Nashville Scene 1-2-25

Remembering many of the irreplaceable Nashville figures we lost in 2024

WITNESS HISTORY

This good lookin’ suit, embellished with appliqués of musical notes and a guitar, was designed by Nudie’s Rodeo Tailors for Hank Williams. A hand-painted Ben Pulitzer silk tie and Red Myrick shirt complete the ensemble.

From the online exhibit Suiting the Sound: The Rodeo Tailors Who Made Country Stars Shine Brighter

of

RESERVE TODAY

artifact: Courtesy

Hank Williams Jr. artifact photo: Bob Delevante

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Remembering many of the irreplaceable Nashville figures we lost in 2024

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In Memoriam

Remembering many of the irreplaceable Nashville figures we lost in 2024

An enormous figure in nonviolent advocacy and American history. A poet and central member of the Black Arts Movement. A Grammy-winning former American Idol contestant.

A former United States senator. A former Tennessee governor. The man who was the face and voice of Tennessee Crossroads for decades. A businessman, community figure and political insider who owned the Nashville Scene’s parent company. Athletes, public servants, business leaders, journalists and restaurateurs.

These are just a handful of the many Nashvillians, former Nashvillians and other locally significant figures who died in 2024. In our annual In Memoriam issue, the Nashville Scene’s staff and contributors — along with other community members we’ve reached out to — commemorate some of the irreplaceable figures who passed away over the past year.

Join us in celebrating their legacies.

Business

Bill Freeman

Businessman, loyal friend, political insider, owner of the Nashville Scene

He was genuine. He was real. He was and will always be Nashville.

Bill Freeman was co-founder of widereaching real estate company Freeman Webb, a Democratic megadonor, a onetime candidate for Nashville mayor and owner of FW Publishing, which includes the Nashville Scene. While much of the city’s evolution has been based on the desires of entertainment, health care management or other perceived highfalutin industries, Bill didn’t care too much for those. Instead, he made sure those sectors’ workers had access to housing and an opportunity to move up the socioeconomic ladder.

Some folks spend their spare time out on fairways. Bill was more at home at the fairgrounds. He found joy spending time with those who had grease on their hands, rather than social climbers. When you’re having a bad day, week or month, nothing beats the care and comfort of a loyal friend who won’t run away when the chips are stacked against you. You could always count on Bill Freeman, a loyal friend to many, to be there for you. He never missed a chance to get an update on how you and your family were doing, whether during lunch, in a meeting or over text. He always got an update on you and your family prior to any discussion of anything else, and it was genuine.

At the conclusion of being in Bill’s company, you always walked away feeling better about yourself. And you left with the belief that accomplishing the task at hand was within your reach. This was his power.

That is Bill Freeman, a loyal friend.

—JAMIE HOLLIN

donate to this cause? Yes. Can I get a table for six in the private room and sneak my guests in through the kitchen? Yes. Can you give this lost kid a second chance? Yes.

One of the many times I wrote about him, I said that in his career, “Randy Rayburn has fired, hired or fed everybody in Nashville.” He cherished the description. That was back in the early ’90s — when Nashville was still a big small town — in a story about Sunset Grill, the restaurant he opened in 1990. The impact Sunset had on the dining scene and the entire community cannot be overstated. It introduced California cuisine, Paul Harmon’s art, late-night dining, endless wine lists and elevated nachos. It was the scene to see and be seen, the place where countless clients were wooed, introductions made, alliances brokered, deals struck. Had a giant sinkhole suddenly swallowed Sunset’s dining room, Metro, Capitol Hill, downtown business and Music Row would have come to halt.

Like every successful independent restaurateur, Rayburn — whose path to Sunset included stints at the Opryland Hotel, F. Scott’s and Third Coast — was always, without fail, in the house. He greeted people as they arrived, touched every table, remembered every name. He knew every secret, and most importantly, he kept them.

He said yes over and over and over again. That included purchasing the 10-year-old Midtown Cafe from a colleague in 1997. When Sunset closed in 2015, he moved his base of operations there, seamlessly ushering in the power-breakfast-and-business-lunch crowd, then slipping out to spend evenings with his beloved sons Duke and Dean. He came to fatherhood late in life, and as with everything else he did, he embraced it fully, often saying he just wished he had done it sooner.

Rayburn understood that possibility and achievement are woven with hospitality and generosity. For all who remember Nashville as a big small town, it is inconceivable that Randy Rayburn will not be at a host stand, a board table or elbow-deep in the mix. Those today drawn to Nashville — a big small city with unlimited aspirations — have him to thank for opening the door and saying, “Welcome, come in, join us at the table.” —KAY WEST

Jerry Julian Baxter

Trendsetter, philanthropist, restaurateur

After graduating from David Lipscomb Academy and attending David Lipscomb College, Jerry Baxter moved to Los Angeles to work in banking. Thankfully for Nashville’s restaurant industry, he came to his senses and went into hospitality. Anyone who had the pleasure of being greeted, seated or served by him would find it impossible to imagine him doing anything else.

After a stint in Aspen — his restaurant management job supported his ski habit — he returned to Nashville in 1971 to open Brass Scales with Houston Thomas and Bill Hale. That was the start of a career that impacted Nashville’s dining profile for decades, introducing

countless cosmopolitan concepts to what was then a conventional small Southern town known for its meat-and-threes and rife with fern bars. Pioneering places on his résumé include Julian’s — his namesake, Nashville’s first Mobile 4-Star restaurant — Sperry’s, Third Coast, Sunset Grill and Midtown Cafe. It didn’t hurt his curb appeal that Jerry was one of those men who grew better looking with age; his resemblance to Tony Bennett was legendary.

Jerry’s most enduring friendships were with colleagues Randy Rayburn, Dano Goosetree and Ernie Paquette (whom he knew through Paquette’s wife, chef Deb Paquette); the four shared a Jan. 24 birthday and celebrated it together every year. Goosetree preceded him in death; Rayburn passed away six months after Baxter.

When Jerry retired, he devoted himself to the love of his life, his wife Mitzi Bishop, and to working on the two annual fundraisers he founded — the 35-year-old Harvest Moon Ball for Second Harvest Food Bank, and Our Kids Soup Sunday, which marked its 32nd year in March. —KAY WEST

Matthew Carney

Restaurateur, businessman, fighter

In a tragic turn of events, Matthew Carney, the beloved owner of Smokin’ Thighs, passed away on July 4 after lingering in a coma for two weeks. Carney, known for his unique culinary vision, was the victim of a hit-and-run incident after confronting a thief attempting to steal tools from his truck.

It’s not a surprise that Carney fought for his property. He was always stubborn and fierce about his beliefs, way back to when he first started Smokin’ Thighs as a food truck. In a town filled with great fried chicken options, Carney wouldn’t even allow a fryer in his kitchen, preferring smoked chicken and slaw to crispy wings and fries. When the smashburger craze took off, Carney leaned into chicken burgers instead, and he focused on moonshine over whiskey for his bar menu.

He did these things not only to stand out in the crowded restaurant environment, but also because he truly believed they were superior. Judging by the outpouring of love and support for his family and his business after his passing, many people thought highly of Carney too.

—CHRIS CHAMBERLAIN

David Andrews

Businessman, family man, storyteller

When David Andrews died this year, a piece of Nashville’s gracious charm left with him.

From a multigenerational Nashvillian family, David cherished his family members — both immediate and extended — and the multitude of friends he met along the way. His bright smile and gentle manners instantly put everyone at ease, and his thoughtful gestures for friends and strangers endeared him to many.

David grew up in the family business. Transformed by his mother Evalina, McClures was one of the most respected independent department stores in the United States. Wellknown and loved by established Nashvillians, the store was not only known for luxury clothing, but also for memorable moments like its piano player and Santa visits during Christmas and its haunted house during Halloween.

After closing McClures, David pivoted his career but continued to serve others by becoming a beloved concierge at The Hermitage Hotel. While there, David became a trusted source of local information, helping guests understand the history of the city. David often curated driving tours of points of interest like Belle Meade Boulevard and East Nashville’s Little Hollywood neighborhood. He regaled visitors and Hermitage Hotel staff alike with tales from Nashville’s past, creating an almost fireside chat of tales and folklore. —JANET

Don Else

“Beer guy,” publisher

Don Else lived in Nashville for only 13 years after spending most of his life in Michigan, but he greatly impacted the local craft beer community during his time here. A longtime aficionado of fine brews, Don was a stalwart at local beer festivals and bars, always ready to share a pitcher and some knowledge, or to lead the celebration when a Flying Saucer patron completed the quest to drink 200 different beers and earn their UFO Club saucer on the ceiling.

More than just a fan, Don took positions in the industry installing and maintaining draft beer lines for bars and managing the retail programs at Frugal MacDoogal and Colonial Wine & Spirits. He also wrote stories about beer and breweries for several local publications and websites, as well as co-founding Tennessee Craft Beer magazine. A frequent and enthusiastic participant in holiday “Santa Rampages,” Else was always ready to don his slightly ragged furry red suit and hat. He’ll be remembered as the kind of guy who, when you saw him out and about, you always knew a good time wouldn’t be far behind. —CHRIS CHAMBERLAIN

Bill Earthman III

Attorney, golfer, community member

Bill Earthman was an accomplished attorney and a friendly face who “brought his A game to every conversation” — whether it took place in Nashville’s law offices or on its golf courses. He began his legal career at Dearborn & Ewing in 1977 and retired as a partner at Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP, a firm that called him a “legendary lawyer and valued member of our firm.”

Earthman fell in love with golf at a young

Randy Rayburn Innovator, connector, ultimate yes man

Randy Rayburn was the ultimate yes man. Can you help us with this project? Yes. Can you

age, and though he roamed fairways around the world through trips with friends, the grasses of Belle Meade Country Club were the ones he knew best. He served as a board member there and spent 40 years perfecting his swing (and cracking jokes) at the club’s driving range. He spent just as long as a member of West End United Methodist Church, where he also served as a board member. Friends and contacts will miss his famous group emails, where he’d often start conversations on topics that were humorous, interesting or both — at around 4 a.m. His was a life filled with interesting conversations and meetings with fascinating individuals, but he especially cherished time spent with his wife Sandra and his children Will and Kara. —COLE VILLENA

Joey Fecci

Chef, runner, friend

Chef Joey Fecci was a rising star in the culinary world with a career that included stints in three Michelin-starred kitchens in New York City and Chicago. On a trip to Nashville to get out of town while a gig was on hold due to the pandemic, Fecci went for a run downtown. As he jogged through SoBro, he was surprised to run into two former co-workers from Chicago doing what sous chefs do — smoking in front of a building. He inquired why they were in town. It turned out they were helping renowned chef Tony Mantuano open Yolan in The Joseph, and they suggested that Fecci should join the team. Fecci previously worked every station on the line at Mantuano’s Chicago restaurant Spiaggia, so it was a quick interview.

Fecci quickly rose to the position of chef de cuisine at Yolan, where he led the kitchen with distinction. Fecci left Yolan early in 2024 with dreams of opening his own Italian restaurant. Tragically, he passed away on another run, this time in Shelby Park while participating in the Rock ’n’ Roll Marathon. He was just 26 years old. A few weeks after Fecci’s death, a group of his friends gathered at the spot where he fell and finished the race for him as a tribute.

—CHRIS CHAMBERLAIN

Chris Lowry

Visionary, risk-taker, “Auntie Christmas” In 2003, two young aspiring restaurateurs (Chris Lowry and Jay Luther) and two visionary young developers (Scott Chambers and Andrée LeQuire) took a chance on each other and the corner of Fifth Avenue North and Madison Street. That October, Lowry and Luther opened Germantown Café in Chambers and LeQuire’s building, and the rediscovery and resurrection of the historic Germantown neighborhood began.

Lowry ran front-of-house, deftly choreographing the lunchtime corporate, courthouse and Capitol crowds, having a cocktail with happy hour regulars, greeting dinner guests by name, unrattled — despite his deep love for divas — whenever Dolly Parton showed up. Luther, far more reserved, stayed in the kitchen, creating signature dishes that are still on the menu 20 years later.

Away from his restaurant, Lowry was a wryly erudite late-night presence in East Nashville’s Five Points, pinballing from 3 Crow Bar to Red Door East and points between. His network of friends was vast, though centered in the hospitality industry. When Luther died in 2012 in a tragic accident in the partners’ East Nashville restaurant, Lowry sought respite in the sky-blue yonder and fulfilled a long-held dream to be a flight attendant — or as he described it, “sky waitress.” He sold Germantown Café and moved to Las Vegas, but kept clothes, pajamas, robe and slippers in a closet of “his” bedroom in his closest friend Kim Totzke’s Nashville house for his frequent visits. Totzke had his room ready for his planned trip to Nashville the last weekend of August to attend the celebration of life for fellow restaurateur Randy Rayburn; Lowry suffered a fatal accident just days before his flight.

A month later, dozens of friends gathered at Germantown Café to offer one last toast to their son, partner, friend, boss, colleague and — as Totzke’s two small grandchildren knew him — Auntie Christmas. —KAY WEST

Joseph Sherman Russell

Business owner, family man, old-school Nashvillian

Countless Nashville residents met Sherman Russell as the owner of Russell’s Glass and Mirror, a business he owned and operated in the city until 1999. Those folks might remember a colorful Nashville native who did solid work in their homes; on a memorial page created by the family, at least one person noted that the mirrors he installed way back in 1987 were still holding strong.

But a family obituary notes that he spent the quarter-century following his retirement “left free to run the streets of West Nashville, spend time in Florida, BBQ, road trip with friends, aggravate his wife & kids, and basically live his best life with his loved ones.” He was described as a cantankerous old-school Nashvillian whose infectious personality brought him many nicknames — “Sherm-Dogg” being a favorite — and a wide circle of friends. His family notes that he “skid into heaven saying, ‘That was one heck of a ride!’” and that he is finally reunited with his beloved wife, Debbie, “whose peace and quiet he just brought to a halt.”

—COLE VILLENA

passed down through five generations of his family.

The heart and soul of Cafe Rakka was Linda Alkasem, Rakka’s wife, who ran front-of-house. Her charm even captivated Guy Fieri during a Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives filming, propelling Cafe Rakka to national recognition.

A former flight attendant with a passion for travel, Linda had a warm and inviting presence — she was the light that made the restaurant a beloved local gathering spot. Tragically, that light went out in April when Linda was killed, along with her mother and sister, in a head-on collision in Alabama while driving back from a Florida vacation. The Florida trip was intended to be the first in a planned series of “girls’ trips,” but alas it was not to be. Her loss is deeply felt by the restaurant community and beyond.

—CHRIS CHAMBERLAIN

Linda Alkasem

Business partner, mother, traveler

While Hendersonville’s culinary scene has diversified, it remains largely dominated by chain restaurants. Amid this landscape, Cafe Rakka has stood out for more than 15 years.

Founded by chef Riyad Alkasem, the restaurant offers authentic Syrian cuisine, a tradition

Politics

James M. Lawson Jr.

Theorist, tactician of the American nonviolence movement

James M. Lawson Jr., who honed his expertise in nonviolent advocacy in Nashville, died in Los Angeles on June 9 at age 95. When he arrived in Nashville in 1958, his deep engagement with nonviolence was already well-developed. Maternal guidance in his childhood home in Massillon, Ohio, taught him to eschew violence, and Methodist molding that converted him into a Jesus follower required him to practice nonretaliation toward those who inflicted harm against others. These influences undergirded his embrace of pacifism through membership in the Fellowship of Reconciliation while an undergraduate at Baldwin-Wallace College and informed his refusal to fight as a draftee in the Korean War. Though federally imprisoned, Lawson fulfilled parole obligations in India, where he taught at a Methodist college and immersed himself in studies about Gandhi. He also learned while in India about the Montgomery bus boycott, and after meeting Martin Luther King Jr. at Oberlin Seminary, Lawson transferred to Vanderbilt Divinity School and became a Fellowship of Reconciliation official in Nashville.

In meeting the Rev. Kelly Miller Smith, president of the Nashville Christian Leadership Conference, Lawson learned of plans to fight racial segregation in downtown department stores. Lawson suggested that college and professional students from the four local African American institutions should make up the vanguard of protestors. To prepare them, Lawson conducted at various Black churches nonviolent workshops. Notwithstanding his expulsion from Vanderbilt and the violence and arrests visited upon movement supporters between February and May 1960, successful desegregation occurred in the city’s important commercial sphere.

Lawson’s nonviolent practicums also led students to participate in out-of-state Freedom Rides, voter registration campaigns and other civil rights activities in the American South. Lawson pivoted from Nashville to other historic involvements in Memphis and Los Angeles in peace and labor movements, all of which drew from his grounding in nonviolence.

—DENNIS C. DICKERSON, REV. JAMES LAWSON CHAIR IN HISTORY, EMERITUS, VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY

Vencen Horsley

Civil rights leader, advocate, community member

Sixty years ago, police arrested Vencen Horsley for disorderly conduct — one of several legal charges the Tennessee State University grad took for his central role in the Nashville civil rights movement of the 1960s. The incidents of beatings, spit, verbal abuse and harassment were too many to count, he told reporters years later, but Horsley endured, cementing his civil rights legacy — an integrated city and nearly universal respect for its heroes, many just teenagers and students organizing alongside Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and John Lewis.

He settled into a civically engaged, pleasantly routine life in Hermitage after the “necessary trouble” of his youth, counting the respect of neighbors, friends and politicians. Horsley continued to celebrate the history he made decades ago while anchoring communities like Mount Gilead Missionary Baptist Church and the Donelson Hermitage Neighborhood Alliance. He died on Dec. 12, just past 80 years old. —ELI MOTYCKA

King Hollands

Civil rights activist, Edgehill neighborhood organizer

King Hollands was thrust into the civil rights struggle at an early age as one of 14 Black students to integrate Father Ryan High School in

PHOTO:

the 1950s following Brown v. Board of Education. In the 1960s, while a student at Fisk University, he joined the sit-in protests at Woolworth’s alongside activists like John Lewis. He served two weeks in jail for his part in the protests. Hollands remained a vocal advocate for the Edgehill neighborhood throughout his life. He founded Organized Neighbors Edgehill, and in the 1970s he rallied residents to rebuke a massive housing complex in favor of rent-tobuy houses. He was also part of an informal Nashville civil rights veterans group, according to an interview with the Tennessee Lookout.

Hollands died at age 82, and hundreds attended his service at Fisk Chapel. Speaking to WKRN, his eldest daughter Kisha Turner said: “He was courageous in finding solutions to any matter that he had. He was well-loved and loved all in his area and in his neighborhood.”

—ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

Don Majors

Metro councilmember, idea man, fixer, friend

Once upon a time, there was a small group of congressional staffers based in Nashville’s downtown public library. They used the library the way Superman used a phone booth: to transition into superheroes. They didn’t look like superheroes — there was no spandex — but they had superpowers. They protected everyone — especially the vulnerable — from a scary giant named Federal Government. They rescued you from trouble, fixed any snafu, even gave you free parking. No one else in the entire city, no matter how rich and famous, could do that.

The most remarkable superhero was Don Majors Jr., a man with many titles: Honorable, the Don, Major Don, Little Don, Coach and Councilman. No one ever called him The Donald. His job was “special projects,” handling the toughest problems. How did he do that? By convincing people that his ideas were their ideas. He was a horse-whisperer. Just by joking around, he got people to behave. He could talk the horns off a goat … and then reattach the horns. Don’s always merry, mischievous face had a goatee beard and a Santa Claus smile. His glasses could not hide the twinkle in his eye. Don grew up near downtown, first getting indoor plumbing when Dupont finally — finally — broke the color barrier in Nashville with Don’s father. Don had a career at Dupont himself, and he and his beautiful wife Vallie lived in Hopewell. They moved to Parkwood, where he became a great baseball coach, breaking color barriers in the Dixie League and with the Sertoma Club when he helped rescue the Parkwood ballfield. Don then joined the Metro Council, and broke barriers for minority contracting. He took on powerful mayors and charmed them while disarming them. Don spoke truth to power, but always with a smile. He later moved to Whites Creek, where he played more golf with the Duffers. Don loved the game, the fellowship, and winning. He loved just thinking about golf.

If anyone doubts Don’s magic, ask who the most popular person was in the library office, the hero of superheroes. Someone once

wrote that he didn’t know what heaven looks like, but he thought it looks like a library. I see Don Majors in there, putting on his golf shoes, getting ready to par the course.

—EXCERPT FROM A EULOGY BY FORMER U.S. REP. JIM COOPER

Jim Sasser

Senator, ambassador, advocate

A quiet dealmaker who often found himself at the center of the action, Jim Sasser was the sort of senator Tennessee sent to Washington for decades. He was not a stentorian orator or firebrand or attention-seeker, but was grounded in the details of policy, finding nuance and compromise and tweaks.

He was the Democratic Party’s nominee for Senate in 1976, defeating eternal gadfly John Jay Hooker. He was squaring off against Bill Brock, the Republican who’d defeated Al Gore Sr. six years earlier. Newly 40 years old, Sasser crisscrossed the state, visiting every single county seat and dropping by plenty of places in between. He won by 80,000 votes. He stayed 18 years in the Senate with a reputation back home for constituent service and on the Hill for his knowledge and dealmaking. That reputation earned him the chairmanship of the powerful Senate Finance Committee, through which he helped Bill Clinton pass his 1993 budget without a single Republican vote. He championed the Tennessee Valley Authority and advocated for the rights of the disabled, sponsoring the reauthorization of the landmark Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. “He’s probably the most important Tennessean that most people have forgotten about,” said former U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper, no slouch as a policy-loving wonk himself.

Defeated by Bill Frist in 1994, Sasser was appointed by Clinton as ambassador to China in 1996 at a time when the People’s Republic was starting to exert itself as a power in the post-Cold War world. He was ambassador in 1999 when a U.S. jet inadvertently bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. The American embassy in Beijing was besieged by rioters, but Sasser helped quiet and defuse what could have exploded into a major international situation between a superpower and a country making a play to become one. In the meantime, he even managed to secure two Chinese pandas for the Memphis Zoo. Jim Sasser died Sept. 10. He was 87. —J.R. LIND

John Richard “Dick” Lodge Jr.

