an individual artist’s task to translate that something in a way that other people can understand, embrace and articulate. Giving people a new way to access their truths is worth all the pain.
“[Producer and friend] Jarrad K’s studio is soaked in my tears because of the amount of times I
just couldn’t handle what I was singing about,” Hagood recalls. He surrounded himself with longtime friends and collaborators like Caitlyn Smith, Mindy Smith, Sean McConnell, John Osborne of Brothers Osborne and even actress Mary Steenburgen (who has a co-writing credit on “Soulmates”). “They gave me all the time and space to create, to be, to feel.”
Perhaps that’s why American Spirit feels like a nurturing hug, with Hagood’s intimate tones buttressed by a musical background that shimmers with gentle percussion and fingerpicked acoustic guitars, occasional electronic elements and electric guitars that roar in the distance. Even in the embers of Hagood’s grief, it feels like there is something newer and better pulsating beneath the surface. The songsmith knows he is able to create at this level because his team, including manager Natalie Osborne, understands that he cannot compromise himself.
“I’ve learned the true power of a shared vision, and I’ve learned how to articulate my vision,” he says. “Having that has just unlocked so much in my career. I think there are a lot of well-intentioned people in the music business, but people make decisions based off fear. And I live in faith. I don’t think of myself in the music business anymore. I’m in the Fancy Hagood business.” Hagood sees new opportunities: Artists have more and more viable options for sustaining themselves beyond major label deals and terrestrial radio.
“My favorite message I get from fans is, ‘I didn’t know I loved country music until I heard your album,’ or, ‘I never thought I would see a queer country artist,’” Hagood says. “It gives me chills every single time someone says it to me. I’m trying to broaden the scope of country music and invite other people to the table — invite other people to the party, and let them know that this is not a narrow lane for one group of people. Country music is for everyone.”
To that point, Hagood sees optimism in the adversity that is sure to come under the Trump administration.
“We exist in a space where queerphobia is already a thing,” he says. “I don’t want to name names, but there are some big acts that speak very negatively about the trans community. It’s already so present here in Nashville, and we are already working around it.”
Ultimately, Hagood hopes to see more and more people determined to share their stories and experiences.
“Art is what brings us all together,” says Hagood. “Music has saved me time and time again. I’m tired of the divisiveness. I want to be a voice that brings people together with my music. … It’s just too important to me to never try to be something I’m not. That was the name of my career for so long, and it’s not something I ever want to do again. I want to be my authentic, real, vulnerable self — always.” ▼
SATURDAY | JANUARY 25
Experience the scintillating rhythms of Cuba and Latin America with this 13-piece orchestra led by Grammy Award-winning multi-instrumentalist Giovanni Rodriguez. Don’t forget to bring your dancing shoes!
JANUARY 17
OPRY 100 AT THE RYMAN
FEATURING GARY MULE DEER, LANCO, RALPH STANLEY II AND THE CLINCH MOUNTAIN BOYS & MORE
MARCH 31
THE WORLD NEEDS NOW: THE BURT BACHARACH SONGBOOK TODD RUNDGREN ON SALE FRIDAY AT 10 AM
FRIDAY | FEBRUARY 14
The first ever Valentine’s Day concert at Cheekwood features traditional jazz standards and classic love ballads sung by acclaimed international jazz vocalist Lisa Stewart. Lisa Stewart and the Love Notes
SATURDAY | MARCH 1
Reserve tickets at cheekwood.org.
The Crescent City Hoodoo All-Stars, led by Chris Walters, put on a high-energy show packed with classic jazz, blues and soul tunes from iconic Crescent City neighborhoods including the French Quarter, Mid City and Uptown.
Special thanks to
Reflecting on the Country Music Association’s second rejection of Beyoncé BY
SHERONICA HAYES
EVERY TIME BEYONCÉ blinks, a hater stirs. I suppose one can’t rise to the position of being the greatest entertainer of their generation without collecting a few antagonists along the way. And frankly I’m impressed by how quasi-sophisticated anti-Beyoncé rhetoric has become in the resplendent light of her eighth studio album Cowboy Carter. Before we get into the weeds here, it’s important to acknowledge that the cultural and critical reception of Cowboy Carter since its release in March has been magnificently positive. I genuinely believe that the echoes of celebration for this album will be heard for decades to come. But despite how impactful and significant Beyoncé’s contribution to country music history is at this moment, the gatekeepers of the genre are feigning Gandalf the Grey, shouting, “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!”
It feels strange and silly to rush to the defense of one of the most successful albums in music history. Cowboy Carter has 11 nominations at the upcoming 67th Grammy Awards, and Beyoncé is the first Black woman to top Billboard’s Best Country Albums chart. Considering these accolades, in addition to the vast sea of others under the album’s belt, it would be easy to simply ignore the small puddle of people who have negative or less-than-kind responses to Cowboy Carter. Here lies my dilemma: A well-placed puddle can still cause a big mess.
None of the negative bullshit is slowing down the momentum of the mass Black migration back into traditional American genres — hello, we have always been here — that is being accelerated by Cowboy Carter. But it is mission-critical that we examine the full implications of both the subtle and the blatant rejection of Beyoncé’s contribution to a genre with a rich yet sordid past. The truth is that Beyoncé will be in her bag regardless, but when the CMA Awards neglected to recognize Cowboy Carter in any capacity despite its irrefutable commercial success, they were blowing a dog whistle that seemed to whisper: “Fuck you. Fuck ya fans. And fuck the horse you rode in on.”
I don’t think any of us were surprised by the snub. After all, the CMAs are kind of the genesis of Cowboy Carter. In 2016 Beyoncé hit the stage at the Country Music Association’s annual ceremony alongside The Chicks to perform an extra twangy rendition of her debut country ballad “Daddy Lessons” from her acclaimed album Lemonade. In the run up to the awards, the Beyhive speculated a nomination for “Daddy Lessons,” and although the nom never arrived, most of us were assuaged by her being invited to perform at the awards show that year. Looking back, it seems as if the performance was the CMA’s pacifier to Black fans and allies who have long criticized the institution’s lack of inclusiv-
ity. If only we had the foresight to read the writing on the wall then: “We will never give you your flowers, but you can sing and dance for us a little bit.” Bread and circuses, I suppose. Beyoncé has never made a public statement fully disclosing what went on behind the scenes of that performance. The New York Times published a piece that acknowledged its polarizing nature, and despite doing their best to remain neutral, seemed to highlight the ridiculous and racist nature of the complaints. We can safely assume that Beyoncé alludes to this criticism and backlash on Track 1 of Cowboy Carter, “Ameriican Requiem,” with the lyrics: “They used to say I spoke too country / Then the rejection came, said I wasn’t country ’nough / Said I wouldn’t saddle up, but / If that ain’t country, tell me, what is?”
Let’s zoom out for a moment and consider both of Beyoncé’s CMA snubs in light of some condemnable stats about the institution — because frankly, all the Luke Bryans out there may be tempted to say, “Lots of people get snubbed.” (More on that later.) In 2024, the CMA held its 58th annual Awards ceremony. Within those — and I can’t stress this enough — FIFTY-EIGHT YEARS, only four Black artists have won awards in the major categories. Four.
Charley Pride was the first, with dual Entertainer of the Year and Male Vocalist of the Year wins in 1971 and a Male Vocalist repeat in 1972. But it didn’t happen again until 2009 when Darius Rucker took home New Artist of the Year; the next Black winner was Jimmie Allen, 2021’s New Artist of the Year. And in 2023 Tracy Chapman became the first Black woman and songwriter to receive a CMA for Song of the Year. What’s notable about the Chapman win is that her
awarded song “Fast Car” was out for 35 years before it was recognized by the CMAs. And the only reason we can conclude she finally got her due was because Luke Combs’ cover of it soared through the charts upon its release.
If the CMA wasn’t constantly trying to dodge allegations of racism, they would have overlooked Chapman altogether and awarded a young white man for a song a Black woman wrote before he was born. This criticism is in no way a dig at Combs, who has been extremely vocal about his adoration for Chapman and credits her as a major influence on his career. His cover is delightful and maintains the integrity of the original. Moreover, I’m emphasizing the pattern of white supremacy that is sewn into the American country music identity — one that wrongly enables white artists to be portrayed as the proprietors of the genre and everyone else to be squatters.
When country star Luke Bryan weighed in on why Beyoncé was snubbed, he answered in a way that we’ve grown accustomed to passive “nice” white guys answering when they refuse to apply the most miniscule molecule of critical thinking to complex topics regarding race and gender. In an earnest tone, Bryan protested to Sirius XM radio host Andy Cohen that “everybody loved that Beyoncé made a country album — nobody’s mad about it.” But then he argued that if she wants to be accepted by those in the country music industry, she needs to “come be country with us a little bit” and “come to an award show and high-five us.” There’s a crapton to unpack here folks, so strap in.
First of all, this is an obtuse thing to say from an individual who literally shared the same stage as Beyoncé at the CMAs in 2016.
But maybe he suffers from selective situational amnesia. Perhaps he forgot that the rejection she received from those very hands he so desperately wants her to high-five is part of the reason Cowboy Carter exists. For Bryan to suggest that she could come kiss their asses to gain their respect is preposterous and laughable. One of these subjects holds the record for the most Grammys ever awarded to an individual; the other is Luke Bryan.
Furthermore, Black women are constantly expected to perform this kind of pantomime to earn a seat at the table. What’s important to grasp here is that Beyoncé isn’t even asking for a seat at the table. After being rejected by the dinner party once, she went out and built her own damn table in true resilient Black-girl fashion. And she invited a whole host of other Black artists making huge waves in country music to sit with her, including Brittney Spencer, Reyna Roberts, Shaboozey, Tanner Adell, Tiera Kennedy and Willie Jones.
