Nashville Scene 1-4-24

JANUARY 4–10, 2024 I VOLUME 42 I NUMBER 48 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE

Commemorating some of the irreplaceable Nashville figures we lost in 2023

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LOCALS PAY WHAT YOU WANT

Daily pay-what-you-want Museum admission for residents of Davidson and bordering counties, featuring complimentary parking for late-night programs Tuesdays in January. It's nothing to snooze at—now through January 31, 2024. above: Members of Asleep at the Wheel outside of EXIT/IN, 1975. photo: Raeanne Rubenstein

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CONTENTS NEWS 7 Chattanooga Rail Grant Starts the Winding Road to Passenger Service Broad political support can get passenger rail hopes only so far

BY ELI MOTYCKA

7 Pith in the Wind This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

9 COVER PACKAGE: IN MEMORIAM

Commemorating some of the irreplaceable Nashville figures we lost in 2023

9 Business 10 Politics 11 Music 16 Sports 18 Media & Entertainment 20 Around the City

29 CRITICS’ PICKS

Pictures at an Exhibition, Monster Jam, The HercuLeons, Kidsville and more

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ART 35 Crawl Space: Form Beats Content at January’s First Saturday Events

Bridging the Infinite at Tinney Contemporary • DETAIL OF “PETRIFIED FOREST” BY MADIHA SIRAJ

This month’s art crawl highlights include digital objects at Unrequited Leisure and Hamlett Dobbins’ works on paper at David Lusk

BY JOE NOLAN

36 NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD

AND THIS MODERN WORLD

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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 4 – JANUARY 10, 2024 • nashvillescene.com

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FROM BILL FREEMAN

WHO WE ARE

“SHARING THE WEIGHT of the burden.”

Those words, spoken by first lady Dr. Jill Biden to the Fort Campbell families displaced by the devastating Dec. 9 tornadoes, have resonated with me ever since her trip to the base, just two days before Christmas. What a noble way to express the importance of taking care of each other. When an unexpected and life-altering challenge arises, it is heartening to see a community rally.

While providing community support is inherently human, I do think America can claim more than our fair share of examples of rising to the challenge and helping others in need. Doing what is needed for our community is something we Tennesseans also take to heart. It’s no accident that we are nicknamed the Volunteer State — for our storied willingness to support our military with thousands more volunteers than requested.

Tennessee’s willingness to help others in need has another proud chapter. Tennesseans have rallied behind the recent tornadoes’ victims, and this is evident in how Fort Campbell and the community of Clarksville have supported those displaced. It is that spirit of swift help that brought the first lady to Fort Campbell. Christmas cheer and comfort were high on the list of priorities that day, but encouragement for those still suffering and gratitude for those who have helped them were at the very top.

President Joe Biden and the first lady always put forth the effort to make their visits count.

Dr. Biden brought comfort and encouragement to families who are trying to bring some semblance of order to their chaotic lives. Consider for a moment how difficult that would be. Many of these families lost their homes entirely. Many have young children, excited beyond measure for Santa Claus to come. But now these families are simply grateful to be alive — grateful for clothes on their backs, a roof over their heads and a bed to sleep in. How hard it must have been for those parents to worry how they could possibly bring Christmas cheer amid such a crisis. And how worrisome it must have been for their young children, not sure whether Santa would find them in their new places to stay.

Thanks to the first lady, the Fort Campbell support system and the larger military network — not to mention Santa Claus himself — Christmas cheer arrived for these deserving children a few days early.

As the U.S. Army recently reported, the recovery efforts have been remarkable: “Accompanied by Santa Claus on what was whimsically called ‘Sleigh Force One,’ Biden encouraged military families grappling with the rebuilding.

Military families and dedicated volunteers, who had responded to support recovery efforts, were

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FIRST LADY JILL BIDEN AT A TOYS FOR TOTS EVENT AT FORT CAMPBELL, KY., ON DEC. 23 treated to an afternoon of respite to celebrate the holiday with their children who met Santa and received presents hand-delivered by Toys for Tots and Marines of the 3rd Battalion, 23rd Marines, Kilo Co. Smyrna, Tenn.”

What a remarkable effort Fort Campbell has made to ensure their affected families are safe, secure and on the road to recovery. According to Clarksville’s Leaf-Chronicle, a disheartening total of 354 Fort Campbell families were displaced.

The Screaming Eagles have worked to ensure that nearly every family has been placed. At the time of Dr. Biden’s visit, only 68 of the families were still waiting for a place to call their own, albeit a temporary one. That is a testament to the people and organizations who have stepped up to assist.

President Biden and the first lady have always worked to encourage the downtrodden, and that is arguably one of the greatest points of the Biden administration. “I know that the last two weeks have really tested your strength,” Dr. Biden said during her visit to Fort Campbell.

“But even in this moment of grief and heartbreak, there is so much love and support that surrounds you. I know it can be hard to ask for help when you are usually the ones answering the call, but I hope that you let others share the weight of your burden.”

We will definitely share the weight, and we will do it gladly.

Bill Freeman Bill Freeman is the owner of FW Publishing, the publishing company that produces the Nashville Scene, Nfocus, the Nashville Post, and The News.

PHOTO: U.S. MARINE CORPS / LANCE CPL. ISAIAH W. SMITH

‘SHARING THE WEIGHT OF THE BURDEN’: FIRST LADY JILL BIDEN BRINGS COMFORT TO FORT CAMPBELL FAMILIES AND TORNADO VICTIMS

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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 4 – JANUARY 10, 2024 • nashvillescene.com

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NEWS PITH IN THE WIND

CHATTANOOGA RAIL GRANT STARTS THE WINDING ROAD TO PASSENGER SERVICE Broad political support can get passenger rail hopes only so far

PHOTO:GOOGLE EARTH

NASHVILLESCENE.COM/NEWS/PITHINTHEWIND

BY ELI MOTYCKA Advocacy group Disability Rights Tennessee has filed a federal lawsuit against three Middle Tennessee youth detention centers, seeking records related to the treatment of children at the facilities, including the use of pepper spray. The complaint names Columbia’s Middle Tennessee Juvenile Detention Center and Waynesboro’s Wayne Halfway House and Hollis Residential Treatment Center. The federal complaint alleges that the three connected defendant organizations have abused and neglected numerous minors, in part by using pepper spray against children, some of whom have developmental disabilities and mental health disorders.

PHOTO COURTESY OF AMTRAK

PR counterpart for CSX. Nashville sits at the intersection of five key railways that extend to Birmingham, Chicago, Louisville, Memphis and Chattanooga. Middle Tennessee’s rail connections have been essential for the region since before the Civil War. For the past few decades, Nashville’s tracks have moved freight for CSX, which owns and operates the lines radiating from Middle Tennessee as well as its major sorting facility, Radnor Yard in South Nashville.

When it was her turn to speak, Covington informed the body that new tracks can cost millions per mile, a subtle reminder of CSX’s power at the negotiating table.

“We take very seriously any activity that has the potential to disrupt freight service to the customers we are contractually obligated to serve,” Covington testified. “There is an established process for how a new passenger proposal is reviewed.”

Though Amtrak currently has Tennessee stations only in Memphis and Newbern-Dyersburg, at that 2020 hearing, Amtrak told lawmakers the biggest obstacle to further service is a lack of federal funding to help state transportation departments cover high overhead costs. Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal took a step toward that, earmarking billions to improve and expand rail across the country. It established the Corridor ID program and several other avenues to help state and local governments fund passenger rail service.

Federal law gives preference — not priority — to passenger cars on American tracks. The state’s study on passenger rail found that comparable regions can get service online as quickly as seven years, but to expect more like 10. With

the blessing of lawmakers and TDOT Commissioner Butch Eley, Tennessee trains are already proceeding through the slow bureaucratic process that began with Chattanooga’s Corridor ID award.

“Coordination with four major urban areas is currently underway for an initial meeting that the city of Chattanooga is organizing,” TDOT spokesperson Beth Emmons tells the Scene.

“TDOT welcomes playing a role in the plan and working with CSX and other partners through this study.”

Amtrak has not been officially selected as the provider, but it’s hard to imagine anyone else.

Lawmakers, fumbling for solutions to Middle Tennessee’s traffic congestion, appear to like the idea — though there was no mention of it in Gov. Bill Lee’s Transportation Modernization Act, which passed in 2023. The proposed passenger route, which includes stops in Murfreesboro and Tullahoma, unites cities literally and politically.

The more contentious process will be how hard CSX fights to keep control of its freight lines. In 2024, Amtrak will resume service on CSX lines along the Gulf Coast after a protracted legal battle that began after Hurricane Katrina.

Magliari, Amtrak’s Chicago-based spokesperson, won’t discuss sharing lines this early in the process. He’s encouraged by Chattanooga’s Corridor ID grant but isn’t ready to picture Amtrak trains rolling into Union Station. Twenty years of Gulf Coast negotiations are still fresh on Amtrak’s mind.

“Why don’t you ask Jane Covington?”

Magliari tells the Scene in December.

Jane Covington did not respond to the Scene’s request for comment. ▼

A new bill aiming to ban Pride flags from public schools will be debated during the upcoming session of the 113th Tennessee General Assembly. The legislation, sponsored by Republican Rep. Gino Bulso of Brentwood, would ban the display of any flags other than those of the United States and the state of Tennessee. “To just send the message that queer people are inappropriate for schools is wild, because I’m a queer person in school,” says Brentwood High School senior Amelia Croney. Croney also notes that one BHS teacher displays two Gadsden flags — a symbol that, while rooted in the American Revolution, has since been co-opted by the American far right.

PHOTO: McCABE PUB

HOUSE BILL 2380 was among the Tennessee legislature’s least controversial pieces of legislation in 2022. A quarter of the chamber signed on as sponsors — 16 Democrats and nine Republicans. In the state Senate, the same bill was led by Republicans. Both passed easily.

In one page, the legislation tasked a state commission with producing a study on passenger rail connecting Tennessee’s three Grand Divisions.

That study came a year later. In 70 pages, the bipartisan commission’s work — “Back on Track?

Intercity Passenger Rail Options for Tennessee” — delivered two clear recommendations: Establish an office of rail and transportation inside the Tennessee Department of Transportation, and move quickly to get federal funding. The report listed dozens of mayors, industry reps, government administrators, professors, urban planners and local leaders as sources.

Chattanooga accomplished the first step of the passenger rail process in early December.

Its successful application for the federal government’s Corridor ID program — established to expand American rail service — pitched passenger service between Atlanta, Chattanooga, Nashville and Memphis. The Federal Railroad Administration approved $500,000 in funding to support another study, a service development plan, that would inch passenger rail a little bit closer to reality.

Passenger rail in Tennessee has remarkable support among lawmakers and the public.

Chattanooga’s application included letters from senators, members of Congress, commissioners, administrators and mayors (including former Nashville Mayor John Cooper) from Georgia to Tennessee. Documents outline two daily trips between Nashville and Atlanta that would run about six-and-a-half hours. Prices would largely depend on the size of state subsidies.

In January 2020, weeks before COVID eclipsed all nonessential legislative business, the Tennessee House Transportation Committee warmly received Ray Lang, an Amtrak lobbyist, who came before the body with a rosy rail pitch.

“If you looked at a map of the Amtrak system, it hasn’t really changed much since we were founded in 1971 — whereas the nation’s population has shifted pretty dramatically, and much of that growth has happened in the South,” Lang told lawmakers. Amtrak communications executive Marc Magliari clicked Lang’s slides.

“We have very limited service in Florida, very little service in Texas, and no service in Nashville.

We think that’s a problem, and we would like to change that.”

Behind the Amtrak team sat Jane Covington, a registered Tennessee lobbyist and Magliari’s

From our food and drink blog, Bites: The family owners of McCabe Pub have announced that, after 41 years of operation, they will be closing their iconic restaurant and lounge sometime in January. Operated and owned by members of the Dean family since 1982, McCabe Pub has been a gateway to Sylvan Park for decades. Jo Dean — the restaurant’s original co-owner, along with her husband John, who passed away in 2012 — says she’s proud of what the family has accomplished.

“We couldn’t be more thankful for the time and memories made on the corner of Murphy Road and 45th Avenue North,” she says in a statement.

NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 4 – JANUARY 10, 2024 • nashvillescene.com

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WITNESS HISTORY This fiddle was used by Amanda Shires to lay down tracks for her eighth solo album, Take It Like a Man, written during the pandemic and recorded in part at RCA Studio B. From the exhibit American Currents: State of the Music artifact: Courtesy of Amanda Shires artifact photo: Bob Delevante

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Commemorating some of the irreplaceable Nashville figures we lost in 2023 A legendary figure in the world of wrestling. A member of the final iteration of Johnny Cash’s backing band. The founder of Nashville’s longtime homeless outreach nonprofit Room In The Inn. A former Tennessee Titan. A former Tennessee governor. Songwriters, media figures, public servants, advocates, activists and artists.

These are just a few of the Nashvillians, former Nashvillians and other locally significant figures who died in 2023. In our annual In Memoriam issue, we at the Nashville Scene commemorate some of the irreplaceable figures we lost over the past year.

Read on as we remember their legacies.

Business JACK ARNOLD

ILLUSTRATION: KYLIE TAYLOR

Restaurateur, storyteller, patriarch While many claim to be the primogenitor of the meat-and-three, from Lynn Chandler of Elliston Place Soda Shop and Sylvan Park Restaurant to the Swett family and Hap Townes, it was an employee of Chandler’s that really put our city’s humble plate-lunch tradition into the culinary zeitgeist.

Just as Cézanne gave birth to Neo-Impressionism, which eventually led to Cubism, Jack Arnold was Nashville’s Picasso of Southern cooking, taking the art to the next level and popularizing Southern food in ways that earned accolades including the James Beard Foundation’s America’s Classics award.

Chandler was Cézanne in this metaphor,

revolutionizing the genre by hiring Jack to run his restaurant on Eighth Avenue and eventually selling him the place so Arnold could put his own stamp on it. Jack Arnold and his family raised country cooking and hospitality to an art form at Arnold’s, and the clientele ranged from day laborers to music royalty, all standing side by side in line at the steam table with their red trays, waiting for the chance to speak with Jack — a natural storyteller who was unafraid to hold up the roast beef carving line to share a story or a naughty joke.

Like Picasso, Jack had his Blue Periods when he could get cantankerous, and he was largely absent from the restaurant for the last decade of his 85 years. But his presence was always felt in the space, and whatever the future might bring for the rest of the Arnold family and their business, Jack will always be a part of it. —CHRIS CHAMBERLAIN

RICHARD ESKIND Financial adviser, health care industry pioneer, husband Richard Eskind was born into one Nashville in the early 20th century, and through his business and his civic, political and philanthropic efforts, was a force behind what Nashville became and is in the early 21st century.

With a bachelor’s degree in economics, a master’s degree in business administration from Harvard University and experience in the family appliance business, Eskind turned to finance, a field that led to him being credited as one of the local leaders who helped establish Nashville as the “Wall Street of the South” in the 1960s and 1970s.

During his long career as a stockbroker and financial adviser, Eskind served as vice president and resident manager of the Nashville branch of investment firm A.G. Edwards and Sons. He was also at the forefront of Nashville’s health care industry as a co-founder of Hospital Affiliates NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 4 – JANUARY 10, 2024 • nashvillescene.com

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International Inc. as well as health maintenance organization HealthAmerica Corp.

But it was his long marriage to political powerhouse Jane Eskind that earned him the nickname “Mr. Jane” and an article titled “The Spouse Who Wore a Necktie.” Jane Eskind was the first woman ever to win statewide election in Tennessee when elected to the Public Service Commission (now the Tennessee Regulatory Authority) in 1980, later serving as its chair.

She also became the first woman to chair the Tennessee Democratic Party.

As a philanthropist, Richard Eskind was among the founders of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, which started in his daughter Ellen Lehman’s garage in 1991.

The organization has surpassed $1.2 billion in giving to area nonprofits. Richard Eskind was a recipient of the 2002 Human Relations Award presented by the National Conference of Community and Justice. —KAY WEST

JOEL GORDON Health care industry entrepreneur Joel Gordon was active in Nashville’s health care industry, having founded hospital management company General Care Corp. (later acquired by HCA Healthcare) and outpatient surgery company Surgical Care Affiliates (acquired by HealthSouth).

In 2017 Gordon was inducted into the Tennessee Health Care Hall of Fame, which credits the entrepreneur for being ahead of the curve in investing in freestanding outpatient surgery centers as well as physician ownership as a business model in hospitals. He was also one of the 10 original founders of the Nashville Health Care Council. Gordon also served as president of the Jewish Community Center, which bears his name.

Active with various civic causes, Gordon was honored by United Way, the National Conference of Christians and Jews, the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee and the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

“Joel loved people and was a mentor to many,” his obituary reads. “His door was always open. He found immense joy in the success of others.” Gordon was 94. —WILLIAM WILLIAMS

BRIAN HALL Lower Broadway bartending veteran The bartenders and hospitality workers who power Nashville’s inimitable nightlife are bonded by long shifts and the day-in, day-out toils of keeping the pubs, dives and honky-tonks of the city running. That tight-knit community was rocked by the November death of scene veteran Brian Hall, 36, who most recently manned the bar at the Tin Roof.

“He built his way into being known as one of best bartenders in Nashville, one of most interactive, kind and fun,” says Hall’s friend and former roommate Ty Waldron. “Whatever bar he was at, he drew a crowd.”

That was true to the very end: A celebration of life was held for Hall at Tin Roof, which according to one friend who attended was “packed full of family, lifelong friends and

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tons of his friends he’s made since he came to Nashville. A testimony to how he treated people!” —COLE VILLENA

JULIANA GLASGOW TROTMAN

Girl Scouts of Middle Tennessee, Leadership Nashville, Genesis Learning Center, the Belle Meade Planning Commission and the Downtown Rotary Club. —WILLIAM WILLIAMS

Massage therapist, healer

DOYLE RIPPEE

There was little chance clients would fall asleep on Juliana Trotman’s massage table.

People sought the strong arms and surprisingly gentle hands of the Trinidad native and licensed massage therapist to be cured, not calmed.

Often she was the last hope for people suffering debilitating pain when other professionals had not been successful. Among her clients was revered veteran guitar player Richard Bennett.

“He had been to an orthopedist and other doctors for his arm, and nothing helped,” says Bennett’s wife and Trotman devotee Christina.

“He went to Juliana, and she fixed him.”

Others who found their way to the small studio behind her West Meade home included Waylon Jennings, Tennessee Titans players, marathon runners and tennis players. Christina Bennett says Trotman, who was also a champion bowler, was incredibly intuitive. Indeed, as Trotman told writer Matt Pulle in 2003, “Most of the time I go off intuition. I kind of let my hand flow over a muscle and it feels what I need to do.” —KAY WEST

Distinguished banker and philanthropist

STEVE HORRELL Horrell Company president, gentleman, philanthropist Steve Horrell served as president and principal broker at Horrell Company, where he worked in some manner from 1972 until his April death. A class gentleman and major supporter of Belmont University, Horrell was 73 when he lost a battle with cancer.

Horrell strongly stressed his local roots and his love of the Nashville area. He graduated from Battle Ground Academy, moving on to attend what was then known as Belmont College.

There Horrell served as student government association president. He graduated from Belmont in 1972 with bachelor’s degrees in business administration and history and immediately began work with the family company.