Politico, attorney, doting grandfather

The first experience Dick Lodge had working on a political campaign resulted in the election of Jim Sasser to the United States Senate in 1976. His subsequent move to Washington to assume the role of Sasser’s legislative director resulted in meeting the love of his life, his intellectual and political soulmate Gina Tyler, who had just moved to D.C. to work with freshman Sen. Patrick Moynihan. They married in 1978 and moved back to Nashville; a graduate of the University of the South in Sewanee, Lodge received his J.D. in 1974 from Vanderbilt School of Law. He joined the firm Willis & Knight, but

politics was in his blood. In 1983, he was elected Tennessee Democratic Party chair and headed the Committee of Southern States to create Super Tuesday; the first was held in 1988. His longest professional tenure was with Bass, Berry & Sims, the storied firm he joined in 1985. He became a partner, headed their government relations practice and remained there for 33 years. Lodge had a booming voice, a commanding and calming presence and was a natural leader. Mayor Phil Bredesen appointed him the first chair of the Nashville Sports Authority, and he was president of Legal Services of Middle Tennessee and senior warden at Christ Church Cathedral. He volunteered his legal services to the creation of Thistle Farms and helped launch the Center for Contemplative Justice.

He is best remembered by family, friends and colleagues for his culinary skills, for the dinner parties he and Gina hosted, and as a mentor to young lawyers and aspiring office holders, a baby whisperer, a bird watcher, a road tripper, an outlaw country fan, and a teller of joyful stories about his four grandchildren. —KAY WEST

Frank Buck

State representative, ethics champion

For 36 years, Frank Buck — a Democrat who served his home county of DeKalb along with, at various times, parts of Smith, Cannon and Rutherford counties in the Tennessee House of Representatives — cut a distinctive figure in the halls of the state Capitol. The son of a tobacco and cattle farmer, he honored his rural roots with his brown leather vest, khaki pants and simple blue shirt, a far cry from the increasingly expensive suits that flitted around him.

Elected at 29 after exposing a whiskey-for-votes scheme in his hometown, he never stopped championing ethics. As early as 1994, he pushed for massive ethics reform in the legislature, introducing a bill that barred lawmakers from accepting even a cup of coffee. It didn’t pass, but enough scandal and public attention laid the groundwork for a more comprehensive series of ethics laws over the next decade.

He was an old-school rural Democrat whose ability to deliver for his district and his unassailable incorruptibility left him in the legislature long after others of his ilk had been sent packing by political realignment. Respected on both sides of the House — aided, no doubt, by his occasional willingness to challenge the West Tennessee luminaries led by longtime Speaker Jimmy Naifeh, who dominated legislative Democrats — he was remembered by colleagues mostly for his oftenlonely push to make the legislature a more respectable and respected place.

Still, he always said he was most proud of passing the lemonade-stand law, which exempted lemonade stands and similar kid-run dalliances from health department regulation. Frank Buck died Jan. 24 at 80 years old. J.R. LIND

Winfield Dunn

Governor, statesman, party leader Before 1970, Memphis dentist Winfield Dunn had never run for political office. A Republican hadn’t won the governorship in 50 years — and only three times since the end of Reconstruction. That didn’t stop him from defeating Democrat John Jay Hooker — Dunn’s campaign manager was a 30-year-old named Lamar Alexander, who earned a great deal of respect for shepherding the upset. Dunn’s win hinted that Republicans — a mainstay in East Tennessee for a century but largely inconsequential in the other two Grand Divisions — could compete statewide. While governor, he introduced statewide kindergarten and worked with Democrats to raise the sales tax. Dunn (reminder: he was a Republican) wanted to raise it to 4 percent. Democrats wanted 3 percent. They split the baby. Dunn introduced a regional prison system and the Department of Economic and Community Development. He created a new state housing agency that helped middle- and low-income Tennesseans secure mortgages. He also, however, opposed a new medical school at East Tennessee State University in Johnson City, which put him at loggerheads with the power base of his own party and U.S. Rep. Jimmy Quillen, who worked with legislative Democrats to fund it. Dunn also wanted to put one of his regional prisons in Morristown. The two moves made him deeply unpopular in East Tennessee, and for a Republican looking for statewide success, that made him essentially unelectable.

At the time, Dunn was unable to succeed himself as governor, though he did try again in 1986, losing to Ned McWherter. McWherter had helped Quillen in the medschool fight, and East Tennesseans had a long memory. Dunn, who later became a vice president at HCA, died Sept. 28. He was 97. —J.R. LIND

Edith Taylor Langster

Trailblazer, public servant

Edith Taylor Langster broke barriers for Black women in Nashville, and her dedication to serving the community was fierce from the beginning of her career. She grew up in North Nashville and went to Tennessee State University. Her work in law enforcement began behind the desk — as was common for women at the time. But she later became the first woman assigned to the Metro Nashville Police Department’s patrol division. She also worked for the Youth Services and Intelligence divisions.

“Thank you for being courageous at a time when women, particularly Black women, were not presented with such opportunities,” Davidson County assessor of property Vivian Wilhoite told The Tennessee Tribune after Langster’s death in the summer. “I am surely grateful to not only have known and served with you, but to also call you my friend.”

After 10 years with the force, Langster worked with groups such as the North Nashville Organization for Community Improvement and the Davidson County Democratic Women’s Club. She was a delegate to the Democratic National Convention and a life member of the NAACP. From 1991 to 1995, Langster served as the Metro Council’s District 20 representative. She then won the District 54 seat in the Tennessee House of Representatives. She served as the House Local Government Committee chair and assistant majority whip during her 12 years in the statehouse. Langster later ran for and once again won a Metro Council seat — she represented District 21 from 2007 until 2015.

—NICOLLE S. PRAINO

Greer Tidwell

Environmental policy expert, professor Greer Tidwell loved the outdoors. The Nashville native was an outstanding early example of a modern environmental engineer, and he spent his career shaping environmental and conservation policy in his home state, his country and the world over. He served in the Tennessee Valley Authority and Environmental Protection Agency before founding his own environmental engineering firm — EMPE Inc.

— and he was named regional administrator for the EPA over several Southeastern states during the Reagan and Bush administrations.

Tidwell earned Tennessee’s Robert Sparks Walker Lifetime Achievement Award for his efforts, and he shaped the next generation of conservationist minds as a professor of civil and environmental engineering at his alma mater, Vanderbilt University. His hobbies tended to be things that let him spend time outside, and he trained, showed and won competitions with countless bird dogs and horses over the years. He is survived by his wife Claudette and children Sharon and Greer Jr., as well as several grand- and great-grandchildren. His passion for the environment and engineering took root in his family; his son Greer Jr. is the deputy commissioner of Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation’s Bureau of Conservation, and Greer Jr.’s daughter, Brittainy Tidwell, is an engineer in Texas.

—COLE VILLENA

Margaret “Peggy” Smith Warner

Belle Meade mayor, community leader Elizabeth Smith, always known as Peggy, was first elected to office in 1953, when the native Nashvillian served as president of her senior class at Harpeth Hall, which she had entered as a sophomore the year of its founding in 1951. After graduating in 1954, she attended Sweet Briar College, then Vanderbilt University. She married John Warner and moved with him to several cities for his medical training before coming home to Nashville with their three children.

Her leadership roles continued throughout her life — president of Junior League, Friends of Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital, chairman of the Ensworth Board of Trustees, the Harpeth Hall Board of Trustees, co-chair of the Swan Ball, president of the Canby Robinson Society and president of the Cashiers (N.C.) Historical Society.

In 1998, after serving as a Belle Meade city commissioner, Warner recruited family and friends to support her campaign for mayor of the well-heeled city within a city. They enthusiastically donned bright-yellow T-shirts emblazoned “Peggy for Mayor” and canvassed the neighborhood to drum up votes. Not surprisingly, she won, and wielded the gavel with skill, grace and humor through her fouryear term. —KAY WEST

Mark Gwyn

TBI director, committed law enforcement official

Mark Gwyn graduated from MTSU in 1985 with a degree in communications. He did not seek a job in public relations or journalism, but instead went home to McMinnville and took a job as a patrol officer with the police department. Three years later, he joined the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation as a special agent in the criminal investigation division, rising through the ranks all the way to the top: In 2004, then-Gov. Phil Bredesen appointed him TBI director, the first African American in the position.

During his tenure with the agency, Gwyn was

particularly committed to uncovering human trafficking, and passionate about helping the victimized. As director, he played a pivotal role in the state’s fight against the illegal drug trade, particularly methamphetamine production, working closely with Gov. Bredesen’s Meth Task Force. He presided over high-profile cases such as the murder of Holly Bobo and the Waffle House mass shooting. Gwyn oversaw the creation of the Technical Services Unit and the Cyber Crimes Unit, and the state’s Fusion Center was brought to the bureau’s headquarters, housing programs like the statewide Sex Offender Registry.

Gwyn fostered meaningful friendships with colleagues in the field during his tenure and after his retirement, including David Rausch, the man who succeeded him in 2018. Gwyn is the longest-serving director in agency history. When he announced his retirement via an email to TBI staff, he signed off by saying: “We have come a very long way, and I am honored to have served in this capacity for so long. I hope I have left in part, a legacy that reflects the integrity, leadership and compassion that touches every facet of this agency. It was my goal to leave the Bureau better than it was when it was given to me.”

—KAY WEST

Trace Sharp

Blogger, activist, life of the party

Trace Sharp always said she was from Hoots. Hoots is not on a map. Hoots might be Dyersburg or Dresden or Martin — or all of them, or none of them. Hoots was more of a state of mind. It was Trace’s all-encompassing term for those places in rural West Tennessee, usually north of I-40, flat and soggy land with hardworking people overlooked by Washington and then — as Tennessee realigned and the Democratic Party here became almost exclusively urban — by Nashville too. A newspaperwoman and disc jockey who spent her life talking to and talking for the people around her, she recognized something long before most anyone else: The Democrats were losing those people, her people, and, campers (she always called her readers and listeners “campers” when she was about to say something serious), without a change, Democrats would lose those once-reliable voters.

Guess who was right.

Trace was a mainstay of Tennessee’s bloggerverse when that was a thing, telling those truths under the Newscoma banner. She worked for a lot of hard-luck Democrats in statewide campaigns. She still believed Democrats could win in Tennessee, despite all evidence to the contrary. Trace loved dogs and cigarettes and beer — working for Mike McWherter’s campaign, she drank a considerable amount of Budweiser, due to that political family making its fortune distributing Anheuser-Busch — and conversation and debate and trashy TV. She hated cilantro, but she was too polite to tell me that despite me serving her numerous dishes featuring the herb when she and Stephanie, her partner of 30 years,

joined me and my wife to watch True Blood She was brassy and boisterous, and no one ever missed her when she sauntered into a room, her fedora atop her supernova of curls. She was caring and tough and fought endlessly for causes she cared about, establishing a shelter for victims of domestic violence in Weakley County. She knew what she believed, but she listened too. She counted among her friends and admirers people with whom she deeply disagreed, because if nothing else, she was incredibly fun to be around, to argue with and to commiserate with — though she worked for plenty of lost-cause candidates, she was a happy warrior who loved the fight even when the outcome was inevitable. (She’d never admit the inevitability, because what’s the fun in that?) Trace Sharp died June 26. She was 58. —J.R. LIND

John Bain Harkey

Advocate, environmentalist, devoted husband John Harkey was a 1967 graduate of the Air Force Academy. Two months after marrying Kathleen in 1968, he left to fulfill his service obligations, spending two years in special operations flying in South Korea and Vietnam. In Nashville — where he moved with Kathleen to pursue a Ph.D. in sociology from Vanderbilt — his feet were firmly on the ground.

Aside from his wife and two children, Harkey’s passions were writing and the environment, which he merged in the publishing of environmental magazine The Cumberland Journal. To pay the bills, he founded and ran Harkey and Associates, which covered managed health care in the Southeast. He pursued his core values of healthy living and thriving communities through his dedication to organizations and nonprofits such as Walk Bike Nashville, Greenways for Nashville and, with Kathleen, Moms Demand Action, the national initiative fighting for gun safety measures.

While caring for Kathleen and after her death in 2023, Harkey was at work on a narrative about their love story, referencing the saved letters he and his young bride faithfully wrote daily to each other during the two — and only — years they spent apart. —KAY WEST

Charles Frazier

Former MNPS director, dedicated husband and father

Every child deserves a chance to succeed. That simple idea drove Charles Frazier through a lifetime of service to Nashville, where he’s remembered as a dedicated educator and community servant. Frazier spent nearly four decades at Metro Nashville Public Schools and helped establish several programs to serve students, ending his career as the system’s director in 1992.

But stepping out of the Metro schools office didn’t mean ending his commitment to young Nashvillians. In 1998, he worked with the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee to establish the Tapping Individual Potential program, which has awarded more than 1,200 scholarships for promising students to attend STEM camps, arts courses and other educational

enrichment programs. He’s remembered as a dedicated husband to his wife, Barbara — the pair met while working at the same public school, naturally — and father to his beloved son Brian.

—COLE VILLENA

Joan Seigenthaler Miller

Teacher, public health official, volunteer

When you’re the youngest of eight children, and your family is an institution in your hometown, in the Catholic Diocese and in multiple sectors of the community, you can be easily overlooked. Joan Seigenthaler didn’t give it a thought. She dedicated her professional career to service, teaching in Catholic schools in Tennessee, Ohio and Virginia, then spent 33 years in the Metro Public Health Department. In those decades, she demonstrated a special commitment to Nashvillians with special needs as a teacher in the day care program for individuals with severe developmental disabilities. She was subsequently its director. She also worked with mothers living in poverty as director of the WIC program, then was director of Jail Health Services, overseeing care for inmates at the Metro jail with kindness and compassion. She met her husband Dr. John Miller through the health department. After she retired, she continued to practice unconditional giving through engaged and active volunteer work and perfected her legendary scratch-baked coconut cakes. —KAY WEST

James Auer

Diplomat, naval officer, educator

“I cannot think of anyone who has done more to deepen the security ties between Japan and the United States than James E. Auer.” So wrote Yoshihisa Komori, editor of the Englishlanguage Japanese outlet JAPAN Forward. Auer was a U.S. Navy officer, Pentagon official and educator who spent his military and diplomatic career fostering cooperation between the two nations.

Especially significant was Auer’s work developing a bilateral defense relationship between the two countries as head of the Department of Defense’s Japan Affairs Office. He was honored not only by his home country but by Japan, which awarded him the Order of the Rising Sun, 3rd Class in 2008 for distinguished service to the state. Auer met his wife Judith while stationed in Tokyo in 1978, and she eventually convinced her Midwest-native husband to move to her home in Middle Tennessee. He continued his diplomatic efforts there and found a passion for education. Students at Vanderbilt University knew him as the founder of the Center for U.S.-Japan Studies and Cooperation and a seasoned instructor of courses about international relations, Asian studies and military history. —COLE VILLENA

John Roe Jr. Attorney, legal expert

John Roe Jr., a founding partner of Sherrard, Roe, Voigt & Harbison, died in February of pancreatic cancer. He was 77. In 1981, Roe founded the law office of O’Hare, Sherrard & Roe. In 2016, the firm added John Voigt and Bill Harbison as named partners. Roe was born in Springfield and grew up in Clarksville, then started his law career in Atlanta before moving to Nashville in 1974. Roe began a gradual retirement in 2019.

“John leaves behind the legacy of a wonderful family and a superb 50-year legal career,” says Tom Sherrard, a friend and business partner. “We were all the beneficiaries of his wisdom and leadership in establishing our law firm, which is truly a family for all of us. We will miss John terribly and mourn his passing, but we will celebrate our shared memories and remember the kindness he showed others.”

Roe’s legal expertise was real estate and tax law, and he co-wrote the Tennessee Condominium Act of 2008. Roe attended Davidson College and Vanderbilt Law School, where he graduated first in his class. Added Harbison: “John inspired generations in our firm and in our community with his keen intellect, warm humor, generous mentoring and adventurous spirit.”

Roe is survived by his wife, Jane Buchi Roe, and children Lillian Gilmer, John Roe and Alan Roe, plus stepchildren Marla Doehring, Hunter Connelly and Will Connelly, and 15 grandchildren. He was preceded in death by his wife Emily Hunt Roe. —WILLIAM WILLIAMS

Media & Entertainment

Nikki Giovanni

Stargazer, poet, teacher of power and love

I learned Nikki Giovanni’s “Nikki-Rosa” in school, when no other poet — no idea of

what a poet could be — looked like me in the classroom. No other contemporary Black poets crossed the school pages, and we barely glanced at Langston Hughes.

I loved learning of her love for Tupac when I too newly loved Tupac. Much later, I learned of her participation in the Black Arts Movement. I learned that she wrote powerful works right here in Nashville at Fisk. I learned she trusted her voice, cowered for no one, responded in her truth, treated every moment of feeling alive and Black as a kind of revolution.

In 2022, over lunch at Sewanee, I learned what fancy bottle she ran to the liquor store to buy if Toni Morrison planned to visit her and Virginia Fowler’s home. She looked up at stars. She stretched her soul to Mars. When I learned she exited this side of breath, I wept. Joy-tears for what she gave us. And grief-tears because I love her.

And she loved herself! I learned that when creating from a deep well, why scrape the muck from the bottom when it could be filled with true love instead? So I learn to love myself too.

Thank you, Nikki Giovanni. —CIONA ROUSE

Joe Elmore

Journalist, host, aficionado

To multiple generations of Tennesseans, Tennessee Crossroads was and is essential viewing. For decades, Joe Elmore was the face of that popular Nashville PBS program, and a warm and welcome presence in living rooms across the state and the Southeast.

An Arkansas native, Elmore received a journalism degree from Arkansas State University and a master’s degree in broadcasting and film from the University of Memphis before anchoring the weekend news desk at Memphis’ Fox affiliate. But before long, Elmore brought his kind face and buttery baritone to Crossroads, where — for more than 30 years — he reported on the Volunteer State’s diverse array of artists, craftspeople, communities and natural wonders. Elmore was also a musician and a car aficionado, and hosted automotive cable programs including Horsepower TV and Musclecar

A legend in local broadcasting, Elmore was always game for new experiences — whether that meant sampling the fare at a roadside diner or crank-starting an ornery vintage car, the task was always performed with a smile on his face. He was inducted into the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Nashville/Midsouth Chapter’s Silver Circle in 2014. After a long struggle with illness, he died in June at 80 years old. —D.

PATRICK RODGERS

Alicia Henry

Visual artist, beloved Fisk professor

Beloved Fisk University professor and visual artist Alicia Henry was everyone’s favorite. For Fisk students, her steadfast support and quiet enthusiasm often made her their favorite professor. In the art community, her bold but enigmatic artworks were frequently cited as the city’s best.

Henry was born in Chicago on May 11, 1966. She received her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, then studied at the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture before receiving an MFA from the Yale University School of Art. Among her many accolades were a Joan Mitchell Foundation award, a Ford Foundation Fellowship and a Guggenheim Fellowship. Her work has been shown at influential institutions like the Whitney Museum and the Drawing Center in New York, as well as Nashville’s own Frist Art Museum, which hosted Alicia Henry: Black and Blue in 2003. She was also respected internationally, and had recently been featured in solo shows in both Canada and the U.K. After graduating from Yale, Henry taught art in Ghana with the Peace Corps, and upon returning to the U.S. she worked on South Dakota reservation Pine Ridge. Drawn to the art collection at Fisk, Henry decided to relocate to Nashville in 1997. In 2023, a retrospective of her work titled simply Alicia was exhibited in Fisk’s galleries. The curator, Fisk’s director Jamaal Sheats, was one of her first students.

Henry died Oct. 16 from cancer. At her request, Fisk University’s Alicia Henry Scholarship fund was established for art students at Fisk, where she was on staff for nearly 30 years. She is survived by her mother Katie Henry, her sister Charla, her brother Julian, her niece Gaybrielle Henry and her sister-in-law Gia Gates-Henry. —LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

Robert “Bob” Mode

Visual artist, Vanderbilt professor Bob Mode was a real mensch. Ask anyone who had the privilege of being his colleague during his 45-year career at Vanderbilt University, which recruited him to the faculty in 1968. Ask any of the thousands of students he educated and mentored during his four-anda-half decades as department chair, director of graduate studies, and director of undergraduate studies for the College of Arts and Science at Vanderbilt. Ask anyone who worked with him on public art issues with the Vanderbilt Institute

PHOTO: ANGELINA CASTILLO

for Public Policy Studies and the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt.

Ask his wife, artist Carol Mode. Ask his daughter Emily, his son Dan, his brother Art and other cherished family members. Ask anyone who spent even 30 minutes with Bob on the Vanderbilt campus, shared a table at a dinner party, sat beside him on a flight to Europe, where he and Carol traveled often, or chatted at an opening reception at Cumberland Gallery, which for years represented Carol.

With Bob Mode, there was no such thing as small talk. He was genuinely interested in what you were working on, how your family was, how you were, where you had recently traveled, new places you had eaten, what show you had last seen. He listened, he engaged, and he was quick with a laugh, a pat on the back or a reassuring hand on the shoulder.

Bob Mode was a brilliant, kind, gentle man. A true mensch. Ask anybody. —KAY WEST

Steve Lowry

Photographer, journalist

For more than 30 years, if there was a Belle Meade party, a society soiree, a black-tie ball, a white-tie gala or a music industry hoedown, Steve Lowry was there. Rather than a cocktail, he held a camera, and in his quiet, unassuming way, he captured countless moments that were treasured by clients and subjects.

Lowry was a teenager when he dedicated himself to pursuing a career in photojournalism and moved from Kentucky to Nashville to achieve it. He started at the Nashville Banner, which was then the city’s daily afternoon newspaper. Like other staff photographers, he chronicled the Metro Council, Capitol Hill, the courthouse, crime, fire and tragedy. Unlike many of his colleagues, he cheerfully took on Nashville’s party scene with Betty Banner, the paper’s longtime society scribe.