The mosaic of artists featured on Cowboy Carter is the reason I wrote this essay: each of these artists and all of their fans who have been waiting and waiting to be seen, heard, included and respected by country music society. For those who don’t have the resources to build their own table, but deserve to eat regardless. When the CMA rejected Beyoncé again, they made it abundantly clear to all Black country musicians and fans that it truly does not matter how extraordinary the art is: They would rather rot in their racism than give a Black woman her flowers. But I got news — Black women know how to garden, too. ▼
Talking with Nashville native Saaneah, whose banner 2024 is just the beginning, if she has anything to say about it BY
MARGARET LITTMAN
INSPIRATION IS OFTEN found in unexpected places. For Saaneah, it was as a child, watching the sitcom Martin while hanging out at her great-grandmother’s house. She heard the character Pam sing “Silent Night” on a Christmas episode.
“I was so touched by her performance of ‘Silent Night’ that I tried to sing it myself,” Saaneah recalls. “And when I sung it myself, it came out sounding nice. I wanted to mimic her because it just touched me so much at [age] 6 with that particular episode, and I wanted to have that effect on people.”
Word around Nashville traveled fast, and pretty soon people were talking about how Saaneah could sing. Her great-grandmother helped her join the church choir, and eventually, the first standing ovation she ever received — although certainly not the last — was singing “O Holy Night” at Gordon Memorial United Methodist Church in North Nashville. To get those vocals right, she practiced, listening to classics, including Mahalia Jackson, Ella Fitzgerald and Billie Holiday.
“I’ve been performing seemingly since birth, since breath entered me,” she says, recounting how she would stand on the lip of the fireplace in her grandmother’s house, using a toilet paper roll as a microphone. “But I’ve been singing and developing my craft ever since ‘Silent Night’ and Martin.”
Since then, Saaneah has had a lot of big years. She studied at Nashville School of the Arts. “It was the modern-day Fame,” she says, breaking into the TV show’s theme song mid-interview. “It really changed my life, going to that school. I felt like I had people that got me as an artist, as a free spirit, who believed in me.”
She studied voice at Tennessee State University and was classically trained in jazz, show choir and theater. In 2014, she released an EP, The Spirit of Joy. She’s acted and modeled curvy jeans. She worked as the executive director of the Jefferson Street Sound Museum, focused on fundraising for the essential Nashville organization. She performed at the Belcourt and at Miss Zeke’s Juke Joint at Papa Turney’s BBQ.
But perhaps 2024 was the biggest year of them all. In 2023, she was tapped to record “Get the Hell Out of Dodge” on My Black Country: The Songs of Alice Randall, a combination book and album project that featured commercial country songs written by Randall and recorded by Black women artists. The project garnered award after award, from a writer’s choice in the Scene’s Best of Nashville issue to Rhiannon Giddens’
Grammy nomination for her performance on the album. The record was produced by Ebonie Smith, who brought Saaneah in for “Get the Hell Out of Dodge.”
“It was my first time working with Black women like this,” Saaneah says. “Miss Alice Randall, the way that she is with My Black Country is really inspirational to me. To have someone take me on and just see my star, my superstar — to see all these things and put me in position to find an audience that I didn’t know would love me so much was really inspirational.”
Then, in September, Saaneah made her Grand Ole Opry debut. The event marks her — as far as our research shows — as the first Black woman born in Nashville to perform on the program. But it wasn’t easy getting there. In 2020, she and her grandmother were displaced from
their home due to the tornado. In fact, she was briefly living in her car in 2023 during the period of time that she recorded “Get the Hell Out of Dodge.” In 2023 she wrote down a list of stages on which she wanted to appear in 2024, and the Opry was one of them. The CMA Awards ceremony was another event she wrote down, and 2024 saw her there too (though not performing), rubbing elbows with Shaboozey.
While she had just five days’ notice to prepare for her Opry debut, in some ways, she’s had a lifetime. The singer-songwriter describes herself as a “genre-bender” when it comes to her style.
“I have always loved country, but it just was something I didn’t see myself in,” Saaneah says. “I never want to be in a box. I’ve tried, but it doesn’t work for me. I’m a very multidimensional Black woman. I was really proud to find
freedom in creative music and just nailing it. I love to nail it.”
Her Opry debut reinforced to her that it was all possible.
“I felt like Michael Jackson,” she recalls with a laugh, noting that she and the King of Pop share a birthday. “When I got off the stage, I couldn’t go anywhere because everywhere I went, everybody was clapping and wanting to take pictures.”
Saaneah is an independent artist and has never had an agency or management. “It’s just me. I always say, ‘God is my label.’”
As she planned for 2025, she had a talk with that label about what’s next. “My goal is to be a change-maker in music. It’s time for my hit. I was talking to God, and said, ‘All right, it’s hit time.’” ▼
In our survey, journalists weigh in on the present and future of country music
COMPILED BY STEPHEN TRAGESER
ONCE AGAIN, WE invited journalists and authors who focus on country music to share their takes on the present and future of the genre. Here’s a sampling of their responses on topics from 2024’s best country releases to the biggest roadblocks to change in the industry in the year ahead.
Kassi Ashton, Made From the Dirt; Middle Sattre, Tendencies.
—RACHEL CHOLST
Sierra Ferrell wins on both for me: Trail of Flowers and “Dollar Bill Bar.” But I loved so many records, from Kaitlin Butts to Lizzie No to Adeem the Artist to Lauren Watkins. Great music was made on and off Music Row, though most of the great stuff made on Music Row didn’t actually get heard anywhere.
—MARISSA R. MOSS
Alice Wallace, Here I Am. —AMOS PERRINE Shaboozey, Where I’ve Been, Isn’t Where I’m Going; Beyoncé, Cowboy Carter; Zach Top, Cold Beer & Country Music. —STEACY EASTON Beyoncé, “Bodyguard.” —JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT Silverada, “Radio Wave”; Koe Wetzel, 9 Lives.
—JOSEPH HUDAK
Shaboozey’s “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” embodied the best things about the stylistic synthesis that has always marked the most enduring country music. Blending hip-hop and country with ease and flexibility, Shaboozey flipped the script on J-Kwon’s hit and captured both escapist fun and ambivalence about the nightlife, anchored by his remarkable vocals. —CHARLES L. HUGHES
Lainey Wilson’s Whirlwind doubled down on the way classic rock sounds continue to predominate the mainstream while My Black Country looked back on the Alice Randall songbook even as it previewed the Black-Country future I swear we all deserve. —DAVID CANTWELL
Billy Strings, “Leaning on a Travelin’ Song”; Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Woodland.
—BEN ARTHUR
Shaboozey, “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” and Sierra Ferrell, Trail of Flowers — if I resist the temptation to broaden the supposed genre parameters to include Waxahatchee’s “Right Back to It” and the Tigers Blood LP. Conceptually, nothing touched Cowboy Carter —WILL HERMES
Sturgill Simpson aka Johnny Blue Skies, “Jupiter’s Faerie”; American Aquarium, The Fear of Standing Still —JAKE HARRIS
Dan Spencer’s Return to Your Dark Master was what I listened to most. It’s got a lot of what I
think is missing from modern country: It’s got somber moments, but doesn’t dwell or feel fake sappy. The album companion to Alice Randall’s book My Black Country came out right at the same time as Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter — the two album releases experienced alongside Randall’s book feels like a perfect contextual experience of Black country music. —AMANDA HAGGARD
Sierra Ferrell, “American Dreaming”; Adeem the Artist, Anniversary. —JUSTIN COBER-LAKE
Sierra Ferrell, Trail of Flowers. —BRITTNEY MCKENNA
Examining yourself without artifice or remorse can be painful, but Jelly Roll showed a nation it can and should be done more often with “I Am Not Okay” and Beautifully Broken —RON WYNN
The Red Clay Strays, Made by These Moments. —CHRIS PARTON
Hurray for the Riff Raff, The Past Is Still Alive. Alynda Segarra delivered their most self-assured album by channeling the hope and resilience in their rich life story. —HUNTER KELLY
Ben Arthur: No Depression, BOMB, Aquarium Drunkard, Nashville Scene
David Cantwell: co-founder, No Fences Review; The New Yorker
Rachel Cholst: editor, Rainbow Rodeo; contributor, Nashville Scene
Justin Cober-Lake: PopMatters, Spectrum Culture, Dusted
Steacy Easton: Mx.; journalist; author; critic
Amanda Haggard: co-editor, The Contributor; contributor, Nashville Scene and Chapter16.org
Jake Harris: audience development editor, Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Will Hermes: Rolling Stone, The New York Times, Will Hermes: New Music + Old Music
Joseph Hudak: senior music editor, Rolling Stone
Charles L. Hughes: co-founder, No Fences Review; writer; teacher
Hunter Kelly: Apple Music, Rolling Stone; forthcoming book on The Judds for Liveright, an imprint of Norton Brittney McKenna: Nashville Scene, BBC, Forbes
Marissa R. Moss: journalist and author; cofounder, Don’t Rock the Inbox
Chris Parton: Nashville Lifestyles, Nashville Scene, The Bluegrass Situation
Amos Perrine: photo editor and Through the Lens columnist, No Depression
Ron Wynn: Tennessee Tribune, Nashville Scene, The Bluegrass Situation
Jacqueline Zeisloft: Nashville Scene
Post Malone’s album to me sounded like unimaginative arena rock filtered through a quasi-country prism. The fact that people would question Beyoncé’s credentials or her right to do a country LP, yet put the seal of approval on this one, really made me think that for all the progress made in this genre, it’s still easier for some to welcome someone like Malone into the fold than a Black woman who grew up in Houston and whose LP reflected a far deeper understanding of historical precedent and contemporary developments. —RON WYNN
I continue to find little in Zach Bryan’s music that does anything for me. While I appreciate and admire his approach, I’ve yet to be particularly moved by his music in a way that feels
quite subjective but remains unchanging. I know that there are many who love him, and I’m cool with that. —CHARLES L. HUGHES
Kacey Musgraves’ Deeper Well has fetching moments. But the whole bougie, Goop-y gestalt of the thing moved her further away from the working-class miniatures that made her name while inching her music further toward being just another lifestyle brand. —DAVID CANTWELL
Jenna Paulette’s Horseback was a bit anemic compared to The Girl I Was (2023). I know she has it in her to break the sophomore slump as long as she avoids playing it as safe as she did on Horseback —RACHEL CHOLST
Lainey Wilson’s Whirlwind — not so much because it’s bad, but because it’s far short of her potential. —JUSTIN COBER-LAKE
I am kind of over being disappointed, which suggests a kind of surprise. I thought that the Post Malone record would fuck things up more, but it’s flaccid and dull, playing the game in
favour of capital. I thought Miranda Lambert would be angrier or smarter, but this is definitely a placeholder record. I’m disappointed in the country audience for loving Morgan Wallen as much as they do; I am disappointed in myself for loving the Justin Moore record as much as I do.