Horrell was the son of Henry Horrell, who started Horrell Refrigeration in 1943. The company provided refrigeration to local grocery stores and was joined in 1946 by sister business and food-service-focused Horrell Properties Inc. That company modified its business model in 1955 to include commercial real estate development, brokerage and management.

In 1972, Henry, Steve and Fred (Steve’s brother) sold the refrigeration business to focus on commercial real estate work, with the company then doing business as Horrell Realty and Investments. The name change to Horrell Company was made in 2005, with Steve remaining a constant.

Horrell served as president of the Belmont University Alumni Association, as chair of the university’s development committee and as a member of the university’s board of trustees for 30 years. He also volunteered with the

Doyle Ray Rippee was born in Mississippi and died in Mississippi; he also met and married his high school sweetheart Virginia Bond there, received his bachelor’s degree in business administration from Delta State University and became a father there.

But it was in Tennessee that Rippee began his distinguished career in banking — in a management training program at Union Planters Bank in Memphis, then to Commerce Union Bank, rising to become chairman and CEO. Commerce Union brought Rippee and his family to Nashville, where he led institutions through a series of the mergers that marked the industry — NationsBank of Tennessee to Bank of America, then his first “retirement,” then back to banking with Regions Bank, then First Tennessee Bank and ultimately a retirement that stuck.

Throughout, he played pivotal roles in bringing the Tennessee Titans and Nashville Predators to Nashville, and his civic involvement included overseeing the $10 million capital campaign for Alive Hospice and serving on the boards of the Boy Scouts of America, the Nashville Symphony, the Tennessee Performing Arts Center and the Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt University. —KAY WEST

BROOKS PARKER PR executive, arts patron Brooks Parker, a Texas native and press secretary for Tennessee Gov. Ray Blanton, died at age 92 on May 4. Among Parker’s most notable achievements was helping secure a 1976 visit by the United Nations to Nashville — 101 U.N. representatives attended a Vanderbilt forum and a trip to Opryland.

A veteran of the Korean War, Parker moved to Tennessee to study at the University of the South in Sewanee. After serving in the Blanton administration, he was named commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Employment Security in 1978. He also sat on the first board of the Tennessee Performing Arts Center.

Parker’s wife, Anne Coleman Smith Parker, preceded him in death, and he is survived by four children, six grandchildren and six greatgrandchildren. —LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

first thought is his laugh. Bill lit up every single room he walked into. From the halls of the state legislature to the Beck Law office and countless neighborhood events in East Nashville, Inglewood, Madison and beyond, the laugh was ever-present and will never be forgotten.

Carson W. “Bill” Beck was a true local, from Madison and Whites Creek. Rep. Beck served in the Tennessee Air National Guard and was a graduate of University School of Nashville, Belmont University and the Nashville School of Law. He practiced law with his mother and shared an office with his dad and brother, who had a real estate business. He was a wonderful father to Meredith and husband to Pam. His mantra was “people, not politics.” In his nine years of service in the Tennessee House of Representatives, he was known as someone who would reach across the aisle and get things done. Rep. Beck was one of the most prolific legislators of either party, despite his status in the Democratic superminority.

Because of his positive demeanor in the face of such adversity, former Tennessee Democratic Party Chair Mary Mancini dubbed him “the happy warrior.” We will miss our “happy warrior” so dearly. A wonderful man and Nashvillian, gone too soon. — ANTHONY DAVIS & DAVID BONE

SETH NORMAN Criminal court judge, veteran, ‘father of the state’s recovery court system’ Seth Norman served as a criminal court judge in Nashville from 1990 until his 2018 retirement. While a judge, Norman established the Davidson County Drug Court, considered one of the first recovery courts in the country. According to the state court system, he is “the father of the state’s recovery court system,” which now includes 82 recovery courts.

A Nashville native, Norman left Vanderbilt University to enlist in the U.S. Air Force, with which he served as a navigator in the Korean War and around the world. He earned his law license after graduating from the Nashville School of Law. He served as a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives and was a delegate to the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

Prior to his election as judge, Norman worked in private practice with his father Jack Norman Sr. He died in September at age 89. —STEPHEN ELLIOTT

DON SUNDQUIST

Politics

Governor, executive, member of the old guard

BILL BECK Democratic state representative, ‘happy warrior’ Ask people what they remember about Bill Beck and usually the

Late this summer, Gov. Bill Lee announced the death of former Gov. Don Sundquist. At age 87, the two-term governor was 20 years out of the limelight.

His passing was an immediate tragedy — he leaves behind a wife, two kids and three grandchildren — and a tidy metaphor for the

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conservative generation that’s come since Sundquist left the governor’s mansion in 2003.

It was Sundquist, a Republican, whose prudent push for a state income tax launched Marsha Blackburn — then a state representative — into Tennessee’s populist stratosphere. Colleagues and political opponents remember Sundquist for his willingness to put policy ahead of politics. Others remember him for a relatively stable seven years, including his abolition of the state’s corrupt Public Service Commission, followed by a turbulent eighth year — when his office became embroiled in its own scandal involving a $100 million no-bid contract to Nashville businessman Al Ganier that prompted federal indictments.

Before his reign as governor, Sundquist swiped a congressional seat from incumbent Bob Clement, a Democrat, just after districts were redrawn after the 1980 Census. In the last statewide election before he died, Sundquist saw a young Andy Ogles do the same to Jim Cooper in Nashville. Parties change, but politics doesn’t. —ELI MOTYCKA

until the early 1980s. (Fun fact: The motto of National Life was, “We shield millions” — or “WSM.”) Lazenby’s start with the life insurance company was humble — he went door to door making his pitch to sell policies — but in 1980 he was named president, the youngest to achieve the office. When National Life was acquired by American General, Lazenby founded Southlife Holding Co. In his retirement, he applied his financial expertise to his passion for politics and served as finance chair for Sen. Fred Thompson’s election campaign, Tennessee finance chairman for George W. Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign and four years later, deputy chair for the 2004 Bush-Cheney reelection campaign.

Lazenby was founding chairman of the board for the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee. He and his wife of 30 years, Gigi, were a prominent couple in Nashville philanthropy. —KAY WEST

ROY HERRON Faith leader, attorney, politician, father

TOM HENSLEY Lobbyist, volunteer, ‘Golden Goose’ “In 1­ 975, Tom Hensley, a powerful liquor lobbyist known as the ‘Golden Goose,’ testified in a legislative committee that he provided free bottles of whiskey to any member of the General Assembly who wanted one,” reads an excerpt from Joel Ebert and Erik Schelzig’s Welcome to Capitol Hill, released this year. “The revelation came as little surprise to insiders, but the brazen confirmation of free booze flowing to lawmakers shocked the public. Hensley’s testimony came after Lt. Gov. John Wilder formed a three-member committee to look into allegations that two state senators had been offered bribes in exchange for voting in favor of a liquor price-fixing law.”

As Schelzig later put it for the Tennessee Journal, “Hensley was a throwback to the old days of lobbying” — a suit-wearing, cigarchomping fixture at the Capitol. A native of Jackson, Tenn., Hensley started out working the hospitality suite at the Hermitage Hotel before landing gigs as a lobbyist for Wine & Spirits Wholesalers of Tennessee and others. Hensley was also an avid outdoorsman and longtime commissioner for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency, and a board member for the Miss America Pageant, later becoming the first person inducted into the Miss America Academy of Honor.

A husband, father and grandfather, Hensley died in January at age 80. —D. PATRICK RODGERS

FRED W. LAZENBY Life insurance executive, political fundraiser, philanthropist Fred Lazenby — whom everyone knew as Ted — was born and raised in Chattanooga. But he was so Old Nashville that his first job after graduating from Vanderbilt and serving in the U.S. Army in Europe was with the National Life and Accident Insurance Co., owner of the Grand Ole Opry and its broadcast radio station WSM

Writer, father, teacher, faith leader, political leader and candidate Roy Herron was known to be prolific in just about everything he did.

Herron went from the state legislature — where he represented West Tennessee, including his native Dresden — to chair of the Tennessee Democratic Party, to a Nashville law firm with his wife, the Rev. Nancy Miller-Herron, and their son Ben. Throughout, he racked up endurance competitions, political memorabilia and friends, who packed the Nashville Farmers’ Market for his celebration of life earlier this year. Herron passed away in July at age 69 from injuries sustained in a jet ski accident, a shock to his family and the state’s political community.

—ELI MOTYCKA

RICHARD DINKINS Judge, legal expert Richard Dinkins was first appointed as a judge on the Tennessee Court of Appeals in 2008 by then-Gov. Phil Bredesen. He was the first Black judge on the court. Previously he served on the Davidson County Chancery Court and practiced law, including with Avon Williams Jr. “Judge Richard Dinkins was an outstanding jurist and a credit to Tennessee,” Judge Melissa Blackburn wrote on Facebook. “I will miss working with him, particularly on projects that reflected his passion for making the practice of law accessible and exciting for young people.”

Added Davidson County Register of Deeds Karen Johnson: “This great man was a gentle and affectionate friend who graciously shared his deep knowledge, experience and wisdom with everyone who sought guidance.”

Dinkins decided not to seek another term on the Court of Appeals in 2022. He died in October at age 71. —STEPHEN ELLIOTT

JAN BUSHING Community builder Jan Bushing’s life of community building was impressively rich and varied, as she served her state, her city and her neighborhood in various capacities throughout her life. The Nashville native attended West High School and Vanderbilt’s Peabody College before working in biomedical research at the Tennessee Neuropsychiatric Institute. In 1975 she founded the Hillsboro-West End Neighborhood Association, and her time as a chair and board member allowed her to leave one of her most visible legacies in the city: She helped spearhead the construction of the beloved “Dragon” sculpture that stands watch at Fannie Mae Dees Park near Vanderbilt in 1981, and she led a 2018 restoration effort to preserve the sculpture for generations to come.

Bushing’s passion for service extended far beyond her own neighborhood. She chaired the Metro Nashville Planning Commission for 16 years, represented Nashville in the Tennessee House of Representatives for one term and served for more than 25 years in the Tennessee Department of Education, working to expand pre-K and preschool education options as the director of school-based support services.

From helping construct a friendly neighborhood mascot in her own community to influencing education statewide, Bushing helped shape the childhoods of so many people she never met. —COLE VILLENA

AVI POSTER Activist, educator, friend There is a cruel irony in losing Avi Poster in 2023. After a decorated career as an educator in Chicago, the tireless activist relocated in 2001 to Nashville, where he furthered issues of social and economic justice as a vocal and visible leader in Nashville’s Jewish community.

Poster died in January at age 78. His work spanned the Metro Council — where he served as a district councilmember — nonprofit boards, city commissions, fundraisers, marches, protests and Noshville, the city’s self-styled New York delicatessen. He moved fluidly between community meetings, congregations and local politics, fortifying Nashville against discrimination and injustice in its many forms and challenging others to do the same.

War II but never facing battle. He did, however, witness a test explosion of two atomic bombs near Bikini Island.

His time as a lawyer included a stint as a court liaison helping manage dozens of lawsuits in the wake of the Waverly train explosion in 1978, resulting in a settlement paid to victims.

(DeWitt noted that while the undisclosed sum was large, many victims sustained serious injuries, and 16 people died in the blast.) DeWitt was an avid outdoorsman and a lover of history who also served as the Tennessee Historical Commission’s chair from 1997 to 2003. He died in April at age 93. —ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

KATHLEEN HARKEY Tireless advocate for children Kathleen Harkey was a champion for children, for her church community and for reproductive health care. A Yellowhammer State native who held degrees from both Auburn University and the University of Alabama — and later an MBA from Vanderbilt University — Harkey arrived in Nashville with her husband John Harkey and quickly set about serving her community as education director at Planned Parenthood.

She left a mark on the city as director of development at Nashville Public Television before the birth of her children, Kate and Wil, led her to public education advocacy work.

She was a driving force in the formation of the nonprofit day care Cooperative Child Care, and she advocated for Paideia education in Nashville’s schools. She spent six years as a Metro Nashville Public Schools board member, and she advocated for gun safety reform with Moms Demand Action, tirelessly working for safer schools and communities.

A family obituary published in The Tennessean notes that Harkey’s passion for social advocacy was initially sparked through early experiences in her church community, and she was a devoted member of the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Nashville until the end of her life. Wrote one friend on a memorial page: “This world is a little less powerful and fierce without Kathleen in it.” —COLE VILLENA

Music RICHARD GRIFFIN Master musician, teacher, mentor

—ELI MOTYCKA

WARD DEWITT JR. Attorney, state representative, veteran Ward DeWitt was a prominent lawyer in Tennessee and a member of the Tennessee House of Representatives from 1955 to 1956.

Before his time as a lawyer — he was a partner at Trabue, Sturdivant and DeWitt — he served in the Navy, signing up during World

As a young man, Erie, Pa., native Richard Griffin served in the U.S. Army and performed with the U.S. Army Band. He continued his service with the 129th Army Band, attached to the Tennessee National Guard; he was a drum major and led the Jazz Ensemble. Over more than two decades as an instructor at Nashville School of the Arts, Griffin taught many, many young musicians essential skills in music theory, as well as instrumental performance in a variety of group settings, including the school’s Jazz Band and Pop and Classical ensembles.

Not all of Griffin’s former students became

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PHOTO: COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME

LIZ THIELS Country publicist extraordinaire, early Exit/In co-owner

A pillar of Nashville’s live music scene and a boundary-pushing publicist, Liz Thiels passed away on March 19 at age 78, following a long illness. After moving to Nashville in the late 1960s, Thiels established herself as a powerful force in the country music industry. She was one of the storied club Exit/In’s co-owners during its early years, launched the city’s first Nashvillespecific music publicity firm and had a long, deeply impactful relationship with the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

Thiels was born in Alexandria, La., in 1944, and studied advertising at the University of Southwest Louisiana and Louisiana State University. A few years after she arrived in Music City, she helped get Exit/In off the ground and grow into one of the city’s most revered venues. In 1979, Thiels established publicity business Network Ink, whose eye-popping client roster included Guy Clark, Reba McEntire and WSM. Her work with the Hall of Fame began when she assisted with its move to its current location in 2001. She took the position of vice

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president for public relations in 2002, and her tenure extended into the next two decades as she helped chart the course for the institution’s current success. In addition to everything else Thiels leaves behind as a legacy, the avid gardener was honored with the establishment of the Liz Thiels Hillbilly Garden, which grows herbs used by the museum’s restaurant.

—BRITTNEY McKENNA

PHOTO: SCOTT WILLIS PHOTOGRAPHY

professional musicians, but those who took that path contribute to a staggering variety of traditions and genres. A few of them who happen to be among the producers and instrumentalists shaping the sound of hip-hop in Nashville shared their memories of Griffin with the Scene. They reflect on the way his commitment to excellence was built around nurturing them as growing young people.

“If we got a note wrong, he would fix that note with us,” recalls tenor sax player and teacher Austin Willé. “And he would always tell us, ‘All right, we fixed that note, don’t mess that note up again. Mess something else up!’

[Laughs] … That’s where that father-figure-ness came in, because he really made you feel like he was your guide, your protector in the realm of music — anything that he taught you would be something that would not fail you in the real world of music, and that was big.”

Griffin died July 5 at age 69, leaving behind his family and an extensive network of friends, colleagues and students. But his influence seems nearly boundless. “[He] really gave us the confidence and the esteem within ourselves to put on our own shows far after high school, and look to each other for support and help in building a great show,” says Chazen Singleton, Willé’s onetime classmate and sometime bandmate.

Singleton credits Griffin with encouraging him to make the jump to tenor sax, his main instrument today. “Every time I picked up my horn, especially if there were times of nonpractice, I would go back immediately to the fundamentals that he taught me in order to learn to play again — or at least play correctly.

So there’s a communication with him any time you touch your instrument.” —STEPHEN TRAGESER

FRANK SASS Soundman extraordinaire

I first met Frank Sass not long after I moved to Nashville in 1997. It was one of my first shows in town, with Grateful Dead tribute band Dead Set at Exit/In, sometime in the late ’90s. He was busting everyone’s chops (including mine, and he’d never met me), making wisecracks and running the soundcheck like boot camp. And when it came time to start the show, he signaled he was ready by flipping the bird.

In my early days as an inveterate Yankee in relatively polite and irony-free Music City, my attempts at playful sarcasm were often met with blank stares. Meeting (and bantering with) Frank was a breath of fresh air, one of the first times I really felt like I might belong in Nashville.

After that first soundcheck, Frank and I talked for quite a while, about my time in New York City (he was a native of Kingston, N.Y.) and all sorts of stuff. I told him how he was one of the first people I’d met in town who really made me feel at home. We didn’t hang out outside of shows, but between performing and seeing other bands, I would see him at least a couple times a month, and we’d chat as he worked his mixing magic behind the soundboard.

I worked with Frank later at The Rutledge and elsewhere, and always felt like I was seeing a long-lost brother. I didn’t see him as much as the years went on, though I did get to hang with him a few months back at the fabulous fundraiser for him at Eastside Bowl. He looked pretty good, his attitude seemed great, and I was wondering if maybe he had his illness on the ropes. Sadly, that wasn’t the case. Frank died on Nov. 28, and the number of tributes in my Facebook feed rivaled that of some of the biggest Nashville music legends who have passed in recent years. I just hope he knew how beloved he was. —JACK SILVERMAN

KENNY HIGHERS Keeper of the door Everyone involved in putting on a show at a small-to-midsize venue is playing an important role in that music community — especially the folks working the door. Their ability to read people (and sometimes lips) and knack for curbing nonsense without being jerks (unless they need to be) keeps these spaces safe and welcoming. For more than two decades, fans, staff, musicians, scenesters, journos and other hangers-on at historic rock club Exit/In relied on Kenny Highers to set the tone for the whole night out.

A seemingly endless parade of punks, heshers, backpacker rappers, poets, urban cowfolk, dosed EDM kids and more passed through the portal kept by Highers, his gentle smile and his 6-foot-6-inch frame. We never talked much more than to say hello, but he was an integral part of concerts I’ll remember for the rest of my life — from Shuggie Otis to JEFF the Brotherhood and beyond — which shaped my idea of what a music scene can be. Highers grappled with complications from diabetes beginning at age 10, but never seemed to let it sour his disposition or diminish the fullness of his life. He died Jan. 10 at age 50, leaving behind friends, family and a music scene that was all the richer for having had him in it.

—STEPHEN TRAGESER

SONATORE Passionate artist, devoted friend This year, Nashville’s underground scene lost one of its brightest stars. Alex Sonatore Michael Cheng was a one-of-a-kind listener, artistic translator, son, brother, friend. Born and raised in Nashville, he attended Hillsboro and Hume-Fogg High Schools, Shanghai American School in China, and Belmont University. Before his own passing, he spent extensive time as a caretaker for his mom and buried her in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

Under the moniker Sonatore, he created his ethereal and prolific photography and music, forever lent to us. He always self-described.

Film-based photographer. Noisy emo avantpop musician. Dream traveler. Loved ones characterize him as self-actualizing at thirtyone, launching his life and art in continued promising and novel directions. He loved to travel. He showed up. If you were his friend, he never missed a show. He translated what was in his head faithfully, without filter, and connected diverse groups of people. Steady adherence to the tenets of kindness, social justice, and his artistic truth made Alex great.