When the Banner folded in 1998, Lowry’s music-biz connections took him to TNN, then to the Ryman Auditorium as the in-house photographer. He had a prolific freelance business, shooting for Music Row labels, publicists, nonprofits and corporations, and his work appeared in Billboard, Rolling Stone, American Songwriter, The Tennessean, Music Row and many more local and national publications. Even in the face of severe health challenges, he ended every conversation with the gentle words, “Enjoy the day and those around you.”

—KAY WEST

Mary Neville

Artist, Tennessee Watercolor Society board member

Artist Mary Neville, a West Virginia native, studied at both West Virginia University and Parsons School of Design. She was an accomplished watercolor painter, and she taught commercial art at a West Virginia high school before meeting Garth E. Neville, an engineer with the Dupont Corp. After they married, the couple relocated to Old Hickory, and were married for 62 years until his death in 2018.

She served on the board of the Madison

Art Center and the Tennessee Watercolor Society, and she was a member of the Nashville Artist Guild and the Kentucky, Southern and Tennessee Watercolor Societies. She is survived by nephew Richard Laidley Field, his wife Jami and their three children, as well as her cousin Thomas Laidley Hutchinson. —LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

Mandisa Hundley

American Idol contestant, Fisk Jubilee Singers alumna, Grammy winner

Much of America met Mandisa Hundley in 2005 when she auditioned for American Idol. A successful backup singer, she took center stage and eventually finished ninth in the competition. But Nashville met her much earlier than that. Hundley graduated from Fisk University in 2000 with a degree in music and was part of the famous Fisk Jubilee Singers during her college years. She was remembered by her classmates in a celebration of life earlier this year. She was also remembered by her Nashville-based American Idol colleagues — including Danny Gokey, Melinda Doolitte and Colton Dixon — who honored her with a rendition of her hit song “Shackles” on a live broadcast of the show’s latest season earlier this year.

After American Idol, Hundley released a halfdozen albums in the contemporary Christian and gospel space. She frequently collaborated with Christian music scene heavyweights TobyMac, Amy Grant, Matthew West and Kirk Franklin, among others. In 2014, she won a Grammy for Best Contemporary Christian Album with her record Overcomer

Hundley died in her Franklin home at age 47 in April. —HANNAH HERNER

Alice Zimmerman

Gallerist, public servant, fierce ball of fire

There’s an archival photo from The Tennessean that shows stylish people, wine glasses in hand. It is captioned “A packed crowd mixes and mingles at the Zimmerman/Saturn Gallery during the ‘An Artrageous Evening Saturday’ event Nov. 14, 1987.” Somewhere in that throng is the fierce ball of fire Alice Zimmerman.

The rest of the story goes like this: The Chicago native grew up in Atlanta, moved to Nashville to raise her two children, and Nashville was never the same. With her friend Nancy Saturn, she founded Zimmerman Saturn

Gallery, the first art gallery on what was then a very sketchy Second Avenue. There the dynamic duo launched the careers of many young local artists.

The gallery was one of five that hosted the first Artrageous, founded in 1987 and spearheaded by John Bridges; it grew into one of the best parties of the year, as well as Nashville CARES’ biggest fundraiser. As executive director of the Metro Arts Commission, Zimmerman cofounded the annual Summer Lights music and arts festival, which ran from 1981 until 1997.

Professionally, she segued out of the arts world and into public service, creating the Special Advocate of Victims of Violence Program at Nashville’s Night Court, co-founding the Mary Parrish Center for Victims of Domestic Violence and, in 2003, receiving the YWCA Academy for Women of Achievement Award.

On Dec. 3, the Metro Council passed a resolution posthumously honoring Zimmerman’s life and legacy, noting, “When Alice saw injustice in the world, she set out to fix it.” By force of her steel will, she did. —KAY WEST

Courtney Harkins

Actor,

musician, hard worker

Even though Courtney Harkins spent just a short time in Nashville, she left a lasting impression on the local theater community. Originally from Pittsburgh, Harkins grew up loving music and theater. She performed throughout high school and college, and was also an accomplished flutist, going on to earn a degree in music education from Duquesne University. Harkins moved to Nashville in 2017 and quickly established herself with local organizations, including Circle Players (The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Newsies the Musical, The Full Monty) and the Larry Keeton Theatre (9 to 5 the Musical).

She would later return to her native Pittsburgh, where she remained until her untimely passing on Aug. 23 at just 31 years old. Nashville friends and fellow actors remember Harkins for her unwavering kindness, good humor and professionalism. “Courtney was such fun and extremely talented, although she was never one to flaunt that,” says Zach Williams, who often shared the stage with Harkins. “She was a hard worker and had such great enthusiasm — whether she had a lead role or was part of the ensemble. She just wanted everyone to be at the top of their game, so that the show could be its very best.” —AMY STUMPFL

Adele Akin

Actor, talent, theater community fixture

If you’ve attended many community theater performances in the past 40 years or so, you’re likely familiar with Adele Akin, who died on July 3 at age 70. Born in Jamestown, N.Y., Akin attended Fredonia State University before serving in the U.S. Army. During her time in Germany, she was attached to the Entertainment Showcase, where she performed for NATO military and civilian audiences. Akin went on to graduate from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York, and

later received a degree in theater arts from Thomas A. Edison State College. She and her family moved to Nashville in 1983, and she served for many years as executive director of the Tennessee Board of Bar Examiners.

A fixture in the local theater community, Akin performed regularly with Circle Players, ACT 1, Boiler Room Theatre, Towne Centre, Pull-Tight and more. Favorite roles included Martha in Arsenic and Old Lace, Gooch in Mame and Miss Hannigan in Annie. “For fellow actresses in the same age group, Adele was one of those stellar performers who made you want to just leave when she showed up for auditions,” says actor Pat Street. “But you couldn’t bear a grudge. You knew there was going to be no one better for the role, whatever it was. And once she was in a cast with you, there was no one more loving and accepting.” —AMY STUMPFL

Lewis Kempfer

Actor, director, author, jack-of-all-trades

Growing up in Denver, Lewis Kempfer discovered an early love of singing and acting. He moved to Nashville in 1995 to pursue a career in country music, and would go on to earn a degree in management from Trevecca Nazarene University. He co-founded the Boiler Room Theatre in 2000, serving as the company’s managing director and resident “jack-of-alltrades.” Audiences often marveled at Kempfer’s uncanny ability to maximize BRT’s tiny space, as he directed and designed big splashy musicals like A Chorus Line, Anything Goes and, perhaps most famously, Disney’s Beauty and the Beast — all on a stage that measured just 16 by 28 feet. His elaborate, themed lobby displays also were legendary.

An award-winning author, Kempfer would chronicle BRT’s unique story in his 2022 book 120 Seats in a Boiler Room: The Creation of a Courageous Professional Theater, while his 2019 memoir Don’t Mind Me, I’m Just Having a Bad Life explored personal trauma and struggles with depression and addiction. Kempfer moved to Los Angeles in 2006 to pursue a dream job with the Walt Disney Co., and eventually returned to his native Colorado, where he was a member of the Denver Gay Men’s Chorus and volunteered as a reader for sheltered animals. Friends remember him for his beautiful singing voice and sweet spirit. Kempfer died on May 14 at the age of 58. —AMY STUMPFL

Tom Mason

Musician, actor, raconteur, pirate

Tom Mason was a self-described musician, actor, raconteur and pirate. But for those closest to him, he will be remembered simply as a kind and generous friend. Originally from Minnesota, Mason picked up the guitar at age 11, and was a regular in the Twin Cities music scene before settling in Nashville in 1993. Over the next 31 years, he became a beloved collaborator, playing in various bands and establishing his own, Tom Mason and the Blue Buccaneers, in 2010. He produced several albums of original Americana and pirate music, and was inducted into the International Pirate Hall of Fame in 2023.

As an actor, Mason toured nationally with Ring of Fire: The Music of Johnny Cash and performed with Actors Bridge and the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, among others. Audiences will surely remember his swashbuckling turn as Feste the Fool in NSF’s delightful Twelfth Night in 2021. Though undergoing cancer treatment, Mason contributed original songs and served as music director for the production.

“I’ve played with a million musicians here in Nashville, but Tom was special,” says fellow musician and actor Laurie Canaan. “He wasn’t afraid to let you in. He was unabashedly himself — so genuine, so full of joy. He had the biggest heart, and I’m forever grateful to have called him my friend.” Mason died on Aug. 31 at age 65. —AMY STUMPFL

Jeffrey Buntin Sr.

Television producer, Old Nashvillian, advertiser

Jeffrey Wayne Buntin was Middle Tennessee gentry and Old Nashville through and through. He belonged to the fifth generation to live on his family’s farm in Robertson County. He was a thoroughbred horse breeder, polo player, golfer, avid Civil War historian and member of multiple hunting clubs. He graduated from Montgomery Bell Academy and the University of the South in Sewanee. Yet for all his deep roots in centuries of tradition, Buntin made his professional mark in an inherently modern and lightning-speed field.

He entered advertising in his early 20s through his father’s company Buntin & Associates Inc. In 1972, with a $5,000 loan, he founded Buntin Advertising (which later became The Buntin Group). Buntin grew to be the largest advertising agency in the state and one of the top 25 independent marketing firms in the country. Among the homegrown brands that got the Buntin touch were Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, Dollar General Corp., HCA and Captain D’s. In the television industry, he founded Hawkins Street Productions, which produced a series of shows on the fledgling TNN and was an original organizer and owner of WZTV-TV (later sold to Fox Media). He served on countless boards, but his most enduring loyalty outside his family was to the Richland Creek Commerce Association, a group of contemporaries — many of them grammar school classmates — who grew up exploring Richland Creek. A founding member, he enjoyed the company of his oldest and dearest friends until his death. Sixteen RCCA members served

as honorary pallbearers at the service at Christ Church Cathedral, where the Buntin family worshipped for generations. —KAY WEST

William Wister Goodman Photographer, veteran, collector

During the Korean War, Bill Goodman served as a combat photographer with the 1st Marine Division and a light machine gunner, for which he was awarded the United Nations Medal, the Korean Service Medal and the Good Conduct Award. Back in Nashville in 1952, his machinist job with the L&N Railroad must have seemed pretty dull, so when an old Marine buddy told him of a photographer’s position at the Nashville Banner, he applied. He started a 30-day trial at the Banner in 1954; the successful tryout turned into an award-winning 35-year career with the afternoon paper.

Goody — as he was known in the newsroom and among fellow lensmen — specialized in aerial photos and police action pictures. His war experience clearly prepared him for the dangerous assignments he calmly took on, and he was highly respected as a courageous photojournalist. Throughout his newspaper career he covered fires, accidents, crime scenes, shootings (including the shooting of his own son, Berry Hill Police Officer Mike Goodman), Nashville’s race riots in the 1950s and civil rights demonstrations in the 1960s.

After he retired in 1990, he collected photographs related to Nashville history, developing them from negatives shot by other colleagues and himself. The Bill Goodman Nashville History Photographs Collection (circa 1853 to 1985) at the Nashville Public Library consists of 94 scanned black-and-white photographs, including aerial shots of the implosions of the Andrew Jackson and Sam Davis hotels, photographs of the Maxwell House Hotel after it was destroyed by fire, views of Nashville from Fort Negley, the 1940 frozen Cumberland River, and victory parades after World War I and World War II. —KAY WEST

Scoop Nashville proprietor

When I learned that Scoop Nashville proprietor Jason Steen died, I started flipping through a decade’s worth of texts and direct messages with the controversial figure.

I hated a lot of what Scoop did. Reporting often petty or sensational crime was his specialty, and the endless string of mugshots that adorned his now-defunct site was a case study in harmful clickbait journalism. A lot of those “stories” — often just rewrites of police affidavits — had the effect of preserving some people’s worst moments. But his work was so widely read that the Criminal Clerk’s office removed those affidavits from easy public view. Looking back, many of our texts were me chiding him for something and him telling me I didn’t understand the “new journalism.”

Perhaps his worst practice was charging people a fee to have their stories (and photos) removed from his site. I knew people who bought their DUI arrests off of his site, a kind of

modern-day blackmail that’s been outlawed in many states. He once teased on Twitter — his weapon of choice — a sensational set of facts from one prominent Nashvillian’s out-of-state divorce filing. But that story never hit his site after a check made it into his pocket.

But to dismiss him as only an internet rogue is a misunderstanding. He was always willing to live his life publicly, and that meant owning up to his own failings too. Whether it was his own arrest and mugshot, a business flameout or the subsequent bankruptcy, or even his battle to stay alive, Steen was an open book. And he could be quite helpful if it meant making information public. There are many reporters, like myself, who were tipped off by Steen over the years to dozens of “legitimate” stories.

“Don’t hate me, hate the game,” he once told me. The vitriol directed at Steen in death by people he harmed was so strong it forced his family to delete his death notice (and comments) from a funeral home site. It was awful, but as his sister noted, he would have loved the attention. —STEVE CAVENDISH

Sophie Marie Rhoten

Entertainment industry veteran

The leading acts in star-studded Nashville do not exist without a whole city’s worth of talent, passion and commitment. Brentwood’s Sophie Marie Rhoten embodies the all-around love for entertainment that makes these industries work.

Rhoten came to Middle Tennessee with her family as a 1-year-old, establishing herself as a musician, actor and friend in the city’s far-ranging limelight. She moved among the TV sets, photo shoots and music videos that make up Tennessee’s entertainment industry, including stints on CMT’s Nashville and Still the King. Her life frequently brushed with those of superstars, as with her role as a stand-in for LeAnn Rimes, but her experience helped keep all the less shiny aspects of show business running. The firm that helped place Rhoten’s talent — On Location Casting — remembers her for the enthusiasm and joy she brought to every set. Outside the spotlight, she was a musician, daughter, aunt and avid traveler, having made a last trip to Rosemary Beach in the final days of terminal illness. —ELI MOTYCKA

John Henry

Britton Jr. Journalist, witness, friend

There is no such thing as a brief description of John Henry Britton Jr.’s life, which spanned 86 years and a host of cities, states and communities across the Midwest and South. Journalists earn a living accumulating stories, and Britton — through instinct, commitment, talent, intelligence or some combination — always seemed to be in the right place at the right time.

Son of a Nashville school teacher and minister, Britton headed to Lincoln University in Missouri after graduating from Pearl High School in 1954, later transferring to the University of Michigan and finally Drake University, where he earned a journalism

degree. Britton lived through the integrated South as a student and reported on it, beginning his reporting career in Atlanta, then moving to Chicago, eventually rising up the masthead at legendary Black news and culture magazine Jet. After stints at Motown Records, the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in D.C., and The Washington Post, Britton settled into academic public affairs. He found his way back to North Nashville in 1998, joining Meharry Medical College as an associate vice president. The HistoryMakers, a national nonprofit effort to record and archive notable Black Americans’ personal stories, sat down with Britton in 2005. He died on March 9. —ELI MOTYCKA

Sports

Vanderbilt football coach

Steve Sloan had the biggest smile at Alabama’s homecoming.

It was Oct. 28, 2000, and the University of Central Florida was cashing its check as the predicted patsy for the Crimson Tide’s homecoming game. It was a dreadful season for the Tide. A preseason ranking of No. 3 didn’t matter much, as Alabama limped into the game at 3-4. But surely they’d win against the Golden Knights, right?

UCF — where Sloan was the athletic director — had other plans, with a late field goal securing a 40-38 win. I was in the press box, working for Alabama’s Sports Information Department, and looked over into the box where visiting administrators sat to see Sloan with a grin the width of the Black Warrior River, pumping his fist and glad-handing colleagues. It was a good homecoming indeed for Sloan, who’d quarterbacked Alabama to a 10-1 record in 1964 backing up for an injured Joe Namath. In Nashville, Sloan — a native of Cleveland, Tenn. — is remembered as the Vanderbilt coach who led the Commodores to a 7-3-2 record in 1974 (and a respectable 5-6 the year before), which included a 6-6 tie in the Peach Bowl, Vandy’s first bowl appearance since 1955 and at a time when making a bowl game was actually an accomplishment. Sloan left West End to

Jason Steen

Steve Sloan

JANUARY 9

PETER ROWAN & SAM GRISMAN PROJECT PERFORM OLD & IN THE WAY

JANUARY 3-17

OPRY 100 AT THE RYMAN

FEATURING LAINEY WILSON, CRAIG MORGAN, STEVE EARLE, KELSEA BALLERINI & MORE

JANUARY 18

WHITEY MORGAN AND THE 78’s

JANUARY 25

PAUL CAUTHEN

FEBRUARY 2

BURTON CUMMINGS OF THE ORIGINAL “THE GUESS WHO” WITH JIM MESSINA

FEBRUARY 3-6

OLD DOMINION 7-SHOW RYMAN RESIDENCY

FEBRUARY 7

MORGAN WADE WITH AMY RAY BAND

coach at Texas Tech and later had stints at Ole Miss and Duke. Sloan came back to Vandy as Watson Brown’s offensive coordinator in 1990. That came after a short stint as Alabama’s athletic director. After his single year on Brown’s staff, he’d return to administration, serving as AD at North Texas, UCF and UTChattanooga.

Steve Sloan died April 14 in Orlando, Fla. He was 79. —J.R. LIND

Pat Johnson

Groundbreaking Belmont tennis player

A Nashville native, Pat Johnson had a unique tennis career at Belmont University. Her roots in tennis dated back to her days at the former West End High, where she mastered the sport and went on to win a couple of city titles at Centennial Sportsplex. She enrolled at Belmont, where she met Warren Johnson, a standout basketball player for the Bruins. The two were married before Pat completed her studies at the school.

After working in an accounting position at GMAC for 32 years, Pat decided to return to Belmont to complete her accounting degree. She earned a spot on the school’s tennis team at age 59, becoming the oldest active athlete in the NCAA. Pat would play No. 4 singles for the Bruins as a member of the Belmont women’s tennis team, earning five match victories before going on to earn her degree in 1993. Pat also went on to run the Music City Marathon in 2001, and she completed multiple halfmarathons as well.

Along with her son Jeff and daughter-in-law Renee, Pat established an endowed scholarship for every sport at Belmont, including cheerleading. Her first scholarship — the Johnson-Rotella Women’s Tennis Endowed Scholarship — was in honor of her mother. The Johnson family also played a key role in the tennis facility at Belmont’s Crockett Center for Athletic Excellence. The tennis team lounge is named in Pat’s honor. Pat and Warren Johnson each received the Chaney Memorial Award for their dedication, service and generosity toward Belmont Athletics. —JOHN GLENNON

Bill Ligon

Trailblazing Vanderbilt basketball player

Being the second person to do something often amounts to being no more than a footnote — the spotlight shines on the first. The honor of being the first Black basketball player at Vanderbilt went to Perry Wallace in 1967. The second? Bill Ligon, who was a freshman during the 1971-72 season. Ligon died in June at age 72.

But Bill Ligon is more than a footnote. The Middle Tennessee native played high school ball at Union High in Gallatin, with his last season coming before integration. In the final game, Ligon’s team faced all-white Gallatin High for the district championship, won by Gallatin. Ligon and Gallatin High star Ed Sherlin had secretly begun a friendship in the weeks before and embraced after the game. It set a tone for unity in the community and

became the basis for a book called More Than Rivals, which was released in 2016.

In his first varsity season at Vanderbilt, Ligon averaged 16.7 points and 6.7 rebounds as a sophomore. (Freshmen weren’t allowed to play on the varsity team in those days.) Those would be his best stats, as the school began bringing in more nationally ranked players and he lost some playing time.

He was drafted into the NBA by the Detroit Pistons in 1974. After playing one season, Ligon returned to Gallatin to practice law. —KEVIN SPAIN

Chazan Page

TSU athlete, teammate, leader Tennessee State University student-athlete Chazan Page, a former Lipscomb Academy football standout, was killed in a hit-and-run in April at age 20.

Page, a Nashville native, was a senior offensive lineman on TSU’s football team alongside his brother Chandon. During his career with the Tigers, Page played in 28 games, including all 11 in each of the two seasons prior to his death. TSU athletic director Mikki Allen described Page as someone who “helped bring out the best in others with his outstanding leadership on and off the field, positive attitude, and genuine care for the people around him.” —LOGAN BUTTS

Chrissie Herring

Belmont athlete and record-setter

Chrissie Herring ranks among the best women’s basketball players in Belmont University history. She set numerous records at the school and led the Bruins to national prominence in the National Association for Intercollegiate Athletics. She first attended Springfield High, earning Tennessean AllMidstate honors during the 1989-90 season. Chrissie was a member of the Springfield High School Athletic Hall of Fame class of 2020. During her career at Belmont, Chrissie led the Bruins to a 116-25 record. The team earned national rankings on an annual basis and advanced to the final eight of the NAIA tournament three times. In 1994, Chrissie led Belmont to a 32-3 record. The Bruins averaged 92 points per game that season and won by

an average margin of nearly 24 points per game. A forward, Chrissie was a two-time NAIA All-America selection, two-time Tennessee Collegiate Athletic Conference player of the year and the 1993 NAIA District 24 player of the year. She is Belmont’s all-time leader in scoring (2,450 points) and rebounding (1,233). Chrissie is the only player in Belmont history to total more than 2,000 career points and 1,000 career rebounds. In 1996, Belmont retired Chrissie’s No. 40 jersey. Six years later, she was inducted into the Belmont Athletic Hall of Fame.

She died in June at age 51. —JOHN GLENNON

Mike O’Neil

Hockey referee, community leader

People often remember their youth sports coaches. Those volunteers who guide them, teach them sportsmanship and life lessons about working together. But we often forget those other volunteers: the officials. They teach us lessons too, and are as essential to youth sports as the coaches and managers. And it’s a tough job. No one likes a ref. You get yelled at by everybody, and you can’t hide on the bench. Half the people are going to be mad at every decision. But still, they come out. They give up their time — for little or no money — to help our kids learn the game and learn about life.