—STEACY EASTON
With guest spots from Jim Lauderdale, Vince Gill and (yay!) Leona Williams, Shawna Thompson’s modern-retro country move Lean on Neon wasn’t all that under-the-radar, but it was off the radio, which might as well be a neon invisibility cloak.
—DAVID CANTWELL
More in the folk realm and far, far away from Nashville, but Myriam Gendron’s songwriting on Mayday offers incredible and poignant reflections on grief, memory and loss. —BEN ARTHUR
Cecily Wilborn is an Arkansas-based Southern soul artist who — like many of her contemporaries — knows that country music exists on just the other side of the stylistic fence. Wilborn seems to be digging deeper into her country side and I hope that she’ll keep the swinging doors open to this side of her expansive artistic vision.
—CHARLES L. HUGHES
Valerie June is a superb vocalist and captivating, often surprising songwriter whose lyrics and voice neatly integrate elements of blues and folk into country. She only needs a couple of big songs to get the wider audience and media credibility she deserves.
—RON WYNN
Willi Carlisle is one of the finest showmen working today. Go see him live if you can. —HUNTER KELLY
I wish Stephanie Lambring’s Hypocrite had gotten more hype. It’s just a devastating examination of womanhood, particularly parenting, and gets at some uncomfortable truths. —
RACHEL CHOLST
Madi Diaz. —WILL HERMES, JUSTIN COBER-LAKE
Shane Pendergast; Red River Rambler; the Métis fiddlers. —STEACY EASTON
Lauren Watkins, Denitia. —MARISSA R. MOSS
Zach Top, Carly Pearce. —BRITTNEY MCKENNA
The Pink Stones. —JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT
Alice Wallace. —AMOS PERRINE
Silverada. —JOSEPH HUDAK
Wyatt Flores, but I have the feeling he’s about to be on everyone’s radar. —JAKE HARRIS
Stephen Wilson Jr. —CHRIS PARTON
I’ve loved just about everything I’ve heard from Amanda Fields, both solo and as a duo with Megan McCormick. (Their beautiful single “Wild as a Flower” was one of my favorites of this year.)
I’m not sure what this gifted singer-songwriter will come up with next, but I hope that her affecting mixture of textures and traditions gains a very wide audience. —CHARLES L. HUGHES
I’m so thrilled for Jett Holden’s album The Phoenix, and I hope it gets the recognition it deserves. I’m excited to see what the Black Opry has in store for us in 2025. —RACHEL CHOLST
Daniel Bachman’s Quaker Run Wildfire for Longform Editions was incredible and groundbreaking. Primitive guitar meets freak-out drones and field recordings, all commenting on the climate crisis that’s degrading his native Virginia wildlife. —BEN ARTHUR
Miko Marks is a favorite at festivals, she’s made acclaimed Opry appearances, and her recent LP Feel Like Going Home was a masterpiece.
—RON WYNN
Kaitlin Butts. —JOSEPH HUDAK, MARISSA R. MOSS
Kashus Kulpepper, Red Clay Strays, Zach Top, Sam Barber, Zandi Holup, Hailey Whitters. —CHRIS PARTON
Sierra Ferrell, Madi Diaz, Shaboozey.
—WILL HERMES
Don Amero, Jason Benoit, Jesse Welles. —STEACY EASTON
Noeline Hoffman, Jobi Riccio. —MARISSA R. MOSS
Joelton Mayfield. —JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT
Morgan Wade. —JAKE HARRIS
Kyle McKearney. —BRITTNEY MCKENNA
I’m very concerned that the Trump administration’s rise to power and its explicit politics of hatred and exclusion will frighten industry players into shying away from the few steps toward actual diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives the industry has taken. Meanwhile, it will embolden others to amplify an agenda of Christian nationalist propaganda that will make “Try That in a Small Town” look quaint. —RACHEL CHOLST
Normally I would say country radio, but this year I’d more specifically say Trump — specifically how his pick to run the FCC will have grave implications for the future of diverse, unconsolidated broadcast radio. —MARISSA R. MOSS
We’ll see some interesting things come of collaboration with other genres, but we’ll also see a lot of folks doing crossover albums who have no business doing that. That’s not really commentary on anything we’ve seen thus far, as much as, “With growth comes grifters.” —AMANDA HAGGARD
The blind hero worship and inflated egos of a select group of grating, problematic white dudes distracts from other country artists who are making exciting work. —JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT
The best music will always survive at small venues, but regardless, it’s a shame that concerts are becoming more and more expensive with less of that money going to the artists. —BEN ARTHUR
Integrating emerging platforms into the mainstream, so the mainstream reflects what listeners are excited about. That, and Ticketmaster’s godawful dynamic pricing. —CHRIS PARTON
Same as it ever was: a refusal of movement toward equity. The lazy jokes about Shaboozey’s name at the CMA Awards tell you all you need to know. —BRITTNEY MCKENNA
Will fans (and even some musicians) finally stop acting as though the music lacks links and connections with every other genre in the pop music universe? Today country is arguably the most eclectic and wide-open of all pop genres, except to a segment of the audience and for that matter the gatekeepers (radio) who either don’t understand how much interaction the music’s always had with other styles, or want to pretend it didn’t and doesn’t happen. —RON WYNN
The push to normalize Trump and thus further squash dissenting voices out of fear of retribution from the right. You see it with network
TV show bookings avoiding politics, and news organizations settling lawsuits with Trump. That is only going to make it easier for business as usual to continue on the country charts. I’d love to be proven wrong. —HUNTER KELLY
I was lucky enough to speak at Country Radio Seminar in 2024, and the biggest hurdle seems to me that everyone is passing the buck. The radio people say that they only play what the record labels serve them, the label people say they only service the tracks they think radio wants. So who is making an actual decision here? And why only privilege major labels? If people want the change they say they do, take action — though that’ll be even harder under the new political regime.
—RACHEL CHOLST
Getting more people willing to rock the boat at radio and give the voices that have historically been underrepresented their rightful place in the sun. Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter succeeded because audiences refused to buy into the notion that a Black woman who’d had huge hits in the R&B and hip-hop worlds couldn’t possibly also love country, know its history and be willing and able to showcase it brilliantly. The CMA not at least nominating the album for some award is super disappointing, but it’s not surprising. Until that mentality disappears among those making the decisions, the most important change needed in the country music field — the expansion of audience interest — will be significantly hindered.
—RON WYNN
Nashville cannot help but get in the way of itself. Build community outside of the control of country radio and a town that bows down to it constantly.
—MARISSA R. MOSS
It’s never easy to change “the way things have been done,” and Nashville tends to really hold onto that. Specific to 2025, there’s probably also a barrier with regard to the grand-scale chaos happening over the next four years in the nation and several high-profile country folks attached to that nonsense.
—AMANDA HAGGARD
Capitalism. —STEACY EASTON
Country radio’s limited programming formats and the lack of dedicated music journalists covering local scenes.
—JAKE HARRIS
It’s harder than ever to know what to take as a real signal of public interest versus what’s just a viral blip. Also, it feels like attitudes toward business regulation and consumer protection are about to change.
—CHRIS PARTON
Even as so many work for change both within and outside country music, the continuing embrace of destructive cultural politics at the expense of truly expanding the unbroken circle remains a fight that will, unfortunately, likely only need to be even stronger as we enter into another era of political viciousness. I gain hope, though, from the chorus that continues to insist on a country music that better represents the rich diversity of the country that it comes from.
—CHARLES L. HUGHES ▼
Salute the Songbird with Maggie Rose
From platinum-selling chart-toppers to underground , household names to undiscovered gems, Chief’s Neon Steeple is c bringing the very best national and regional talent back to Broadway.
1.4 8 Track – The World’s Most Notorious Band, Playing Only The Favorites From The 70s & 80s
1.10 Hell’s Belles
1.11 Uncle B’s Drunk with Power String Band Show featuring Bryan Simpson w/ the Band Loula, Trey Hensley, & A Super Secret CMA/AMA/ Grammy Winning Guest
1.12 Pick Pick Pass w/ Kevin Mac, Caleb Lee Hutchinson, Garrett Jacobs
1.14 Casey Beathard w/ Tucker Beathard
1.15 Salute the Songbird with Maggie Rose, Special Guest: Caitlyn Smith 1.16 Carter Faith – Return to Cherry Valley
1.17 Luke Dick
1.23 Tip Jars to Chart Toppers Hit Songwriter Round w/ Dylan Altman, Marshall Altman, Brice Long
1.24 Charles Esten “Love Ain’t Pretty” 1 Year Anniversary Party
1.25 Take Me To Church Tribute - #1 Eric Church Tribute in America
1.26 Pick Pick Pass w/ Kevin Mac, Shanna Crooks, Will Jones
1.27 Buddy’s Place w/ Nathan Belt, Paige Rose, Ryan Larkins
From Wyatt Flores to Angie K and beyond, our writers have 10 picks to keep an eye on
EVERY YEAR, there’s a slew of rising country talent you’ll want to keep an eye on. To help you keep up, we’ve picked 10 artists heading into 2025 with excellent songs, outstanding voices and vital perspectives to share.