The breadth of meaning his life and art represents to queer, Taiwanese American, photography, and music communities in Nashville and beyond — as well as to his wellloved and deeply known family and friends — cannot be overstated. There is a rift in Nashville’s fabric in the shape of Sonatore. May we carry the mantle forward. He kindly left us enough art and presence to pave a long street. —LAURYN PEACOCK

SKYLER RIPPEE Musician, artist, skateboarder Skyler Rippee, 25, was a passionate musician, artist, skateboarder and MTSU graduate who was active all over Middle Tennessee’s creative scene. Rippee was killed in a car crash on Dec. 31, 2022. It was a particularly devastating blow for his family, as his mother, Diana Rippee, was battling breast cancer at the time. A GoFundMe page for the family raised more than $10,000.

“He was a brilliant musician, a talented skateboarder, and someone who could find beauty in any situation,” wrote friend Ethan Tune after Skyler’s death. “Skyler was the type of friend that would constantly remind you of

how much he appreciated you and would go out of his way to check in on his loved ones.”

—COLE VILLENA

MARGARET ANN WARNER People person Long before social media, public relations and marketing was a people business. No one in Nashville was “someone who knew everyone” more than Margaret Ann Warner. Granted, she was born, raised and educated in Nashville; her grandparents were Martha and John Roesch and Sallie and John Patton, and when Margaret Ann passed away, funeral arrangements were handled by Woodlawn-Roesch-Patton.

But Margaret Ann cut her own path into business and society — always impeccably coiffed, stylishly dressed, wearing heels and a megawatt smile. She set up the first promotion department at WZTV, and when Multimedia Entertainment purchased the television station she was promoted to director of public relations for that company. When she launched Margaret Ann Warner Public Relations, clients from the health care, retail, hospitality and music industries happily signed on.

For a few hundred lucky people, the holiday season began with a coveted invitation to the annual Christmas party she held at her grand, historic home on West End Avenue. The front of that invitation bore a color photograph of the home’s open front door and huge tree in the foyer. Thanks to Margaret Ann’s deep Nashville roots and broad client roster, guests from every walk of life happily mingled, glass of wine in one hand, beef tenderloin sandwich on yeast roll in the other. Margaret Ann knew every face and remembered every name. —KAY WEST

ESSRA MOHAWK All-purpose master of pop Essra Mohawk’s career reached its zenith two decades after she had gained the kind of countercultural fame that is usually associated with playing rock in the late 1960s. Mohawk hit a big payday with her royalties from Cyndi Lauper’s chart-topping 1986 version of “Change of Heart,” one of the many catchy, soulful tunes Mohawk penned during her long run as an allpurpose master of pop. But her first real fame came through her association with Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, themselves about as righteous an example of a progressive ’60s band as you could imagine. As Sandy Hurvitz — she changed her name to Essra Mohawk after marrying record producer Frazier Mohawk in 1970 — she worked with Zappa in 1967 and 1968.

She also lent her powerful vocal style to songs for the ’70s animated educational series of short films Schoolhouse Rock.

She was born in Philadelphia in 1948, and her songwriting talents got her spotted by the great record producer Shadow Morton in the mid’60s. She wrote songs for The Shangri-Las and Vanilla Fudge, and for R&B stars McFadden &

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JANUARY 6

EARL SCRUGGS’ 100TH BIRTHDAY CELEBRATION JANUARY 11

A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION 50TH ANNIVERSARY SELECT NIGHTS IN JANUARY

OPRY AT THE RYMAN JANUARY 20

AMERICAN AQUARIUM WITH MURDER BY DEATH AND JOSHUA BLACK WILKINS FEBRUARY 2

CHRIS DISTEFANO FEBRUARY 3

THREE DOG NIGHT FEBRUARY 23

SAMMY RAE & THE FRIENDS

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Whitehead, she wrote the superb 1982 tune “Not With Me.” In 1993 she moved to Nashville, where she continued to write and record and — to the delight of the fans of her unpredictable, wideranging singing and keyboard work — play the occasional show around town. She died in Nashville on Dec 11. She was 75. —EDD HURT

ABE STOKLASA Phenomenal songwriter, beloved friend On Nov. 16, the country music community mourned the unexpected loss of Abe Stoklasa, 36, a beloved songwriter and musician who penned hits for artists like Tim McGraw, Charlie Worsham, Lady A and more. Born in 1987, Stoklasa hailed from Princeton, Mo., where he began playing music alongside his father at age 6. The family moved to Middle Tennessee when Stoklasa was a teenager, and he graduated from Belmont University with a degree in music business. Though he received a full scholarship to the University of Miami’s acclaimed graduate program for jazz, Stoklasa already had a taste of touring life and couldn’t resist going back out on the road, so he left after a semester.

Stoklasa signed his first publishing deal at age 25. Among his many cuts are Chris Lane’s No. 1 single “Fix,” McGraw’s “Portland, Maine,” Lady A’s “Ocean” and Worsham’s “Call You Up.” Upon the news of Stoklasa’s passing, artists and industry professionals far and wide expressed their grief on social media. “I’ll never listen to the songs we shared together the same or forget the moments we had onstage and on the late night bus rides,” Lady A’s Charles Kelley wrote on Instagram. “Nashville will never see another Abe Stoklasa.”

Intimately tied to Stoklasa’s music was his belief in equality and willingness to stand up for the rights of the LGBTQ community. “Abe was the funniest, most brilliant, interesting, complex, talented, intelligent person I’ve ever met,” wrote Stoklasa’s partner Chris Housman on Instagram, “and it’s awesome to see so many people say the same thing, regardless of how much or little they knew him. He was known (and basically canceled) for being outspoken.

He was also a very private person. But he was outspoken about equality and equity for all humans. I’m forever reshaped by Abe and so grateful for that.” —BRITTNEY McKENNA

CRAIG HAYES Full-tilt boogie lawyer Harvey Craig Hayes was an entertainment lawyer and an entertainer — guitarist, pianist, clarinetist, saxophonist and songwriter. During his stint as road manager for Neil Young, he created the infamous Vito Toledo saxophoneplaying character, ingratiating himself into the band on Young’s Shocking Pinks tour. As a law student, he became interested in copyright law and was regarded as an expert in that particular field. As a practicing lawyer, he never said no to a person or organization who asked for his help.

He said he came to Nashville to practice “Full-Tilt Boogie Law,” and arrived at a time when many emerging artists, executives and entrepreneurs were refusing to be confined to a

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category. In 1983, he partnered with two more conventional colleagues — Jim Zumwalt and Orville Almon — to form Zumwalt, Almon & Hayes, and they planted their flag on Music Row. Among the artists they represented were Aaron Neville, Faith Hill, Tanya Tucker, Paramore, Jason & the Scorchers and The Georgia Satellites, and the estates of Otis Redding, James Brown and Sam Cooke. In 1989, Hayes married musician and songwriter Pamela Brown at Cowboy Jack Clement’s home on Belmont Boulevard. The invitation read: “Casual dress required. Bring instruments. A music reception will follow.” It was a mantra Hayes lived by his whole joyous life. —KAY WEST

CHUCK FLOOD Music business visionary Chuck Flood, a prominent Nashville music business leader for more than four decades, died July 21 at age 78.

A native of Waco, Texas, Flood spent most of his adult life in the Nashville music industry.

He worked in A&R and national promotion at Capitol Records and Warner Bros. before starting the business management firm Chuck Flood & Associates in 1986. Four years later, he joined with Frank Bumstead, Mary Ann McCready and John McCarthy to form the entertainment management company Flood, Bumstead, McCready & McCarthy.

In the years since, Flood and his colleagues have represented a large number of major music figures in not only country music, but also other popular genres. Their roster of A-list clients is reported to have included Vince Gill, Taylor Swift, the Tom Petty estate, Kings of Leon, Keith Urban, Eric Church, Pearl Jam, Kelly Clarkson, Miranda Lambert, Rage Against the Machine, Garbage and Kesha.

“I started referring clients to Chuck Flood in the late ’90s,” says entertainment attorney Jim Zumwalt. “Every single client I sent over admired him greatly and were blown away with how much he cared genuinely about their lives on a personal level and how much he revered their contributions to art and culture. Chuck was one of a kind and missed so much now by so very many.” —DARYL SANDERS

CHANCE MARTIN Friend, foil, country-rock iconoclast Chance Martin financed his 1981 album In Search by working union jobs lighting and staging rock shows at Nashville’s Municipal Auditorium; he also recorded sound for Robert Altman’s 1975 film Nashville. Conceived and partly recorded at Martin’s South Nashville studio The Dead End, In Search upends the idea of the well-made Nashville country-rock album. Martin sings and narrates In Search in a voice that would become familiar to listeners of Sirius XM’s outlaw-country radio show The Cowboy Jack Clement Show, which ran from 2005 until Clement’s death in 2013. Martin’s deep rumble — the voice of a stoned disc jockey with a jones for subversion — was the perfect foil for Clement’s hipster drawl. In Search’s textural and musical innovations remain avant-garde, but

songs like “Too High to Land” are as Nashville as Tanya Tucker crashing her Jeep through your fence.

The above incident actually happened in the ’70s after Tucker had paid the occupants of The Dead End a late-night visit, as Martin relates in his liner notes to the 2013 Paradise of Bachelors reissue of In Search. Martin’s early-’70s gig as a cue-card handler on Johnny Cash’s television show led to a long friendship with Cash; In Search is the greatest album ever made by a cuecard man for Johnny Cash. Martin also briefly worked for Cash’s publishing company The House of Cash after the cue-card job dried up.

“I just listened to terrible tapes by terrible songwriters all day,” Martin wrote about the experience years later. “Some would just be talking and strumming, asking Johnny to buy them a TV.” Martin died in Hermitage, Tenn., on July 27 at age 76. —EDD HURT

DJ Lee Dorman’s Squire Records label, with a rough-edged version of Chuck Berry’s “BrownEyed Handsome Man” on the A-side.

According to all available accounts, Swing had left the band before they went on to have a residency at local rock club The Briar Patch and recorded a fine version of Mel Tillis’ Vietnam-era song “Ruby.” But he stayed a part of the studio scene here, playing sessions at Woodland Street Studios. (And according to his friend Gary Murphree, he was also a neighbor of Dolly Parton’s after she moved to Nashville in 1964.) Although Swing would go on to work in the insurance industry for the better part of five decades, he always stayed connected to music, collecting, repairing and selling vintage instruments. He died at the end of 2022 and, according to his obituary, “will be remembered for his kindness, calmness, patience, selflessness, compassion, humor, and wisdom.” —JONATHAN MARX

ANDRE NEWSOM

MARGIE HUNT

Beloved band director, cherished mentor

Music Row miracle worker

Andre Newsom’s death stunned and saddened scores of musicians, former classmates, students he’d instructed and mentored — as well as people who knew him by reputation and were simply fans of the man known as “The Gentle Giant.” Born in Memphis, he was a graduate of Tennessee State University who had a six-year tenure as assistant director of its legendary Aristocrat of Bands, which took home two Grammys this year. For 15 years, he was also director of The Sounds of Perfection, the marching band at Memphis’ Whitehaven High School. Newsom and the Sounds were in Atlanta to compete in the Dolla Watson Classic battle of the bands when he died on April 30. He was 47.

De’Merteiro Lee, a 2015 Whitehaven graduate who’s now a middle school band director, offered a poignant reaffirmation of Newsom’s ability to reach young people. “He always told everyone in the band, ‘You can be whatever you want to be in life, just don’t be a teacher, just do not be a teacher,’ and I was one of the ones that literally did the exact opposite,” Lee told Memphis NBC affiliate Action News 5. “I know if it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be where I am today.” —RON WYNN

In 2022, when Margie Hunt was inducted into the SOURCE Hall of Fame — which recognizes “the women behind the music” — it was at a gala ceremony hosted by Brenda Lee and Jeannie Seely. In her feisty acceptance speech, Hunt replied, “Ladies, always remember, men work hard … women work miracles.”

Hunt left New Mexico for Nashville in 1972, landing on Music Row when women were either girl singers or making coffee and typing letters for male executives. Hunt didn’t complain. She just went to work — first for Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter in their building, where renegades like Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson, Roger Miller and Shel Silverstein hung out. Bonnie Garner, one of Music Row’s first women in A&R, hired Hunt as her secretary and taught her the ropes. Over three decades, Hunt worked with a first-rate roster that included Tammy Wynette, Dolly Parton, George Jones, Charlie Daniels, Merle Haggard and a newly signed Ray Charles. At CBS Records (now Sony Nashville), she created and led the first in-house, full-time film and television department, placing music in more than 30 major motion pictures and television programs. Along the way, she won two Grammys as a producer and an executive producer — and earned a groundbreaking place in Music Row’s wild and woolly history. —KAY WEST

JAMES SWING

NICK BARBER

Guitarist in Nashville’s vibrant ’60s music scene

The glue

A lifelong musician, guitarist James Swing was one of the players who made Nashville’s rock ’n’ roll scene crackle with energy during the 1960s. But like so many other rock musicians who came up during that era, his contributions were overshadowed by the city’s far more visible musical export at the time: country music. None of that mattered to Swing and his bandmates in The Anglo Saxons, a combo that for a brief time made their mark on the local scene. The group formed in the mid-’60s around a core of kids from Goodlettsville and Hendersonville, and shortly thereafter they released a 45 on local

Adjacent to Centennial Park is a site where there’s been one bar or another operating since the 1890s. Since Springwater opened there at the end of the 1970s — and truly, for a bit before that when it was Norma’s — the tiny venue area has been one of the most democratic spaces in town. It has offered space for folk-schooled songwriters, punks, metalheads, comedians and more to mingle, practice their art and hone their skills. And for the past decade or so, sound engineer Nick Barber dedicated himself to making the modest environment of Springwater the best it could be.

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In any small business, staffers tend to wear lots of hats; that’s especially true at a small music venue, and a salute to Barber posted to the venue’s Facebook page after his death was confirmed in December describes him as “our patron Saint, hobo [MacGyver], Jack of all trades, & verifiably the best sound guy this club has ever had.” Tributes from friends and acquaintances that filled social media indicated that Barber’s devotion stemmed from feeling at home in Nashville and among the Springwater community in a way he’d seldom been before; it’s an understatement to say he left the scene better than he found it. —STEPHEN TRAGESER

LEE CLAYTON Songwriter’s singer-songwriter

PHOTO: COUNTRY MUSIC HALL OF FAME

Nearly 50 years after singer and songwriter Lee Clayton took his shot at becoming a country star in Nashville, he played a few shows in town.

They weren’t big affairs, and so the writer of “Ladies Love Outlaws,” “Silver Stallion” and “I Ride Alone” performed in 2018 for a small number of true believers who had gathered at Brown’s Diner and Betty’s Grill to catch a glimpse of one of country’s most intriguing cult figures.

Clayton’s versions of his romantic, sensual songs — heard on the handful of major label albums he cut in the 1970s, including 1978’s Border Affair — sound great today. But he made his name — and some money — from Waylon Jennings’ 1972 cover of “Ladies Love Outlaws,” and artists as disparate as television actor Wings Livinryte, The Highwaymen and alt-pop singer Cat Power have cut “Silver Stallion.” After his run of major label releases dried up in the early ’80s, Clayton became a star in Europe, where his brand of outlaw country — and the myth of his failure in Nashville — seemed like a rebuke to the injustices of the record business.

Clayton was born Billy Hugh Shotts in Russellville, Ala., in 1942, and he flew jets in the Air Force in the late ’60s. He came to Nashville in 1969, determined to be a songwriter. His songs continue to define the concept of outlaw country. Speaking to Fons Dellen in a 1989 interview on Dutch radio station VPRO, Clayton said, “The music could be called outlaw music, but it’s really establishment music, actually.” Dellen replied, “Really?” And Clayton continued: “Yeah, really. The true establishment being greatness.” Clayton died in White House, Tenn. —EDD HURT

JERRY BRADLEY A son of Music Row

I interviewed Jerry Bradley in 2007 for a piece I was writing for this paper on Texas country singer Johnny Bush, who had just released an album, Kashmere Gardens Mud: A Tribute to Houston’s Country Soul, and a memoir, Whiskey River (Take My Mind): The True Story of Texas Honky-Tonk. Talking about Bush’s time on RCA Records, whose Nashville division Bradley helmed in the 1970s, Bradley told me: “I’m sure

Bush would’ve made it. He might’ve rather played around Texas, but if he had gotten some of those good old Nashville songs, he would’ve been bigger than Texas.”

I met Bush in Nashville just as the piece ran, and I could tell Bradley’s assessment, which was accurate, hadn’t set well with him. Bradley was speaking in the blunt language of the record business, in which he’d grown up learning from his father, producer and studio owner Owen Bradley, and his uncle, famed session guitarist Harold Bradley. Jerry Bradley would learn how to make records at his father’s studio in Mt. Juliet, Bradley’s Barn, and he went on to success as head of music publishing company Opryland Music Group. Working with RCA, Bradley gave the world records by Ronnie Milsap and Gary Stewart, and he masterminded the million-selling 1976 compilation album Wanted!

The Outlaws. The album codified a musical movement that redefined country music even as it drove home the essential point that country music was all about songs.

“I made the records that I was taught to make from my dad, and find the best songs that I could — kinda just a couple of guidelines that I tried to follow,” Bradley told interviewer Paul Leslie in 2020. Bradley died in Mt. Juliet on July 17. He was 83. —EDD HURT

TIMOTHY FUDGEROGERS Greatest showman ever Tim Fudge’s a cappella rendition of classic pop song “What the World Needs Now Is Love” would have made Dionne Warwick give up the crown. For 15 years, he sang it at every Easter Sunday service at St. Augustine Episcopal Chapel, and it wasn’t officially Easter until he did. Not the most traditional Easter song, but St. A’s is not the most traditional church, so it fit Tim to a T. Becca Stevens, pastor of St. A’s and founder of Thistle Farms, met Fudge when he began attending the small church. He became her personal and professional assistant, for the church and the nonprofit. His voice could soar, yet had the restraint required of the Sunday psalmist. He had a flair for the dramatic — not surprising given his education in musical direction and many roles at Chaffin’s Barn and other theater companies.

He moved back to South Carolina a few years ago and found love, sweet love, with Lin Rogers.

The two were legally wed — then as Tim’s health was failing, they returned to Nashville to be married by Stevens. One of Tim’s most memorable performances was as Cher in St. A’s annual fundraiser The Greatest Show Ever.

With multiple members of Nashville’s music and theater community participating, the celebration of Tim’s life at Nashville Children’s Theatre was one of the greatest shows ever.

—KAY WEST

BRAD THOMSON

MELVIN SLOAN

Middle Tennessee metal wizard

Old-time dance maestro

During their run in the Aughts and early 2010s, Murfreesboro-based The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza had relatively little to do with either tap dance or the Who’s the Boss actor, though the band did get a shoutout on his daytime talk show once. But TDTE did influence the shapes to come of mathcore, djent and other experimental offshoots of extreme metal.

Sadly, the band lost one of the architects of both their sound and goofy sense of humor when co-founding guitarist Brad Thomson died Aug. 9 at age 52. Thomson played on the band’s demo and its first two albums, a self-titled release from 2005 and 2007’s Danza II: Electric Boogaloo. His technical proficiency and sonic creativity shone on songs with such delightfully bizarre titles as this opening trio from their debut: “My Bowling Ball’s Frozen in a Footlocker in Chicago,” “I Bet Heaven Looks Alot Like Talledega” and “God Ain’t Got No Use for No 180lb. Bag of Sugar.”