Mike O’Neil, who died June 2, was one of those people. One of those thankless helpers we ask to help our kids and probably give too hard a time to anyway. O’Neil was a USA Hockey official for a quarter-century, earning his card when he moved to Nashville, which coincidentally was when the Nashville Predators debuted.

There weren’t a lot of certified hockey officials in Nashville at the time — there still aren’t. Hockey is one of the few sports where being an official requires a pre-existing skill, and knowing the rulebook front to back is of little use if you can’t skate. Because of this dearth, O’Neil officiated everything: rec, high school, college club and even Predators scrimmages. He eventually became certified as an off-ice official for the NHL.

So critical was he to Nashville’s hockey community that the Greater Nashville Area Scholastic Hockey league named its all-star game trophy for him. Parents and players say they breathed sighs of relief when they saw O’Neil had the whistle for their game, because he’d call it straight down the middle. And he kept playing hockey too. His family would enter adult tournaments and often ice a team of nothing-but-O’Neils.

O’Neil was diagnosed with cancer in 2020 and kept officiating during his treatment, unable to stay off the ice and away from the game he loved. —J.R. LIND

Mike Purcell

Coach, leader, winner

Tennessee lost one of the best high school coaches in the history of the state — of any sport — when legendary Brentwood soccer coach Mike Purcell died in October at age 73. The longtime coach, who retired

in June, won 366 games and five state championships during 22 seasons at the helm of the Brentwood boys’ program. Two of his Brentwood teams, the 2008 and 2023 squads, even ended their seasons atop the national high school soccer rankings.

The Father Ryan alum also spent eight seasons as the Brentwood girls’ soccer head coach, winning approximately 90 more games with that program. In the consistently competitive Williamson County region, Brentwood often came out on top under Purcell. He was the architect of one of the best programs in the state. —LOGAN BUTTS

Music

Stephen Cook Arwood

Beloved collaborator, practitioner of The Cowboy Way

After arriving in Nashville from his hometown of Oak Ridge, Stephen Cook Arwood trudged knee-deep into the heart of Music City’s cowboy culture, getting to work on numerous projects including his bestselling Don’t Squat With Yer Spurs On book series. For his most popular work, though, he traded his pen for a microphone, creating a number of TV programs, public radio shows, albums and a book for Western outfit Riders in the Sky. To the Riders, Arwood will always be known by his cowboy radio persona, Texas Bix Bender.

“He was a genuine human being, a kind heart,” said Douglas Green, aka the Riders’ Ranger Doug, after Arwood’s passing. “[He was] a lover of people, and so creative. He was just a very funny man.”

While Arwood became longtime buddies with all three core group members, he and Rider Fred LaBour, aka Too Slim, shared long writing sessions and unending fits of laughter. On Dec. 29, 2023, LaBour met Arwood for what would be their final lunch together. They reminisced about times on the radio, continued what LaBour describes as the “World’s Longest Running Football Bet” and reiterated their longstanding love for each other upon goodbyes. Arwood went home to his wife, Sally Moore Barton, before passing away later that night. —BAILEY BRANTINGHAM

Melanie Safka

A legendary voice of pop

If you triangulate among three versions of Melanie Safka’s 1970 song “What Have They Done to My Song Ma” (released, as ever, under her mononym Melanie), you create a guide to that long-ago moment in pop culture. Safka’s version shows off her flexible, cutting — and self-mocking — voice. Ray Charles riffs on it on his magisterial 1972 version. Charles even changed the song’s name, rendering it as “Look What They’ve Done to My Song Ma.” Still, the most moving take on Sakfa’s song

PHOTO: BELMONT UNIVERSITY

— and the biggest hit of the three — is The New Seekers’ 1970 single, which they deliver as subversive, commercial pop.

Melanie’s other hits — 1971’s “Brand New Key” and 1970’s “Lay Down (Candles in the Rain)” — sound great today. But the bluesy drag of “What Have They Done to My Song Ma” connects her with the left-leaning milieu of her early years in Astoria, Queens. Her mother sang jazz and blues and worshipped Billie Holiday. Melanie worked closely with her husband Peter Schekeryk throughout her career until his death in 2010. After his death she discovered she’d lost some of her most valuable songwriting royalties, but she continued to write songs and play the occasional show, including a brief 2021 appearance at Main Street Porch Fest in Hendersonville. Melanie had lived in the Nashville area since 2005 and moved to Hendersonville in late 2020. One of the great voices and songwriters of the era, Melanie died on Jan. 23. She was 76. —EDD HURT

Tony Laiolo

The host with the most

Antonio “Tony” Laiolo died Jan. 31 at age 74. Born in Carmel, Calif., Laiolo had a love for music that progressed from studying piano and tuba in primary school to a fascination with the guitar. He found his calling in songwriting, and in 1981, he settled in Music City. During his 42 years here, he raised his family; he spent extensive time with McCabe Park Little League, coaching his daughters’ softball teams. He also served as a substitute teacher in local public schools and worked in advertising at Ericson Marketing, eventually launching Tony Laiolo Enterprises, his own independent communications firm.

While he never became a hit songwriter, Laiolo was a fixture in Nashville’s music community as he organized and participated in countless writers’ rounds, and from 2014 to 2020, he shared his humor, warmth and talent as host of Uncle Tony’s Townhouse at Brown’s Diner. Laiolo’s legacy lives on through his music, his family and the many lives he touched. —JAYME FOLTZ

Toby Keith

Exceptional singer, complicated man

Toby Keith was one of the most popular country singers of the past 30 years: Almost half of his 41 Top 10 hits made it to No. 1. He was a 2015 inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame and an often-underrated singer. His unfussy vocals and storyteller’s phrasing, plus his generous good ol’ boy tone on hits like “I Love This Bar,” landed like a modern Bobby Bare. At the same time, Keith was, to put it gently, complicated and difficult. He cultivated a visceral sense of grievance in nearly all of his best-known numbers. Sometimes those beefs centered, infamously, around politics and the military or, less often and less explicitly, on class prejudices. Most often, though, they were gender-based and — to his credit and our benefit — songs such as “How Do You Like Me Now” (country radio’s biggest hit in 2000) and “I Want to Talk About Me” were played at least

somewhat for laughs.

It was hard to feel generous toward Keith’s abhorrent responses to 9/11. His “Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue (The Angry American),” a full-throated call for revenge, and the Willie Nelson duet “Beer for My Horses,” about the good old days when lynching parties had afterparties, embraced the worst of America. These were embraced by America in return, with both records crossing over to the pop charts.

It’s a straight line from Keith’s cruel anthems to the work of Big & Rich and Montgomery Gentry — who seem to split between them the joking and earnest halves of Keith’s persona — and from there to contemporary cultural bullies like Jason Aldean. Keith’s role as an accelerant in that progression will be his legacy, no matter how memorable and fun his earlier singles were. —DAVID CANTWELL

Roni Stoneman

Banjo heroine, Hee Haw cast member

Roni Stoneman was one of 23 children born to Hattie Stoneman and bluegrass musician Ernest V. “Pop” Stoneman (only 15 of whom reached adulthood) and was the banjo player in The Stoneman Family, which billed its vaudevilleinspired live shows as “The Rompin’, Stompin’, Pickin’, Singin’ Stoneman Family!”

In 1957, Roni’s instrumental version of “Lonesome Road Blues” made her the first woman to play modern bluegrass banjo on a phonograph record — a compilation album of three-finger, five-string banjo numbers in the style popularized by Earl Scruggs. In 1967, the group was named CMA Vocal Group of the Year, and when her father died in 1968, Roni Stoneman broke off to pursue a solo career. The family band’s live shows surely prepared her for the role that brought her adulation and fame as a mainstay cast member of the nationally broadcast prime-time country music variety hour Hee Haw

She not only played banjo and sang but made her mark as a down-home country comedian in the style of Minnie Pearl. Her most enduring character on the show was the gaptoothed “ironing board lady” Ida Lee Nagger, a beleaguered housewife whose feckless husband never lifted a finger to help. It was — said Stoneman, who was five times married and divorced — a case of art imitating life. Roni and her sister Donna Stoneman, who played mandolin, continued to perform into the 2020s, and both were inducted into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame as part of The Stoneman Family in 2021. Donna is the last surviving member. —KAY WEST

Emily Bradley

Party starter, friend to many

Emily Bradley, 44, was an OG head — a Nashville raver and party promoter whose roots stretched back to the days of shell-toes and oversized polo shirts, when promoting parties meant putting flyers in hands as the sun rose and the party favors lost their potency. It meant being everywhere, all the time. It took bravery, charm and commitment, and is often invisible

work in the eyes of history. But those folks — the ones who shoved a handbill into your paw as light dawned on your loose-marbled head — built the networks and created the closeknit dance music community we have today. Analog-era promotion was an art form in itself, and Bradley a fondly remembered practitioner. When she was reported missing in February, it sent shivers through the scene, and the network she helped build came together. When her body was discovered in Whites Creek weeks later, the outpouring from the typically upbeat dance music community was a flood of grief and anger. Her ex-boyfriend has been indicted for second-degree murder and is being held awaiting trial.

—SEAN L. MALONEY

CJ Flanagan

Outlaw chronicler

Photographer and outlaw country community pillar Catherine “CJ” Flanagan died at 76 in March, leaving behind a rich legacy of stories and images that paint her as a one-of-akind character and friend to musical luminaries like Waylon Jennings and Billy Joe Shaver. Born in Washington, D.C., in 1948, Flanagan was one of nine children. Her time in Nashville found her growing close with artists like Cowboy Jack Clement and documenting pivotal moments of the outlaw country movement, like when Clement hosted Charley Pride to record new music at his Cowboy Arms Hotel and Recording Spa.

As a photographer, she captured images of Jennings, Johnny Cash, Townes Van Zandt and many more iconic figures. Her obituary describes her as having been “very vocal” in “defense of her outlaw friends,” and she was allegedly banned from Brown’s Diner following an “especially loud argument” involving her pals. Thanks to those friends it was only a temporary ban, though, and Flanagan’s family and loved ones gathered at the famed establishment in September to celebrate her wild, colorful life. —BRITTNEY MCKENNA

guitar work. His songs somehow straddled a line between down-home country storytelling and divine mystic visions — concise, vivid, poetic, resistant to easy interpretation.

He was deep in the throes of a notorious drug and alcohol habit at the time, teetering on the brink of oblivion. Still, the set was hypnotic and utterly transcendent. As I described Malcolm in a 2005 Scene story, he was “part troubled soul, part front-porch sage.” Eventually Malcolm left Nashville and returned to his roots in the mountains of Western North Carolina. Much to the surprise of his many friends, he somehow managed to right his rapidly sinking ship, giving up booze and drugs. He toured relentlessly and recorded an extensive catalog of consistently inspired music, often with longtime collaborators Jared Tyler or Ed Snodderly. The front-porch sage somehow wrestled the troubled soul to the ground, thanks in no small part to his beloved wife Cyndi.

I got to know Malcolm over the years. He’d occasionally call out of the blue, just to say hi or offer to bring me a bottle of his homemade hot sauce, invariably rattling off at least one or two of his hilariously offbeat backwoods aphorisms. (Check out his 2011 performance of “Becky’s Blessed” on YouTube, where he tells a tale about Mama and her Red Man tobacco: “Her fingers gets up to her lips and she could knock the eye out of a cow at 50 yards.”)

Malcolm Holcombe died on March 9 at 68. Despite battling aggressive cancer, he was recording and performing till the end. You can watch his final livestream from Feb. 25, with oxygen tank by his side, on YouTube.

—JACK SILVERMAN

Mark Rubel

Recording legend, beloved teacher, Blind Rivet Long before he came to Music City, Mark Rubel was already highly regarded as a recording engineer and producer, as well as an educator at Eastern Illinois University and staunch supporter of the local music community in Champaign, Ill. He was wellknown for helping Champaign rockers Hum craft their influential stunner Downward Is Heavenward at his Pogo Studio; he launched the business in 1980, the same year he and friends started a rock band called Captain Rat and the Blind Rivets that remains an area institution. Other studio clients ran the gamut from Alison Krauss to Ludacris to Fall Out Boy to Adrian Belew.

Singer-songwriter, mountain mystic

The first time I saw Malcolm Holcombe play, in the late 1990s, I was flabbergasted. He rocked back and forth on a folding chair dangerously close to the tipping point, eyes closed as if in a trance, the occasional strand of saliva hanging from his mouth, his scratchy yet melodious baritone croaking over his singular fingerpicked

Rubel struck up a friendship with John McBride, husband of country star Martina McBride and founder of the world-class Blackbird Studio, who offered him an opportunity he couldn’t resist. In 2013, Rubel and his wife Nancy moved to Nashville, where Rubel took on building the Blackbird Academy recording school from the ground up (while still operating a new iteration of Pogo). The academy is known for values that Rubel is remembered for: the pursuit of excellence and the recognition that you get the best out of people by treating them kindly. The Goffin & King Foundation (that’s Gerry Goffin and Carole

Malcolm Holcombe

PHOTO: JOHN GELLMAN

King) has organized The Mark Rubel Memorial Fund in his honor. —STEPHEN TRAGESER

Erv Woolsey

Confidant, advocate, legendary artist manager George Strait was not Erv Woolsey’s only client, but Erv Woolsey was George Strait’s only manager — a relationship that lasted more than four decades, and went far beyond business. Both Texans through and through, they were men of few words, and men of their word. Woolsey’s entire career was spent in the music business, and he worked in regional record promotion before moving to Nashville in 1973 for ABC Records’ newly opened country division. At the same time, he and his wife Connie owned The Prairie Rose in San Marcos, Texas. There he first saw Strait perform in 1975, and regularly booked the young, charismatic traditional country singer.

In the early ’80s, Woolsey was named VP of promotion at MCA Records, and convinced label head Jim Fogelsong to sign Strait. His debut single “Unwound” rocketed out of the gate, and a superstar was born. In 1984, Woolsey left MCA to officially manage the singer; they signed a contract at the time, and never signed another. Woolsey launched the Erv Woolsey Agency and was as loyal to his small staff as he was to his clients, a roster that included Clay Walker, Dierks Bentley, Lee Ann Womack and Ronnie Milsap. He opened Losers — a laid-back holein-the-wall just outside Music Row favored by publishers, producers, songwriters, musicians and the great, late Titans quarterback Steve McNair — and had his own designated seat at the bar.

It was rare to see Strait without Woolsey nearby: on the road, in the studio, at awards shows and on the set of Pure Country, the 1992 major release film Woolsey negotiated for his client to star in. Strait was well-known for his refusal to live in Nashville and his aversion to doing press; his friend always had his back.

Woolsey’s celebration-of-life service was held in the CMA Theater at the Country Music Hall of Fame. Onstage, an all-star band of studio musicians backed Jamey Johnson, Lee Ann Womack and finally Strait himself. He struggled to make it through one of his signature hits, “I Can Still Make Cheyenne,” a fiddle-drenched rodeo-cowboy ballad co-written by Aaron Barker — and Erv Woolsey. —KAY WEST

Norah Lee Allen

Singer’s singer

Norah Lee Allen was married for 54 years and eight months to country music superstar Duane Allen, the lead singer of The Oak Ridge Boys since 1966. Never did his fame deter her from her work, diminish her impact or dim her light. She began singing onstage with her family’s gospel group as a child, touring with them for 17 years before being hired by The Chuck Wagon Gang in 1968. She and Allen married in 1969, and she moved to Nashville, where she first worked for Benson Publishing. Her exceptional talent shone through on their demo tapes, and she was in demand for background session work

with country, bluegrass and gospel artists.

That versatility led to her career-defining role as a 40-year member of the official Grand Ole Opry background vocalists, known first as the Carol Lee Singers, then the Opry Staff Singers. Saturday night after Saturday night (and often Fridays and Tuesdays) the quartet mastered the arrangements for dozens of songs, remained onstage through the entire show, perched on tall stools during breaks, then stepped in unison to their microphones to accompany that evening’s Opry legends and guest artists. They put the same effort into settling the nerves of a small-town teenager making their Opry debut as they did the biggest names in all genres of music, performing for thousands of fans in the building and millions on radio worldwide.

—KAY WEST

John “Buck” Wilkin

Ronny Dayton

Songwriter-guitarist John “Buck” Wilkin of Ronny & the Daytonas fame passed away on April 6 at age 77. “He was one of Nashville’s unsung trailblazers,” says pop-rocker Bill Lloyd, who became friends with Wilkin in the latter part of his life.

The son of songwriter Marijohn Wilkin, he had already made a name for himself by the time his family moved to Nashville in 1958. At age 8, he began appearing on the Ozark Jubilee alongside classmate Brenda Lee and was often billed as “The Little Boy With the Big Guitar.” Wilkin entered the national spotlight as Ronny Dayton of the surf-rock group Ronny & the Daytonas. The group released two albums in the mid-’60s that yielded a pair of Top 40 hits — the million-seller “G.T.O.,” which reached No. 4 on the Hot 100 in 1964, and “Sandy,” which went to No. 27 in 1966 — and three other chart singles, all of which were written or co-written by Wilkin. In the early ’70s, he recorded a pair of albums under his own name and wrote a number of songs for Dennis Hopper’s The Last Movie

Wilkin’s songs have been recorded by a variety of artists, including Kris Kristofferson, Ray Charles, Odetta, Bobbie Gentry, Bobby Goldsboro, MC5 and Alex Chilton. He also worked as a session guitarist for Kristofferson, Waylon Jennings, Joan Baez, Kinky Friedman and Steve Goodman, among others. —DARYL SANDERS

Kris Kristofferson

“A walkin’ contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction”

Kris Kristofferson’s biography includes so much that’s notable: He was a Rhodes scholar, a boxer, a helicopter pilot, a self-described peacenik who spoke truth to power, a movie star (who won a Golden Globe for his 1976 performance in A Star Is Born) and a family man. But his songs are poetry and prose tuned perfectly to the notes they paired with. When he was in the Army, the music of Bob Dylan made him believe becoming a songwriter would be a “respectable ambition.” Dylan himself later said that Kristofferson was responsible for shaping a new era in Nashville music.

After Kristofferson had been in Nashville a few years, Ray Stephens and Johnny Cash both released recordings of his “Sunday Mornin’ Comin’ Down.” Now a revered classic, this piece by a songwriter who was then a relative unknown became the Country Music Association’s Song of the Year in 1970. Also in 1970, Kristofferson recorded that song (and other gems like “Me and Bobby McGee”) on Kristofferson, the first of more than 20 albums.

In the mid-1980s, he was part of the supergroup The Highwaymen, alongside Cash, Waylon Jennings and Willie Nelson. At Nelson’s 90th birthday party in 2023, Kristofferson gave one of his final performances, singing “Loving Her Was Easier” with Cash’s daughter Rosanne.

“I’ve never known anyone as authentically themselves as Kris,” Rosanne Cash wrote in an article for Rolling Stone. “His very thoughts had an armament of courage.” —NICOLLE S. PRAINO

Larry Garris

Corner Music founder, working musicians’ friend

As a college student, North Carolina native Larry Garris channeled his fascination with music into a job as a regional rep selling Aria guitars to music stores all across the Southeast. When he got his fill of traveling, he used his extensive hands-on knowledge to open the first iteration of Corner Music in his new hometown of Nashville in 1976. In the early 1980s, the store moved from Berry Hill to what’s now called 12South — convenient to Belmont University and the studios of Music Row — and more recently relocated to the East Side.

In a 2020 video interview with Guitar.com, Garris describes how he was bowled over by the exceptional musical talent in Nashville. Despite serving an array of stars and future stars over the years — and even employing a few, like Brad Paisley — he kept the business’s focus on gear and service that session and touring players came to rely on. “We position ourselves as a tool store for working musicians,” Garris said. “It goes back to the old Chet Atkins joke. A guy says, ‘That’s a great-sounding guitar!’ And Chet puts it down and says, ‘How’s it sound now?’” Garris died of cancer in May at 75, leaving behind his family, friends and staff as well as generations of grateful musicians. —STEPHEN TRAGESER

Pat Rolfe

Publishing power player, Music Row trailblazer

In 1966, Pat Rolfe got a phone call that changed her life. On the line was Lamar Fike,

a member of Elvis Presley’s famed inner circle known as the Memphis Mafia. Fike was working at Hill & Range publishing, which controlled material recorded by The King, and he asked Pat to come on board. She said yes and began a career that took her to the top of Music Row. In 1972 she was named general manager and became one of the first women to head a major publishing company on Music Row. Chappell Music purchased Hill & Range in 1975, and Pat stayed on through a remarkable run that saw the company named ASCAP Publisher of the Year seven times.

Pat rose to the position of vice president and held that post until 1987, when Warner Bros. Music purchased Chappell. Connie Bradley, the longtime ASCAP Nashville head, snapped Pat up to serve as her director of membership relations. During Pat’s 23 years with ASCAP, she rose to vice president and brought in a full house of writers including Hillary Lindsey, Josh Kear, Chris Tompkins, Gerry House, Dierks Bentley, Brad Paisley and Wynonna.

With publishing colleague Judy Harris and record label executive Shelia Shipley Biddy, in 1991 Rolfe created SOURCE, an organization focused on fostering relationships and opportunities for women in the entertainment industry. Rolfe, who fiercely championed and generously mentored multiple generations of women in the business, was inducted into the SOURCE Hall of Fame in 2012. —KAY WEST

Jack Kingsley

Guitarist, songwriter, composer Music was more than just a vocation for Jack Kingsley. It was his chosen language. Born John Michael Kinsella in New Jersey, he was raised and educated in Venezuela and Brazil, and often credited that early immersion in South American cultures for his versatility as a musician. He spent many years in the Boston music scene before moving to Nashville in 2011. In 2016, Kingsley composed a song for Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s marvelous production of The Comedy of Errors, and played in the show’s “Jailhouse Band.” He also provided original music for Hamlet in 2018 and would go on to co-produce and contribute to The Music of the Nashville Shakespeare Festival — a beautiful album featuring songs from various shows and showcasing the talents of David Olney, John Hadley, Stan Lawrence, Lari White, Rolin Mains, Natalie Bell and more.