At just 23, Oklahoma-born Nashvillian Wyatt Flores experienced a whirlwind 2024 with his Grand Ole Opry debut (and multiple subsequent performances), a Tiny Desk Concert and a lengthy headline tour with a sold-out two-night run at the Ryman. Flores’ heartfelt, honest storytelling and raw red-dirt sound are captivating fans nationwide; add the well-earned accolades for his debut LP Welcome to the Plains to the mix, and it’s clear he has the chops to back up the buzz around his earlier EPs. His passion for music is undeniable, and he’s made it a point to care for himself in ways that will help him stay in it for the long haul and uncover even more of his potential.
JAYME FOLTZ
Ohio native Austin Stambaugh’s music often sounds experimental, which means he might regard country music as a launch pad for whatever strikes his fancy at any given moment. Stambaugh has covered a lot of ground since he released 2019’s Where She Will Go, which revealed his debt to folk guitar giants like Bert Jansch. The extended narratives on Stambaugh’s 2023 Midwest Supernatural are the work of a storyteller who likes to innovate within the broad outlines of country-adjacent music. The title track of 2024’s Way Down Here on Earth goes into power-pop territory, as if Stambaugh has been listening to Dwight Twilley and Alex Chilton. In an era when country seeks to expand its musical and verbal palette, Stambaugh seems poised to create new, hybrid forms. EDD HURT
Nashvillians might have caught Athens, Ga.’s The Pink Stones sharing bills with local favorites like Emily Nenni and Teddy and the Rough Riders — fellow disciples of the pedal-steel licks and sharp turns of phrase of classic country who put their own twist on it. Led by Hunter Pinkston, The Pink Stones’ members are active in several areas of the eclectic music scene in The Classic City. As with storied forebears such as R.E.M., The B-52s and Pylon, experimenting with sounds from different genres is a big strength for the band, which you can hear on 2023’s You Know Who. What’s most lovable about The Pink Stones is their soft side — the reflective moments that catch you off guard, like their sweet collaboration with Nikki Lane on “Baby, I’m Still Right Here (With You).” JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT
Angie K was on a roll in 2024, with tons of national and international touring (including a standout performance at Nashville Pride Fest) and four singles that suggest her forthcoming EP heralds an even bigger 2025. Recorded with ace songsmith, performer and producer Stephony Smith at the helm, recent singles like “Golden” and “Red Dirt on Mars” showcase Angie K’s rich, throaty voice and knack for nuanced emotional
expression. The lilting, waltz-time “Red Dirt” is an eloquent look at how you have to leave yourself open to pain to make a relationship work, and how that can shake you so hard it jars you loose from your roots. If this is the tip, the iceberg will be something very special. STEPHEN TRAGESER
In a city where being a “townie” is becoming increasingly rare, 26-year-old Jess Awh was born, raised and still lives in the heart of Nashville. As the frontwoman of alt-country four-piece Bats, Awh uses sparse, arresting lyricism that probes at her memories and dreams alike. Across three LPs, Awh spins a love letter to her hometown and all the ways she’s grown up alongside it. The band engages with an expansive array of influences — including a pronounced country sound — al-
lowing Awh’s vocals to shine over an ensemble of guitars, synthesizers, harps and crooning pedal steel. Bats’ latest release Good Game Baby is their most fully realized yet, and a fourth album is on the horizon for the new year. KATHERINE OUNG
Dan Spencer ended 2024 on a bill in San Diego headlined by Post Malone and flanked by Paul Cauthen, Zach Top and Vincent Neil Emerson. It was a fitting conclusion to the Cookeville-residing, Smyrna-born singer-songwriter’s meteoric year, during which he busted ass all over the country around Return to Your Dark Master (including stops at CMA Fest and Bonnaroo). Then he got invited to hop on the stadium tour for Malone’s country LP F-1 Trillion. Spencer participated in writing sessions for the album, though so far none of the songs he worked on has been released; he’s already back in the studio working on new music of his own before hitting the road again. In a city where authenticity isn’t always a given, Spencer’s gothic country tunes, intimate storytelling style and occasionally self-deprecating lyricism will continue to set him apart from the fellas we have enough of already. AMANDA HAGGARD
With the 11-song Made by These Moments, Red Clay Strays released one of the best albums of 2024, full-stop. The five-piece band from Mobile, Ala., stakes a firm claim to sonic territory at the crossroads of old-school crooning, rowdy Southern rock riff work and time-tested roots
storytelling — which often tackles tales of selfdoubt, anxiety, faith and hard-fought love. The band spent much of 2024 on the road, including an opening slot for The Rolling Stones and three sold-out nights at the Ryman. Following the success of the buzzed-about new album, this year should prove just as robust for the Strays; watch the band graduate to bigger rooms and bigger fonts on summer festival posters. (Case in point: See them at Bonnaroo.) MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER
String-band music is its own thing as well as a key element of the ever-evolving sound of country. Supergroup New Dangerfield — made up of Jake Blount, Kaia Kater, Tray Wellington and
Nelson Williams — is joining in the hard work to reinstate the history that’s been largely erased of Black musicians’ fundamental contributions to the tradition while also writing their own chapter of the story. In 2024 (their inaugural year), they worked around the members’ busy schedules to record and release two standout singles and play a handful of inspiring shows, including an appearance at Newport Folk Festival. STEPHEN TRAGESER
If you’re looking for a little trad country, look no further than Ramona and the Holy Smokes. The Charlottesville, Va., group takes on old-school honky-tonk with effortless ease, anchored by Ramona Martinez’s confident performance. Martinez has clarity and sincerity that bring Patsy Cline to mind — if Patsy had been allowed to get a little PG-13 with her lyrics. The band’s November EP Til It’s Over is a tantalizing sampler of what the band is capable of. Fortunately, they raised more than $20,000 on Kickstarter for their debut album, which promises to incorporate Martinez’s Latina heritage into their pitch-perfect vintage sound. RACHEL CHOLST
So many of the songs on Chris Housman’s 2024 debut Blueneck stand out for so many different reasons. In “Drag Queen,” the openly gay songsmith sings about someone who’s deeply invested in their small town in spite of the hate some people choose to aim at them. There are heartfelt love songs and breakup songs, charming come-ons and sly kiss-offs, and clear-eyed looks at the work it takes to remain hopeful when you’re not part of the elite — and they all feel like stories Housman has lived. There’s little more I can imagine asking from a country record, and this is just Housman clearing his throat.
STEPHEN TRAGESER ▼
Jamie Shriner, Drew Harrison, Stephen Henry, Miriam Kirk, Evan Berke, and Tony Roni michigander w/ sydney sprague jack kays w/ games we play
Lawndry, Trash Man (7pm)
the cold stares w/ myron elkins (9PM)
Miranda And The Beat w/ Cowboy Killer, Night Talkers, & The Serpenteens (9PM)
matt koziol w/ Rylie Bourne Sasquatch and the Sick-A-Billys w/ Psyko Otis and his Road Killers
WMOT Roots Radio Presents Finally Friday featuring JAKE NEUMAN
clover county w/
2025 featuring JEFFREY STEELE, PAUL SIKES, PAUL WROCK & JUSTIN WILSON + JORDANA BRYANT, HEATH WARREN, KYLE CRUZ & ALLISON CRUZ + SCOTTY HASTING, HAYDEN COFFMAN, ALISON NICHOLS, TKG + JESSE LABELLE & HARPER GRACE, PRYOR BAIRD, NEON UNION + ASHLEY WALLS & MICHAEL JAMES, DAWSON SLADE, MATT COOPER,
WORLD TURNING BAND “The Live Fleetwood Mac Experience” with KARA GRAINGER
THE WAR AND TREATY with the Nashville Symphony
JAN 16 TO 18 | 7:30 PM
Enrico Lopez-Yañez, conductor
Ravel’s Bolero
Celebrating 150 years of Ravel with the Nashville Symphony
JULIA WOLFE’S FLOWER POWER AND BEETHOVEN’S SEVENTH with the Nashville Symphony
JAN 24 & 25 | 7:30 PM JAN 26 | 2 PM
Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor Bang on a Can All-Stars
Presentation
Bluebird at the Symphony with Lee Miller, Wendell Mobley, Chris DeStefano & members of the Nashville Symphony
Classical Series
LUNAR NEW YEAR: YEAR OF THE SNAKE with the Nashville Symphony
JAN 31 | 7:30 PM
Ming Luke, conductor Susan Yang, soloist
Beethoven’s Ninth: Ode to Joy with the Nashville Symphony & Chorus
Itzhak Perlman: Cinema Serenade with the Nashville Symphony
Choralperformancesaregenerouslysupported byC.B.RaglandCompany. FEB 28 | 7:30 PM MAR 2 | 2 PM
Classical Series
ConcertSponsor:FourSeasonsHotelNashville & Mimo Restaurant and Bar FEB 16 | 7:30
Tchaikovsky’s Fifth with the Nashville Symphony
THURSDAY, JAN. 16
MUSIC
[TAKING A STAND]
THE WAR AND TREATY FEAT. NASHVILLE SYMPHONY
In my time covering music in Nashville, I’ve seen The War and Treaty pay tribute to the late John Prine and sing at a birthday celebration for Mavis Staples. I’ve watched the husband-and-wife duo croon classic Everly Brothers tunes, serenade award show audiences and sing for a sprawling crowd at one of downtown Nashville’s Fourth of July concerts. And like clockwork, each appearance left the audience on its feet, shouting for more. Expect no less when the duo headlines the Schermerhorn Symphony Center this week on a three-night run with the Nashville Symphony. It’s the first headlining War and Treaty show backed by a symphony orchestra (talk about a cinematic experience, right?), and the shows come days after the group confirmed a new album, called Plus One, that will debut Feb. 14 via UMG Nashville. At the Schermerhorn, The War and Treaty teams with Enrico Lopez-Yañez, who conducts the Nashville Symphony for the three-night run. MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER
7:30 P.M. AT THE SCHERMERHORN
1 SYMPHONY PLACE
THEATER
[WHEN BROADWAY COMES TO TOWN] FRANKLIN THEATRICAL FELLOWSHIP: GOOD NIGHT, OSCAR
It’s not often a relatively new theater company manages to secure the rights to a Tony Awardwinning play, fresh off its Broadway run. But that’s exactly what Franklin Theatrical Fellowship has managed to do, as they’re set to present the post-Broadway premiere of Doug Wright’s 2023 hit Good Night, Oscar at the Franklin Special District Performing Arts Center in Franklin. Inspired by actual events, the story centers on Oscar Levant — a celebrated yet tortured concert pianist, composer, comedian and actor — and one particularly complicated appearance on The Tonight Show with Jack Paar in 1958. Directed by FTF artistic director and co-founder Melanie Sutton, the cast includes Nashville favorite Shawn Knight as Oscar Levant along with Kay Ayers, Trey Smith, Jarvis Bynum, Josh Kiev, Hayden Jones, Sawyer Latham and Dan Kassis. Good Night, Oscar is recommended for ages 13 and older due to strong language and mature themes. Be sure to stick around after
each performance for a 30-minute talkback with the cast and creative team. AMY STUMPFL JAN. 16-19 AT THE FSD PERFORMING ARTS CENTER 1030 EXCELLENCE WAY, FRANKLIN
[BROTHERLY LOVE]
THE PISAPIA
Producer, songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Joe Pisapia brings The Pisapia Love-In back to The 5 Spot for a pair of shows in January, the first of which is this Thursday evening. “Hey, man, it’s just a love-in,” Pisapia tells the Scene with a laugh. There certainly will be a lot of love in the room Thursday night, because as in past years, the love-in will feature Joe, Marc’s Brother — the beloved ’90s Nashville rock trio that’s fronted by Pisapia and includes his brother, Marc Pisapia, on drums and James “Hags” Haggerty on bass. “They are my soul brothers and my musical brothers,” Pisapia says. But it won’t be a JMB show, per se — they will be primarily performing material from Joe Pisapia’s five solo releases, which often go beyond the band’s brand of eclectic pop rock into more adventurous and sonically unexpected territory. “I struggle with what to call it,” Pisapia adds. “So
many people still call it Joe, Marc’s Brother even though Joe, Marc’s Brother hasn’t done a record since 2000. But the core band is still Joe, Marc’s Brother.” DARYL SANDERS