The band has a stock of tongue-in-cheek lore, including the character Shane at the Pawn Shop, whose voicemail to Thomson begins the aforementioned “Heaven.” Thomson left the group in 2008, a year after founding Midgets With Machetes, a record label distributed by California’s Uprising Records. MWM released a self-titled record by The Cast Pattern, a technical metalcore band from Lawrence, Kan. Angie Granado, Thomson’s wife of two years, broke the news of his death in a since-deleted Facebook post quoted by Consequence of Sound. “Many of you know him from the band The Tony Danza Tapdance Extravaganza as one helluva guitar player,” Granado wrote. “This man had the kindest soul and the biggest heart of any man I have ever known. Please think of him today and hug your loved ones.” —ADDIE MOORE

Melvin Sloan, the youngest of six children born in a primitive two-room log cabin in what is now Cedars of Lebanon State Park, was 11 when his family moved to Chicken Road. There they got electricity and a radio, and he heard the Saturday night Grand Ole Opry broadcast on WSM for the first time. All the Sloans were singers and self-taught musicians — Melvin was the Hurricane Baptist Church congregation choir leader at just 13. At 21 he formed his own string band and traveled the Southeast, often backing up country stars of the day.

His brother Ralph Sloan led The Tennessee Travelers, a square-dance and clogging group that has been a mainstay of the Opry since its inception. When Ralph died in 1980, the mantle was passed to Melvin, a complete dance novice who had to pick up the skill quickly. For the next 22 years, he led the Melvin Sloan Dancers on the program, performed on numerous television shows and at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in a tribute to Roy Acuff before then-President Ronald Reagan. He and Ralph (posthumously) were inducted into America’s Clogging Hall of Fame in 1997 for their contributions preserving the art of Southern Appalachian freestyle square dancing. —KAY WEST

JAN WOODS Veteran of country radio promotions Catching the ears of country radio was the passion that animated Jan Woods, who founded her company, Jan Woods Promotions, in 1994, in order to foster the careers of the artists she nurtured. Woods worked for both emerging artists and established country stars, and her roster of clients included The Bellamy Brothers, Garth Brooks, T. Graham Brown and Dolly Parton.

Her expertise in the field — she was a devout Christian who sometimes offered prayer in tandem with her sales calls — helped her connect with radio programmers and disc jockeys. She began in the ’90s by working the Gavin chart, which later became the MusicRow chart of up-and-coming artists. She called major-market stations as well as those that supported new artists whose progress was marked on Billboard’s Indicator chart.

Woods was born Janice Marie Anderson in Nashville, and her daughter Christina Bear told me she took pride in being a native of the city.

For Woods, serving the radio community meant serving the world, and she did it with a lot of style. Woods died in Hermitage, Tenn., on July 20. —EDD HURT

DAVE ROE Ace of bass, revered mentor You didn’t have to know Dave Roe to know he was an exceptional bass player. You could hear it during his lengthy tenure in the final incarnation of Johnny Cash’s band The Tennessee Three, at one of the hundreds of gigs he played on Broadway and elsewhere, and on recordings he made, from David Olney’s musical novellas to pop-country sessions to Dan Auerbach productions and beyond.

But mentorship was a part of Roe’s nature, and that’s what leaves the biggest impact following his death in September. His son, drummer Jerry Roe, is also an expert musician.

In a post following his father’s passing, Jerry pointed out that while there were strains on their relationship, the raw power of music — especially heavy music — to move people physically and emotionally was something his dad helped him discover, and has informed his work with Buick Audra in Friendship Commanders.

In a tribute post of his own, stellar country singer-songwriter Joshua Hedley credits Dave Roe’s skill as an inspiration to try his own hand at making music in Nashville. And he credits Roe’s support after the fact with helping him stay and develop into a pro.

“When I was fresh on the strip and green as could be, he was always there with sound advice and a word of encouragement,” Hedley wrote. “Getting to share stages with him was a learning experience I’ll never forget, but getting to know him was pure joy. I’ll miss you friend.”

—STEPHEN TRAGESER

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MIKE HENDERSON One-of-a-kind guitarist, songwriter, bandleader, recording artist Beloved musician and songwriter Mike Henderson died peacefully in his sleep on Sept.

22 at age 70. Like so many of the great musical figures in Nashville history, Henderson could play any kind of music. He was probably best known as Chris Stapleton’s primary co-writer, a Grammy-winning partnership that began when they were both in The SteelDrivers. But he also was a critically acclaimed recording artist and session musician who worked with an array of stars, including Emmylou Harris, Albert King, Sting, John Hiatt, Waylon Jennings and Bob Seger, to name just a few.

“The thing about Hendo was, he was unique,” producer-keyboardist Kevin McKendree explains. “He wasn’t someone you would call to play like somebody else. When you called Hendo, it was because you needed him.”

From July 1986 until his death, Henderson played a weekly Monday night blues residency at The Bluebird Cafe, first as a member of The Kingsnakes, and then when they disbanded, with Mike Henderson and the Bluebloods, and later The Mike Henderson Band.

“He had a joke that he would tell every week and probably did for 38 years,” says McKendree, a longtime member of the last group. “We have two rules here — number one, there’s no drinking during gospel songs, and number two, there’s no gospel songs.”

On a more serious note, McKendree adds, “If Mike Henderson was involved with it, it was something that was good — and worth listening to.” —DARYL SANDERS

MICHAEL RHODES Master bassist There’s a big hole in the soul of Nashville’s music community left by the passing of bass virtuoso Michael Rhodes on March 4. In a career spanning more than four decades, Rhodes anchored the bottom during so many important musical moments in Nashville history. His recording credits are mind-boggling — they read like a who’s-who of popular music: Dolly Parton, Elton John, Brian Wilson, Etta James, Willie Nelson, Stevie Nicks, Steve Winwood, Joan Baez, Buddy Guy, The Beach Boys, Bob Seger, Michael McDonald, Larry Carlton, Mark Knopfler, Reba McEntire, Kenny Chesney, Diane Schuur, Lionel Richie, Dave Stewart, Joe Bonamassa and many, many more. Bonamassa convinced Rhodes to join his band in 2015.

“Michael always had the right part, the right bass, the right sound for anything — straight blues to rock to country,” Bonamassa says. “It was a pleasure having him in my band for eight years; also, just watching a true master at his craft work.”

In addition to being an in-demand studio sideman, Rhodes also was a member of the popular ’80s rock band The Nerve. As well, he was part of various supergroups including The Cicadas, The Notorious Cherry Bombs, The Players (with whom Rhodes was inducted into the Musicians’ Hall of Fame in 2019) and The

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World Famous Headliners.

“Michael was a big part of a lot of people’s lives,” says Pat McLaughlin, who worked with Rhodes in his own band and in The World Famous Headliners. “He was kind of a friend first and then a bandmate second.” —DARYL SANDERS

RUSS HICKS Steel guitar hall-of-famer Acclaimed pedal-steel player and multiinstrumentalist Russ Hicks passed away on Dec. 11 after a period of declining health. Although he could play guitar and bass, the West Virginia native was best known as a pedal-steel player.

He took up the instrument after seeing steel legend Buddy Emmons perform with Little Jimmy Dickens. Hicks landed his first job in Nashville in the late ’60s, playing with Connie Smith. He also was a member of Ray Price’s and Kitty Wells’ bands.

After meeting session ace Charlie McCoy in the early ’70s, Hicks began concentrating on studio work. He played on recordings by McCoy, Tompall Glaser, Wanda Jackson, Gatemouth Brown, Tom T. Hall, Marty Robbins, Memphis Slim, Townes Van Zandt and Ween, among many others.

Hicks was a member of legendary Southern rock outfit Barefoot Jerry beginning with the group’s 1973 eponymous second album. He also worked as a utility player in the house band for the TV series Hee Haw and was in the house band for Country Showdown. In addition, Hicks performed in McCoy’s band, as did his wife, singer Laney Smallwood.

“Every band that Russ played in, he made it better from a musical standpoint,” McCoy says. “He was a great musician, and because he was also a guitar player and bass player, he understood everything.”

Hicks was a member of the International Steel Guitar Hall of Fame and the West Virginia Music Hall of Fame. —DARYL SANDERS

KEITH GATTIS A man who could do it all in country music Country music multihyphenate Keith Gattis died on April 23 at the age of 52, following an accident at his home. A singer, songwriter, producer and multi-instrumentalist, Gattis was a prolific member of the country community.

At one time, he was bandleader for Dwight Yoakam; he produced records for Waylon Payne and Randy Houser, among many others; he wrote songs for Kenny Chesney, George Strait, Randy Travis and more; and he released critically acclaimed solo material, like his 1996 self-titled debut.

Gattis was born outside of Austin, Texas, in 1970, and took up music in his youth. After college, he moved to Nashville to pursue his dreams of working in music, signing his first record deal with RCA. While his solo career didn’t take off the way he’d hoped, he quickly found a knack for songwriting, with notable cuts including Kenny Chesney’s “When I See This Bar” and “El Cerrito Place,” the latter of which Charlie Robison originally recorded. As a producer, Gattis helmed celebrated records like

Houser’s Magnolia and Payne’s The Drifter. Gattis is survived by his wife Penny Gattis and their children McKenzie and DeLaney. —BRITTNEY McKENNA

Sports

WALTER WILSON

JERRY JARRETT

Music Row exec, storyteller

Wrestling promoter, legend

One of the things Walter George Wilson is likely best known for in Nashville is his tenure as a senior vice president at MCA, where he played a significant role in launching artists like Reba McEntire and George Strait on the path to megastardom and ushering in a new era in country music. Another is the tales he stockpiled. After his death in July at age 68, the obituary his family placed in The Tennessean included the following: “Walt told the best, and most insane stories, because he knew the more insane, the more entertaining (yes, that includes the poop ones).”

Wilson grew up near Pittsburgh, Pa., and embarked on a music business career after graduating from the University of Pittsburgh in 1976. Over several decades, he worked in many levels of the industry — manning the counter at record stores, stocking record shops’ racks for a distributor, running a consultancy business, and teaching at Belmont University. Though he was respected for his marketing acumen, his deep love of music and musicians is the foundation of his legacy. —STEPHEN TRAGESER

BOB ‘NORTON’ THOMPSON Co-founder of premiere rehearsal facility Soundcheck Nashville Soundcheck Nashville, the Cowan Street facility where megastars rehearse for tour and store their precious gear when it’s not on the road, is among the biggest in the U.S. Despite devastating losses from Nashville’s 2010 flood and the 2020 pandemic that threw a wrench in the entire live entertainment industry, current owner Ben Jumper and his crew keep growing the business.

In March, the man who co-founded it, Bob Thompson, died at age 80. Thompson, known to most as “Norton,” began his career on the road with major acts like Chicago and the Eagles, serving in road crews, as a stage manager and more. In 2020, he chronicled this time in his selfpublished book Last Encore. As the 1980s drew to a close, Thompson and his wife Toni opened a rehearsal facility in California, and moved to Nashville, where they opened Soundcheck in 1993. Word circulated in early 2023 that the facility would be moving soon; though the rumors proved to be false, Soundcheck is set to relocate within a few years. The increasing sophistication of live shows suggests that the need for space that the Thompsons identified three decades ago will only increase over time.

—STEPHEN TRAGESER

Professional wrestling isn’t immune to the debate — common to all art — as to who is truly a genius and who is just a talented imitator. Few would argue that Jerry Jarrett, who died at age 80 in February after a long illness, was anything but a grappling genius of the highest order.

He learned in the ring, most prominently in the tag division that was the territory’s breadand-butter, partnering with Tojo Yamamoto on the Memphis-based loop. And he learned outside of it. His mother — who you could call “Teeny” if she was pleased with you, and who you had to call “Mizz Jarrett” if she was not — led the Nashville territory in all but title. Being a woman held her back in those days — wrestling has a complicated, if nuanced and often surprising, history of gender politics — but even the nominal head of the area, Nick Gulas, often conceded it was she who ran the show.

And it was in the tiny office where his mom kept books, mothered wrestlers, nursed broken hearts and broken bones, where Jerry learned the craft he’d do better than pretty much anybody. By the time it was all said and done, Jarrett was so respected that when Vince McMahon thought he was going to spend time behind federal bars, it’s said he told his underlings that the only man he’d trust to run what was then the WWF in his absence was the man who’d run the Midsouth for so long.

In Jarrett’s office hung a sign with his credo: “Personal Issues Draw Money.” That may not seem revolutionary in modern times, an era of barely hidden real-life rivalries informing in-ring stories, but in the pre-national promotion days, it’s part of what made the Memphis/Nashville territory one of the most successful. At the time, the biggest promotions — including the one in New York the McMahons were running — was heavy on gimmicky wrestlers, barely less fictional than superheroes. “Real” stories — the ones Jarrett pushed — weren’t the rule.

Jarrett spent his final years telling stories about those days, on podcasts and in interviews, trying to impart that simple wisdom on the next generation, which includes his son Jeff, accomplished in the squared circle in his own right. And every time a story that seems just too real to be scripted pops a Wrestlemania-worthy feud, we know someone in that generation listened. —J.R. LIND

FRED PANCOAST Football coach, business leader, volunteer Fred Pancoast made a big impression on the football field and far beyond during his

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lifetime. He died April 9 at age 90.

The head football coach at the University of Memphis (formerly Memphis State) from 1972 to 1974 and Vanderbilt from 1975 to 1978, Pancoast was awarded the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame Lifetime Achievement Award in 2007. He received the Middle Tennessee Chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame Fred Russell Distinguished American Award in 2011. A Pensacola, Fla., native who played on the football and baseball teams at the University of Tampa, Pancoast would later spend two decades as a college coach, which included stints as the offensive coordinator at Florida and Georgia.

Pancoast retired from coaching college football in 1978, and in 1985, he founded Pancoast Benefits, an employee benefits marketing and consulting firm, where he built a successful company and new career.

Pancoast was on the original organizing committee and heavily involved with Room In The Inn, a charitable program designed to give people experiencing homelessness shelter and a warm meal during the winter months. He was also heavily involved with several other charities and multiple drug and alcohol rehabilitation clinics.

Thanks in part to his volunteer work with Operation Stand Down, which aids military veterans and their families, Pancoast was awarded the President’s Volunteer Service Award by President George W. Bush in 2008. —JOHN GLENNON

MARSHALL MARTIN Triathlete, Ironman, business coach An avid coach, athlete and competitor in endurance sports, Marshall Martin completed eight full Ironman Triathlons, 50 half Ironmans, 500-plus triathlons, 200-plus bike races and 13 marathons. The Brentwood resident swam, ran and biked in competitions all over the country for more than 30 years.

Martin, 58, died on May 29, just over a week after he sustained a head injury while competing in the cycling portion of the Chattanooga Half Ironman competition.

Martin, a Chattanooga native, went to school at the University of Tennessee Chattanooga, graduating in 1990 with a bachelor’s degree in accounting. He also held an executive leadership certification from the Wharton School.

In addition to his racing and coaching, Martin worked as an executive and business coach for a wide range of companies, from small startups to large enterprises. Among those who expressed support for Martin was racing star Lance Armstrong, who posted a video on the family’s CaringBridge post, wishing Martin a speedy recovery prior to his death. —JOHN GLENNON

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BOBBY DURNBAUGH Nashville Vol, veteran, ‘good team man’ In 1957, Bobby Durnbaugh made two appearances for the Cincinnati Redlegs — the Reds’ brief moniker during the Second Red Scare. Durnbaugh, from the suburbs of Dayton, Ohio, had grown up a Reds fan, so he probably didn’t mind they’d changed their name; he just wanted to wear the uniform. In those games, he had one at-bat. He grounded out. There’s hundreds of guys like that in baseball’s history.

Durnbaugh’s best years in pro baseball — his career started in what was then the Class D Appalachian League — were spent as a Nashville Vol. The shortstop (and sometimes second baseman) was the Vols’ player of the year in 1956 (after a couple years off to fight in Korea), a reliable singles hitter and middle infielder who his manager said was “a good team man and keeps everyone on their toes when he’s in there” — which, for a 1950s baseball manager, is about as effusive as praise can get. After his brief stint in Cincinnati and being bounced around AAA affiliates, Durnbaugh was happy to head back to Sulphur Dell. He’d married a Nashville girl, after all, and his family in Ohio was just a quick trip away on the L&N. Plus, he liked to hang out backstage at the Opry.

Perhaps the moment Durnbaugh was best remembered for came against Mobile in 1955 and had more to do with chicanery than bat or glove. Rain clouds were threatening as he came to bat, and he knew — under the rules at the time —that if the game was stopped, the score would revert to the last complete inning, when the Vols led 1-0. He called for the trainer to tend to him twice, claiming specks of dirt were stuck in his eye. The umpire was wise to him, unfortunately, and told everyone to get on with it. (In the end, Mobile won.)

After retiring in 1960, Durnbaugh went back home to Dayton and ran a sporting goods business. He was one of the old Vols invited back when the Sounds opened the new park on the site of the old one. He died in September. He was 90. —J.R. LIND

FRANK WYCHECK Tennessee Titan, media personality, Music City Miracle worker Frank Wycheck, one of the most popular and productive players in Titans history, died in December at age 52. The tight end was an integral part of one of the most memorable plays in NFL history, the Music City Miracle, which allowed the Titans to defeat Buffalo in the 1999 AFC playoffs.

With Tennessee trailing the Bills 16-15 and 16 seconds remaining in that game, Tennessee fullback Lorenzo Neal fielded a kickoff and handed it to Wycheck. Wycheck threw it across the field to Kevin Dyson, who sprinted 75 yards for the winning touchdown.

A sixth-round pick of Washington in 1993, Wycheck spent nine of his 11 seasons with the Oilers/Titans, where he caught 482 passes for

4,958 yards and 27 touchdowns. Overall in his career, Wycheck caught 505 passes (tied for 17th among tight ends in NFL history) for 5,128 yards (39th among tight ends in NFL history) and 28 touchdowns in 155 games.

Wycheck was named three times to the Pro Bowl (1998-2000), was inducted into the franchise’s Ring of Honor — along with former teammates Steve McNair and Eddie George — in 2008, and was inducted into the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame in 2013.

Wycheck retired following the 2003 season, in part because he suffered a number of concussions that affected him well beyond his football career.

Still, Wycheck remained close to the game for a long time after his playing days were over, serving as the team’s radio analyst from 2005 until 2016 and as part of 104.5-FM’s The Wake Up Zone from 2004 until 2017. —JOHN GLENNON

DONOVAN STEWART Sports columnist, football fan, father No one loved Tennessee high school football like Donovan Stewart.

The son of a longtime high school football coach, Stewart was a sportswriter and the media director for the Tennessee Football Coaches Association. His columns “By the Numbers” and “Stat Stuffers” were syndicated in outlets across the state.

But Stewart was perhaps best known for an annual deep dive into the Tennessee high school football landscape with his extremely thorough preview book. Every summer, he would publish his season guide, and fans and media members across Tennessee would clamor for copies as soon as they were available.