“Jack spoke English, Spanish and Portuguese fluently,” says Denice Hicks, Kingsley’s devoted partner and longtime artistic director for NSF. “But when thyroid cancer took his voice in 2020, he relied on his fourth language — the guitar. Through his music, he spoke volumes about the love he lived until his dying day. He loved teaching English language learners and shared his guitar skills with many students. He lived and loved with all his heart, and left a legacy of enrichment for all who knew him or heard him play.”

Kingsley died June 3 at 59. —AMY STUMPFL

Jon Wysocki

Drummer, modern-rock standard-bearer

Jon Wysocki, founding drummer of the rock band Staind, passed away earlier this year. He was 53. Wysocki’s rhythmic precision and passion helped define the sound of modern rock. His contributions spanned from Staind to his later work with Soil, Save the World and most recently Nashville band Lydia’s Castle. Born in Westfield, Mass., in 1971, Wysocki joined Aaron Lewis, Mike Mushok and Johnny April in 1995, and his forceful playing helped propel Staind to worldwide fame. “From practice in Ludlow, Mass., to touring around the world,” reads a note on the band’s Instagram account, “Jon was integral to who we were as a band. Our hearts go out to Jon’s family, and fans around the world who loved him.”

Nashville became Wysocki’s creative home in recent years, and he left a lasting impression on the city’s music scene. He was more than a friend to many — his kindness and “infectious laugh” brought warmth to everyone he encountered, family and fans alike. He is survived by his fiancée, son, parents and sister.

—JAYME FOLTZ

Mary Sack

Artist manager, do-gooder, force of nature

To say Mary Sack came into my life is like saying a tornado dropped by for a visit. She was a walking triple espresso, knew the music business inside and out, could talk the chrome off a doorknob — and if she was in your corner, you truly had somebody in your corner. In our time together, she mainly managed David Olney and me. But not one to limit herself to only two full-time jobs, she worked in differing ways with many other artists. She was also the force of nature behind the annual Get Behind the Mule benefit. Then she was in the clubs four or five nights a week — and she slept every other Thursday. We parted company businesswise but stayed friends, and at one of my gigs last year she offered an offhand mention that she had Stage 4 lung cancer — with a smile. I’ll never forget what she said. “It’s only overwhelming, that’s all.” Sack, you were loved, you are missed, and I’m not entirely convinced that you’ve completely gone away. Our loss is only overwhelming, that’s all. —TOMMY WOMACK

Buzz Cason

Nashville pop trailblazer

James. E. “Buzz” Cason passed away June 16 at 84, leaving behind a legacy as a pioneering pop producer, publisher, songwriter and studio owner. “Buzz always had both feet in the world of pop and rock music,” says producerengineer Brent Maher, who recorded his first master sessions with Cason. In the mid- to late ’50s, Nashville native Cason was a member of pioneering rock band The Casuals. As a solo artist, he scored a pop hit (“Look for a Star”) in 1960 under the name Garry Miles. He also was a member of Ronny and the Daytonas, co-writing their 1966 hit “Sandy.” But Cason made his biggest mark as a publisher and producer.

Some of the hit songwriters Cason helped develop as a publisher include Bobby Russell, Mac Gayden and Jimmy Buffett. Among his first hits as a producer were a pair of songs written by Gayden — Clifford Curry’s R&B hit “She Shot a Hole in My Soul” and Robert Knight’s pop smash “Everlasting Love,” which Cason co-wrote. In 1970, Cason opened the first studio in the Berry Hill neighborhood, Creative Workshop. It soon became a hot spot for pop and rock sessions and remains so to this day. “He was such a huge influence on me as far as how he conducted his sessions,” Maher says. “He would have a firm concept of what the record was going to be while giving every musician in the room as much latitude as they wanted.”

—DARYL SANDERS

Zachary Boetcher

Father, rapper, inspirer of greatness

When he picked up the mic, Zachary Boetcher took on the moniker K.I.N.G. the MC. The acronym stands for “Knowledge Inspiring New Greatness,” and that’s something he took to heart in every aspect of his life. Beginning at a very young age, he developed superb skills in spoken-word poetry and rapping, showcased on his 2019 album The Good. The Bad. The Ugly and its Part 2 follow-up from 2020. He pulls off the challenging feat of delivering eloquence articulately at speed, especially in the standout track “Crazy World,” in which an overwhelming array of social ills test the faith that was so important to him.

Boetcher is remembered even more for how much he gave of himself to his family and others around him. A devoted father of five, he was a beloved youth softball coach, known to go to great lengths to support that community and to nurture kids in ways that went far beyond the mechanics of the sport. He leaves behind a large and loving family as well as a wealth of people he made to feel like family. —STEPHEN TRAGESER

Joe Scaife

Producer, publisher, song matchmaker par excellence

If “Achy Breaky Heart,” Billy Ray Cyrus’ 1992 crossover megahit, has ever gotten stuck in your head, you can thank (or blame) Joe Scaife. The line-dance sensation was on Cyrus’ debut album Some Gave All, co-produced by Scaife and Joe Cotton. The song had been turned down by The Oak Ridge Boys and previously released,

to no note, by the Marcy Brothers as “Don’t Tell My Heart.” Scaife brought it to Cyrus, and it rocketed to No. 1 on the country charts, blasting Cyrus to mullet-topped fame.

Scaife was known for recognizing potential in unknown performers and pairing them with the perfect country songs. Producing, engineering and publishing were in his blood; he spent much of his youth in his father Cecil Scaife’s Hall of Fame studio. He attended Belmont University and majored in music engineering and recording. Post-college, he and his wife Danielle ran Joe Scaife Productions and four publishing companies. Scaife’s name can be found as producer, publisher and/or engineer in the liner notes of songs and albums by Alabama, K.T. Oslin, Montgomery Gentry, Lionel Ritchie, Loretta Lynn, Shania Twain, Glen Campbell, Gretchen Wilson, Lou Rawls, Vince Gill, The Oak Ridge Boys, Toby Keith, Reba McEntire, Rhett Akins, Charlie Daniels, Trace Adkins and many more.

Joe Scaife’s formal education at Belmont inspired his father to advocate for the establishment of a school of music industry there, which evolved into the Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business, and Joe Scaife continued that support after his father’s death in 2009. —KAY WEST

Mary Martin

Artist whisperer

On July 4, Nashville lost one of its music industry mavens, whose legacy will carry on through the careers of artists like Van Morrison, Vince Gill and Bob Dylan. Grammy winner, glass-ceiling shatterer and all-around music industry virtuoso Mary Martin catapulted herself to the top of a male-dominated industry with her knack for nurturing the careers of established artists, as well as her eerily accurate eye for up-and-comers in country, folk and what we now call Americana.

Born in Toronto in 1939, Martin dove into the deep end of the bustling music-business environments in New York, Los Angeles and Nashville. Her determination helped her quickly climb the corporate ladder at companies like Warner Bros. and RCA. Martin’s career blossomed on account of her own selfdetermination. As a female music industry professional in the 1960s — when that glass ceiling was still shatterproof — Martin was driven by her supreme instinct. She was often crafty in executing her plans, demonstrated when she secretly hired country radio promoters for one of her budding discoveries, Emmylou Harris, after Warner Bros. refused to. This led to Harris’ first country No. 1.

Martin was awarded the Americana Music Association’s lifetime achievement award in 2007 and was honored by the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum in 2009 — both recognizing the deep roots she placed in Nashville. —BAILEY BRANTINGHAM

Joe Bonsall

Oak Ridge Boys MVP, multiple Hall of Famer Joseph Sloan Bonsall Jr. was just 25 years old

when he became the newest member of the then-30-year-old vocal group The Oak Ridge Boys in 1973. The fast-talking Philly native who never lost his accent or his fanatic passion for the Phillies would seem an unlikely match for a Southern gospel group. But he had spent many years with The Keystone Quartet, and it was a smooth transition for him.

With his great mass of black curls and bushy black mustache (both later gray), Bonsall bounced onto the stage as a kinetic ball of energy, from first song to encore, through all the early years of grueling tours and well into his 60s and early 70s. His clear tenor voice was the signature on many of the Oaks’ biggest hits, including “Elvira,” “American Made” and “Bobbie Sue.” Bonsall often served as spokesperson for the group, respectful of the media and appreciative of their work. He was also an author, writing 11 books, including his deeply introspective and grateful memoir I See Myself, published in 2023.

In 2019 Bonsall was diagnosed with Lou Gehrig’s disease (ALS) but continued performing, often seated on a stool, until he was forced to retire in early 2024. He was unable to participate in the group’s American Made Farewell Tour. Bonsall was a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, the Gospel Hall of Fame, the Vocal Group Hall of Fame and the Philadelphia Music Hall of Fame. Only membership in the Baseball Hall of Fame eluded him. —KAY WEST

Peter Collins

Producer, “Mr. Big”

When Peter Collins died of pancreatic cancer in late June, Amy Ray of the Indigo Girls wrote, “Peter Collins was the producer who raised the musical bar for us and showed us how to be musically ambitious.” She spoke for many of the artists who worked with him.

Collins was a native of Reading, England, and got his start in the record business in London in the mid-’70s, landing a record deal with Decca as a singer-songwriter. He soon realized he was more interested in production than being an artist, and took a job with the label as an assistant producer. He moved to Nashville in 1985, and he found his greatest success with Music City as his home base, producing significant albums for a diverse array of recording stars from rockers like Rush (whose members called him “Mr. Big”), Queensrÿche and Bon Jovi to singer-songwriters such as the Indigo Girls, Jewel and Nanci Griffith.

“Peter was just magical in how he did things,” says engineer and mixer Paul David Hager, who worked extensively with Collins. “His brilliance was taking a band that had a sound, not getting in the way of what they sounded like, but focusing their sound better.”

Joe Baldridge, who mixed Jewel’s No. 1 hit “You Were Meant for Me” for Collins, echoes that point: “His genius was he could focus a track for an artist without making them feel artistically encroached upon.” —DARYL SANDERS

Randy Davidson

Guiding light in record retail

Randall Lee Davidson Sr. put his music business savvy to work in multiple aspects of record sales and saw it bear fruit many times over. Born and raised in Nashville, Davidson co-founded Central South Music Sales in 1970. The company’s successful distribution business expanded to include 85 Sound Shop record stores and a slew of Music 4 Less record outlet shops. The firm served as wholesaler to more than 1,000 independent record stores and serviced more than 10,000 jukeboxes, and it became one of the largest privately held companies in the city.

Among other endeavors, Davidson was part of the group that launched radio station WHVT, also in 1970; the station changed hands several times and has been known and loved as 92Q since 1984. From 2002 until his death in July, Davidson was CEO of Central South Distribution, one of the first companies to distribute gospel records nationwide, and one that has paid special attention to helping artists control their own music catalogs. —BAILEY BRANTINGHAM

David Allen Loggins

Country-pop balladeer

Dave Loggins, who grew up in East Tennessee and was second cousin to fellow songsmith Kenny Loggins, penned more than five decades’ worth of much-loved songs and garnered a reputation as one of Nashville’s most esteemed songwriters. He had a knack for sentimental ballads, and Three Dog Night had a smash with his “Pieces of April.” Among songs he recorded himself, his lone pop hit was 1974’s “Please Come to Boston,” which explores complexities in long-distance relationships; it secured him his first of four Grammy nominations, and Joan Baez and Willie Nelson are among the luminaries who’ve covered it. In interviews, Loggins credited “Boston” to divine inspiration. He was also inspired by the natural beauty of the Augusta National Golf Club to write “Augusta.” Though the song’s lyrics are seldom heard, he also wrote the music, and the instrumental track has been the theme of the Masters golf tournament since 1982.

He applied his fine-tuned sensitivity to songs for country artists, like Tanya Tucker’s “You’ve Got Me to Hold Onto,” Johnny and June Carter Cash’s “Where Did We Go Right,” Reba McEntire’s “One Promise Too Late” and Kenny Rogers’ No. 1 hit “Morning Desire.” Though Loggins did not write “Nobody Loves Me Like You Do,” he won a CMA Award for his 1984 duet on the song with Anne Murray. Among 25 ASCAP awards, he was named the organization’s Country Songwriter of the Year in 1987. He was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1995. Loggins died July 10 at Alive Hospice. He was 76. —MADELEINE BRADFORD

Tom Mason

Songwriter, actor, beloved pirate In a city full of country music pickers and head-banging rockers, there are but few swashbucklers, and Tom Mason stood tall

among them. A songsmith, musician and actor who died Aug. 31 at 65, Mason is remembered by the Nashville community as a joy-filled entertainer. Founder of pirate-themed band The Blue Buccaneers, the Minnesota native prided himself on his passion for nautical history and pirate lore, and his ability to turn it into a successful musical enterprise.

The Buccaneers toured the U.S. and beyond, playing the pirate festival circuit and garnering enough attention for Mason to be inducted into the International Pirate Hall of Fame. His renown in the community reaches further: He worked extensively with the Actors Bridge Ensemble and the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, taking on roles like Feste the Fool in Twelfth Night and even writing his own musical. His willingness to embrace fun and silliness is remembered fondly by many. —KATIE BETH CANNON

Mark Moffatt

Producer, music businessman, mentor to Keith Urban

How does one record punk music without delving into pure chaos, sheer noise and unintelligible madness? Mark Moffatt answered these questions on “(I’m) Stranded,” wrangling the neurotic tendencies of Australian punk band The Saints into a phenomenally crafted 1976 recording. The producer, only 25 at the time, took their buzzsaw guitars and haywire vocals and channeled them into a studio setting, creating a wall of sound by double-tracking vocals and recording some instruments from the hallway outside the studio. In Brisbane, hundreds of miles away from The Clash or the Buzzcocks, Moffatt harnessed a distinctly Australian brand of punk. Across his career, Mark Moffatt continued to produce Australian artists across genres, from Yothu Yindi, who incorporated Aboriginal tradition with pop music, to New Wave artists like Tim Finn. Moving to Nashville in 1996, he bridged the divide between Australia and Music City, developing Keith Urban’s career and mentoring his fellow Aussie. Moffatt was a founding member of the Americana Music Association, and through APRA AMCOS, he helped Australian artists license and distribute their music in Nashville. No matter the genre or style, Moffatt worked tirelessly to push his country’s music to the spotlight. —BEN ARTHUR

someone so special. Deandre Haynes, aka DJ Svnny D, was not only funny, hungry, ambitious and motivated, he was also like a brother to me. After his passing I realized he had that same kind of impact on almost everyone he came in contact with. His energy was unmatched, his smile and laughter were contagious. That’s why the name “Svnny D” fit him so perfectly — he was a ray of light who would walk in a room and brighten it up with just his presence. He came to Nashville as a student not knowing that he would change the face of the nightlife scene and leave his mark on the city forever.

Deandre Haynes was a true one-of-one — there will never be another DJ Svnny D. Moving forward I promise to apply the same energy Svnny had for life to mine, and hopefully it will spread to my loved ones and to their loved ones, and Svnny’s energy will live forever. His untimely demise has left us brokenhearted, but even in the darkest times the sun still shines. So in the words of everyone’s favorite person, “PEACE, LOVE & BELLY RUBS,” yeeee!!!

—@CONCRETECAPO, SMALL AXE AGENCY

Will Jennings Literate lyricist

Producer Norbert Putnam will never forget when he first met hit songwriter Will Jennings, who passed away Sept. 6 at 80. It was at Quadrafonic Studios in 1971. “He came into my office and said, ‘I’m Will Jennings, and I’m from Tyler, Texas,’” Putnam recalled recently. “‘I’m a terrible musician, but I think I can write lyrics.’”

That turned out to be a monumental understatement, as the English professor turned songwriter would become one of the most celebrated lyricists in the history of popular music. Putnam and David Briggs signed Jennings to their publishing company Danor Music, and according to Putnam, Jennings “immediately wrote a hit for somebody.”

A three-time Grammy winner, a two-time Academy Award winner and a member of the Songwriters Hall of Fame, Jennings penned six No. 1 hits, beginning with Barry Manilow’s recording of “Looks Like We Made It” in 1977. He topped the Billboard Hot 100 four more times in the 1980s, including a pair of hits he co-wrote with Steve Winwood — “Higher Love” in 1986 and “Roll With It” in 1988 — as well as Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warnes’ duet on “Up Where We Belong” in 1982 and Whitney Houston’s cover of “Didn’t We Almost Make It” in 1987. His final chart-topper came in 1997 with Celine Dion’s recording of “My Heart Will Go On.”

Jennings also penned hits for Eric Clapton, The Crusaders, Dionne Warwick, Tim McGraw, Jimmy Buffett and Diana Ross. B.B. King, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Mariah Carey and Emmylou Harris are among the other artists who recorded his songs. —DARYL SANDERS

J.D. Souther

Singer-songwriter, actor, honorary Eagle Songwriters Hall of Famer and former Nashvillian John David “J.D.” Souther passed away at his home in New Mexico Sept. 17 at age 78. Souther, who has been called a principal

architect of the Southern California sound, rose to prominence in the 1970s, co-writing some of the biggest hits for the Eagles, including a trio of No. 1s — “The Best of My Love,” “New Kid in Town” and “Heartache Tonight.” He also wrote a number of songs for Linda Ronstadt, including “Faithless Love” and “Prisoner in Disguise.”

Souther had success as an artist too, releasing a number of critically acclaimed albums. The title track from 1979’s You’re Only Lonely went to No. 1 on the Billboard Adult Contemporary chart and No. 7 on the Hot 100. He also teamed with Chris Hillman (The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers) and Richie Furay (Buffalo Springfield) in The Souther-Hillman-Furay Band for two albums in the mid-’70s, with their eponymous debut reaching No. 11 on the Top 200.

Souther was also a part-time actor who appeared in films like Postcards From the Edge and the TV series Thirtysomething. He moved to Nashville in 2002 and became a beloved member of the community. He continued to write and record here, cutting a pair of studio albums including 2008’s If the World Were You, his first album of new material in 24 years. He also had a recurring role in the first season of the series Nashville

“One of the greatest songwriters ever,” says artist manager Burt Stein, who first met Souther in the early ’70s. “I think the emotion and the feeling and the melodies in J.D.’s songs were second to none.” —DARYL SANDERS

Owsley Manier

Exit/In co-founder, producer, artistic director Exit/In opening in 1971 was a seminal moment in Nashville’s music history, and its founders Owsley Manier and Brugh Reynolds aren’t given enough credit for its impact. For the entire first decade of the venue’s existence, Owsley used his eclectic taste in music to guide his booking of the diverse range of bands that made Exit/In a destination venue. When Exit/In opened, there were surprisingly few options for watching live music in Nashville, and even fewer options for a musician to play. As a teenager Owsley was a member of the influential local band The Lemonade Charade, and from the very beginning the venue championed artists with its “listening room” concept. Less than a year in, Owsley teamed up with BMI’s Rick Sanjek to create Nashville’s first songwriter’s night.

While reminiscing with Ken Levitan, Vector Management founder, Sanjek recalled: “Owsley was a genius with programming, often combining local artists coming into their own with critically acclaimed national touring

Deandre Haynes aka DJ Svnny D

A ray of sunshine in Nashville nightlife Farewell to a person who was truly loved. I was blessed to have time to connect with

Where else could you see John Hiatt opening for Billy Joel or back-to-back nights of Emmylou Harris and Jimmy Buffett? He also created a bar atmosphere where young people working in music could gather and not only discover new songwriters and artists but also learn the business. He did that for me. Most importantly, Owsley became a friend. It laid the groundwork for so much of what I did with my career.”

Exit/In became a countercultural center, acting as a movie house, featuring comedians and holding benefit shows supporting the local community — so many of the things we hold dear in local music today.

When I talked to Owsley in person during the past few years, his eyes would dance when retelling old Exit/In stories. But his association with music continued long after he left Exit/ In in 1981. Over the following decades he continued as a promoter, mixing engineer and an artistic director and music video director. He also started the Winter Harvest record label in the mid-’90s and was executive producer on Steve Earle’s Grammy-nominated comeback Train a Comin’ in 1995.

“The older I get the faster I move,” he said to me in a 2022 email. “It’s to the wall right now, but let’s carve out a time to get together. It’s all part of my rock ’n’ roll dream.” We should all chase our rock ’n’ roll dream. —STEPHEN THOMPSON

Johnny Neel

Champion of the blues — and more Multi-instrumentalist, vocalist and songwriter Johnny Neel made memorable contributions in many different settings. The blues were always at the core of his sound, although his songs were also recorded by rock, soul, country and pop musicians. He began writing and playing early, cutting his first single as a 12-year-old and getting regional airplay near his hometown of Wilmington, Del. Neel, who passed Oct. 6 at 70, was a gifted soloist on keys and harmonica, and a fine, soulful singer. He was a Music City resident for more than three decades, making his first major impact here with his playing on Dicky Betts’ solo LP Pattern Disruptive. That led to joining Gregg Allman’s road band, and from there he’d become part of a reunited version of the Allman Brothers Band at the tail end of the ’80s. Not only did Neel perform on the group’s Seven Turns LP, but he also co-wrote the No. 1 hit “Good Clean Fun,” along with three other songs. Neel was prolific in the 1990s and beyond. He wrote songs cut by Montgomery Gentry, Delbert McClinton and more; performed with the Allman Brothers, on his own solo albums, on Nashville studio sessions and in collectives like Blue Floyd; and ran both his Straight Up Sound studio and his Breakin’ Records label. In later years, Neel frequently returned to the blues, including with his group The Criminal Element. Among the highlights of their gigs around town: a phenomenal slot opening for Gary Nicholson and the Change in 2023 at 3rd and Lindsley. —RON WYNN

Joe Dorn

Drummers’ drummer, brotherly mentor

“Is Joe in the back?” These five words have been uttered by countless drummers from across the globe — many times with undertones of desperation. They would have come into Fork’s Drum Closet, confident that a difficult repair would be carried out by one of the friendliest and most resourceful people on the planet.