6 P.M. AT THE 5 SPOT
1006 FOREST AVE.
FRIDAY /
DANCE
[OF PASSION AND PYDANCE] PREMIERE — PYDANCE: GOD’S COUNTRY
Asia Pyron may have just arrived in Nashville in 2021, but she has already established herself within the city’s burgeoning dance community, presenting exciting new works like POOL and Murder of Crows with her company PYDANCE. Next up for the ensemble: God’s Country, an intriguing original dance work set to the music of cult rock band Chat Pile. Offering a movement-based adaptation of the “American horror story” portrayed in the band’s 2022 album of the same name, God’s Country offers an unflinching look at the “passion of a young
capitalize on an American underground ripe with talent. But of all the oddball major label signings, perhaps the most confusing was MCA offering a deal to New York’s Sheer Terror. Formed in 1984 — the year Agnostic Front released Victim in Pain and as Cro-Mags were making noise in NYC — Sheer Terror was the first NYHC unit to inject extreme metal guitars into hardcore punk. Fronted by the menacing brute Paul Bearer, the band became a mainstay of the violent CBGB Sunday matinees. Taking cues from the power-tool-esque Celtic Frost guitar sound and the bombastic nihilism of Poison Idea, Sheer Terror set themselves apart from the rest of the Lower East Side scene. The band spawned countless clones, with contemptful lyrics and buzzsaw riffing that paved the way for hard-nosed acts like Judge, Integrity and Merauder. Though Bearer and his rotating cast of thrashers never gained the attention they deserved outside the Five Boroughs, recent years have seen the band finally get their due credit. It’s rare to catch these NYC bulldogs in the South, but Sheer Terror’s 40th anniversary tour strikes The Cobra for a night of spiteful aggression and dogpile sing-alongs. Get there on time for the poser-smashing riffage of Savage Attack and rock ’n’ roll maniacs B.O.A.
8 P.M. AT COBRA
2511 GALLATIN PIKE
[PLEASE DON’T STOP THE MUSIC] DANCE! A ’90S/’00S PARTY
P.J. KINZER
Gispert — now a longtime Nashvillian — the indie-rock power trio frequently supported big acts like Drive-By Truckers, The Black Keys and Kings of Leon while releasing a steady stream of rock-solid studio albums and bringing their electric live energy to just about every late-night show on network television. They issued five LPs between 2005 and 2014, though I’m partial to 2012’s Enjoy the Company, which kicks off with the eight-minute “Staying Alive.” (Aside from prog bands, who the hell leads an album with an eight-minute song with a swung rhythm? The Whigs, that’s who.) Though they did put out a live album back in 2016, the band hasn’t released any fresh material in a little more than a decade, with Gispert focusing on his solo career while southpaw drummer Julian Dorio and bassist Timothy Deaux have served as sidemen for acts including Eagles of Death Metal (Dorio) and Grace Potter (Deaux). But The Whigs know that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and that’s why anytime they pop up for a live appearance, it feels like a special occasion. After dipping down to Athens for a show at the famed 40 Watt on Friday night, The Whigs will hit Nashville’s Basement East on Saturday, where they’ll be joined by topflight locals The Medium and Jack Shields. And if we’re lucky, they’ll stretch their live version of “Staying Alive” to 10 minutes plus. D. PATRICK RODGERS
8 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT EAST
917 WOODLAND ST.
generation at a boiling point.” It’s a dynamic piece that draws inspiration from the city’s underground punk and metal scenes. Pyron serves as choreographer and director, and has gathered a terrific group of dancers, including Madison Tate Brott, Lenin Fernandez, Spencer Grady, Aurora Jensen, Emma Morrison, Gracyn Preston, Amanda Reichert and Chris Strauss. Audiences can also look forward to checking out vibrant visuals and projection designs from Nathan Smith. Balancing dark, pulsating rhythms and explosive movement with a timely message of vulnerability and social awareness, God’s Country promises a fascinating evening of dance. AMY STUMPFL
7:30 P.M. AT TPAC’S JOHNSON THEATER
505 DEADERICK ST.
SATURDAY / 1.18
MUSIC
[SHUT UP, PUNK!] SHEER TERROR
In the search for The Next Nirvana, many major labels made strange bedfellows to
When I imagine the peak of the American clubbing experience, I imagine the early 2000s: Britney Spears is blasting through speakers so loudly it shakes the room. Lights flash from the ceiling, making the night feel less like reality and more like a perfect dream. Your friend has her flip phone in her pocket because no one is taking videos or trying to capture the moment for their private Snapchat story; they’re just enjoying the night. Even though I never got to experience this — I was born in 2004, and my “going out” experiences have been marked by constant social media use and a music industry that’s built to match — I have a deep appreciation for the 1990s/2000s party scene. Despite not being around for the heyday of popular artists of the ’90s and Aughts, I know it’s some of the best music to dance to like no one is watching, even in a crowded room. Really, what could be better than dancing to “Poker Face” by Lady Gaga back to back with Britney’s “Toxic”?
The organizers of Brooklyn Bowl’s Dance! A ’90s/’00s Dance Party feel the same way. Since it’s an 18-and-up event, you don’t even have to be “of clubbing age” to immerse yourself in a nostalgic night on the town. KATIE BETH CANNON
8 P.M. AT BROOKLYN BOWL
925 THIRD AVE. N.
Though formed by Atlanta-area natives while attending the University of Georgia, The Whigs were a big part of Nashville’s Aughts and early-2010s rock scene. Led by frontman Parker
For his 2024 album Wake the Dead, Chuck Prophet recorded with the California band ¿Qiensave?, which plays a version of cumbia music called cumbia urbana. A Latin American musical form usually associated with Colombia, cumbia is a dance music that’s often played in cut time. Prophet recorded Wake the Dead after receiving a 2022 cancer diagnosis, and he’s now in remission. That’s great news for fans of the prolific San Francisco musician. Since he began recording albums under his own name more than three decades ago, Prophet has proven himself a rock ’n’ roll master with a light touch
in political songwriting, and Wake the Dead expresses the anxieties of the Trump era via some of the best songs he’s written since 2007’s Soap and Water Wake the Dead songs like “Sally Was a Cop” and “Sugar Into Water” make the case for Prophet as an inspired songwriter and first-rate bandleader. “Sugar Into Water” finds Prophet looking for a way to get to Tuscaloosa and singing about our current political reality: “All the politicians / Drinking in the clubhouse / I can hear ’em talking / Yeah, but I don’t know what it means.” Nashville singer Karina Daza, whose latest release is the 2023 EP Viajera, opens.
EDD HURT
7 P.M. AT 3RD AND LINDSLEY
818 THIRD AVE. S. MUSIC
[BILLY-GO-ROUND]
All hail Muddy Roots! The Middle Tennessee purveyors of rock ’n’ roll present The Meteors, led by psychobilly luminary P. Paul Fenech. Formed in 1980 and following the footsteps of American predecessors The Stooges and The Cramps, Fenech and his “wreckin’ crew” have since survived 45 gnarly years as the reigning “kings of psychobilly” while inspiring countless copycat acts along the way. Fenech’s latest meteoric record 40 Days a Rotting, released in April, is proof the punk pioneer has no intention of slowing down any time soon. If a bar brawl by chance breaks out before The Meteors’ set, The Beat Creeps might just be the perfect band to provide a soundtrack. They’re among the most exciting live acts in town, and attendees can expect a full-on garage-rock smackdown. Show openers Crypt24 are set to release their third full-length album Draggin’ the Devil later this year, but they’ll have limited CD copies available exclusively at the show. This is the trio’s second record produced and mixed by Fenech himself. Fans of Fenech and The Meteors since their ’80s heyday will be stoked to catch a 6 o’clock show time. It’s never too early in the evening to rock out, right?