A native of Rockvale, Tenn., Stewart, 49, passed away unexpectedly on July 29. —LOGAN BUTTS

Media & Entertainment FRANK RITTER

Tennessean op/ed editor, writer, reader advocate Upon learning of Frank Ritter’s death, one phrase undoubtedly arose in the minds of former Tennessean reporters: “Pity the Poor Reader.”

It was his mantra. Ritter — editor, reporter, columnist and occasional pain in the butt — loved the phrase so much that he hung a “Pity the Poor Reader” banner on the newsroom wall. The phrase captures the simple essence of a complex man. Ritter was a straightforward master craftsman. For years as city editor and deputy managing editor, he mentored new reporters and interns — some with familiar names, like Neuharth, Gore and Sirica. They all got the same advice: Keep it simple. Tell the whole story. Write, then rewrite.

Reporters heeded his criticism and lived for his praise.

That’s not to say everyone loved Frank every day. As Reader Advocate, he could infuriate co-

workers with his questions. Still, Frank gave the newsroom a sense of purpose and a spirit of joy.

He knew how lucky we were.

In addition to journalism, Frank loved Robert Burns, Princess Di and boxing. He loved his kids and grandkids — and of course, his wife, Virginia.

In 2009, I spent an afternoon with Frank at his daughter’s house. He and Virginia lived in Kentucky, but they were in Nashville so Virginia could attend the trial of the man ultimately convicted of killing her daughter, Marcia Trimble. At that point, Frank had profound hearing loss, so we communicated by passing a notebook back and forth. I wrote about old Tennessean pals; he wrote how proud he was of Virginia.

I didn’t mind the notes. He was a great writer.

—SANDRA ROBERTS

MARK MAYS Music writer, former Scene contributor, early podcaster I’ve started and restarted this memorial at least 30 times. How do you encompass all the facets of a truly interesting life — one that includes lawyering at the state legislature, writing here at the Scene, and being on the frontline of the podcasting revolution?

When Mark Mays started Dork Nation in the long, long ago, podcasting was in that stage before it became the new hotness, and you just had to trust his peerless instincts about a whole new way of getting information and power to the people. Mark had a gift for feeling where the culture was shaking out, and when I first got to know him during the ancient days of the Belcourt Film Committee, he helped a lot of us understand that film is an inherently political art form. He had a gracious spirit and a deft sense of humor, and whatever he was doing professionally, he was always trying to help out the community.

Cancer is an all-too-modern affliction; rampant, purposeless growth that can’t help but destroy. So I’ll keep my memory of the last time I saw him, when he was rallying, with Naoko and the kids seeing Inu-Oh at the Belcourt. He always had good taste. He’d always spread the word. —JASON SHAWHAN

SHEILA LEE GREEN Set designer, prop master, Queen of Fun No matter the occasion — or no occasion — Sheila Green brought the fun. She also brought the snacks, drinks, gifts, hats, music, costumes, props and party favors. A hybrid of Glinda the Good Witch sprinkling fairy dust and Mary Poppins with her bottomless carpetbag, Green was the epitome of never met a stranger, happy to share her opinion, advice, the shirt off her back, a ride in her car or a seat at her table.

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She could effortlessly carry on a 20-minute conversation with a telemarketer or a highpowered client of Green Enterprises. SuperMom to daughters Audrey and Natalie, she adopted every friend they brought into their home.

Raised in Goodlettsville, she moved to Nashville as soon as she graduated high school to pursue the music business. The stars aligned when she met Sherbe, and together they built the company that rented, designed and built sets for Nashville’s major awards shows, events, parties and four Ernest movies. Whatever was needed for a production — from Corinthian columns to giant cactus — it was somewhere in their warehouse.

Sheila was loyal to Nashville institutions like Brown’s Diner, the Station Inn and Douglas Corner, and musicians like Dave Olney and Pat McLaughlin, stalwarts of the old live music clubs. The day before Sheila passed away, McLaughlin brought his guitar to her bedside to “play her out” as Sherbe, Audrey and Natalie held tight their Queen of Fun. —KAY WEST

KIRK LOGGINS Tennessean courthouse reporter In the latter part of the 20th century, local newspapers covered the courts of Davidson County like a blanket. At the forefront of that effort was a Dickson County native named Kirk Loggins who wrote for The Tennessean.

Educated at Vanderbilt and diligent to a fault, Loggins came to the courthouse in 1976, and except for a brief internship and a special assignment covering the KKK, he reported on every major case (and many small ones) for 26 years. Trial lawyers knew that when they saw Kirk ease into a wooden pew at the rear of the courtroom, the next day there would be an article in the morning paper about their case. And the good news was that the coverage would be accurate, fair and well-written.

Kirk was the kind of reporter who worked to get a story right, and he was not bashful about calling attorneys at home at night if that’s what it took. He was intelligent, witty and thorough — qualities his readers came to appreciate. Not only did Kirk’s work benefit his paper’s readers — his precise reporting on legal matters had a way of making judges and litigants more careful in their rulings and comments. In short, his coverage made them better.

Kirk Loggins died on March 16. His legacy of excellent and exacting reporting of legal news will live on in the hearts of those fortunate enough to have called him friend. —ED YARBROUGH

JOE EDWARDS Country music journalist When Joe Edwards started his Nashvillebased journalism career in the 1970s, it was in smoke-filled newsrooms; a pen, notebook, typewriter, landline telephone and dogged pursuit of a good story were the tools.

The AP bureau was at 1100 Broadway (as were UPI’s bureau, The Tennessean and the Nashville Banner), but Edwards’ reporting took him to Music Row, where he covered a timeline of stars from Loretta Lynn to Taylor Swift; baseball

fields and basketball courts; the Hee Haw television studio, the state Capitol and the Jack Daniel Distillery; and to Memphis to cover Elvis Presley’s death and funeral. A story he wrote about Felice and Boudleaux Bryant’s song “Rocky Top” started the ball rolling on its path to being immortalized as the state song. In the early ’70s, he spearheaded the effort to include girls’ high school basketball scores on the AP wire.

Personally, one of his proudest achievements was serving as a past president of Nashville’s So What Club, which he once described as “a group of men who get together once a month and do absolutely nothing.” —KAY WEST

CECIL D. JONES JR. Educator, actor, director, loyal friend There are so many ways to remember Cecil D. Jones Jr., who died on March 18 at age 92. He was a gifted actor and director, and a Vanderbilt University professor emeritus. But for those who knew him best, Jones will simply be remembered as a loyal friend and colleague.

The Nashville native completed his undergraduate education at Vanderbilt, receiving a bachelor of arts in 1951. After earning a master’s degree from Northwestern University and a Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Jones returned to Vanderbilt as a teacher in 1965. Over the next 29 years, Jones inspired countless students; he and his wife Jane often welcomed students into their home for cast parties and sing-alongs. A driving force on campus, Jones was instrumental in converting Neely Auditorium from its original design as a chapel to the flexible black-box theater we know today — a rather cutting-edge concept for the mid-1970s.

A big man with a big voice, Jones graced the stages of many local theaters — from Nashville Repertory Theatre (formerly Tennessee Rep) to Studio Tenn Theatre Company and more.

And fellow actors remember Jones’ kindness, professionalism and commanding stage presence. “He was a generous, focused scene partner onstage,” says Nashville stage veteran Matthew Carlton. “But the greatest part he played in life was the genuine friendship he shared with those lucky enough to know him.”

—AMY STUMPFL

FINDRIX A. BOWERS JR. ‘Camera Man’ Findrix A. Bowers Jr. had a keen eye for style and a good photograph. The first was developed in his time working at the Arcade’s National Shirt Shops — a manufacturer of men’s shirts that expanded to storefronts specializing in menswear. He favored bold colors, fashionable suits with matching shoes and a brimmed hat.

His most prominent accessory was the camera in hand wherever he went, which earned him the nickname “Camera Man.” He shot street scenes downtown, where he spent more than 30 years working for the state of Tennessee. One of his favorites he titled “Reflection,” capturing the Tennessee State Capitol in a puddle after a heavy rain. If there

was an R&B show at Municipal Auditorium, Camera Man was there, dressed to the nines, focusing his lens on The Isley Brothers, Luther Vandross, Brian McKnight and more. Daughter Cassandra — one of his three children — says she still runs into people who tell her that her father took their parents’ wedding photos.

Because he shot on film, he was a constant presence at Wolf Camera. “He didn’t leave home without his camera or a hat,” son Jim Harlan Bowers recalls. —KAY WEST

CHARLIE APPLETON Journalist, old friend, reporter extraordinaire Charlie Appleton, the dean of the press corps for a generation of Nashville Banner journalists, was the type of reporter who editors liked to keep handy. Chief among the reasons was this: Charlie knew people … everywhere. If a story broke in Hohenwald, or Gruetli-Laager or Santa Fe (pronounced “Santa Fee,” he reminded newbies), editors knew Charlie was good for a crackerjack quote for the afternoon newspaper.

Because of printing deadlines, this meant he’d be making those calls at the crack of dawn.

Charlie worked his magic, excavating details of prison escapes, fiery automobile accidents or the rescue of a treebound feral cat by a firefighter. Most people were not annoyed to have their slumber disrupted, because Charlie made people feel like he was an old friend. So disarming was Charlie’s phone presence, I’m sure he could have made a great salesman. But all Charlie wanted was for someone to tell their story so he could write the first draft of history.

On the day the Banner ceased publication — Feb. 20, 1998 — Charlie worked the phones as usual. Turning to a fresh page in a legal-sized, blue-lined writing tablet, he began calling law enforcement across Middle Tennessee. He knew dispatchers by name. Of the longtimers, he knew to ask about their kid’s Little League team and how the summer tomatoes were faring.

Several hours after Charlie made his cop calls on that day in 1998, he packed personal items in a cardboard box and departed 1100 Broadway to applause from colleagues.

Left behind was the writing tablet where Charlie had listed each county, from Bedford to Wilson. The most newsworthy nuggets were marked by a hand-drawn five-pointed star.

I cannot lie: The writing tablet came home with me. Over the years Charlie’s final cop-calls sheet became an artifact from a long-gone era of newspapers. Now it’s a remembrance of a man, loved by many, a reporter extraordinaire.

—LEON ALLIGOOD

CAROL GOSS DANIELS Businesswoman, philanthropist, friend Carol Goss Daniels died April 8 after an eight-year battle with colon cancer.

When she moved to Nashville in 2007 from her native Canada, Carol had to wait for her work visa, so she began volunteering for

Nashville nonprofits like Belle Meade Plantation, Andrew Jackson Foundation, the Nashville Symphony and others. She got her visa and went to work for Gannett, eventually becoming general manager of The Leaf-Chronicle in Clarksville, but she continued her work with the organizations that welcomed her to Tennessee.

In 2013, she was recognized with the Association of Fundraising Professionals’ Volunteer of the Year Award.

When she moved to Clarksville, she immersed herself in that city’s nonprofits too, serving on the boards of directors of Gateway and Customs House, the Clarksville-Montgomery County Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Montgomery County United Way. “She was a courageous, determined, creative and caring person,” said Howard Kittell, who led Andrew Jackson’s Hermitage. “She lived in the land of possibility and worked to make the possible a reality.”

In 2017, she became executive vice president of the Tennessee Press Service and executive director of the Tennessee Press Association, the organizations that serve 130 newspapers across the state. The organizations were struggling.

“Carol quickly got things turned around, leading by example and building an outstanding team,” said Dave Gould, owner of Main Street Media of Tennessee and president of the Tennessee Press Service. “Today the association is on sound footing.”

“She led the organization through challenging times and developed creative solutions to help members navigate the headwinds our industry has faced,” TPA president Chris Vass said of Carol. “She was simultaneously relentless and compassionate, always willing to listen.”

Carol came to Tennessee and made it her home. —FRANK DANIELS III

SARAH YOUNG Author, Christian, missionary Sarah Young was a superstar author whose life outside the page was nearly invisible. She did almost no interviews or media appearances and spent most of her time at her Nashville home, dealing with chronic illness that affected her for decades.

“Though my name may be well-known, my face is not,” Young, who died in late August at age 77, once put it.

Yet for 20 years, her work dominated Christian publishing, selling more than 40 million copies. Her best-known work, Jesus Calling, helped millions of readers listen for the voice of God and find a bit of calm in the hectic pace of modern life.

Her success was unlikely. Young, a graduate of Wellesley and Tufts, was serving as an overseas missionary when she began writing a series of prayers in the 1990s, composing each one as if Jesus were speaking directly to her.

Those prayers eventually made their way to Christian publishing giant Thomas Nelson,

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which took a chance on the book. Jesus Calling was released in 2004, when Young was in her 50s, and after a modest initial release, it took off like a rocket and remained a bestseller for years.

Early on, Young worried that the publisher would lose money on the book. Her fears, it turned out, were unfounded. —BOB SMIETANA

FRANNE LEE Plowhaus founder, Belmont and Watkins professor, SNL and Broadway costume designer Born in the Bronx on Dec. 30, 1941, Franne Lee was a Tony-winning costume and set designer who created the looks for some of Saturday Night Live’s most iconic characters, including the Coneheads, Roseanne Roseannadanna and the Blues Brothers. If that wasn’t enough to cement her status as legendary, she also made the official banners that flew at Woodstock — which were stolen immediately after being hung.

But for Nashvillians, she may be best remembered for something else entirely — she was one of the founders of the influential Plowhaus Gallery and Artists’ Cooperative, which opened in East Nashville in 2001. The artists-run space quickly became the place to be on opening nights, and helped solidify East Nashville as a creative community with its own identity. Lee worked as a costume designer throughout her life, but she was also a painter, often utilizing wooden remnants of barn siding or old cabinets with a style the Scene’s Jack Silverman once praised for striking “that oftenelusive balance between arty and aesthetically pleasing.”

In addition to founding one of Nashville’s original galleries, Lee was an adjunct professor in Belmont’s theater department for 10 years, and she taught film design at Watkins for eight years. She also designed the costumes for Hamlet and Romeo and Juliet for the Nashville Shakespeare Festival.

She is survived by her daughter, Stacy Sandler; sons Geoffrey Sandler and Willie Lee; a brother, Bill Newman; six grandchildren; and a great-granddaughter. —LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

KERRY WOO Photographer, Lego master, grandparent Kerry Woo had a creative streak that served him well in a diverse array of jobs, from setting up award-winning display stands at music stores to merchandising to the world of architectural photography in Nashville.

His love of architecture wasn’t limited to photos — it even inspired his work with Legos, the ever-popular brand of building blocks. In 2019 he leapt into the hobby and quickly racked up accolades for his Lego cityscapes. Some of his works included re-creations of buildings he photographed. He met other Tennessee-based Lego enthusiasts and teamed up with one of them, Patrick Durham of Knoxville, for Season 3 of the Fox show Lego Masters. The Grandpappies — as the duo called themselves — lasted only three episodes, but they are fondly remembered by fans of the show.

Woo died in June at age 69. — ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

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POPE.L Artist, provocateur Pope.L, the artist who called himself both “the friendliest Black artist in America” and “a fisherman of social absurdity,” died just two days before Christmas 2023. He was 68.

Born William Pope on June 28, 1955, in Newark, N.J., the artist took on the name “Pope.L.” in the mid-1980s — a portmanteau of his surname and an initial representing his mother’s maiden name, Lancaster. In 2019, a joint retrospective titled member: Pope.L, 19782001 was exhibited concurrently at MoMA, the Whitney and Public Art Fund. His best-known work was a performance piece he called “crawls,” in which he would literally crawl on his stomach — first through Times Square in 1978, and again decades later up the length of Broadway, from New York Harbor to the Bronx.

In 2009, Pope.L launched a project in Nashville called “Reenactor” under the stewardship of artist (and sometime Scene contributor) Jodi Hays, who was then the gallery director at TSU. “Being in a position to ask an artist like Pope.L to do anything and have him say yes was absolutely intimidating — and a dream come true,” says Hays. “It still is.”

For “Reenactor,” Pope.L organized local volunteers to go about mundane tasks while dressed as Robert E. Lee. “The idea was to make our history visible,” Hays says. “But it was done in a silly way — the beards were so fake, the uniforms didn’t look authentic at all.”

The resulting piece was what Pope.L called an endurance documentary — its running time is 72 hours, and it was meant to be watched in full.

“All his work has been about discomfort.”

He is survived by his partner, Mami Takahashi; an older brother, Eugene Pope; and a son, Desmond Tarkowski-Pope.L. —LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

BOBBY WYCKOFF Beloved stage actor Nashville’s theater community suffered a devastating loss when Bobby Wyckoff — one of the city’s most respected and beloved actors — died Dec. 18 after a brief battle with cancer.

Originally from Nitro, W.V., Wyckoff graduated from Marshall University in 1986 with a degree in theater. He worked in regional and dinner theaters throughout the country before settling in Nashville in 1993. From the beginning, he demonstrated a rare gift for character development and comedic timing, although his dramatic work was quite polished as well. Over the next 30 years, he would turn in unforgettable performances at Nashville Children’s Theatre, Nashville Rep, Nashville Shakespeare Festival and Chaffin’s Barn Dinner Theatre, among others.

NCT audiences will recall Wyckoff’s ability to breathe life into iconic roles like Lyle the Crocodile, Willie Wonka, Bunny (from Goodnight Moon) and Ratty (The Wind in the Willows). He also played Blue-Beard Giant in NCT’s original musical Jack’s Tale: A Mythic Mountain Musical Adventure, which premiered at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in 2015. (His hearty

salute to “Taters and Maters” was pure joy.)

Balancing a kind heart and a wicked sense of humor, Wyckoff had an ability to crack up his castmates — especially those struggling to keep a straight face in the middle of a scene.

Those fortunate enough to receive one of his meticulously costumed custom Barbies or paper dolls can attest to his generous spirit and boundless talents. —AMY STUMPFL

Around the City CHARLES FREDERICK STROBEL Priest, baseball fan, tireless advocate for the unhoused No one would have enjoyed Aug. 11’s The Gathering: A Community Celebration of the Life of Charles Frederick Strobel more than the man himself. The native Nashvillian ordained to priesthood was Charles to family, Charlie to friends and Father to many of those he served through his life’s work at Room In The Inn, the organization he founded in 1986 to shelter and help the homeless.

A convoy of Father Ryan buses preceded by a police escort brought RITI clients from the Campus for Human Development to First Horizon Park, its Germantown location a nod to the Sulphur Dell ballpark where Strobel fell in love with baseball as a young boy. Hundreds of attendees — from political, nonprofit and business leaders to those still enduring homelessness — were seated in the stands from first base to third; Strobel’s smiling face beamed from the park’s guitar-shaped scoreboard.

On deck, musician Dave Pomeroy led a band, backing up Emmylou Harris and Buddy Miller on “Hallelujah” and The McCrary Sisters on “Turn! Turn! Turn!” At home plate, the Rev. Becca Stevens eulogized her mentor. A choir of his great-nieces and great-nephews sang Maroon 5’s “Memories.” But what would have delighted Strobel most was when niece Katie Seigenthaler asked everyone to rise for the seventh-inning stretch and join in singing “Take Me Out to the Ball Game.”

It was Strobel’s dream to play professional baseball, and he attended every game he could — from Little League to college ball to spring training to that time he was a guest chaplain for the New York Yankees on Yogi Berra Day in 1999. That’s when David Cone pitched the third perfect game in Yankee history. Fortunately for the unhoused, the poor, the hungry, the broken, the death row inmates, the targets of racism and bigotry, and the victims of social injustice, Strobel didn’t make the MLB cut. Even so, through his 70s, he was a serious competitor, playing any position that got him on a field.