Joseph Michael Dorn, a native of Clinton, N.Y., moved to Nashville in 2000 to further his musical journey. Growing up on bands like Deep Purple (his favorite drummer was Ian Paice) and King’s X, and possessing an inquisitive mind and endless curiosity, Joe developed an encyclopedic knowledge of music and craftsmanship that made him an integral part of the Nashville music community and Fork’s in particular. Joe performed in many live and recording situations with national acts, as well as up-and-comers. A staple at the Nashville Drummer’s Lunch, Joe would be there any time a new player moved to town. They were often introduced to Joe with a “You’re gonna dig this guy”; whoever was making the introduction was right.

Joe’s passion for graphic arts, model cars and hockey were always topics for conversation, and his ability to relate to anyone gave many in his life the feeling that he was the brother they never had. He also seemed to know all of the best places to eat, in which many of us had the opportunity to join in fellowship with him.

We will all miss our friend more than words can say, and there will be a hole in our community’s heart forever. We know you’re out there soaring, and looking down on us all and smiling. You did good for so many, and we’re all grateful to have known you. Godspeed Joey.

“El Tap?” —DAN DOUCHETTE

Pastor Darryl Frierson

Nashville gospel music hero

Gospel duos aren’t commonplace, and those consisting of twins less so. Nashville’s The Joy Boyz were standouts in every way, and the spiritual music community mourns the loss of the magnetic Rev. Darryl Frierson, who was one-half of the ensemble alongside his brother Donnie. Rev. Frierson passed in September at age 60. The Nashville-born duo made their debut in 1982. Though they were known to riff on their short stature, their powerful harmonies and solo vocal work made them an immediate hit on the gospel circuit.

In the mid-’90s, they shared a stage with The Gospel Keynotes, and a Baltimore Records representative was so impressed that he signed them to an album deal. A later signing to Malaco Records’ gospel imprint 4Windz yielded their signature record, 2011’s Stand Tall in the Lord. Cut live at Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church in North Carolina, the LP established The Joy Boyz as contemporary standouts with the dynamic, flamboyant style of classic quartet shouters.

Rev. Frierson was also an evangelist, with the Glenn Tabernacle United Primitive Baptist

Church being his home place of worship. He was one of the first recipients of a Nashville Gospel Music Honors award in 2020 from the Nashville Gospel and Sacred Music Coalition. His memory and impact are now an established part of gospel legacy. —RON WYNN

Kerstin Rupprecht

Uplifter in residence

Kerstin Rupprecht, a gifted photographer originally from Germany, left an indelible mark on the music community and everyone fortunate enough to know her. Kerstin moved here for her fiancé, Nashville musician Mike Bibbs (of the band Modern Convenience), but she had fallen for the underground music scene as well. As a visitor, she had filmed a documentary at Betty’s Grill in the late 2010s, reflecting her deep appreciation for the easyto-miss creative zeitgeist outside of Nashville’s commercial music industry.

Kerstin’s enthusiasm for her friends’ artistic pursuits was unrivaled. She was the person who danced while everyone else had their arms crossed. She was 1,000 percent down to attend your dinky Monday night dive-bar show — and on top of that, she’d take photos making you look cooler than you had any right to. She uplifted, celebrated and truly believed in the people she cared about. Even her own artistic expression — the outlet through which she shone, her photography — was about others.

Kerstin was kind to her core, generous without hesitation, and joyful. Her fiancé, family, friends, and cats were her greatest treasures, and she made sure they knew it. In the tragic haze of losing her so young and so suddenly, her incredible spirit still shines bright.

—ZIONA RILEY

Mike Martinovich

Music marketing magician

Like other exotic transplants to Nashville’s insular Music Row in its vinyl era, Mike Martinovich was likely greeted countless times with the rhetorical question, “You’re not from here, are you?”

The obvious answer was no. Of Serbian heritage, he was born and raised in St. Louis, graduated from the University of Missouri with a degree in political science and threw it all away to pursue a career in the music business. Starting as a sales representative for CBS in St. Louis in 1969, he spent the next three decades moving up the ladder and around the country, with promotions taking him to Atlanta, Cincinnati and eventually (as VP of merchandising) to CBS headquarters in New York City. In that role, he was instrumental in marketing such artists as Bruce Springsteen, Michael Jackson, Pink Floyd, Journey and James Taylor.

In 1989, he switched horses and went to Sony Records Nashville, where he worked the Martinovich magic for a stable of country stars that included Mary Chapin Carpenter, Dolly Parton, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Rosanne Cash, Patty Loveless, Rodney Crowell and Charlie Daniels. He had a special affinity

for female artists, and a deep love for Tammy Wynette. As a manager, he developed the careers of several emerging artists, including Jason Aldean, but had the most enduring bond with torch singer Mandy Barnett.

Martinovich was a founding member of Sveta Petka Serbian Orthodox Church in Nashville, where the service was held in the Serbian language. His death was noted in every entertainment industry publication, but only the Serbian Times referred to him as he would have loved: “Majk Martinović.”

—KAY WEST

Andrew Rubin

Itinerant music manager

It was always an unexpected surprise to run into Andy Rubin. Despite not officially living in Nashville, he managed several local bands and would somehow just appear at many last-minute gigs. You’d know he was there when you heard his laugh. So it was poetic that Rubin passed away unexpectedly at a music conference in November at age 59.

“Andy did his work with artists out of passion and love rather than financial gain,” says Amelia White, an East Nashville folk-pop singer who worked with Rubin for years. “In many ways, he was more like an artist himself, and that was sometimes hard on the business end, but on the spiritual, big picture, it was pretty great.”

White felt seen as an artist by Rubin, and … well, ready for the unexpected.

“At times, it felt magical, like the time after a gig in New York City with really low attendance [when] he whisked me off to Carnegie Hall to hear his mom Judy sing [in a choir],” White remembers. “It might be the best few hours we’ve ever had.” Later that evening, White sang for Judy and her friends.

Rubin championed women in music, in politics and in his personal life. He thought White should work with a woman producer and helped fund Love I Swore, which White made with Kim Richey and released earlier this year. In addition to White, Rubin championed woman-led acts including Hello June, Ashleigh Flynn & the Riveters and Lilli Lewis

“He was a true advocate for independent musicians,” says Flynn. “He was the fan in the front row!”

Rubin loved everything about Nashville, except that Amtrak doesn’t run here and that The Wild Cow closed. He attended AmericanaFest annually, couch-surfing, staying up late drinking bourbon and talking about music, baseball or politics. When he realized he was coming up on his 13th fest, he named his showcase “Andy’s Americana Mitzvah.” He kept with the theme, throwing Andy’s Americana Mitzvah IV at Love + Exile in 2024.

Perhaps Mike Grimes says it best: “He was our people.” —MARGARET LITTMAN

George Ingram

Masterful mastering engineer, champion lacquer cutter, shepherd of dreams

The tonal characteristics of vinyl records and the high-quality tangible interaction they

provide help remind us of all that music can be and can do. George Ingram started practicing the fine balance of art and science that is cutting acetate master discs — the first step in massproducing vinyl copies of recorded sound — circa 1970 as an apprentice at Nashville Record Productions, a pioneer mastering facility that was independent of record labels. NRP founder Kenneth Place died just a few years later, and Ingram and a couple colleagues took over the business. When CDs reigned prior to the storied “vinyl resurgence,” this essential knowledge could have been lost if not for engineers like Ingram keeping it alive and passing it along to others like Wes Garland, his fellow engineer and partner in NRP since 2006.

Ingram had a warm sense of humor, a knack for staying cool under pressure, and a love of spending time with his family and taking motorcycle rides. Another credit on his extensive list was helping Third Man Records get their live-to-acetate program off the ground. Following Ingram’s death in December at 77, TMR co-owner Ben Blackwell posted a remembrance to Instagram. He recalled asking Ingram how many records he’d mastered; it took some time to put the estimate at over 10,000. “That’s ten thousand dreams brought to life,” Blackwell wrote. “Ten thousand visions fulfilled. Ten thousand chances to make someone’s day, put a smile on their face, earworm a melody in their head … it all starts with a record.”

—STEPHEN TRAGESER

Larysa Jaye

Songsmith, mother, pathbreaker

Singer-songwriter Larysa Jaye was a longtime local music stalwart and a rising star associated with the Black Opry. Born in Missouri, the mother of four had Nashville roots that stretch back to Hillwood High and the alternative folk and R&B scenes of the Aughts and 2010s. Her songwriting tapped into the whole pantheon of Music City history — from Jefferson Street to Music Row to the Rock Block and beyond — in a way that was cosmopolitan when Nashville wasn’t, and she stayed down-home when this town’s britches got a little too big. Her songs are built from the connective tissue that holds genres together, makes them move, makes them jump.

She carved out a unique sonic space, brave and bold, that the rest of the world was just beginning to catch up to. Her dedication to the craft despite life’s travails landed her residencies on Lower Broad and at BNA, welcoming weary travelers with a stellar example of Music City’s social and artistic potential. The fact that the world seemed finally ready to embrace her artistic vision makes her sudden passing in a car accident all the more shocking and sad. Her voice and her energy, which had carved out a special place of respect among this city’s working musicians, will be sorely missed.

—SEAN L. MALONEY

Around the City

Legendary lawyer, Nashville celebrity, pilot Bart Durham’s face and voice will long be remembered by Tennesseans who’ve seen his many commercials since he began his private practice in 1975. He was the first lawyer in the state to advertise in print, radio and television. Before he became the man who guaranteed his clients “the results you deserve,” Durham grew up in Ripley, Tenn. He joined the Army before following in his father’s footsteps by graduating law school and joining the family practice. He served as an attorney for the U.S. Department of Justice in Memphis, where he was part of the teams that prosecuted James Earl Ray (Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassin) and Ku Klux Klan leadership who had robbed a Memphis bank. He came to Nashville and was an assistant attorney general in charge of federal civil rights cases and argued before the U.S. Supreme Court. Outside of the legal realm, Durham was both a wrestling manager and a private pilot. In a reflection of his life posted on his practice’s website, he also shared his love for Ferraris and racing. As he wrote before his heart bypass in 2006, “Flying was my total passion.”

Durham found a way to showcase his fun, distinctive personality with his commercials, which made him a Nashville-area household name. “I’ll be here until I die,” he once shared on his firm’s site. “You go nuts with nothing to do. I’m still having a lot of fun being a lawyer.”

—NICOLLE S. PRAINO

Nathaniel Harris

Entrepreneur, framer, art lover

In the summer of 1987, people walking down Jefferson Street might have caught a peculiar sight: A young man working to restore an old derelict building that had most recently been used as a flophouse. A couple of decades earlier, Interstate 40 bisected the once-thriving Black neighborhood of North Nashville, shuttering storefronts and displacing residents, including the family of the young draftsman now working to make 1613 presentable.

“People would come to see me working, and they would ask me, ‘What are you going to put here?’” Nate Harris told the Scene in 2018. “And

I’d say, ‘A frame shop.’ And they’d say, ‘Man, a frame shop! Nobody is going to buy enough picture frames for you to make a living here!’ Because it was sort of a nontraditional business for the area. But I had done my research. I had gone to trade shows. I had studied up on framing, and I knew that there was a market.”

Woodcuts Gallery and Framing is, by definition, a frame shop — and a damn good one, at that. Harris also kindled a market for people to find Black art, and for Black artists to show their work and gain exposure.

“When Nate started,” artist and Fisk University Galleries director Jamaal Sheats told the Scene, “there was no Fifth Avenue of the Arts. … There was no Frist Center. ... And for me, growing up in Nashville, if I wanted to see artwork of people that I could relate to, I had to go to Woodcuts.”

As time went by, Woodcuts became a destination for art collectors local and far-flung. The shop is still open — Harris’ wife of 52 years Brenda Harris and daughter Dionne Harris run it now, along with longtime framer and friend Jean Corder, who was hired by Harris in 1988. Harris is also survived by daughter Tresa Jennings, his large extended family and countless Nashvillians who owe their good taste to the man known as being “a cut above the rest.”

—ERICA CICCARONE

Alyssa Lokits

Speech pathologist, traveler, runner Dr. Alyssa Dawn Lokits, a speech pathologist who earned her doctoral degree in neuroscience from Vanderbilt University, was driven, talented and brilliant. A fervent traveler who spoke Arabic, French, Spanish and German, she was curious and adventurous, and had a fearless spirit. An advocate and former board member of the Mary Parrish Center, which provides services to survivors of interpersonal and domestic violence, she was compassionate and caring. One of 10 children, she was known to her family as Lu. She was an aunt, cousin, niece and friend. She was a dedicated runner who finished the 2022 St. Jude Rock ’n’ Roll Half Marathon in two hours and 11 minutes.

On Monday, Oct. 14, a beautiful fall evening in Nashville, she parked her car and went for a run on the Mill Creek Greenway, a paved path

that rolls just beyond the backyards of suburban homes and through multiple parks. There were other cars in the lot, other people on the greenway. Alyssa Lokits should have finished her run and returned to her car to drive home. But shortly into her run, a man who followed her from the parking lot pulled her off the path, assaulted and shot her, then returned to his car as she lay dying, held and prayed over by strangers who ran to her side. Alyssa Lokits traveled the world, but did not survive a run in a park just miles from her home.

A celebration of life service was held Saturday, Oct. 19, at the Springhouse Worship Center in Smyrna. She was remembered as vibrant and brave, poised, graceful and beautiful. On Monday, Oct. 21, nearly 500 people showed up to finish Lokits’ run on the Mill Creek Greenway, from Pettus Road to Old Hickory Parkway and back. On Tuesday, Dec. 4, the Metro Council unanimously passed a resolution honoring her life. In the text, Alyssa Lokits was remembered as “an inspiration to all who knew her, a champion for the less fortunate.” —KAY WEST

Rick Wildeboor

Restaurateur, character, local legend

Rick Wildeboor was the beloved owner of Dino’s from 2004 until 2014. And as some readers might recall, Rick was also an East Nashville legend. He was a friend to most and a straight shooter when he needed to be, and customers always left Dino’s with a story about Rick and the wild times at his version of Dino’s. Rick sadly passed away in August after a battle with lung cancer. He will be greatly missed, but his legacy will live on forever in the spirit of Dino’s.

Because Rick made such an impact on the East Nashville community, I thought it was only right to include some quotes from his most loyal regulars.

“He waited on me so many times and became a dear friend over the years,” says country singer Margo Price. “He also starred in our ‘Hurtin’’ music video. I’ll never forget him.”

“My favorite memories of living on Mansfield were my mornings with Rick eating burgers and watching shark shows on Discovery,” says musician Allen Thompson. “He will be missed.”

“I remember watching Celtic Woman on Christmas Eve with Rick at the bar,” remembers Jessica Maloan Vastagh, owner of local shop Gift Horse.

“Used to love sitting on the roof, drinking a pitcher of beer and eating Rick’s burgers, watching cars drive down Gallatin,” remembers regular Logan B. “Good ol’ days.”

“Rick, you didn’t just serve me a burger and drinks,” says Cat, another regular, “but welcomed me by name and with a grin when I needed it most.”

Rest in peace, Rick. Cheers to you with a shot and a beer! Sending all the love to Rick’s family.

—ALEX WENDKOS, CURRENT DINO’S OWNER

Mary Pullig Schatz

Physician, art collector, social justice advocate

Back in the olden days of Nashville, when downtown streets emptied at 6 p.m. and all

Bartlett “Bart” Durham

PHOTO: ANGELINA CASTILLO

the avenues off shady Lower Broadway were dark, there was a discrete portal at 114 Second Ave. S. that led to one of the city’s greatest private art collections. Mary and Walter Schatz had converted a former industrial space with soaring ceilings, old wooden floors and brick walls into their home. The couple were gracious hosts, leaders in the arts community and social justice advocates.

Many who knew them through the art world were surprised to learn that by day Mary wore a white coat identifying her as Dr. Mary Schatz. The native Louisianan received her medical doctorate from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1969, and had a long career as an anatomic and clinical pathologist at several Nashville hospitals. She was an assistant clinical professor at Vanderbilt School of Medicine, and in 1991 was elected medical staff president at Centennial Medical Center. In 2018, Dr. Schatz — who for many years was a Watkins College of Art trustee — donated more than 50 pieces of the collection she amassed with her late husband to a silent auction to benefit the school. The works were exhibited at Watkins Brownlee O. Currey Gallery, and the sale was staged over three days.

The Schatz family’s former residence on Second Avenue is now an event space — One Fourteen — next door to what was the Wildhorse Saloon. It has been the site of numerous fundraisers and parties, but none as magical as those hosted by Mary and Walt back in the day. —KAY WEST

Harvey Sperling

Former director of University School of Nashville, polymath

When Harvey Sperling took over as the director of University School of Nashville in 1979, the K-12 institution was in the middle of a major transition. The school had operated for 60 years as Peabody Demonstration School before Peabody College decided to close it down. In response, a group of parents, alumni and other supporters stepped up to found the new institution on the same campus. When Sperling entered, he declared that USN would strive to provide “academic excellence in a pluralistic setting” and stacked the new board of trustees with competent and passionate volunteer leaders. In addition to raising funds to put the fledgling school on firm financial ground, Sperling also oversaw an expansion of the campus.

A true polymath, Sperling would walk the hallways and surprise students by dropping a little Flaubert on them or a bit of philosophy from Buckminster Fuller. (A group of students returned the favor by building a Fuller-inspired geodesic dome on the back lawn of the school one winter break.) After 11 years at USN, Sperling moved one letter up the alphabet when he took the job as director at University School of Milwaukee, but his impact on USN and the city will long be remembered. —CHRIS CHAMBERLAIN

Laura Lea Knox

Teacher, author, arts supporter

Laura Lea Knox was born and grew up with a bona fide blue-blood pedigree — the daughter of Percie Warner Lea and Col. Luke Lea, founder of The Tennessean and former U.S. senator. Her father gave 868 acres of wooded land and rolling hills to the city of Nashville to be used as a park, and named it for his father-in-law, Percy Warner.

Naturally, she attended Parmer School and later Vanderbilt, where she met Bill Knox. After they married, she devoted herself to raising their three children, managing the home and doing volunteer work, as women of her station did. But when her youngest child started school, she restarted her own education and built her own résumé. After obtaining a master’s in special education, she taught graduate students at Vanderbilt, led national workshops for parents and teachers on improving communication between children and adults, and wrote a parenting book, Parents Are People Too

She was an ardent supporter of the arts, particularly the Nashville Symphony and Blair School of Music, and a joyful, active lover of nature, walking almost daily in Warner Parks into her 90s. —KAY WEST

John Hughes Newman

Doctor, Vanderbilt University educator, lover of Hawaiian shirts

John Hughes Newman used his skills as a physician to work at the last functioning Mobile Army Surgical Hospital, the same one featured in the TV show M*A*S*H, in Uijeongbu, Korea. He also frequently advised friends and family who would call him for advice.

Newman’s educational background is marked by prestige. He attended elementary school at the private Battle Ground Academy in Franklin and high school at Phillips Exeter Academy, a boarding school in New Hampshire.

Then there was medical school at Columbia University, residency at Johns Hopkins University and a pulmonary fellowship at University of Colorado. During a helicopter ride on his Korean deployment, he met the woman who would become his wife of 46 years, Rebecca Lyford. They had two children and four grandchildren.

Newman’s most prestigious roles were as director of the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine’s first-year physiology course and program director of the Pulmonary-Critical Care Fellowship, the latter of which is now named for him. Prior to joining Vanderbilt, he worked as chief of pulmonary medicine at what was then St. Thomas Hospital and as chief of medical service at the Nashville VA Hospital. Newman’s favorite pastimes were watching Gunsmoke and Star Trek and mowing the lawn while drinking a shandy. He also loved woodworking and had a penchant for Hawaiian shirts. —HANNAH HERNER

Mildred T. Stahlman

Neonatology pioneer, mentor, trailblazer

Dr. Mildred T. Stahlman lived to 101, and in her lifetime she saw her chosen field of neonatology change drastically. She caused some of that change, too. Stahlman was one of only four women in her class of 50 at Vanderbilt Medical School when she was admitted in 1943. She would go on to establish Vanderbilt’s Division of Neonatology, caring for infants immediately after birth. Though it has since closed, the Stahlman Neonatal Intensive Care Unit operated at Vanderbilt University Hospital for more than 40 years, and was considered one of the first such units in the world. Today, a unit at Vanderbilt University Medical Center where babies are stabilized before moving to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt is named the Stahlman Suite.

Stahlman learned that premature delivery is connected to poverty, so she advocated against that as well. She once told a medical student during a lecture: “What I would hope that I could convince you of is that if you are ever going to practice medicine, the first thing you have to learn is charity. What is charity? Charity is unqualified love.”

Stahlman leaves behind the many protégés she taught and the many babies she saved. In fact, one of them — the first baby she used a negative-pressure breathing machine on after the child was born two months premature — became a nurse at the unit Stahlman helped start.

—HANNAH HERNER

Dr. Joe Michael Edwards

Baby whisperer, teacher, golfer

Joe Michael Edwards, a drum major in his high school marching band and first-chair saxophone, was awarded a four-year music scholarship after graduating high school in Hot Springs, Ark. But he put away his sax and instead pursued biology, then zoology, before landing on medicine — specifically obstetrics. It turned out to be a momentous decision: On his first night as an OB intern at Duval Medical Center in Jacksonville, Fla., he successfully delivered 13 babies. Years later, in 1992, he delivered the first healthy set of quadruplets born in Middle Tennessee.

That was the jump-start of a high-achieving

40-plus year career during which Dr. Edwards delivered almost 10,000 babies into the world, most of them in Nashville, at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Metro General Hospital and Baptist Hospital. He was an esteemed teacher, led multiple professional organizations and was a trophy-winning golfer. Upon his retirement in 2015, he received hundreds of cards and notes from multiple generations of patients, a grateful and joyous circle of life for the longtime baby whisperer.