JASON VERSTEGEN
6 P.M. AT THE COBRA
2511 GALLATIN PIKE
[BENDING THE ARC]
MUSIC
MLK: A CELEBRATION IN SONG WITH MICKEY GUYTON AND THE NASHVILLE SYMPHONY
Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy of action in the name of justice during the civil rights movement touches a huge array of places — Nashville included, despite our less-than-perfect track record in honoring our civil rights history. Since the ’90s, the Nashville Symphony has held an annual celebration near the federal holiday that marks King’s birthday. This year, a sponsorship from law firm Spencer Fane means the event is free (though registration is still required via the symphony’s website). The world-class classical ensemble will support performances from the Celebration Chorus (led by chorus master Odessa Settles) and Celebration Youth Chorus (co-led by revered educators Margaret Campbelle-Holman
and Dr. Nita Smith), as well as special guest Mickey Guyton. The top-notch country singersongwriter has a great catalog to draw from — not least her second LP House on Fire, released in September. But a highlight of the show is set to be a performance of “Black Like Me,” a standout from her 2021 album Remember Her Name that looks at how the playing field remains uneven for Black Americans. STEPHEN TRAGESER
7:30 P.M. AT THE SCHERMERHORN
1 SYMPHONY PLACe
COMPETITION
[SISSI
WALK]
Recently I was introduced to the idea of “Try January,” when instead of quitting or restricting something, you try adding in something new. Maybe you want to “try” leaving the house more, attending more live events, supporting Nashville’s queer community and local drag scene. If you would like to try all of these things in one swing, boy do I have the event for you. SiSSi, Nashville’s search to find the next big SiSSi, returns to Eastside Bowl for its seventh cycle. Founded and hosted by Vidalia Anne Gentry and Cya Inhale, SiSSi is “an elimination-style live competition featuring a collection of the Midsouth’s most sickening queer performers.” Guest judges for this cycle include Adam Mac, Fancy Hagood and The Shindellas. The 12 new contestants will compete in three rounds — Round 1 on Jan. 19, Round 2 on Feb. 2 and the finale on Feb. 16. Tickets and more info are available at linktr.ee/sissinashville.
KIM BALDWIN
8 P.M. AT EASTSIDE BOWL
1508 GALLATIN PIKE S.
[VOICE OF A GENERATION]
FILM
2024 IN TRIBUTE AND MUSIC CITY MONDAYS: CLAUDINE
You gotta give the Belcourt props for booking the 1974 film Claudine as the James Earl Jones selection in its 2024 In Tribute series. For someone who voiced both the best (Mufasa in The Lion King) and worst (Darth Vader in the Star Wars saga) fathers in the history of cinema, you’d think the theater would’ve snagged one of those beloved classics and call it a day. Instead, they went with a working-class romantic dramedy (with a soundtrack written by Curtis Mayfield and sung by Gladys Knight & the Pips) that was also a tender, honest alternative to the Blaxploitation pulp of that era. Jones worked his devilish charm as a Harlem garbageman who wins over the titular single mom (Diahann Carroll, whose performance got her a Best Actress Oscar nomination) and her smart-ass brood. Yes, Jones was a stage/screen legend who used his commanding voice to play some largerthan-life characters. But Claudine reminds you that he could also bring it as an average Joe. Visit belcourt.org for showtimes.
CRAIG D. LINDSEY
JAN. 20 & 23 AT THE BELCOURT
2102 BELCOURT AVE
NASHVILLE SCENE JANUARY 16 – JANUARY 22, 2025 • nashvillescene.com
ART [KNOCK KNOCK] ERIC SALL: ORANGE YOU GLAD I DIDN’T SAY BANANA?
It’s been a long time coming. The First Saturday Art Crawl, that stalwart of Nashville’s art community that Scene contributor Joe Nolan dedicates an entire column to every month, is finally splitting into two separate events. This is fantastic news, and it means that gallerygoers will no longer have to choose between downtown galleries and their WedgewoodHouston counterparts. The newly established Downtown Art District’s Second Saturday Art Crawl will host its inaugural event this weekend, and the highlight of the night is Tinney Contemporary’s opening, which is brimming with hospitality. The show’s title, Orange You Glad I Didn’t Say Banana?, even alludes to a welcome if silly entrance. Artist Eric Sall fills his canvases with wildly colorful gestural brushstrokes that recall everything from Frank Stella to that Windows 95 screensaver with all the pipes. For his exhibition at Tinney, Sall’s large-scale works are all positioned vertically, which gives them even more of a doorway quality. This is a bold, ambitious, and extremely fun first foray for Nashville’s new Second Saturday. We’ll see you there. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER THROUGH FEB. 15 AT TINNEY CONTEMPORARY
237 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.
[LITTLE LIGHTS SHINE]
The folk-rock that Hiss Golden Messenger leader M.C. Taylor fashioned for the band’s 2023 album Jump for Joy derives from the work of forebears like The Byrds and Buffalo Springfield. For Taylor, the spiritual side of life seems to coexist with everyday concerns — Jump for Joy features a song about drinking grape soda, “Nu-Grape,” that seems religious in nature. The Durham, N.C., musician recorded a subdued, minimalist album in 2010 that was released that year as Bad Debt. The record became legendary in the Hiss Golden Messenger story after copies of Bad Debt were destroyed in a warehouse fire. Since then, the album has been reissued twice, and Bad Debt serves as an introduction to the more elaborate work Taylor has released over the past 15 years. Because Taylor simply sang his songs into a tape recorder with no arrangements or sonic embellishment, the album survives as a subtly turned — and often beautiful — guide to his state of mind in 2010. Songs like “O Little Light” sound pretty classic today. Jan. 22 at The Blue Room, Taylor will perform Bad Debt in its entirety, along with other selections from Hiss Golden Messenger’s extensive discography. EDD HURT
8 P.M. AT THE BLUE ROOM AT THIRD MAN RECORDS 623 SEVENTH AVE. S.
SUNDAY, JANUARY 26
SHOP UP TO 75% OFF RETAIL PRICES FROM
ABLE | Brittany Fuson | CT Grace, a Boutique | e.Allen | Edelweiss | Elle Gray
1-4PM
THE FACTORY AT FRANKLIN’S LIBERTY HALL ADDITIONAL VENDORS SPONSORED BY
The Exclusive Look Boutique | Fab’rik Franklin | Flash & Trash & a Little Bit of Sass Franklin Road Apparel | The French Shoppe | Glamour Formals | Harper’s Den Hollie Ray Boutique | nancybgoods | Palmer Kennedy | Patch | Pauli’s Place Boutique Society Boutique | Style With a Twist | Vinnie Louise | Wilder | The Willing Crab
General Admission
Enjoy 3 hours (1-4pm) of shopping from 25+ boutiques! $10
VIP Admission
• Tote bag full of goodies $35
• Early entry at 12pm to beat the crowds
• Complimentary cocktail
Tickets on sale now at fashionforafraction.com!
SPONSORED BY Closet Clean Out
CLEAR OUT YOUR CLOSET TO MAKE ROOM FOR ALL YOUR NEW FINDS! BRING YOUR NEW AND GENTLY USED MEN’S AND WOMEN’S CLOTHING ITEMS TO DONATE TO THOSE IN NEED. BY DONATING, YOU’LL BE ENTERED TO WIN $3,000 TOWARD A CLOSET REDESIGN FROM ARTISAN CUSTOM CLOSETS!
LATE IN THE Friday lunch rush, a BrickTop’s waiter returns for a second time, ready to take the table’s order. He offers more information about the trout — just landed from Idaho, it was in the water less than 24 hours ago — and the lobster roll, a seasonal special from New England.
“Just hang the menu off the edge of the table when you’re ready,” he tells the table, aware that too much attention can be as annoying as too little. “I’ll be over.”
The service has been so attentive that one member of our party is convinced the restaurant was somehow tipped off about a visit from the media. Five entrées, two appetizers, one soup, one sushi roll and two desserts later, the check totals $45 apiece (including gratuity). A skillet chocolate chip cookie finishes off a meal so cozy, so familiar, so predictable that — held alongside the small-plate menus and chef-driven concepts dominating Nashville’s restaurant scene — it feels as fresh as the Palm Beach Salad.
Food writing loves hype. Fantastic new restaurants offering unique meals make easy, fun stories. But exclusive focus on these spots may also further the impression that spending money to curate a new dining room is somehow more impressive than printing money with a dining room full of gracious regulars and the career servers who know their names.
No better avatar exists right now for the mentality defining Nashville’s restaurant scene than Sean Brock. The accomplished chef has teased, opened, closed and waylaid kitchens and popups across the city since opening Husk in 2013. (He left the restaurant in 2019.) Ego is a critical factor for creative pursuits, often providing the confidence necessary to bet on one’s own mettle. It can also require its own nourishment, demanding bigger, better, newer, more ambitious propositions. These risks have rained blessings down on Nashville diners and wrought their own kind of fatigue for in-the-know gourmets chasing the newest reservations. Diners end up narrowing their scope between elevated Gulf standards, wine-driven Lao cuisine and heirloom Appalachian prix-fixe when it’s time to book a birthday or anniversary.