Strobel spent the last months of his life working with family and friends on a memoir that tells how he came to embrace his role as

“worthless servant.” There are many references to baseball, a game he understood as a metaphor for life and that he appreciated for its lack of a clock and infinite possibilities. Because right down to the ninth inning, with two outs and nobody on, hope still endures. —KAY WEST

BETTIE KIRKLAND Advocate, organizer, ‘true Tennessean’ Margaret E. “Bettie” Kirkland died in October at age 63, just one year after retiring from her post as executive director of local nonprofit Project Return. In her 11 years at the organization, Kirkland moved its Nashville headquarters, created two social enterprises and a permanent housing program, and established an additional location in Chattanooga — all in the name of second chances for those who had been incarcerated.

“It’s so invigorating and exciting to be a part of someone’s good future,” Kirkland said in a June 2022 podcast interview. “I just invite people to think about that, and to think about justice and fairness not so much in terms of prison sentence or the punitiveness, but to think about justice and fairness aligned with freedom and opportunity and the ability to have that very American second chance.”

Kirkland said she read about Project Return for the first time when she was applying for the lead role, which shows the room she had in her heart for several causes. She had a law degree and worked in the field before becoming a stayat-home mother to her son Joseph and daughter Clare. She worked for the Fisk University Race Relations Institute, then the Metropolitan Interdenominational Church First Response Center for HIV prevention.

When Kirkland retired, state Rep. John Ray Clemmons brought a resolution to the state legislature. It read, in part, “Bettie Kirkland exemplifies the spirit and allegiance to family and community that are characteristic of a true Tennessean.” —HANNAH HERNER

TERRY EUGENE CUNNINGHAM Educator, father, veteran Ever joyful and bearing a constant smile, my father Terry Eugene Cunningham was a “glue guy” — the person who loves hard, offers great advice and consistently brings loved ones together. A loving family man and friend, he fought liver cancer head on until his passing in July. His last calls and texts were shared in true Terry fashion — checking on family and friends, and letting his supervisor at Metro Nashville Public Schools know he was not feeling well and might not make it to work that day. He was truly a hardworking educator until the end!

Terry was born in North Nashville on Dec. 1, 1963, to a teacher and a nurse. His family eventually moved to Detroit, but always spent summers here. After graduation he accepted the call to become one of “The Few. The Proud.

The Marines.” Upon his honorable discharge,

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DR. JAMES SNELL Physician, leader, husband Other than the time he spent completing a fellowship in clinical pulmonary disease at New York Hospital, Dr. James Snell — known to many as Jim — was a Vanderbilt lifer. He obtained his medical degree from Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in 1958, and in 1963 he joined the Vanderbilt faculty as an instructor of medicine. Dr. Snell was VUMC’s first fellowship-trained pulmonary medicine specialist, was the first physician in Tennessee to perform a flexible bronchoscopy and directed pulmonary medicine from 1969 to 1973.

Throughout his career, Dr. Snell participated on 37 medical center and university committees, including the Vanderbilt Hospital Medical Board. Dr. Robert Miller — the Patricia and Rodes Hart Professor of Medicine, who also trained in pulmonary medicine at VUMC — says “Vanderbilt pulmonary medicine was built on the shoulders of Jim Snell.” So was Vanderbilt’s medical intensive care unit, which Dr. Snell established in 1972. He served 10 years as its medical director.

Jim Snell’s request for a natural burial was honored at Larkspur Conservation on July 8.

In September, his wife of 65 years, Catherine Cheatham Snell, was naturally interred beside him. —KAY WEST

ENRIQUE PUPOWALKER

JOHN ‘COWBOY’ BRAZELTON III Friend, servant, community member Despite his diminutive frame, John Brazelton cut a swashbuckling figure — particularly when the wind caught the dramatic black duster he wore when he stood for hours in the cold outside the Campus for Human Development building during Room In The Inn’s Winter Shelter program. There he greeted vans as they arrived, helped guests board for their destination and carried out heavy stacks of blankets and sheets.

Under the hat that earned him the nickname “Cowboy,” his chiseled face was weathered by the years he spent on the street, but his lightblue eyes sparkled and shone, clear and free from the addictions that once imprisoned him.

His smile was sweet, his voice deep and gentle, and his love for his neighbors in the campus apartments was boundless, as it also was for the staff, volunteers and youth group from Brentwood United Methodist Church.

After successfully completing a 30-day outpatient sobriety program, Brazelton came to RITI through the two-year Veterans Program in 2008. In 2010, alongside city officials and major donors, he helped cut the ribbon for the building where he would live in the Apartment Community — eager to open the door for those seeking room in the inn. —KAY WEST

Author, painter, father

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JACKSON WHITSETT PHOTO: HEATHER SCUDDER

My father, Enrique Pupo-Walker, was a man from another time. He grew up in Holguin, Cuba, and left in 1957 after graduating from the Universidad de la Habana. He put down roots in Nashville several years later, eager to study literature and become a scholar. Indeed, he became a widely respected academic, appointed Centennial Professor of Spanish Literature at Vanderbilt University and publishing six books and an important threevolume history of Latin American literature.

But he was perhaps better known in Nashville

Dancer, friend, remarkable light

“A person like Jackson never leaves your heart once they dance into it,” says Nashville poet and DJ Maggie Wells of her friend Jackson Whitsett, who died in January at age 27.

Jackson lived in many different locales during his short life — New Jersey, Virginia, Atlanta.

But the dancer and choreographer spent much of his 20s in Nashville, where he held a number

of jobs and, more notably, won over countless friends with his outsized personality and remarkable abilities as a dancer. Jackson was, in a word, flirtatious — the sort of person who never met a stranger, and won over any room he was in with his humor, his charm, his fabulous fashion sense, his powerfully energetic dancing, his boisterous laugh and his earnest love and concern for others.

At a memorial held at Rosemary & Beauty Queen not long after Jackson’s death, family members read a remembrance from a lifelong friend, journalist Celeste Lavin. “Jackson had a light about him,” read Lavin’s words in part. “He brought people into the light with him.” Indeed, that evening’s large and diverse gathering — which included a spirited, celebratory second-line band — showed just what a lasting impact Jackson had on Nashville. Members of Nashville’s DJ scene, members of the local LGBTQ community, dancers, singers, service industry workers, everyday folks: Jackson brought them all into his light.

“I called him The Remedy,” remembers Maggie Wells. “Because no matter what was wrong with me, the day, the party, the world, the vibe — it was cured when he arrived.”

—D. PATRICK RODGERS

RALPH PATTILLO CADENHEAD Interior designer, friend, Southern gentleman For close to 30 years, I had the privilege of calling Ralph Pattillo Cadenhead my dear friend. An Alabama native, Ralph was the epitome of a Southern gentleman — kind, refined and unforgettable.

Ralph’s soulful artistry in interior design adorned countless homes across Nashville and beyond. Through his creative process, he touched the lives of those dwelling within each residence. Ralph’s professional mastery was matched by his benevolent heart. The juxtaposition of high-end design and deep empathy for creatures of all kinds was Ralph’s hallmark. He poured himself into service projects, from co-chairing the Artrageous fundraiser for nonprofit Nashville CARES to decorating designer showhouse rooms for the Junior League of Nashville. Ralph’s whole life was anchored by compassion and creativity.

As we remember Ralph, we reflect on a life marked by an unwavering commitment to enhancing the world through stunning design and simple kindness. Ralph’s name will forever be synonymous with the grace and goodness he brought to every space — and every heart — he encountered. His beautiful, practical designs and his exuberant, warm heart made Ralph utterly irreplaceable, both in talent and impact.

A true Southern spirit, Ralph Cadenhead leaves a legacy that is as timeless and treasured as the homes he adorned. —JOHN DYKE

LEAH MARIE STEPHENS PHOTO: STEVE CROSS

as an accomplished painter who was featured regularly in art shows. His work now hangs in homes across the city. His humility, intellect, generous spirit and sense of humor earned him much affection. An elegant man, he always wore cologne, carried pressed handkerchiefs, and used nice briefcases and stationery. He never learned to type or use a smartphone, but he was incredibly connected to the world around him. He wrote letters, invited friends for tea or a copa, painted landscapes and images of the sea, traveled widely, listened to jazz and boleros, grew roses, and was devoted to the Atlanta Braves and Vandy boys.

I’ll miss our walks on the beach, long talks and many laughs. He was a generous and devoted father and friend, always ready to listen and encourage, offering a comforting abrazo or a celebratory toast. Three cheers for a life well lived. —GINI PUPO-WALKER

PHOTO: RITI

Terry moved back to Nashville, started a family of his own and became the electrician tech lead for MNPS. He took pride in this role, overseeing all Metro schools event setups across the city, highlighting the hard work of students and teachers. Graduation season, though exhausting for him, was his favorite. He made it his mission to ensure every student, educator and family had fond memories to look back on.

Terry commanded respect, though he never demanded it. In a group chat with his family labeled “SixHams,” he often mixed jokes with words of wisdom. With his cousins, co-workers and other close friends, he helped establish and maintain traditions that kept everyone connected and reminded them that they were loved. —CHRISTIANE BUGGS

Lab manager, friend, creative force

Leah Marie Stephens (née Sawyer) was born and raised in Montgomery, Ala., and moved to Nashville in 2013 after earning her master’s degree in microscopy at the University of Sydney in Australia. Professionally, she spent almost a decade as lab manager and microscopist at the Lee Lab at Vanderbilt University, where she worked on live cell imaging and developed protocols for growing organoids and induced pluripotent stem cells. Her research on cell signaling produced important insights into human development, with implications for the treatment of human diseases, including cancer. According to her coworkers, she always brought an element of fun into often stressful research situations, and was a fierce advocate for the students she worked with.

Leah never saw a distinction between science and art — to her, they were one and the same.

A creative force, she would often host artsand-crafts parties and workshops. She made beautiful, hand-crafted terrariums and always encouraged artistic creativity in everyone she knew, especially children. As a world traveler, she made friends easily, and kept them for life.

Loud, spontaneous and filled with wonderment, Leah never stopped learning and experiencing new things. She was never one to shy away from speaking her mind — I often joke among our friends that she would argue even when you agreed with her. Her smile and laugh were infectious, and she was always selfless and generous in her love for family and friends.

I befriended Leah not long after she came to Nashville, and we bonded over our deep love for music. A moment that stands out — and there were so many — was a Built to Spill concert we attended together in 2019. Built to Spill was one of her favorite bands of all time, and she danced in front of the stage and sang along with every word to every song, as if she were the only one spotlit in the crowd.

That was Leah, bright and beautiful, a gift to anyone lucky enough to know her. —KELLY BOLICK

JANE ANN BORAM Pastor, counselor, warrior for social justice As predictable as the sun rising in the east and dogs howling at the moon, wherever and whenever warriors for social justice gathered, Jane Boram could be found.

A graduate of Vanderbilt University Divinity School, pastor and mental health counselor, Boram volunteered for 30 years for Nashville CARES, serving as a buddy for terminal clients.

Retirement allowed her to turn her boundless energy toward other nonprofits and causes she cared deeply about, such as co-chairing Nashville Organized for Action and Hope; co-chairing the Criminal Justice Task Force; advocating for bail reform in General Sessions Court and creating compassionate responses

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to mentally ill people in crisis through Health Engagement and Liaison Services. In 2022, Boram’s story was among 100 collected for a Nashville Voices project, an initiative of the Nashville Public Library’s Votes for Women permanent exhibit in the downtown library building. —KAY WEST

DEBBIE BOOKER Principal, educator, community member The students and faculty of the Academy at Old Cockrill experienced a difficult loss this year when principal Debbie Booker died at age 58.

Booker had been with Metro Nashville Public Schools for 18 years, working as a teacher, an assistant principal and a principal at several schools throughout the district.

During a February school board meeting, Director of Schools Adrienne Battle acknowledged the loss by reading a resolution in Booker’s honor while her loved ones were in attendance. Battle shared that Booker was “an extremely dedicated and beloved educator whom we lost much too soon.” Her catchphrase was, “I love you and there’s nothing you can do about it.” —KELSEY BEYELER

ALICE MATTHEWS Educator, volunteer, philanthropist Alice Walker Casey Matthews, a descendant of the earliest settlers in Middle Tennessee, was born, raised and lived her entire life in Nashville.

She married Robert Matthews Jr. (known as Bobby) and had three children. The Matthews name, via The Matthews Company, has been emblazoned on restoration, development and construction projects for decades as Nashville has evolved from a big-small town to the explosive city it is today.

Alice Matthews was equally involved and influential in balancing preservation and growth of her beloved city’s treasures, and she devoted her life to service as an educator, volunteer and philanthropist. She taught at the Bill Wilkerson Hearing and Speech Center, with a particular focus on remedial reading.

Her memberships in Nashville organizations included Centennial Club, Cheekwood Estate & Gardens, Leadership Nashville, the Junior League of Nashville, the Planning Commission of the City of Belle Meade and historic Travellers Rest. She chaired the Swan Ball and Trees of Christmas for Cheekwood, and the Iroquois Steeplechase for Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.

Her greatest passion was gardening and landscaping. She served as president of the Garden Club of America in New York, educating gardeners around the country about conservation and beautifying their communities. —KAY WEST

BILL BROWN Poet, teacher, mentor In the fall of 1983, a few intrepid educators cleaned up a crumbling citadel in downtown Nashville and launched

the city’s first academic magnet school. Among them was Bill Brown, a beloved English teacher who’d also become an accomplished poet — in part because, as he told Chapter 16 in 2010, “it felt dishonest not to write with my students.”

For the next 19 years, Brown led Hume-Fogg’s groundbreaking writing program, transforming teenagers into virtuoso poets and essayists and creating a community of writers. I landed in his freshman English class in year two. His terrifying assignments included 25-page journals for Brave New World and 1984. Somehow, whatever he asked, we did; and filling those blank pages conditioned us to blow past blocks and build stamina. To inspire us, he led epic excursions — filled with music and the occasional skunk — to Radnor Lake, Twin Arches and Roan Mountain, encouraging us to translate what we observed and felt in nature into poetry.

His greatest gift to us was believing we had something worthwhile to say. “He deeply listened to my poems with his whole body: closing his eyes and pulling his ears forward,” says Tiana Clark, acclaimed poet and professor, who attended Hume-Fogg from 2000 to 2002.

After retiring in 2003, Brown, always prolific, wrote, performed, lectured and led workshops for the rest of his life. His poems often drew on his West Tennessee roots. In one from his 2018 collection, The Cairns: New and Selected Poems, he imagines his long-gone grandparents sitting on a park bench in heaven, longing for Tennessee: What they really miss is the smell of honeysuckle or the way woodland violets circle star trillium like a wedding quilt in spring.

—KIM GREEN

GERTRUDE CALDWELL Women’s advocate, traveler, matriarch Her obituary begins, “Gertrude Sharp Caldwell died quietly on Tuesday, April 25, 2023.” But in the decades that preceded her death, the Nashville native lived large. Educated in all the proper places — Robertson Academy, Ward Belmont/Harpeth Hall, Sweet Briar College and Vanderbilt University — Caldwell went on to explore distant corners of the world with her husband Dr. Ben Caldwell. But it was by her own determined will and ability to see unmet needs and dark holes in the social fabric that she made a profound and enduring impact, particularly for women in Nashville.

At a time when married mothers of her standing did not work outside the home, Caldwell was tireless in serving organizations and fighting for causes she believed in. One of her first accomplishments was as a founding board member of the Historic Sites Federation of Tennessee in 1968, later known as Historic Nashville, which ultimately prevented the planned destruction of Ryman Auditorium and Union Station, among others.

In 1970, she joined the board of the YWCA, devoting herself to addressing the issue of domestic violence long before it was widely acknowledged as pervasive and deadly.

She helped the YWCA open Nashville’s first

MEMBERS OF THE UNHOUSED COMMUNITY

BY HANNAH HERNER IT TOOK AROUND eight minutes to read all of the names of people who died in 2023 during the city’s annual homeless memorial. Each one of the 182 people died having experienced homelessness in Nashville at one point in their lives. The number is always high — it was 191 in 2021 and 176 in 2022.

Year after year, when it comes to homeless deaths, the same themes emerge. People die younger when they’ve been homeless. This year, the average age was 50.7, and the median age was 52. The youngest was 19, and the oldest was 76. They’re ill and don’t have adequate access to health care, or the transportation to get to care, or the ability to take care of their bodies in general. They don’t usually have a safe place to heal. Folks often die shortly after moving into permanent housing.

They were people you knowingly or unknowingly passed by at least once. There’s some mystery in the stories of the people lost, but solutions to lengthen their lives are pretty straightforward — affordable housing, expanded TennCare and enough income to survive.

These are the names of people who died this year having experienced homelessness in Nashville: Kristen Abrams, Lawrence Adams, Christopher Alford, Landon Alley, Marilyn Avery, Phillip Bailey, Kristine Barbee, Courtney Barnes, Harold Bass, Jamie Biggs, Anthony Blake, Antonio Booker, William Booker Jr., Jeannine Botts, John Brazelton, Richard Broome, Walter Brown, William Alfonso Brown, Johnny Ray Bunch, Jeffery Allen Capps, Aaron Carpenter, Gregory Carter, Misty Caudill, Roy Cherry, Tonya Church, Marquis D. Churchwell, Andre “Old School” Clow, Bruce Coco, Robert Coffee, Otha Collins, David Cook, Jeremy Culbertson, James Depung, Conni Dickerson, Roger Dile, Mark Dodd, Ricky Donnell, Michael Duke II, Jasmine Dukes, Thomas Edward, Anthony Thomas Edwards, Tony England, James Espie, Margaret Evans, Robert “Wayne” Fathera, Chris Few, Saundra Fisk, Edward Charles, Foley Marlesse, Frank Leon Freeman, Denyce “Gypsy” Gagnon, Joey Gann, Justin Goodrich, Ronald Graves, Christopher Lee Grubb, Sifeldin Hamad, Kevin Hamilton, David Hammond, Brian “Treetop” Hancock, Rayford Alton Harvey, Letha Hayes, Daniel Hicks, Charles Hodge, Lawrence Holly, Latarsha Howard, Bronson Hunter, Pamela Hurd, Timothy Wayne, Hutcherson Jeffery, Walker Irons, Christopher Robert James, Fred Jarvis, Whitney Jeffries, Dedja Dannielle Jenkins, Bobby Jennings, Antonio Jordan, Joy Kabelu, Julia Kaylor, Johnny Keith, David A. Kelley, Kenneth Kelly, Charlie Keys, Francise Kimbrough, Michael Allen Kinslow, Garry Klucas, Tangela Knox, David C. Kramnic, Loren Lange, Tomekia LaQuan Clark, Charles Eddie Lawson, Ricky Lewis, Gary M. Lucus, Ellen Luna, William Luster, Robert “Cowboy” Lynch, Maurice “Wild Bill” Marce, Kenneth Mathis, Sarah McAllister, Mark McCormick, Brian Lee McInnis Wilson, James McQuiston, Juan Mena, Danny T. Merrell, Jody Minor (aka Joe D. Vernon), Thomas Mitchell, Kenneth Moore, Thomas Moore III, John Moran, Richard Moss, Jennifer Motil, Donald Murphy, Marece Nebil, Donnell Norford, Marvin Nunes-Nunes, Andrew Matthew Nuzzo, Mary “Strawberry” Oldham, Jacob Leroy Olivarez, Lonnie Orr, Jeffrey Wayne Padgett, Andre Palenzuela, Donna Pardue, John Wilson (Country) Patterson, Ronald Eugene Peach, Christopher Perrin, Bronson Pharr, James H Pinkard, Carol “June” Potts, Jeffery Ranstad, Julia Ray, Adam Reynolds, Kathleen Reynolds, Tina Rusak, Ray Sanders, Leonard Sanford, Barry Sargel, Tamara Savickas, Christopher Bryan Scott, Juan Sis, Blackie James “Jim” Skinner, Torrance Sledge, Christopher Smalley, Walter Smith, Michael T. Smith, Tara Smith, Justin Lee Smith, Rodney Terdelle Speed, Ponce DeLeon Spight, Richard Starnes, Donald Lee Stennis, Benjamin (Joker) Sterling, Tommy Stevens, Anthony Sweatt, Billy G. Tabb, Johnnie Taylor, Michelle Tayse, Ronald E. Thomas, Ruth Thomas, Tommy L. Thompson, Kyle Thornton, Sammy Threet, William Thrift, Michael “Patrick” Timbes, Michael Kevin Tinch, William Todd, Kapriel Trauernicht, Tyler Tripp, Martha Turner, Stephanie Vaughn, Virginia Wair, Jonathan Brent Walden, Megal Wallace, Kenneth Ward, Jerry Washington, Mark Weatherford, Richard “RC” Weller, Danny White, Daryl Whitfield Sr., Anthony Wilson, Adam Woods, Carmeka R. Worthington, Herod Wright, Sedrick Yarbrough, Mark York.

NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 4 – JANUARY 10, 2024 • nashvillescene.com

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domestic violence shelter and was instrumental in creating programming for newly divorced women and at-risk girls. In recognition of her leadership, the YWCA Nashville established the Gertrude Caldwell Legacy Society, ensuring her vision will continue. —KAY WEST

person,” said Battle. “She was a true leader who only wanted the best for our youngest students and their families.” —KELSEY BEYELER

EUGENIA DOUGLASS McFARLAND MOORE

When Betty Lillias Round Viehmann glided into a room, people tended to stand up straighter, resisting an uncanny urge to bow or curtsy. Her regal posture and queenly presence came naturally to the refined beauty. She was born in Grantham, Lincolnshire, England, and her blue-blood pedigree went back generations, with titles both royal and sport, including Wimbledon champion. Educated in England and France, she studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London and was presented at the Lord Mayor’s Ball in England.

She met her future husband, Fred Viehmann, when her family hosted the young soldier for the holidays as World War II was ending. They married in 1947, lived in England for some time, then relocated to Germany before coming to the United States. A true woman of the world, she was fluent in several languages and a citizen of three different countries — each of her three children was born under a different flag.

Professionally trained as a performer, Lillias brought her talents to the stages of the Nashville Children’s Theatre and Circle Theater, among others, and her volunteer spirit to the Nashville Symphony, Cheekwood and elsewhere.

At her service, a framed photograph of Lillias — serenely confident and supremely elegant — was captioned by her family: “Our Forever English Queen.” —KAY WEST

Community leader, activist Born Dec. 14, 1931, Eugenia Douglass Moore (née McFarland) studied at Rhodes College and the Juilliard School, where she was a bel canto opera singer, before receiving a graduate degree at Vanderbilt University.

She was a passionate civil rights activist and reformer for social justice and human rights. She is survived by her children, Benjamin Porteous Moore IV, Stuart McFarland Moore and Faith Douglass Moore, as well as nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. —LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

LACY PAIGE MAGEE Friend, daughter, athlete, student, Southern girl Lacy Magee came into every situation smile first, eyes wide, mind curious and heart open.

Born in Nashville in 1989, she made her social debut at Percy Priest Elementary School, and began building a circle of friends who embraced and delighted in her presence wherever she landed. Blessed with beauty and grace, tall and lithe, Lacy ran like the wind and soared to impossible heights, setting track-and-field records competing for Harpeth Hall and being named an all-state volleyball player at Hillsboro High School.

Lacy sparkled at every endeavor that caught her interest — art, athletics, fashion, music, theater, hospitality and event planning.

Radiating positivity, after college in Seattle she was ultimately drawn to sunny California and plunged fearlessly into its endless possibilities.

The news of her sudden death on a visit home to Nashville prompted dozens of anguished posts on social media, accompanied by photographs bursting with her joie de vivre.

Remembered by family and friends as kind and compassionate, brave and bold, fierce and free-spirited, lovely, loving and loved, Lacy frequently described herself with her own guileless tagline: just a Southern girl living in a Hollywood world. —KAY WEST

PHYLLIS PHILLIPS Educator, administrator, ‘world-class person’ Phyllis Phillips spent most of her life working in the Metro Nashville Public Schools system.

Having completed her primary and secondary education in MNPS schools and receiving higher education at local universities, Phillips returned to the district, where she spent her career.

Phillips started as a teacher and later became a reading specialist before transitioning to an administrative role. When she died, she was serving as MNPS’ director of pre-K programming. Director of Schools Adrienne Battle honored Phillips during a November board meeting. “Phillips was a top-notch employee, and more importantly, a world-class

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LILLIAS VIEHMANN Socialite, performer, volunteer, woman of the world

SUZANNE CHARLOTTE LAFOND Entrepreneur, DJ, grandmother, author, trailblazer Suzanne Charlotte Lafond died in February at age 91, a “trailblazer in a family of trailblazers” according to her family’s obituary. Natives of Montreal, she and her brother Pierre were the first in the family to learn English and immigrate to the United States.

Lafond met Nashvillian Kermit C. Stengel Jr. in her hometown. They married in 1954 and raised three sons together — Mark, Christian and Eric. Her three sons had only granddaughters, seven of them in total. She was the founder of Nashville’s Dress for Success chapter and served as director from 1998 to 2008. She also founded the athleisure line Tennis Fashions by Suzanne locally in 1969.

You might notice a big gap in that résumé.

After her divorce from Stengel in 1981, Lafond embarked on a second life of sorts. She worked as a radio DJ in Santa Barbara, Calif., and a production assistant for Julia Child as part of the TV series Dinner at Julia’s. She also served as a French-language interpreter and organizing committee member for the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, and got involved as a voice, film and video actor in radio and television commercials, documentaries and corporate productions.

In 1997, Suzanne was selected “The World’s Greatest Granny” by the Washington State Granny Smith Apple Growers Association.

She was called “Mamie” or “Grand-Mere” by her grandchildren, and in 2013, Lafond published a 364-page memoir called Peach Cobbler Stories. In her book, she referenced her Catholic faith and the importance of the virtue of charity — toward God, oneself and one’s neighbor. “It is a lifelong practice we must never give up,” she wrote. —HANNAH HERNER

MELVIN SCATES Care coordinator, community member, helper Melvin Scates had one of those faces in which, no matter his age, you could always see the little boy. That face — which carried hurt and hope, disappointment and delight, loss and love — was the face that greeted first-timers to the Guest House, Room In The Inn’s alternative to jail for people picked up by the police for public intoxication, and a respite for the medically fragile.

Scates understood their fear and anger because he had been there himself. He spent decades on the streets when he wasn’t in jail and was a frequent and often combative visitor to the original Room In The Inn property. But for many years, he refused founder Charlie Strobel’s invitation to shelter. One day — for reasons known only to Melvin — he committed to turning his life around. He got sober, earned his GED, completed his deacon training, was ordained in his church, got married and reconciled with his son. He also came to work at Room In The Inn, serving for 19 years as care coordinator at the Guest House. Melvin lived deeply one of Strobel’s adages about a mission of RITI: “We walk one another through pain.”

When Melvin died in March, staff shared advice he often gave those who came to the Guest House: “When somebody puts their hand out to help, grab it.” —KAY WEST

DEC. 9 TORNADO VICTIMS Three residents of a mobile home community in Madison The destructive storms that touched down in Tennessee in December left wreckage from Clarksville to Hendersonville — and left three dead in a Madison mobile home community on Nesbitt Drive. The victims were Joseph Dalton (37), Floridema Gabriel Perez (31) and Perez’s son Anthony Elmer Mendez (2).

GoFundMe pages are set up for the surviving members of the Dalton and Mendez families.

The Mendez family plans to repatriate Floridema and Anthony to their home country of Guatemala for funeral arrangements.

—ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

2023 HOMICIDE VICTIMS

BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ THE FOLLOWING is a list of Nashville homicide victims in 2023 as of Dec. 19. The list includes Belmont University student Jillian Ludwig, a music business major remembered for her love of music, and Demon Floyd, an East Nashville Magnet High School basketball player who earned a scholarship to Tennessee Tech. The list does not include victims of the Covenant shooting, who are remembered on the following page.

Daniel Bonner, 22; Irene Bond, 45; Demarcus Mallory, 42; Eric Baker, 19; Lubunga Lumenge, 30; Rodney Speed, 19; Alexander Delgado, 16; Taurus Oglesby, 18; Timothy Fetter, 48; Olabode Enitan, 30; Fredrick Sparks, 32; Michael Adams, 19; Cordarion Hall, 14; Xavier Taylor, 22; Jamal Moore, 30; Irene Torres, 24; Jonathan Seda, 23; Chancellor Eddins, 35; Tabitha Oglesby, 38; Linda Williams, 61; Keviana Perry, 28; Terrese Patterson, 47; Thomas Mitchell, 51; Eric Contreras, 19; Verleria Bridges, 37; Dejuan Gadsden, 20; Mitchell Steele Jr., 29; Juan Marquez, 35; Marques Douglas, 34; Keylando Powers, 20; David Bickham, 27; Tarrell Grant, 26; Dequan Howse, 33; Gerges Youssef, 46; Sedrick Yarbrough, 43; Deshawn Talley, 21; Letha Hayes, 53; Rodrigo Ernesto Aguilar, 60; Taliyah Frazier, 4; Demon Floyd Jr., 18; Demetrius Johnson, 16; Majok Chol, 24; Eric Whigham, 26; Fredy Adelso Batz Che, 29; Angel Rodrigez Troche, 23; Etabo Malanda, 16; Christopher Harris, 27; Thomas Roberts, 68; Genesis Garcia, 21; Latoria Mitchell, 27; Williams Langston Jr., 57; Luis Arita-Vasquez, 18; Yoel Lopez, 21; Marquis Churchwell, 32; Eric Reed, 29; Jose Rivera-Garcia, 35; Diego MorenteChiroy, 16; Israel Teniente, 17; Paul Reed, 17; Lawrence Edwards, 54; Diandre Starks, 24; Keonta Brown, 20; Corey Bryant, 40; Brooke Howard, 41; Hykame Knowles, 27; Danielle Yarlett, 27; Kyle Martin Jr., 22; Kelvin Stowers Jr., 26; Elmer Nahum Miranda-Martinez, 37; Brandon RivasNoriega, 26; Alejandro Chama-Tum, 48; Jesus Daniel Martinez Garcia, 17; Shalena McCall, 21; Charles Smith, 66; Terran Frazier, 44; Patrick Panella, 42; Keiahtee Terrell, 29; Patrick Clark, 45; Lorenzo Perry, 55; Behrouz Rezai Dashti, 46; Joshua Westmoreland, 40; Jillian Ludwig, 18; Bruce Woodland, 60; Marisa Henegar-Castillo, 45; Joshua White, 34; Josue Riscart Chirino, 36; Anthoney Barksdale, 19; Stephen Rouse III, 26; Bryan Thompson, 34; Jesus Manuel Sigala, 57; Dominique Bonds, 34.

NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 4 – JANUARY 10, 2024 • nashvillescene.com

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PHOTO: HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS

MEMORIAL FOR COVENANT SCHOOL SHOOTING VICTIMS

COVENANT SCHOOL SHOOTING VICTIMS Three students and three staff at the Green Hills school Katherine Koonce (60) was the head of the Covenant School and is believed to

January in...

BY THE BOTTLE WINE POP-UP

1/13 SATURDAY

CLUB NITTY GRITTY

1/20 SATURDAY

COMEDY NIGHT hosted by CORTNEY WARNER

1/27 SATURDAY

1/26

MOLLY MARTIN & GLOOM GIRL MFG with THE SEWING CLUB

FRIDAY

INEBRIATED SHAKESPEARE

FRIDAY

PARKER MILLSAP & ROBERT ELLIS

1/25 THURSDAY

1/19

with WNXP

1/18 THURSDAY

A SOUND THAT CAN’T BE MISSED DANCE PARTY

TRIVIA NIGHT

BANNED BOOK HAPPY HOUR

JACK KAYS

FRIDAY

LISP:

with CHIKAH

1/6 SATURDAY

with THE BERLINETTAS

1/12

DISCOVERY NITE

1/11 THURSDAY

TO-GO PRESENTS

DANCE PARTY

FRIDAY

BOSSA NOVA BAND

GARAGE ROCK

1/5

JOSH HALPER’S

1/4 THURSDAY

have directly confronted the shooter there in March. She had dedicated her career to teaching at area private Christian schools. “Katherine was devoted to her family, her friends, and especially the children she cared for,” wrote Koonce’s family in a statement. “She gave her life to protect the students she loved. We are devastated by our loss but depending on our God for comfort and healing. It is our privilege to honor Katherine’s legacy and to celebrate her remarkable spirit. We are grateful for the prayers of many on our behalf, and we pray for the families of the six others who died.”

Hallie Scruggs (9) was the daughter of the lead pastor of the Covenant Presbyterian Church and one of four children, the only girl. “We are heartbroken,” Chad Scruggs told ABC News in a statement. “Through tears we trust that she is in the arms of Jesus who will raise her to life once again.”

Evelyn Dieckhaus (9) was a classmate of Hallie’s who loved to play with dolls and hoped to be an occupational therapist like her mother when she grew up.

“Our hearts are completely broken,” the Dieckhaus family told ABC News. “We cannot believe this has happened. Evelyn was a shining light in this world.”

William Kinney (9) was celebrated by his baseball teammates at Crieve Hall Baseball Park.

Mike Hill (61) was a custodian at the school for more than a decade. His family released a statement saying he loved to cook and spend time with family. He had seven children and 14 grandchildren. “We pray for the Covenant School and are so grateful that Michael was beloved by the faculty and students who filled him with joy for 14 years,” the statement reads.

Cynthia Peak (61) was a substitute teacher at the school. According to Gov. Bill Lee, the Louisiana native and mother of three was also a close friend of Tennessee first lady Maria Lee. “Cindy was a pillar of the community, and a teacher beloved by all her students,” her family told ABC News. “Her favorite roles in life were being a mom to her three children, a wife to her husband, and an educator to students.” —HANNAH HERNER ▼

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Living Well

fresh perspec tives to live your best life in 2024

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be(Theour guest disney dj night)

1/6 motion ctty soundtrack w/ Gully Boys

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hair ball

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1/7 welcome to the nu-year 2 (a tribute to Limp Bizkit, Deftones & KoRn)

Nashville Scene reaches more than 375,000 active consumers who desire to live their best life.

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Upcoming shows jan 5 be our guest: the disney dj night jan 6 motion city soundtrack w/ gully boys jan 7 welcome to the nu-year: Nu metal tribute jan 11 allison russell sold out! jan 12 allison russell sold out! jan 13 hair ball w/ Boy Howdy, DJ Manrelic, Vidalia Anne Gentry, Cya Inhale

feb 8 feb 9 feb 10 feb 15 feb 17 feb 18 feb 19 feb 20 feb 21

jan 14 nashville comedy show ft. Matt Taylor, Rhonda Sweat, Brent Blakeney, Brandon Jarrell, Corey Perry, Corey Knox, & Will Abeles feb 22 jan 17 mickey darling w/ Nick Wagen feb 23 jan 18 anees feb 24 jan 19 dylan leblanc feb 25 jan 20 the emo night tour feb 26 jan 23 Grunge night 10 feb 29 jan 24 the record company w/ Jesse ahern mar 1 jan 27 town mountain w/ Logan Halstead mar 2 jan 30 YEP Rewind: 90s Country mar 4 feb 2 LUTHI, Travollta & Boogie+ mar 5 feb 4 holding absence w/ Casey, Capstan & Acres mar 6 feb 5 squid w/ Water From Your Eyes feb 6 militarie gun w/ Pool Kids, Spiritual Cramp & Death Lens mar 10

oct

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joe derosa deap vally w/ sloppy jane Athena w/ Joe Pacheco jaime wyatt w/ joshua quimby code orange w/ teenage wrist & soul blind destin conrad w/ amaria ryan beatty sold out! juice w/ shallow alcove Meet Me @ The Altar w/ Honey Revenge, John Harvie & Elliot Lee

Bertha: Grateful Drag Silent Planet w/ Thornhill, Johnny Booth & Aviana marc broussard sold out! marc broussard blonde redhead lola kirke & the watson twins w/ kassi valazza Kolton Moore & The Clever Few Evan Honer w/ theo kandel eric bellinger w/ zae france chelsea wolfe w/ divide & dissolve flyana boss enjoy w/ cowgirl clue

1604 8th Ave S Nashville, TN 37203 | thebasementnashville.com thebasementnash thebasementnash thebasementnash

They’re educated, affluent, and are life-long learners.

They seek to learn new perspectives for living their best life and want to know about your offerings, especially when we embark on another year.

Great for integrated healthclinics, therapists, nutritionists,salons, aesthetic skin centers and practitioners, spas, energy healers, workout centers, yogis and more.

The Living Well section runs Jan 11, 18, and 25 with inclusion in 1 exclusive email to 100,000+ recipients and social media support.

82% of Scene readers exercise 2 or more times a week.

68% of Scene readers have a college education.

64% of Scene readers plan to have a cosmetic procedure in the next 12 months.

42% participate in yoga, Pilates, and barre classes each month 51% are interested in integrative health opportunities 71% participate in meditation or some form of therapy.

For more information contact your account executive or Michael Jezewski at mjezewski@fwpublishing.com

M I ND F UL NA S H VILLE TH ERAPY & WELLNESS C ENTER

26

1/10

1/11

Sammy Arriaga Upcoming shows

shanny and the East Men, Grace Smiles, & Dry Campus

jan 4 there go i, john louis band jan 5 wynton existing w/ sour tooth jan 6 Blackwater Down jan 7 Gears w/ Toy Dinosaur and Mikey Dimelio jan 8 pindrop songwriter series jan 10 Of The Dell w/ the bumbs (7pm) jan 10 Sammy Arriaga (9pm) jan 11 40 year anni. of prince, purple rain tribute (7pm) Jan 11 Shanny & the East Men, Grace Smiles, Dry Campus (9pm) jan 13 tyler boone w/ the ohio weather band jan 15 Vibin' Psybin & The Sunlight Band jan 16 elle coves

jan 17 The Tumbleweeds w/ levon (7pm) jan 17 Tim Bruns, Thom Chapman, and Boy Orbison (9pm) jan 18 Corey Harper jan 19 Southghost w/ Natalie Duffy (7pm) jan 19 no control - a bad religion tribute (9pm) jan 20 Torres jan 21 Hothead Wave jan 22 Walker Burroughs w/ Luisa Marion jan 23 Mary Bragg jan 24 georgia webster (7pm) jan 24 Leah Belle Faser, Patty PerShayla & The Mayhaps, and Pump Action (9pm)

NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 4 – JANUARY 10, 2024 • nashvillescene.com

We offer therapy and counseling for individuals, couples and families, as well as yoga, meditation, sound healing, breathwork and more!