—KAY WEST

Rev. Dr. Herbert L. Lester Jr. Church leader, mediator, affordable housing advocate

The Rev. Dr. Herbert L. Lester retired from Clark Memorial United Methodist Church in 2021 after six years in the pulpit, but remained a part of pushing forward his and the church’s goal of building affordable housing on its unused land. Lester died in January at age 75, and in August, his vision was finally fulfilled. Six homes for families opened across the street from the congregation.

Lester served as a UMC pastor for 45 years at several congregations in Nashville and Memphis. He was an alumnus of Tennessee State University and Memphis Theological Seminary — he earned both a master’s and a doctorate of divinity at the latter. He taught classes at both Memphis Theological and the Vanderbilt University Divinity School. Lester served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War and was a lifelong member of the Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, University of Memphis chapter. During his time as a pastor, he also became a professional counselor and certified mediator, and operated a private practice in the areas of youth diversion, geriatric day treatment and emergency mental health services. He was an integral part of civil rights organizations, including Shelby County Interfaith and Nashville Organized for Action and Hope. One of eight children, he leaves behind his siblings, his wife Deana Lester, 10 children and four grandchildren. —HANNAH HERNER

Ruth DeMoss Robinson Warner

Board president, textile artist, history buff Ruth Robinson was born in New York City, studied handweaving and textile design at the Cranbrook Academy of Art and worked for textile designer Jack Lenor Larsen in Manhattan. But on a visit with her maternal grandmother in Nashville, she met Davidson County Assistant District Attorney Robert Jay Warner Jr. and moved to the small Southern city where her mother grew up.

Her interest in civil rights found her a place with the South Street Community Center in Edgehill, where she served as board president in 1963. She volunteered at Carter Lawrence School in a program sponsored by the Ford Foundation. Warner’s training and skills with textile arts led her to designing liturgical vestments and altar hangings, primarily for clergy at Christ Episcopal Church.

She had a natural interest in the Travellers

PHOTO: ANNE RAYNER

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UPCOMING EVENTS

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6:30PM ADAM ROSS with MAYOR FREDDIE O'CONNELL at PARNASSUS Playworld

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TYLER MERRITT at BELMONT UNIVERSITY This Changes Everything

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The Vanishing of Josephine Reynolds & Ace, Marvel, Spy TUESDAY, JANUARY 21

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Rest Historic House Museum — the house was built by her great-great-grandfather, Judge John Overton. She was unwaveringly committed to uncovering the records of the individuals and families who had been enslaved by her family before the Emancipation Proclamation, and her research and support became instrumental in beginning to recover that history and connecting the descendants of those enslaved with their own ancestral lineage. —KAY WEST

Elizabeth Ann Legett

Midwife, boutique buyer, traveler

Libby Legett didn’t take no for an answer. After receiving an anthropology degree from Southern Methodist University and a nursing degree from Vanderbilt, she spent long enough working in a hospital’s labor and delivery department to know there had to be a better way. She became a midwife, delivering more than 100 babies in home births. The state responded by revoking her nursing license, and Libby responded by fighting back, in Chancery Court and the Court of Appeals; she won, and continued to practice midwifery for many years.

Her second career was as a buyer for Sandra Shelton’s beloved global boutique Pangaea, an Old Nashville treasure and Hillsboro Village landmark at the corner of 21st and Belcourt. When she wasn’t traveling the world — seeking the clothing, jewelry, accessories, home furnishings and tchotchkes that made Pangaea the go-to destination for unique style and delightful gifts — she was a familiar, smiling face in the store, always ready to help. No doubt, some of those who she pointed to a flirty beret, stunning necklace or perfect party frock were the grown-up babies she brought into the world years before.

—KAY WEST

rooms like they belonged, and they had a way of befriending whoever happened to be inside. Forrest and I bonded over our love of words, studying English and writing together at UT Chattanooga, but creativity wasn’t just a skill for Forrest; it was a way of life. Acting, singing, stitching, painting — whatever they tried, they did with heart. I’m especially proud of the ways I saw Forrest make Nashville a better place through Color Queery, a bimonthly event series they organized and hosted for Nashville’s artistic queer community. It wasn’t just a gathering; it was a haven for connection and expression.

Though Forrest is no longer with us, their presence lingers in the brightest ways. When their mom tells a story, I hear echoes of Forrest. When I strike up a kind conversation with a stranger, I feel their influence in my gestures. And when someone makes an outrageously fabulous fashion choice, I see Forrest in their boldness.

Forrest was loved deeply by friends and family. In the wake of tragedy, we’ve done what Forrest always did so well, which is to lean in and show up for one another. The footsteps Forrest left behind are still here, inviting us to walk in their direction. —MARY

HINESLEY

Hannah Quintero

Zoologist, world traveler, conservationist

Hannah Quintero had at least two careers in her 30 years of life, and plenty of education. She earned a bachelor’s degree in animal science, became a licensed veterinary medical technician and in 2023 graduated with her master’s degree with a focus on communitybased conservation from Miami University.

For a time she worked in the carnivore department at the Nashville Zoo and served as the president of American Association of Zookeepers’ Nashville chapter, during which she helped create events such as Climbing for Clouds and Writers for Rhinos. Later she became an emergency room animal nurse.

A Boulder, Colo., native, Quintero was an avid traveler — visiting far-flung locales including Belize, Borneo and Namibia — often as part of her conservation efforts. She had four cats at home and is survived by her husband of six years, Santi. —HANNAH HERNER

Inez Gibbs Crutchfield

Civil rights activist, educator, history maker

organizing demonstrations and bringing them food when they got arrested.

Unwavering in her quest for equality, Inez Crutchfield reached the mile markers of significant, history-changing firsts. She and her lifelong friend Carrie Gentry broke the race barrier in the Davidson County Democratic Party Women’s Club In 1963. She became the first Black president of the club in 1975, then the first Black woman to serve as Tennessee’s representative on the Democratic National Committee and the first African American to hold an appointed and elected statewide position in the Tennessee State Federation of Democratic Women. She was a behind-thescenes force whose endorsement was sought by politicians and campaigns, though she never for one moment wanted to run for office herself.

In 1994, when she became the first Black woman to win the Athena Award — distinguishing Nashville-area women who “attained the highest level of professional excellence” — she was asked how she would want to be remembered. “Hopefully to have been a role model to some of the younger girls I have come in contact with.”

—KAY WEST

William Sizwe Herring

Environmentalist, community garden pioneer, Earth Matters Tennessee director

It’s nearly impossible to describe Sizwe Herring without the phrase “larger than life.”

In stature, the stocky, 6-foot-4 man was a towering presence. His impact on Nashville’s impoverished food deserts was enormous, as was his tireless advocacy for the environment, nature and all things from the earth. The certified permaculture educator’s Facebook profile read, “I was born botanical, the soul of an animal, deep beneath the layers I sink my roots.”

and made calls to try to save it — but to no avail. At 8 a.m. on April 8, bulldozers made short work of everything on the site. Herring endured poor health in his last years, and spent his final months on The Farm, cared for by his friends of the earth until his giant heart gave out. A celebration of life was held on Earth Day 2024.

—KAY WEST

Mattie Shavers Johnson

Author, family historian

Four months shy of her 105th birthday, Mattie Shavers Johnson “chose to leave this world.” So said her obituary, a description that would probably not be disputed by anyone who knew her as a woman of strong will and discipline. One of 11 children born on the family farm in the Garland community of DeKalb, Texas, she was a fourth-generation member of the Bowie County enclave, a legacy community founded by slaves, slave owners and their progeny. Life on the farm during the Great Depression was austere and shadowed by Jim Crow.

My sister and I have shared jokes, clothes and beds, but the most extraordinary thing we’ve ever shared was a friendship with Forrest.

I first met Douglass Tracy Buckley — Forrest, as they preferred to be called — at our parents’ house. About 15 years ago, Forrest walked through our front door without ringing the doorbell. A classic extrovert, they entered

Inez Gibbs (later Crutchfield) was born into a family of sharecroppers in Watertown, Tenn., and raised by a businessman and a schoolteacher. After high school, she went off to Tennessee A&I State University (now Tennessee State University), where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in health education in 1947 and 1949. Later she became a member of the faculty and served as an assistant professor of health education at TSU until 1985. Through her professional and personal roles — she and her husband and fellow educator Carl Crutchfield had two children — she was a solid support system for the student sit-ins in the early 1960s as the civil rights movement reached its peak in Nashville. She drove students to meetings,

Raised in Detroit, Herring studied at Tuskegee University, where he became a devotee of agricultural scientist George Washington Carver and took the name Sizwe, a Zulu word for land and nations. Herring moved to Nashville in 1982 and was hired as director of the Green Neighborhoods Project (which became Earth Matters Tennessee). His first task was to launch the community garden movement. Residents and volunteers built raised beds, added soil supplements, taught seed saving and how to grow food, and distributed 30,000 tons of soil every year for 20 years. Over two decades, 140 community gardens were planted.

His most ambitious project was the George Washington Carver Food Park, established on several acres of land lent by the Tennessee Department of Transportation on Gale Lane in what is now ultra-gentrified 12South, but was back then a racially and economically mixed neighborhood. There Sizwe oversaw vegetable gardens, composting, a stage, a shed and pumpkin smashes. Most famously, he made public art from enormous piles of leaves — an Egyptian ankh, an infinity symbol, a peace sign, a yin-yang symbol and a giant heart.

When word got out in early 2011 that TDOT was going to raze the park, neighbors, former neighbors, friends and activists wrote letters

As a result, she pursued higher education with determination. At Prairie View A&M she earned a degree in music and met her husbandto-be, Dr. Charles W. Johnson. She later earned a bachelor of science from Tennessee A&I State in Nashville, and two masters of science degrees: one at Hunter College in New York, the other a degree in public health at Meharry Medical College in Nashville, where she also taught. Mattie Johnson published four books of poetry and edited her husband’s book, The Spirit of a Place Called Meharry She devoted 10 years to her historic family project, The Children of Ruth, mining family stories passed down through generations to link roots of the Garland community with a Tennessee enslaver who traveled west in the 1880s with the intention — unfulfilled — of establishing a plantation on fertile Texas soil. To honor her parents, Johnson established the Laura G. and Robert S. Shavers scholarship at Fisk University in Nashville. —KAY WEST

Bill Wells

Activist, Army veteran, grandfather Clifford Taylor Wells Jr. — known to his friends as Bill — died on Sept. 18 in Murfreesboro at age 79. Wells met his wife Sally in Ripley, Tenn., where he was doing contract work for the government after serving in the Army. They married six months after they began dating, then moved to East Tennessee for a time, before ultimately settling in Nashville with their two girls, Sheri Maktima and Christi Burnett. Throughout his time in Nashville, he was an active and enthusiastic member of the Native American Indian Association of Tennessee. During a performance at the NAIA Pow Wow in October, several songs were dedicated to him, and the entire event was dedicated to his memory. He is survived by his wife Sally, five grandchildren and one great-grandchild.

—LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

Forrest Douglass Buckley Creator, connector, champion for the LGBTQ community

Linda Whitesell Meneely

Teacher, court volunteer, brunch host

Linda Whitesell was born in Punxsutawney, Pa., 10 days before Phil — the small town’s claim to fame — emerged from his hidey-hole and made his annual prediction on Groundhog Day 1948. She faithfully observed the holiday for nearly her entire life.

Though she had no personal experience with the hearing impaired, Linda received an undergraduate degree in speech and language therapy, then a master’s in audiology with emphasis in deaf education. When her husband Ray Meneely’s pediatric internship at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital brought the couple to Nashville, she discovered that Metro Nashville Public Schools had an unusually strong program for the hearing impaired. She took a teaching position, which she held while raising three children and volunteering as a court-appointed special advocate for children in juvenile court. For more than 30 years, she hosted a popular Easter Sunday brunch for friends and neighbors, with an egg hunt and a highly competitive guessing contest for which she counted hundreds of jellybeans she placed in a jar. Every February she baked dozens of groundhogshaped cookies.

Her daughter Claire Meneely inadvertently opened the retail location of her bakery Dozen on Groundhog Day 2014. In her last eight years, Linda lived gracefully with Alzheimer’s, enjoying daily walks with Ray and trips to Dozen. The family celebrated her generous life, among the early spring flowers in her garden, on Easter Sunday 2024. —KAY WEST

Mike Spalding

Nonprofit leader, immigrant youth advocate, physician

More than 600 Dreamers — students born outside the U.S. but raised in this country — have headed to Tennessee colleges with scholarships from Michael Spalding’s nonprofit Equal Chance for Education. A retired urologist from Kentucky, Spalding was the first in his family to attend college, thanks to financial help from a mentor. So when he learned about a family friend who was not eligible for instate tuition or financial aid in Tennessee due to immigration status, he helped her pay for college. Then he helped her friends.

When word of Spalding’s tuition assistance spread, ECE was born in the library of his Belle Meade house, and the retired physician launched a new career in his 70s. Spalding’s elegant, soft-spoken drive to connect students with opportunity was magnetic, attracting a web of donors, mentors, colleges and universities, including TheDream.US, a college fund for undocumented students started by former Washington Post Co. chairman and chief executive Don Graham.

In his final decade, Spalding celebrated 300 Dreamers as they graduated into careers in medicine, education and engineering, seeding a diverse new generation of leaders and helping keep the American Dream alive in Tennessee.

—CARRINGTON FOX

Ross Fleming III

Director of behavioral health at Meharry, AIDS educator, bass guitarist

Ross “Rocky” Fleming III brought difficult health care talks to the community. Around 2009, Meharry Medical College appointed him the coordinator of Project Saved!, which encouraged faith leaders to increase education and awareness about HIV and AIDS within their communities. A United Methodist himself, Fleming stressed the historical importance of faith leaders in spreading awareness and information in an interview with UM News. Fleming was later appointed director of behavioral health at the historically Black medical school, and focused efforts on helping rural and underserved communities.

Fleming grew up in Nashville, mastered the bass guitar and sang in choir. He met his wife Tamela Brandenberg while pursuing a nursing degree at Tennessee State University, and received a certification in project management at Villanova University. He was also a lifetime member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity.

“Ross was my friend and right hand at Meharry Medical College,” said Dr. Katherine Y. Brown at a memorial for Fleming. “He had a way of putting everyone at peace.”

—ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

Joyce Vise

MNPS teacher, communications director, dog lover

With her smile alone, Joyce Vise could light up any room she entered. Her zeal for life was matched only by her passion and commitment for her community and education. Joyce held deeply to her faith and could often be heard teaching her non-Jewish friends a word or phrase in Hebrew and reading the chant of sacred blessings during Rosh Hashanah at The Temple.

Joyce was the daughter and granddaughter of Holocaust survivors. Both grandfathers were imprisoned in Nazi camps, and her father Harry escaped out a window to avoid capture. After arriving in America, Harry worked to save enough money and eventually founded Texas Boot Co. Joyce found her calling as an educator in Metro Nashville Public Schools.

Her effervescent energy was an asset in the classroom — an energy she later focused as the district community and communications director. Joyce’s influence reached beyond MNPS to Cumberland University, where she was a dedicated supporter of the educational institution.

In addition to Joyce’s love for her friends, she also shared a deep connection with her canine companions. Sugar, Joyce’s bichon frisé, was often her sidekick at events. Joyce was known to throw lavish birthday parties to honor Sugar and her friends. —JANET KURTZ

James C. Floyd

Poet, teacher, counselor

James C. Floyd, aka the Jefferson Street Poet, grew up in the South during the 1960s. He was much loved and respected in his North Nashville community and beyond — projecting an infectious creative spirit, with a wonder and curiosity for life that was inspiring and touching to all who were lucky enough to know him and his writing. James lived a full and checkered life, having experienced alcohol and drug addiction and incarceration. He honed his writing skills while in prison, and after his release he turned his life around, becoming sober, a college adjunct professor, a published author, an actor and, since 1977, a mentor and life counselor for disenfranchised youth.

James was a loving father, grandfather, loyal friend and a respected elder in his community, sharing his life story and poetry in prisons, schools, universities (including Fisk and TSU), youth programs and various venues until his last days.

In May 2023, James was presented with a Metro Nashville proclamation as the Jefferson Street Poet in the Metro Council chambers, where he was cited and acknowledged for his dedication to poetry and teaching and caring for his community. I was lucky enough to know him for the past 15 years as a creative collaborator — on a film of his life, which is in the post-production stage. I look forward to sharing his life story and poetry with the wider world.

—MARK MCEVOY

KC Potter

Dean, LGBTQ student advocate, life changer

“Legend” is a word that is tossed out far too easily in many cases. That is not the case with Vanderbilt dean of residential and judicial affairs KC Potter. He is a legend. The number of lives he impacted I doubt we will ever really

know — and one of those was mine. He taught me to meet students where they were, to not judge, to take time to hear their story, and to always see their potential. On graduation day, so many students had to introduce their parents to Dean Potter, who changed the course of their lives. Many of those students were members of the LGBTQ community. Potter saw them and gave them a safe space. He also fought to make the university a better place for them.

KC Potter is one of those rare people — you’d be hard-pressed to find anyone who will say a negative thing about him. He just spread love and justice and compassion in all he did, whether at Vanderbilt or on his beloved farm in Hickman County. I will miss him very much, but I know his legacy will live for years in the lives of those he impacted. —RANDY TARKINGTON

Margaret “Meg” Elizabeth Tully

Feminist scholar, pop-culture enthusiast, excellent gift-giver

There are so many pieces of Meg Tully that will continue bringing people joy for years to come. From personalized collages to homemade books and the avalanche of presents she gave her young niece, Tully had an affinity for gift-giving that showed just how deeply she thought about and cared for others.

To be in the same room as the profoundly smart and deeply hilarious Tully was a gift in and of itself. Though she was an accomplished scholar, Tully could relate to anyone through her love of pop culture. Channeling this passion into a career in academia, Tully studied and later taught communication studies. After teaching at Penn State, she returned to Nashville to be an assistant professor of communication studies at Belmont University in 2022, where she taught, among several courses, an Interdisciplinary Learning Community on Women, Comedy and Social Change. Teaching at Belmont was a dream job for Tully. Not only had she earned her bachelor’s degree there, but she and her sister Kate Ellsworth spent much of their childhood at Belmont, where their mother Sue Trout has been a longtime English faculty member. Trout and Tully were not only family members, but professional collaborators and best friends.

Tully was so passionate about her work that, even after a leukemia diagnosis later developed into an aggressive form of lymphoma, she declined to take a medical leave. This meant teaching even when she couldn’t walk, and grading papers in the hospital. During her final days, her family kept the TV show Cheers playing for her. In her final moments, her family sang “Build Me Up Buttercup” rather than traditional hymns, and played her Spice Girls songs.

Tully had five cats with her husband Brian Woody, whom Ellsworth says was her “first love, only love.” Alongside Woody, Tully is survived by her parents Sue and Paul Trout, along with her brother Chris and sister-in-law Sarah Tully, plus sister Kate, brother-in-law

Matt and niece Vivienne Ellsworth — among many others who love her dearly. —KELSEY BEYELER

David Herlie Robertson

Physician, researcher, autonomic medicine pioneer

Whatever piqued David Herlie Robertson’s curiosity about Germanic and Slavic languages when he was growing up in the hamlet of Sylvia in Dickson County inspired him enough to claim it as his major at Vanderbilt University. During his undergraduate years he turned his brilliant, inquisitive mind to medicine, pharmacology and research, ultimately receiving a medical degree from Vanderbilt’s School of Medicine. He completed his internship and residency at Johns Hopkins Hospital, then returned to Vanderbilt as a postdoctoral fellow in clinical pharmacology, then back to Johns Hopkins as assistant chief of service in medicine.

He was successfully recruited back to Vanderbilt for good, serving as director of the Clinical Research Center, director of the Medical Scientist Training Program and director of the Division of Movement Disorders in the Department of Neurology. Early in his career, Dr. Robertson developed an interest in the autonomic control of circulation, and established the Vanderbilt Autonomic Dysfunction Center, which continues today as a leading center for the treatment of autonomic disorders.

David shaped the future of modern clinical autonomic medicine, and his book Primer on the Autonomic Nervous System has been the premier text for autonomic disorders since 1996. —KAY WEST

William Tyree

Finch

Surgeon, football coach, adventurer Ty Finch’s obituary on Feb. 20, 2024, began as many do — with the words “died peacefully.” A fitting end to 84 years brimming with accomplishment and adventure. Born in Oklahoma and raised in Texas, he attended Davidson College in North Carolina, playing lineman for the football team. He received his medical degree from Tulane University, enlisted in the Navy, served for a year as a physician in Vietnam during the war, then completed his residencies in both general surgery and cardiac surgery at Vanderbilt University.

Dr. Finch did a fellowship training year in Paris with a top kidney transplant specialist, returned to the States with his first wife Lois, settling in Springfield, Ill., where he was a transplant surgeon and taught in the school of medicine at Southern Illinois University. In 1984, he, Lois and their four children moved back to Nashville, and he went into practice as a vascular-thoracic surgeon at Baptist Hospital and served as chief of surgery. When he put away the scalpel, he returned to school to obtain his teaching permit in pursuit of his dream of becoming a football coach. At Hillsboro High School, he taught biology and served on the coaching staff for the team

that went on to win the Tennessee State Championship in 2003.

Coach Finch was not one to sit on the sidelines in his leisure time; he recruited his team of children and grandchildren — who called him Tex — to white-water raft the Salmon and Snake rivers, hike the Inca Trail to Machu Picchu and summit Mount Rainier, Mount Hood, Kings Peak and Mount Kilimanjaro.

—KAY WEST

Sam Dwiggins

Mechanic, honest businessman, cat lover

Sam Dwiggins died in early December in South Nashville after many years of poor health. He was the owner and primary mechanic of Sam’s Import Repair in Old Hickory, which specialized in old Volkswagens. During his nearly 50 years in Nashville, he was a beloved fixture in the auto repair community, a straight-shooter whose customers trusted and respected him for his honesty, his affordable labor and his authentic desire to help his customers understand what was wrong with their vehicles so they could attempt minor repairs on their own — and not be taken advantage of by less reputable mechanics. Sam had a loyal contingent of VW bus and Beetle owners who relied on him to keep those relics in condition. He gave advice freely and in good humor, and his customers knew he would often drop what he was doing to come to wherever they were stranded on the road and get them running again, or drive them home.