BrickTop’s bets on the exact opposite formula for success. Rather than fumble with their phone under the table to avoid asking embarrassing questions about gelée, orgeat or nettle, a BrickTop’s diner likely has not just encountered but actually eaten every item on the menu — whether at BrickTop’s or elsewhere — before they set foot into the restaurant. The skillet chocolate chip cookie sundae, for example, has been on the menu for decades. Familiar does not mean boring or unsatisfying — the restaurant leverages predictability as consistency and comfort, BrickTop’s crowning strength.
An approachable menu also shifts the
The West End standard is nothing new, and that’s starting to stand out
BY ELI MOTYCKA
restaurant’s gravity onto service — an obvious strength actively cultivated by the restaurant group — rather than a boundary-pushing kitchen taking culinary risks. Rather than meeting me at eye level to describe the concept of a small plate, the waiter calmly recommends meatloaf, perhaps the most conventional meal of the American Century. It’s delicious. Dirtying white linens with prime sirloin, lobster tail, lump crab meat, poached shrimp and fireroasted artichokes, it’s not the restaurant but the diner who starts to feel pretentious. That’s part of the indulgence.
Yelp and Google describe BrickTop’s as “New American” — a term often applied to any menu that is neither clearly a steakhouse nor obviously dedicated to a single international cuisine. New American menus list items like salmon, fish tacos, fried shrimp, fancy burgers and salads with meat. While steakhouse-inspired, BrickTop’s builds on a surf-and-turf core with headline dishes from different global culinary traditions: French, Mexican, Italian and Japanese are all represented, the latter with a dedicated menu of BrickTop’s-original sushi rolls. All have been tempered to the American palate — sushi, for example, comes without shiso, an essential aromatic found across Tokyo. Wines come from Europe and Australia, but mostly California.
The strategy yields stark results. After the price of admission, which easily falls below $30 for a non-drinking customer with a modest appetite, the West End dining room is diverse in every sense of the word. At our Friday lunch hour, young parents and their newborn baby sit a few tables from a couple easily in their 70s, celebrating something. The room is shared almost evenly by Black and white patrons, a rare scene in the Nashville food world and a sharp contrast to the typical chic dinner service in Germantown or East Nashville, which attract diners between 25 and 50 years old and skews white. Affable servers and private booths make BrickTop’s a comfortable restaurant to dine solo.
“You can make consistent money and
work for people you like, people who like you, and people who take care of you,” says Aisha McWeay. “I think that’s probably why BrickTop’s has survived the way it has. People here are servers and bartenders by choice — I know many who have been at BrickTop’s for more than 10 years. They’re homeowners with children, who are providing for their families.”
McWeay, now a lawyer and adjunct professor at Vanderbilt Law School, helped open BrickTop’s in Cool Springs in 2012. She had just graduated from Vanderbilt Law School, passed the bar and secured a full-time job at the public defender’s office, but she wanted an income boost so she could buy a house. She worked a few years at BrickTop’s and became a homeowner. McWeay remains close with several former co-workers and praises Tony Grippo — then her manager, now BrickTop’s chief operating officer — as the best boss she has ever had.
“A lot of folks you see coming into the restaurant are coming in forever,” McWeay says. “You know their families. You know certain things. The culture and code encourages you to be a human — interact with people in a natural way, and they will want to come back.”
The BrickTop’s empire includes 11 locations in vacation towns and major cities across Missouri, Tennessee, Alabama, North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida, a slow and steady reach across regional capitals of wealth. Without flinching, a fellow Nashville restaurant owner referred to BrickTop’s founder-owner-CEO Joe Ledbetter as “without question the most successful restaurateur in the Southeast.”
Grippo responded to the Scene’s cold call with a quick text — “What do you want to know?” — before passing the interview request to Leigh Anne Balsman at the company’s local corporate office.
“We’re honored by your interest in featuring us,” Balsman wrote. “However, as part of our company policy, we don’t participate in interviews.”
Why would they? The restaurant is already full. ▼
BY P.J. KINZER
HARDCORE PUNK COMMUNITIES are often tightly knit and tightly wound, suspicious of outsiders and of anything that smells like it might be commercialist or consumerist. Old heads like me have a tendency to frame mainstream artists’ or audiences’ interest in hardcore similar to how hip-hop legend Yasiin Bey famously looked at Drake’s music in a 2024 appearance on Recho Omandi’s The Cutting Room podcast. Whether we’re talking about Kentucky punks Knocked Loose appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live! or Australia band Speed appearing in a Foot Locker commercial, it’s too pop, too “compatible with shopping,” to be authentic. (It’s worth noting that back when he went by Mos Def, Bey appeared in TV commercials for Visa and Sprite.)
Nashville, my home for the past 27 years, has mostly been immune to this sort of thing. We haven’t had many bands flying the banner of “Nashville hardcore” get more than fleeting attention from outside the city’s somewhat insular scene. But that was challenged when Brittany Howard — co-founder of rock ’n’ soul band Alabama Shakes and a winner of five Grammys whose second solo album What Now has a nomination at the upcoming ceremony — announced that her new hardcore outfit Kumite would play their first gig at The Basement East With support from Indianapolis’ Inner Peace and locals Second Spirit and Snooper, Howard and her group raised money for three important local organizations: Second Harvest Food Bank, Nashville Launch Pad (see story on p. 7) and the Southern Movement Committee. Internet naysayers couldn’t wait to throw out the scarlet letter of hardcore — “scene tourist” — accusing Howard and her fans of being disingenuous because they don’t wear tinnitus like a badge of honor or display a lifelong dedication to collecting obscure 7-inches.
Sunday’s show sold out, and the room was near capacity when Second Spirit went on.
The Nashville project’s specialty is fast riffage that occasionally enters the thrash zone. Formed as a one-man act by New England transplant Jared Colby, Second Spirit made a rare onstage appearance with Colby as singerguitarist. Colby took the opportunity to address the
controversy, warmly and earnestly expressing that hardcore has always been a place where disenfranchised folks of all stripes should be welcomed. After the set, a representative from Second Harvest announced that donations from the show were already enough to provide several hundred meals for Nashvillians in need.
Meanwhile, the members of Second Spirit all exited the audience’s line of sight and returned to different instruments than they played before. Then, Howard emerged from the side of the stage. Folks were puzzled when she didn’t get in position to sing as expected, but instead picked up a guitar. Colby grabbed the mic and without a word, the band exploded into a cover of American Nightmare’s “AM/PM.” A handful of die-hards fist-pumped and shouted along.
After the cover, the players onstage switched instruments again and Howard took the microphone. Thus Kumite was hatched to an enthusiastic response from fans, and ripped through an abbreviated set of metal-tinged hardcore with double-kick breakdowns.
It was a unique experience, as a person who has logged hundreds of hours watching hardcore bands, to hear someone who is a great singer in a conventional sense screaming and barking her way around the stage. The set was brief, following one of the most important traditions in the scene: Never play too long at your first show! During the changeover, a representative from Nashville Launch Pad took the opportunity to explain their important work of caring for young members of our city’s LGBTQ community with home insecurity. The organization does the crucial work of making sure those on the fringe don’t slip through the cracks, sleeping on the streets or living in dangerous environments.
The third set was from Inner Peace, who were honestly my favorite part of the night. Their 2024 EP Floorbreaker really impressed me, bringing the flavor of late-’80s NYHC (think Breakdown
or Burn or the New Breed comp) with rapper Drayco McCoy out front. While the rapping-overhardcore technique has clearly created some terrible music, Inner Peace has it down. McCoy has a distinct method to his vocal style that works with the music, rather than against it. Their live show was heavier than I had expected, hinting at the kind of Slayer-core of Integrity or Unbroken, and their menacing stage presence was a perfect match to their concrete riffs.
While the band disassembled their gear, the Southern Movement Committee took over. The SMC is a group of local organizers who work with community members to implement transformative programs and policies, developed by people directly impacted by incarceration, police violence, racism and economic inequality. These heroes are doing some of the most important work in town, pushing Nashville toward justice and empowering folks at the street level.
Finally, Snooper took to the stage. Depending on exactly how you count the warehouse show they played on NYE, the world-touring art-punks only played two local shows in 2024, and their first local gig of 2025 happened amid work on the follow-up to their standout 2023 LP Super Snooper. All this time on the road had the Snoops in ultra-tight form, and familiar songs had been reworked with new arrangements and samples.
As hardcore gets another spin in the spotlight — a trend likely to fall off the cliff just like it has time and again — it’s strange for a lot of us to watch as new people discover it. As a middleaged man who knew all the words to “AM/ PM” before some folks at the show were likely born, it was admittedly hard for me to wrap my head around a successful celebrity musician wanting to be a part of this thing I have put so much of my own personal passion into. But as long as anyone new believes in a strong sense of community and justice, I want to echo Second Spirit’s message: Thanks for coming out. ▼
Thursday, January 16 OPENING RECEPTION
Snapshots
5:00 pm · HALEY GALLERY
Saturday, January 18
SONGWRITER SESSION
Caylee Hammack NOON · FORD THEATER
Sunday, January 19
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT
Josh Matheny
1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, January 25
HATCH SHOW PRINT
Block Party
9:30 am, NOON, and 2:30 pm
HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP LIMITED AVAILABILITY
Saturday, January 25
SONGWRITER SESSION
Lily Rose
NOON · FORD THEATER
Locals, Pay What You Want
Sunday, January 26
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Jason Coleman
Saturday, February 1
Ryan
The
BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
I DARE ANYONE to not think about what’s going on in the world while watching The Brutalist
As we dive headfirst into four more years of (likely) mayhem, once again fueled by an orange agent of chaos and the knuckleheads who sent him back to the Oval Office, The Brutalist — which recently earned multiple Golden Globes — is an ambitious period piece that speaks more about our time than the time in which the movie is set. With said agent and his knuckleheads going on a rabid mission to rid our country of anyone who dares to cross our borders and build a better life for themselves Haven’t you heard? They’re eating the pets!), The spends three-and-a-half hours — don’t worry, there’s a 15-minute intermission — telling the story of one such person.