As important to Sam as his business was the colony of feral cats and kittens that congregated around his shop in the Unique Center automotive complex in Old Hickory. At one time he was feeding and tending to more than 20 cats. He named each one according to their demonstrated personalities or characteristics (Big Head, Flash, Spot, Bruiser, Click and Clack after NPR’s Car Talk hosts); he systematically worked with local cat rescues to spay and neuter as many as he could get into cat carriers. Cats were as much a part of the shop’s ambiance as the smell of diesel and cigarette smoke, or the sound of Western movies playing on the shop’s TV.

Sam loved to talk politics, postulate about aliens, and reminisce about rock ’n’ roll and the youthful partying he did growing up in Lawrenceburg. He was a one-of-akind Nashville character who will surely be remembered for his kind eyes, slow drawl, and gentle but irascible nature. Sam was of the last breed of mechanics who used countless hours of experience, intuition, research and all-hours tinkering to make a vehicle work again. It was the opposite of magic, but in many ways — from getting a 1972 VW bus to start again to saving a wounded tomcat after a catfight — it was Sam’s twinkly eyed, magical force of personality that his customers, friends, family and cat companions will fondly remember and dearly miss. —JILL VAN VLIET ▼

WMOT Roots Radio Presents Finally Friday featuring THE TWANGTOWN PARAMOURS, SCOTT LEVI JONES & THE CARLILE FAMILY BAND

1/5

KERRIGAN

SKYLAR

MONTE

SARAH HARDWIG, SAMANTHA RAIFF, OLIVIA MALITA, SUSANNAH POOLE, KARINA DAZA & More!

ELVIS’ 90TH BIRTHDAY BASH feat. from Austria DENNIS JALE lead vocals with THE TCB BAND, GLEN D. HARDIN, TERRY BLACKWOOD, LARRY STRICKLAND, BOH COOPER, PAUL LEIM, DARRELL TONEY, DONNA & CRAIG MORRIS, LARRY HALL, & many more special guests!

“THEOPHANY” Musical starring JAKE HOOT, BECCA BOWEN & AL SAPIENZA + DEBORAH RENNARD

BIG DAMN MUSIC JAM featuring LEAH JUSTINE, CLIFF & SUSAN, CHRISTIE LENEE, JESSE & NOAH, CLIFF WADDELL and SCOTT LINDSEY

JONELL MOSSER with CARRIE WELLING

w/ mustard service

airshow & three star revival the whigs w/ The Medium & Jack Shields fulton lee

blind pilot w/ dean johnson

Dylan LeBlanc x David Ramirez

clay street unit the Music of grateful dead for kids (11:30AM)

van halen tribute w/ Neil Zlozower, Jeremy Asbrock, Ryan Spencer Cook, Philip Shouse & Christopher Williams (8pM) rubblebucket w/ hannah mohan

Dead Runes w/ Shitfire and American Goon

The Creekers (7PM)

Campanula w/ The Ever Flower Company and Miles

Connor & The Masterplan

Dead Alive w/ Fatal Attraction, Outpost, and Ugly Bones

Future Crib, PATCHWORK, rarish, Sofia Perez

Liam Slater w/ Dan Cousart

the deltaz w/ noah nash

Corey Parsons w/ Libby Weitnauer

Visit calendar.nashvillescene.com for more event listings

SUNDAY, JAN. 5

MUSIC

[RESET AND REFRESH] SOUND JOURNEY

Looking for a fun way to reset and refresh for the new year? Grab your yoga mat and head over to the Schermerhorn Symphony Center this Sunday afternoon for Sound Journey. Led by Nashville musician and certified sound practitioner Kayce Laine, Sound Journey offers a mix of crystal bowls and other sound healing instruments, along with live vocals to create an immersive environment that fosters healing energy, relaxation and restoration. The afternoon opens with singer-songwriter and mindfulness guide Joanna Barbera. Depending on the ticket you purchase, you may choose to sit or lie down during the experience. (Yoga mats will be arranged on both the stage and the orchestra floor, although traditional theaterstyle seating also will be available.) Participants are invited to bring their own yoga mats or meditation cushions, and perhaps a small blanket, sweater or anything else that might help them feel more comfortable. It’s a unique way to neutralize all that holiday stress while enjoying one of Nashville’s most beautiful spaces. AMY STUMPFL

2 P.M. AT THE SCHERMERHORN

1 SYMPHONY PLACE

THURSDAY / 1.2

FILM

[REELIN’ IN THE YEAR] 2024 IN TRIBUTE: A WOMAN UNDER THE INFLUENCE, ROCKY, BLOOD SIMPLE, AIRPLANE! & MORE

It’s a new year, which means it’s time for the Belcourt to pay tribute to all the actors, directors, writers, composers and other icons of cinema who passed away the year before with a monthlong film series. For the first retrospective of its centennial year, the theater has assembled some defining films in honor of the dearly departed. This week, we’ll get great performances from Gena Rowlands (in her Oscar-nominated turn as a troubled housewife in hubby John Cassavetes’ 1974 indie drama A Woman Under the Influence), Carl Weathers (as Sylvester Stallone’s archrival/future BFF Apollo Creed in the Oscar-winning 1976 gamechanger Rocky), M. Emmet Walsh (sleazing it up as a double-crossing private dick in Joel and Ethan Coen’s 1984 debut Blood Simple), and Kris Kristofferson (starring alongside Barbra Streisand in the 1976 version of the oft-remade musical love story A Star Is Born). Also, Jim

Abrahams, one-third of the groundbreakingly zany Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker filmmaking team, will be celebrated with the madcap 1980 masterpiece Airplane! Visit belcourt.org for showtimes.

CRAIG D. LINDSEY THROUGH JAN. 8 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.

MUSEUM

[DAY AT THE MUSEUM] PAY WHAT YOU CAN AT COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME & MUSEUM

Like many, I wasn’t a museum person as a youth, but I’ve learned that museums have come a long way — and especially those in Nashville. The post-holiday slowdown can be well remedied by a trip to the Country Music Hall of Fame & Museum, which will offer paywhat-you-can admission with your Tennessee ID for the month of January. The museum’s current exhibitions feature Luke Combs, Roseanne Cash and Nashville’s mid-20th-century rhythm-andblues scene (with the Best of Nashville-winning Night Train to Nashville Revisited exhibit). Other exhibits connect country music history to current greats like Taylor Swift, Lainey Wilson and Jelly Roll. It’s especially fun for me

KAYCE

to visit the museum alone and spend as little or as much time as I’d like on each section — meaning I spend the most time on the outfits. There’s memorabilia from Reba, Garth and other country greats, but one of the cool parts about the Country Music Hall of Fame is tracing country’s roots to hitmakers in other genres, like Elvis. For a full museum day, hit up the free and informative Tennessee State Museum or the beautiful National Museum of African American Music.

HANNAH HERNER

THROUGH JAN. 31 AT COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME & MUSEUM

222 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY S.

[TAKE IT SLEAZY]

MUSIC

THELMA AND THE SLEAZE

Any time I hear someone talking about how rock ’n’ roll is over, I just turn up Thelma and the Sleaze and drown them out. Frontwoman Lauren “L.G.” Gilbert, the sole constant member over the band’s decade-and-a-half existence, is a force of nature on par with any frontperson you care to name — the swagger of Little Richard, the guitar chops of Nancy Wilson and so on — but is clearly always doing her own thing. Since we last caught up with Gilbert about TATS’ 2021 album Fuck Marry Kill, she released the searing, smoldering rocker Holey Water in 2023. She followed that in September with Ain’t Country, an acoustic-focused, country-kissed breakup album. It’s a solo affair that keeps on normalizing same-sex relationships with a reminder that they can sting as much as any. It’s exceptionally raunchy and funny as hell (it is state Rep. Gino Bulso’s own fault that I think of him when I hear “Cousins”) all while being very heartfelt. TATS’ 2016 Kandyland tour, which included 31 shows in 29 days at spots all over Nashville, is the stuff of legend. Thursday’s show

is a one-night opportunity, so don’t miss out.

STEPHEN TRAGESER

7:30 P.M. AT 3RD & LINDSLEY

818 THIRD AVE. S.

FRIDAY / 1.3

MUSIC

[LEAVING A MARK] SOOT W/PRESSURE HEAVEN, DEBONAIR & OGINALII

Here in the dark of winter with a new Trump administration looming, the catharsis of a thunderous rock show is feeling very necessary. Soot is set to deliver one with aplomb on Friday at Drkmttr, your friendly neighborhood nonprofit all-ages venue, with proceeds benefiting venerable Nashville nonprofit Thistle Farms. The longtime local band has spent the year sharing stages with the likes of Julien Baker, Snooper and Hotline TNT. In the fall, they unleashed their ferocious second LP Wearing a Wire, which rivals the intensity of The Jesus Lizard’s mighty comeback Rack and is made up of unsettling narratives rooted in a new blasted South. Joining them in this endeavor are: Pressure Heaven, a dreamy industrial outfit who also had a massive 2024; Oginalii, an impressively creative heavy rock group whose most recent release was 2020’s Pendulum EP; and Debonair, about whom I am struggling to find much information beyond some old recordings of what might be a different band entirely. The moral of the story: Get to the gig and find out what they’re all about.

STEPHEN TRAGESER

8 P.M. AT DRKMTTR

1111 DICKERSON PIKE

[NU YEAR, NU ME]

MUSIC

WELCOME TO THE NU YEAR 3 FEAT.

KARROT: A TRIBUTE TO KORN

E.Y.E. (Everything You Ever) Productions presents the third running of Welcome to the Nu Year, a tribute to the pre-millennium convergence of alternative rock and hip-hop dubbed Nu Metal. Questionable hairstyles, JNCO jeans and ultra-low-slung guitars defined the genre visually as bands expressed a turn-of-thecentury paranoia through turntable scratches and post-grunge guitar riffs. Korn exemplifies nu metal with songs such as “Freak on a Leash,” “A.D.I.D.A.S.,” and “Falling Away From Me,” which have become anthems to millions of fans worldwide. Karrot: A Tribute to Korn is set to headline WNY3 alongside Shake My Tomb: A Tribute to Deftones, who will surely play hits from the Southern Californian group’s two most popular records Around the Fur and White Pony. To kick things off, System of Down’s Toxicity will be performed in its entirety by a curated cast of local metalheads. Can you remember every word to “Chop Suey” in order? JASON VERSTEGEN

8 P.M. THE BASEMENT EAST 917 WOODLAND ST.

MUSIC [TRADITIONAL RHYTHMS] NORA BROWN

Banjoist and singer Nora Brown cut her first record when she was 13, and the Brooklyn, N.Y., musician has made a name for herself in the world of traditional Appalachian music. Brown’s 2019 debut Cinnamon Tree established her as a bluegrass-adjacent artist to watch, but that album and 2021’s Sidetrack My Engine aren’t bluegrass records. Brown, who is currently attending Yale University, sounds like a classic folkie on Sidetrack tunes like “Liza Jane” and “Briggs’ Hop Light Hornpipe Medley.” Brown has a feel for the shifting, slightly off-kilter rhythms of the traditional songs she adapts — her music skips around in a time-space continuum that’s her own. Brown recorded 2023’s Lady of the Lake with Uncle Earl fiddler Stephanie Coleman, and the addition of a second voice fleshes out the music. Listening to Brown’s music has a cumulative, floating effect, as her rhythmic acuity and sure touch make her renditions of old-time material something more than retro. She cut Sidetrack My Engine on vintage equipment in a tunnel beneath the streets of Crown Heights in Brooklyn, where her parents run a cheese business. That’s true devotion to your art, and the record sounds great. EDD HURT

8 P.M. AT THE BLUE ROOM AT THIRD MAN RECORDS

623 SEVENTH AVE. S

SATURDAY / 1.4

SPORTS

[HEADS WILL ROLL] MONSTER JAM AT BRIDGESTONE ARENA

Don’t go to Monster Jam expecting it to be cute. This is an arena sport, and the 12,000-pound monster trucks are the gladiators. You’ll see all the sport’s notorious competitors: Grave Digger, El Toro Loco, Megalodon and the newest

addition, Sparkle Smash. (Again: It sounds cute, but it isn’t.) There’s an app you can download to rate the drivers and each performance as the trucks are doing wheelies, flying through the air and crushing cars, making you the judge of badassery. But sensitive types beware. The monster trucks will send waves of dust and exhaust fumes straight into your face. Your ears will be assaulted by the sound of roaring engines. And if you have anything to say to your seatmates, you’ll have to shout to be heard. Actually, those seatmates will likely be standing at full attention for the entire two hours, poised like human exclamation marks. So, fine, that part is pretty darn cute.

TOBY ROSE JAN. 4-5 AT BRIDGESTONE ARENA 501 BROADWAY

SPORTS

[HANS YEAH,

BROTHER]

CLASSIC CITY WRESTLING FEAT. HANS CONDOR

Brawlers and ballers, brace yourselves for a night of body-slamming-meets-heavy-riffing mayhem in Music City … er, Classic City, that is. The stars of Classic City Wrestling have teamed up with local rock outfit Hans Condor for a one-two punch of live music and professional wrestling. Nashville may be best known as the capital of country music, but it also plays host to a fervent base of pro-wrestling fanatics. Legends of the sport such as Tojo Yamamoto and Jeff Jarrett once called Nashville home, while current WWE superstar Sheamus recently relocated here from Tampa, Fla. Hometown heroes Hans Condor will provide a raucous soundtrack for the all-out rumble — expect to hear tunes such as “Johnny and the Street Tuffs” and “Nose Bleeds” off their April album Big Breakfast. Look out for flying rock kicks, folks. Whether you’re in the wrestling ring or in the mosh pit, bodies will no doubt hit the floor. As former pro-wrestling star Stone Cold Steve Austin would say, “Give me a hell, yeah!”

JASON VERSTEGEN

8 P.M. AT BROOKLYN BOWL

925 THIRD AVE. N

MUSIC

[NEW YEAR, NEW MUSIC] ROBINAUGUST

RobinAugust and her band will headline a triple bill in The ’58 at Eastside Bowl Saturday night. The indie-rock singer-songwriter just returned from a trip to Los Angeles, where she recorded some new material, and she tells the Scene she’ll unveil a few of those songs, as well as some material she previously recorded for her next release, at Saturday’s show. The new material shows RobinAugust’s further growth as an artist and writer. Her masterful 2022 debut Avocado Head marked her transition from teen punk rocker with her band Queens of Noise to budding pop-rock star. While that album referenced a number of her important influences, she’s finding her own sound on the new recordings. “I’ve been figuring out what direction I want my career to go in, and this show will be a chance to introduce my new sound to Nashville,” she says. The once and future queen will be backed by guitarist Elijah Wells (who co-produced and engineered

Saturday, January 4

SONGWRITER SESSION

Brinley Addington

NOON · FORD THEATER

Sunday, January 5

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Lee Turner

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Saturday, January 11

SONGWRITER SESSION

Tommy Karlas

NOON · FORD THEATER

Sunday, January 12

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Justin Schipper

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Saturday, January 18

SONGWRITER SESSION

Caylee Hammack

NOON · FORD THEATER

WITNESS HISTORY

Museum Membership

Receive

Nashville’s Best Thai Street Food

Sunday, January 19

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Josh Matheny

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Saturday, January 25

SONGWRITER SESSION Lily Rose

NOON · FORD THEATER

Saturday, January 25

HATCH SHOW PRINT Block Party

9:30 am, NOON, and 2:30 pm

HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP LIMITED AVAILABILITY

Sunday, January 26

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Jason Coleman

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Saturday, February 1

FAMILY PROGRAM

Riders in the Sky

10:00 am · FORD THEATER FREE

some of her new recordings), guitarist Jacob Shneiderman, keyboardist Glancy Piper, bassist Sam Johnstone and drummer Grifin DiNardo. Wells, an L.A.-based artist, will open the show with a set of his own material, followed by Nashville shoegaze band Avalon. DARYL SANDERS

8 P.M. AT THE ’58 AT EASTSIDE BOWL

1508 GALLATIN PIKE S.

MONDAY / 1.6

MUSIC

[AROUND THE SUN] BRONWYN KEITH-HYNES

Over the past few years, Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge has become a center for bluegrass in Madison. Fiddler and singer Bronwyn Keith-Hynes has been playing most Mondays at Dee’s for the past year following the long residency of fellow bluegrassers East Nash Grass, with whom she’ll be touring in the spring. Keith-Hynes grew up in Vermont and Virginia before making the move to Nashville, and her 2024 album I Built a World features her excellent singing and fiddle playing, along with some first-rate backing by stalwarts like dobro player Jerry Douglas and banjo ace Wesley Corbett. I Built a World was nominated for a Grammy this year in the Best Bluegrass Album category, and Keith-Hynes combines thoughtful songs with fleet playing throughout. With its emphasis on songs, I Built a World makes its case for a modern bluegrass style that’s definitively pop-oriented and commercial while remaining rooted in the virtuosic picking bluegrass fans love. The album sports the remarkable track “Trip Around the Sun,” which features harmony vocals from Dierks Bentley. Onstage, KeithHynes leads her crack band with the panache of a master. Expect plenty of thrilling solos amid the great songs.

EDD HURT

6 P.M. AT DEE’S COUNTRY COCKTAIL LOUNGE

102 E. PALESTINE AVE., MADISON

TUESDAY / 1.7

[HIGH-FLYING FUN]

THEATER

PETER PAN

The Tennessee Performing Arts Center

is kicking off the new year with an all-new production of a true family favorite: Peter Pan. Based on the 1954 musical version of J.M. Barrie’s classic tale, this new tour features a revised book from playwright Larissa FastHorse (The Thanksgiving Play), who grew up in South Dakota, a member of the Sicangu Lakota Nation. Word has it that FastHorse has managed to address the original source material’s troubling depiction of Indigenous people while still preserving all of the magic and spectacle of the story. Directed by Tony nominee Lonny Price and choreographed by Lorin Latarro, the musical still features familiar songs like “I Won’t Grow Up,” “I’m Flying,” “I Gotta Crow” and “Neverland.” And unlike many past revivals, the “boy who wouldn’t grow up” is actually played by a young man, Nolan Almeida, as opposed to a middle-aged woman. (I mean, really — Cathy Rigby?) Marked by clever design and marvelous flight sequences, this Peter Pan promises plenty of high-flying fun. AMY STUMPFL JAN. 7-12 AT TPAC’S JACKSON HALL 505 DEADERICK ST.

[LAUR IS THE ANSWER]

MUSIC

LAUR JOAMETS RESIDENCY

Short days. Bitter temperatures. Endless gray skies. Yes, January can be a drag. But live music makes everything better, even in the heart of a winter chill. This month, fans of can’t-miss guitar playing can melt away the winter blues by catching one of Laur Joamets’ residency shows at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge. Joamets fits an all-too-Nashville description: You may not know him by name, but he’s produced work you undoubtedly recognize. A native of Estonia, Joamets spent much of 2024 tearing up arenas as the right-hand man on Sturgill Simpson’s attention-grabbing Why Not? tour. Behind Simpson, he held court as lead and steel guitarist for many of the tour’s rowdy, freewheelin’ jams. (Those who missed the barnburning Nashville show can revisit a recording of the night via nugs.net.) Joamets plays Dee’s each Tuesday this month. Not a bad way to spend $10, right? MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER

8 P.M. AT DEE’S COUNTRY COCKTAIL LOUNGE

102 E. PALESTINE AVE., MADISON

BRONWYN KEITH-HYNES

1 Run down

6 “Then again,” in texts 10 “Abbott Elementary” principal

13 Nutrient-rich soil component

14 Negative

15 Editorial notation for an error

16 Opt 17 Considerable

19 Common order at a hoagie shop

21 Beyond the pale

22 British designer Crawford awarded a C.B.E. in 2021

23 Embellish

25 Clip

27 It might be mashed (in more ways than one!)

29 Grandiose

33 Legal org.

34 8 or 9, in a golf bag

35 Haunted ___ (Halloween activity)

36 Doesn’t have enough

38 Grammy, in Germany

39 Bumpkin

40 Slam on the brakes

41 Capitalized on an opportunity

43 Actor Daniel ___ Kim 44 Canadian fuel brand

45 Hackneyed

46 Figs. counted in some diets

47 Praiseful poet

49 Supermarket section

51 Old Glory

54 Ruse designed to disguise

57 Amounts to nothing, as a plan

60 “Key ___ “ (Bogart movie)

61 R&B icon Rawls

62 Ask for someone else’s cig

63 Natural dos

64 Since January 1: Abbr.

65 French, in England

Saw points DOWN 1 Jazz great Baker 2 Streaming giant 3 Some coffee orders

4 Feed like a baby 5 ___ Park, Colo.

6 Abbr. in a birth announcement

7 Vietnamese New Year

8 Delivery person?

9 Uprightness

10 “You wish!”

11 “___ Las Vegas”

12 Big name in laptops

14 Digital newsletter platform

18 Color printer supplies

20 Mythological creature with origins in Sherpa folklore

23 Hanna-Barbera character who co-starred with Secret Squirrel

24 Response to “Gracias”

25 Examine in great detail, as a text

26 Is adjacent to

28 Bakery byproducts

30 Home away from home

31 Best possible

32 Yields

34 Pancake order

35 Place to find a needle, maybe

37 Winds

42 Trees along the National Mall

45 ’90s rapper with the hit “Still Not a Player”

46 Pitcher for the reds?

48 Applies carelessly, as paint

50 Flamboyant display

51 Like many Christmas sweaters

52 Flue residue

53 Longstanding rivalry

54 Factory chimney

55 Showbiz awards acronym

56 Nibble

58 Qualifying abbreviation

59 Bug

subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/ crosswords ($39.95 a year). Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay. Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/studentcrosswords.

PUZZLE BY RICKY J. SIROIS

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