Adrien Brody, who became the youngest Best Actor winner in Oscar history for his role as a talented Holocaust survivor in 2002’s The Pianist, once again escapes hell — this time as a Hungarian-born Jewish architect named László Tóth. Although he happens to have the same name as a geologist who vandalized Michelangelo’s “Pietà” in 1972, this Tóth is serious about his art. An accomplished practitioner of a minimalist postwar style that eventually becomes known as Brutalist architecture, he comes to America after surviving the Holocaust, looking for all that opportunity he keeps hearing about.
His journey from immigrant to architectural genius comes with more lows than highs. His beloved wife Erzsébet (Felicity Jones) isn’t with him at first, as she’s still stuck in Hungary with their niece. When they both finally come to
America in the film’s second half, Erzsébet is in a wheelchair — the result of osteoporosis due to malnutrition. Tóth initially lives with his furniture-making cousin (Alessandro Nivola), but he’s kicked out when his cousin’s wife accuses Tóth of hitting on her. Ol’ boy even gets hooked on heroin, often sharing the needle with a single father (Isaach de Bankolé) who becomes his right-hand man.
Tóth achieves success when he gets with Harrison Lee Van Buren (Guy Pearce, devilish and blustery), a wealthy industrialist. Tóth first meets Van Buren after being hired to renovate his home library by Van Buren’s son (played with loathsome sketchiness by Joe Alwyn). Van Buren ropes Tóth into his world, getting him to design a massive community center that eventually becomes the bane of both their existences.
Actor-turned-director Brady Corbet (Vox Lux) goes into ambitious-auteur mode here, becoming the latest filmmaker to masterfully pull off an epic, original production using old-school film stock for both 35 mm and 70 mm prints. (The good news: The Belcourt will be showing The Brutalist in glorious 35 mm! The bad news: If you want 70 mm, you’ll have to go out of town.)
Since the film mostly takes place in the same era that gave us Vertigo and The Searchers, it’s fitting that Corbet would shoot this thing in VistaVision, a higher-resolution widescreen variant that was created in the 1950s and used for those films. Corbet and cinematographer Lol Crawley often hit us with some breathtaking visuals, creating a vast, sprawling atmosphere that our protagonist still manages to feel trapped in.
Corbet and his co-writer and romantic partner Mona Fastvold definitely show their allyship with all the immigrants who ever had to struggle just to get something going in the States. No matter how much Brody’s temperamental artist tries to maintain his creative principles, he ultimately ends up in situations where he is screwed over.
“They do not want us here,” an angry, embittered Tóth tells his wife at one point, certainly the kind of sentiment a lot of both documented and undocumented folks have been uttering these days. While all this may make The Brutalist sound like a misery marathon, it’s really Corbet giving flowers to the immigrants who stuck it out and continue to stick it out.
Just like the Statue of Liberty, which Tóth frantically hops out of a boat to look at during the movie’s opening, many of the American figures that most represent life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness in the country didn’t originally come from here. Given the film’s conclusion and epilogue, The Brutalist’s pro-immigrant stance couldn’t be more clear. Some Americans may not want them here, but since they basically built this country, immigrants ain’t going nowhere. Hell, they’ll be here longer than you. ▼
The Brutalist NR, 217 minutes (with a 15-minute intermission)
Opening Thursday, Jan. 16, at the Belcourt (in 35 mm) and Regal and AMC locations
Declare your love this Valentine’s Day with a FREE shoutout in our February 13 issue! Nominate your special someone, adorable pets, or even your favorite local spots.
Valentines are free, but if you’d like to add a photo (printed 2-by-2 inches), you can do so for just $40.00.
ACROSS
1 Strike one!
5 Word with slow or strawberry
8 “___ gusto” (“Nice to meet you,” in Spanish)
13 Can
14 Spanish article
15 Paella base
16 Domino pip, e.g.
17 Party crashers, perhaps
19 Part of a bat that produces the best contact
21 Small nail
22 Express publicly
23 Saint, in Rio
25 “A Beautiful Mind” director Howard
27 Balayage providers
32 ___ Swiatek, four-time French Open winner
33 Cake part
35 Fresh
36 Get serious hang time, as a skateboarder
40 Times for holiday parties
41 Boomer in a band
42 It makes Max profits
43 Italian dynasty that produced four popes
46 Bit of kitchenware
47 “Cleopatra With the ___” (Reni painting)
48 Hosp. staffers
50 Branch of a sort
52 Three-digit numbers in parentheses
57 Low-key place for gnocchi
58 Toon with a monkey named Boots
60 Matcha ___ (tea-based beverage)
61 Human thing to do
62 Waze figs.
63 Easy to understand
64 Hits up on Instagram, for short
65 Meeting, informally DOWN
1 A family might have matching ones, for short
2 “D’oh!”
3 Strutted one’s stuff
4 Maze prompt
5 Line below a swoosh
6 Pantry problem
7 “I Feel Pretty” singer in “West Side Story”
8 Mind repeating that?
9 “Irresistible” feeling
10 Language from which we get “Manitoba” and “Saskatchewan”
11 Motorist’s warning
12 The “40” in a malt liquor 40: Abbr.
18 x, y or z
20 The world at your feet?
23 Order to an attack dog
24 Plant used in xeriscaping because of its tolerance to drought
26 Hogwarts exam after the O.W.L.
28 Nonexpert
29 “While we’re discussing it ...”
30 Novice gamers, informally
31 Word after one fell?
34 Extend, as a contract
37 Show with a “Cyber” spinoff
38 Suns that shine?
39 Roger B. ___, justice who infamously authored the Dred Scott decision (1857)
44 Sign of impact
45 Deets
49 Begat
51 Writes in C or R, say
52 Kazakhstan’s ___ Sea
53 Quoted figure
54 Pioneering blues guitarist Baker
55 Unyielding
56 ___ Tour, pop culture phenomenon of 2023-24
57 Pampering, for short
59 Tree with so-called helicopter seeds
nytimes.com/studentcrosswords.
NOTICE: Crystal M. Clark v. Dameon M. McKinley
Crystal M. Clark, the Plaintiff, has filed a Complaint for Child Custody, Access, and Child Support in which the Plaintiff is seeking sole custody of the parties' minor children, child support, and related relief in Case No. C-02-FM-24-003972. Notice is hereby issued by the Circuit Court for Anne Arundel County, Maryland that the relief sought in the aforementioned Complaint for Child Custody, Access, and Child Support may be granted unless cause can be shown to the contrary. Dameon M. McKinley is to file a response to the Complaint for Child Custody, Access, and Child Support on or before March 10, 2025
NSC: 1/9/25, 1/16/25, 1/23/25
UBS Business Solutions US LLC has the following positions in Nashville, TN. Associate Director, Lead Data Analytics Developer to provide requirement analysis, design specifications, modelling, and documentation for computer databases. Requires B+10yrs. exp. or M+8yrs. exp. as an equivalent alternative. (ref. code(s) 001548). Qualified Applicants apply through SHProfRecruitingcc@ubs.com. Please reference 001548. NO CALLS PLEASE.
EOE/M/F/D/V. #LI-DNP.
A small amount of water can lead to major damage and mold growth in your home. We do complete repairs to protect your family and your home’s value!
For a FREE ESTIMATE, call 24/7: 1-888-290-2264
(CAN AAN)
Attention: VIAGRA and CIALIS
A cheaper alternative to high drugstore prices! 50 Pill Special - Only $99! 100% guaranteed.
CALL NOW: 1-866-472-4367 (CAN AAN)
Drafty rooms? Chipped or damaged frames? Need outside noise reduction? New, energy ef cient windows may be the answer!
Call for a consultation & FREE quote today. 1-877-248-9944
(CAN AAN)
CASH PAID FOR HIGH-END MEN’S SPORT WATCHES.
Rolex, Breitling, Omega, Patek Philippe, Heuer, Daytona, GMT, Submariner and Speedmaster. These brands only!
Call for a quote: 1-855-402-7109 (CAN AAN)
You need a local expert provider that proudly stands behind their work. Fast, free estimate. Financing available.
Call 1-888-292-8225 (CAN AAN)
from pests safely and affordably. Roaches, Bed Bugs, Rodent, Termite, Spiders and other pests. Locally owned and affordable.
Call for service or an inspection today!
1-833-237-1199
(CAN AAN)
A recent survey says that most Americans are overpaying for their car insurance. Let us show you how much you can save.
Call Now for a noobligation quote: 1-866-472-8309 (CAN AAN)
YOU MAY QUALIFY for disability bene ts if you are between 52-63 years old and under a doctor’s care for a health condition that prevents you from working for a year or more. Call now!
1-877-247-6750 (CAN AAN)
& INTERNET.
If you are overpaying for your service, call now for a free quote and see how much you can save!
1-844-588-6579 (CAN AAN)
LOCAL ATTRACTIONS
Nashboro Golf Course BNA airport
ENJOY THE OUTDOORS
GOT AN UNWANTED CAR???
DONATE IT TO PATRIOTIC HEARTS
Fast free pick up. All 50 States. Patriotic Hearts’ programs help veterans nd work or start their own business.
Call 24/7:
1-855-402-7631 (CAN AAN)
BATH & SHOWER UPDATES in as little as ONE DAY!
Affordable pricesNo payments for 18 months!
Lifetime warranty & professional installs. Senior & Military Discounts available.
Call:
1-877-510-9918 (CAN AAN)
Percy Priest Lake Long Hunter’s State Park
BEST PLACES NEARBY TO SEE A SHOW
Ascend Amphitheater
FAVORITE LOCAL NEIGHBORHOOD BAR
Larry’s Karaoke lounge
COMMUNITY AMENITIES
Indoor swimming pool and hot tub
Outdoor swimming pool
Ping pong table Fitness center Gated community