Our mission is to help you break free from the cycle of suffering and discover ease and joy in this present moment.

NO MAT TER WHAT MAY ARISE IN LIFE, IT IS P OSSIBLE TO FIND JOY AND PEACE.

Germantown & East Nashville 615-610-9835

mindfulnashville.com info@mindfulnashville.com

LIVING WELL 2024 | ADVERTORIAL

Living Well

fresh perspec tives to live your best life in 2024

80 ACRES FARMS

Mike Zelkind & Tisha Livingston An interview with 80 Acres Farms co-founders.

Mike Zelkind, CEO and co-founder, 80 Acres Farms Tisha Livingston, co-founder, 80 Acres Farms, and CEO, Infinite Acres (a wholly owned subsidiary of 80 Acres Farms) How would you describe 80 Acres Farms to someone who hadn’t heard of it before?

80 Acres Farms is a vertical farming company. We’re on a mission to change the way the world eats, using fewer resources.

What kind of products are you able to grow year-round?

Tisha: We can grow anything in our farms, and over the years, we’ve experimented with a lot, from peppers to potatoes to hops for local breweries. We’re still trying out different plants and plant varieties in our research farms, but right now, our commercial farms are growing greens, microgreens, herbs, and tomatoes. That’s what our customers are asking for—healthy, everyday ingredients that go from farm to store in days, not weeks, so they taste better, last longer, and less wasteful.

Tell me more about vertical farming and how it’s good for the planet: Mike: Before we founded 80 Acres Farms, Tisha and I worked for big food companies. In our last job together, we ran a vegetable canning company in Arkansas, which meant working directly with farmers and learning more about the supply chains that take produce thousands of miles from farm to table.

When you ship lettuce 2,000 miles from California to Nashville, you lose flavor, texture, and nutrition. And outsourcing the produce section to places like California isn’t a long-term solution, as the population grows and climate change interrupts traditional growing cycles.

We knew there had to be a better way. Our farms grow fresh, local food year-round, using 95% less water per pound of produce and shipping from farm to retailer in 48 hours or less. We don’t use pesticides, herbicides, or any other nasty chemicals. Our farms are so clean that we don’t have to wash our produce and you don’t, either, saving more water and saving you time and effort. And we grow using renewable energy, offsetting the environmental impact of growing indoors.

Where can I find 80 Acres Farms products in Nashville?

Currently, you can find 80 Acres Farms retail products at Nashville Kroger, all three Turnip Truck locations, and The Fresh Market in Brentwood. We also partner with restaurants around Nashville, including Butcher & Bee and Herban Market.

What kind of 80 Acres Farms products are available in Nashville?

You can find 80 Acres Farms branded salad blends, microgreens, basil, and newly launched salad kits in Nashville retailers.

We’ve just made eating healthier even more convenient with our new product line of salad kits— a quick meal solution made from clean, high-quality ingredients that are as delicious as they are healthy. It’s just so easy to grab one for lunch and have a wholesome, filling meal all in one pack!

If I buy an 80 Acres Farms product in Nashville, where was it grown?

Right now, we’re growing in three farms in southern Ohio and another in Kentucky, which is helping us reach Nashville. As we grow, we’ll keep building out our network of farms—starting with our next opening, in Georgia in 2024.

As this is our Living Well issue, how does 80 Acres Farms products help Scene readers live well in the new year?

We make eating well easy.

First of all, fresh produce tastes better, so you can actually look forward to eating it, rather than settling for something that’s just “good for you.” Because we go from farm to store in just a couple of days, our food stays fresh and crisp longer, cutting down on food waste and making meal planning easier. And because our produce is always in season, that salad kit you buy in the depths of winter will taste just as good as it does at the height of summer.

We think this is the freshest, tastiest produce that’s ever landed on supermarket shelves, and our customers agree.

LIVING WELL 2024 | ADVERTORIAL

2023/24 SEASON

NASHVILLE SYMPHONY COME HEAR EXTRAORDINARY JAN 11 TO 13 | 7:30 PM FirstBank Pops Series

JAN 18 & 19 | 7:30 PM

JAN 20 | 7:30 PM & JAN 21 | 2 PM HCA Healthcare and Tristar Health Legends of Music

PIRATES OF GREAT GERSHWIN! THE CARIBBEAN: Nashville Symphony Byron Stripling, conductor Tony DeSare, piano

DEAD MAN’S CHEST IN CONCERT Nashville Symphony Jonathan Rush, conductor

KRISTIN CHENOWETH Nashville Symphony Rob Berman, conductor

COMING SOON TO THE SCHERMERHORN JAN 26 | 7:30 PM Special Event

VIDEO GAMES LIVE with the Nashville Symphony

FEB 2 & 3 | 7:30 PM Classical Series

CLYNE, MOZART, AND PROKOFIEV with the Nashville Symphony

FEB 7 | 7:30 PM Special Event

LUNAR NEW YEAR with the Nashville Symphony

FEB 8 TO 10 | 7:30 PM FirstBank Pops Series

PATTI LABELLE with the Nashville Symphony

FEB 14 | 7:30 PM Special Event

FEB 25 | 7:30 PM Presentation

ROMANCE AT THE SYMPHONY: CINEMA’S ICONIC LOVE THEMES with the Nashville Symphony

LADYSMITH BLACK MAMBAZO Presented without the Nashville Symphony.

MAR 1 | 7:30 PM Jazz Series

FEB 22 TO 24 | 7:30 PM Classical Series

THE DUKE ELLINGTON ORCHESTRA

ELGAR’S ENIGMA with the Nashville Symphony

Presented without the Nashville Symphony.

The Lawrence S. Levine Memorial Concert

THANK YOU TO OUR CONCERT PARTNERS

The Ann & Monroe Carell Family Trust MOVIE SERIES PARTNER

FAMILY SERIES PARTNER

POPS SERIES PARTNER

BUY TICKETS: 615.687.6400

Giancarlo Guerrero, music director

NashvilleSymphony.org/Tickets

MUSIC LEGENDS PARTNER

WITH SUPPORT FROM

CRITICS’ PICKS: WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF THINGS TO DO Visit calendar.nashvillescene.com for more event listings

SASHA COOKE

PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION

It’s often said that great art comes from great pain. This weekend, the Nashville Symphony’s own Giancarlo Guerrero has put together a rather remarkable concert featuring “art borne from grief.” The program opens with Maurice Ravel’s lovely suite of waltzes, Valses Nobles et Sentimentales. Then mezzo-soprano Sasha Cooke joins the symphony to perform John Corigliano’s poignant song cycle One Sweet Morning, which was written to mark the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. (As an added bonus, this performance will be recorded for future commercial release.) And finally, audiences can look forward to experiencing Modest Mussorgsky’s stirring Pictures at an Exhibition. Composed as a memorial to Mussorgsky’s dear friend — the Russian artist Viktor Hartmann, who died suddenly at just 39 — Pictures was originally created as a 10-movement piano suite, with each number inspired by one of Hartmann’s works. It’s a beautiful tribute to the power of friendship and music. You can learn more about the program by checking out “Classical Conversations,” presented one hour before the concert in the Balcony Lobby. AMY STUMPFL JAN. 5-7 AT THE SCHERMERHORN 1 SYMPHONY PLACE

SHREK RAVE & BE OUR GUEST: THE DISNEY DJ NIGHT PAGE 30

MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK PAGE 30

THE HERCULEONS PAGE 32

[MOTHER MAY I]

MIDNIGHT MOVIES: SERIAL MOM

It appears that sinister suburbia is the theme for this weekend’s Belcourt Midnight Movies twofer. Things kick off with Serial Mom, John Waters’ killer cult comedy (and one of my mom’s favorite films — she had it on VHS!) from 30 years ago. Honestly, you could’ve put nearly any Waters film in this slot. The famed Baltimore provocateur’s filmography is littered with transgressive flicks about all the sick shit that secretly goes on in middle-class neighborhoods.

This one is the most conventional and commercial of them all, even though it stars ’80s siren Kathleen Turner as a happy homemaker who goes on a murderous rampage. Serial Mom was released during that era in the early ’90s when tabloid culture and true-crime scandals were on the rise (the movie dropped just two months before a certain football player was charged with murdering his ex-wife), and perhaps the most shocking thing about this satirical piece of homicidal hilarity is how eerily prescient it was. Look out for the late Suzanne

Somers in a cameo as herself, preparing to play Turner’s character in a TV movie. CRAIG D. LINDSEY MIDNIGHT AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.

MUSIC

MUSIC

[MUSIC FROM THE HEART]

FILM

FRIDAY / 1.5

FRIDAY, JAN. 5

[SHARP-DRESSED MAN]

BILLY GIBBONS

Billy Gibbons — the cool-as-a-cucumber singer and guitarist in longtime rock ’n’ roll trio ZZ Top — brings his solo show to City Winery for two nights of sharp-dressed (*nudge nudge*) surprises. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer takes hold of the venue for a jam backed by an “allstar band and very special guests.” The list of guests remains under wraps, but with Gibbons calling the shots, it’s likely to be a who’s-who.

Let’s look at a few times he popped up in Nashville last year, for example: In May, Gibbons jammed onstage at Brooklyn Bowl with Elvis Costello during a charity gig; and in September, he earned the annual BMI Troubadour Award at a ceremony that included tributes from Keith Urban, Elle King, Christone “Kingfish” Ingram and Robert Earl Keen, among others. Safe to say, the guy knows how to pull a crowd. And this weekend, it could be anyone joining for renditions of “Gimme All Your Lovin’” or “La

NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 4 – JANUARY 10, 2024 • nashvillescene.com

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12/29/23 11:37 AM

SHREK RAVE & BE OUR GUEST: THE DISNEY DJ NIGHT

Whether they’re reselling Y2K fashions or planning emo mega-concerts like When We Were Young, companies and venues have realized that people who grew up in the 2000s now have money to spend. That seems to be the inspiration behind this pair of (unaffiliated) dance parties taking place Friday night: The Shrek Rave at Brooklyn Bowl and the Be Our Guest Disney DJ night at The Basement East.

The vibes at each event will be quite different.

The Shrek Rave is fueled by what Scene reporter Kelsey Beyeler once called a “weird, crude, dark yet utterly fascinating internet culture” and will likely draw a more off-kilter crowd — which makes sense, given that the original Shrek film lampoons many aspects of the clean-asa-whistle Disney animation juggernaut. (The tyrannical Lord Farquaad, for example, is quite possibly a send-up of then-Disney CEO Michael Eisner.) The Be Our Guest DJ night promises a more earnest night of genuine fans belting out their favorite songs from decades upon decades

[NICE GUY PUSHED TOO FAR]

MIDNIGHT MOVIES: THE ’BURBS

While Big became one of the big hits during the summer of ’88 — catapulting star Tom Hanks to A-list status — Hanks was at the Universal Studios backlot shooting the black comedy The ’Burbs, which came out the following year. Just like when he dropped freaky little monsters in a small town (during Christmas!) in Gremlins, director Joe Dante gives us another tale of macabre madness going down in a seemingly normal neighborhood.

Hanks is a vacationing family man (his wife is played by Carrie Fisher — lucky bastard!) who gets roped into investigating his creepy new next-door neighbors when other residents (including Bruce Dern’s cranky Vietnam vet, Rick Ducommun’s crow-killing moocher and Corey Feldman’s trolling teen) start getting suspicious. One of many sinister-suburbia flicks that were all the rage during the traditionalvalues-crazy Reagan era (Blue Velvet became this twisted genre’s North Star), this PG-rated entry was more schlocky and slapsticky in its mission of satirizing nosy-ass, self-centered, American Average Joes who fear their homeland is under attack. CRAIG D. LINDSEY MIDNIGHT AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE. [MUSIC TO YOUNG EARS]

JAZZ AM

The Nashville Jazz Workshop is ringing in the new year with a true family favorite: Jazz AM. Geared toward children ages 2 to 10 and their families, this free monthly series invites professional artists to engage with little ones,

THE ‘BURBS

30

MONSTER JAM encouraging creativity and building musical awareness through music, movement, puppets and more. This Saturday’s performance will showcase the music and legacy of Bessie Smith, with guest artist Brian “The Professor” Hull, who directed Wishing Chair Productions’ Puppet Theater at the Nashville Public Library for 25 years. Upcoming shows will feature the music of everyone from Miles Davis and Nina Simone to Dizzy Gillespie and Billie Holiday. And while you’re there, be sure to check out upcoming programs, master classes and concerts, including performances from the acclaimed blues artist Charles “Wigg” Walker (Jan. 11), along with Lori Mechem, Mandy Barnett and Andy Reiss (Jan. 18). Jazz AM takes place the first Saturday morning of every month. AMY STUMPFL 10 A.M. AT THE NASHVILLE JAZZ WORKSHOP 1012 BUCHANAN ST. [THE FUTURE STILL FREAKS ME OUT]

MOTION CITY SOUNDTRACK

It wasn’t long ago that Motion City Soundtrack ripped into the consciousness of angest-fueled teenagers (guilty!) with a collection of witty, self-deprecating and casually chaotic emo-rock songs (“L.G. Fuad” still hits, guys). Or at least it doesn’t feel like that long ago. But somehow, it’s been two decades since the band released its breakout debut album I Am the Movie, and you can celebrate this week in Nashville by dusting off your checkered Vans, sucking into a pair of skinny jeans and heading to The Basement East to hear the album played in full. While Motion City Soundtrack may be best known for 2005’s more commercial Commit This to Memory (“Everything Is Alright,” the aforementioned “L.G. Fuad,” “When You’re Around,” et al.), I Am the Movie remains a stand-up album, anchored by songs like “The Future Freaks Me Out,” “Cambridge,” “My Favorite Accident” and “Perfect Teeth,” staples of the band’s synth-rock sound. It’s an album built to be heard in an ear-splitting club — an activity that should be celebrated at

any age. Minneapolis indie-punk outfit Gully Boys opens the show, which is now sold out.

MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER

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

SPORTS

[I’LL MAKE A FAN OUT OF YOU]

SATURDAY / 1.6

[DO THE MONSTER MASH-VILLE]

MONSTER JAM

Kick the new year into high gear with highoctane, high-flying Monster Jam mayhem!

There’s nothing like a 12,000-pound (that’s about twice the weight of an elephant) monster truck powered by a 1,400-horsepower Chevy V8 to get the adrenaline pumping. Featured fan favorites set to appear include El Toro Loco, Zombie, Megalodon and the legendary Grave Digger, driven by the Anderson family since 1982. The behemoth trucks are a feat of engineering ingenuity, constantly pushing the limits of automobile innovation. To control all six carcrushing tons of monster machinery, each truck utilizes a four-wheel steering apparatus as well as an advanced suspension system capable of traveling up to 30 inches. Highly skilled Monster Jam drivers have conquered the extreme agility it takes to control the massive trucks through daring backflips and wild wheelies and to race at speeds of up to 70 mph. In general, professional motorsports have been slow to respond to the call for diversity — but Monster Jam is one of the few racing series where both men and women compete head to head in hopes of being crowned the Monster Jam World Champion. Hearing protection is advised during the event, especially for children! JASON VERSTEGEN JAN. 6-7 AT BRIDGESTONE ARENA 501 BROADWAY

KIDS

MUSIC

Nothing screams January more than an existential, despair-filled, snow-covered horror movie. The Shining is still, for my money, the scariest movie ever made. And that’s not (solely, at least) because I watched it for the first time at way too young an age. Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 masterwork is an exercise in how to effectively pull off a slow-burn horror movie — a feat that is harder than it seems. Kubrick sets the spooky atmosphere immediately; beginning with the iconic opening credit sequence, something just feels off during Jack Torrance and his family’s stay at the Overlook Hotel. Led by a powerhouse Jack Nicholson performance, an underrated Shelley Duvall turn and those terrifying twins, The Shining scares me just as much today as it did 30 years ago. LOGAN BUTTS 9 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.

MUSIC

WINTER CLASSICS: THE SHINING

FILM

[TWIN HORRORS]

of Disney classics. Will there be “Disney adults” who visit Orlando every year, have Mickey tattoos and name their dogs Pluto and Goofy?

Probably! Is that any better or worse than the painfully self-aware, terminally online crowd who will likely attend the Shrek event? Hard to say! COLE VILLENA SHREK RAVE: 9 P.M. AT BROOKLYN BOWL, 925 THIRD AVE. N. BE OUR GUEST: THE DISNEY DJ NIGHT: 9 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT EAST, 917 WOODLAND ST.

MUSIC

FILM

Grange.” MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER 8 P.M. AT CITY WINERY 609 LAFAYETTE ST.

[JUST KIDDIN’ AROUND]

KIDSVILLE

If you’re looking for a way to get the kids out of the house this weekend (or maybe just spark a little more creativity in their lives), you’ll want to check out Centennial Park Conservancy’s popular Kidsville program. Designed especially

NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 4 – JANUARY 10, 2024 • nashvillescene.com

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12/29/23 11:36 AM

A N A L O G AT

HUTTON

HOTEL

PRESENTS

STEVEN MCMORRAN HOUSE WEEKEND THUR 1.4

FRI 1.5

Saturday, January 6

Tuesday, January 16

SONGWRITER SESSION

PERFORMANCE

Don Schlitz

East Nash Grass

NOON · FORD THEATER

6:30 pm · FORD THEATER

Sunday, January 7

Saturday, January 20

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

SONGWRITER SESSION

Sierra Hull and Justin Moses

Victoria Banks Sunday, January 21 MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Charlie Worsham

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Saturday, January 13 SONGWRITER SESSION

Kent Blazy and Cory Batten NOON · FORD THEATER Sunday, January 14

ANALOG SOUL ANALOG SOUL ANALOG SOUL

UPCOMING Michigander is the brainchild of songwriter, singer, producer, and guitarist Jason Singer, bringing a rich blend of hook-driven and radio-ready indie rock with electronic flourishes and earnest, big-hearted storytelling.

DOORS: 6 PM SHOW: 8 PM 02 GA: $15 DOS: $20

FEB

NOON · FORD THEATER

Rob McNelley

6:30 pm · FORD THEATER

SOUTHERN ROUNDS

DOORS: 7 PM GA: $FREE RES: $20

JASON SINGER (OF MICHIGANDER)

PERFORMANCE Featuring Long Jon

SUPER FELON

MISSY RAINES & ALLEGHENY A bluegrass ensemble featuring banjo, fiddle, mandolin, guitar, and bass. With more than a nod to deep bluegrass roots, offering fertile ground to bring together a lifetime of traditional inspiration along with their unique approach to string band music.

Tuesday, January 23 PERFORMANCE

Stephanie Urbina Jones 6:30 pm · FORD THEATER

06

Saturday, January 27

JAMES OTTO

With The Honky Tonk Mariachi

SONGWRITER SESSION

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Jenna LaMaster

Zoe & Cloyd

NOON · FORD THEATER

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

DOORS: 7 PM SHOW: 8 PM GA: $20 DOS: $25

COUNTRY SOUL SESSIONS James Otto, has been called The Biggest Voice In Country Music and that might just be true, his voice is as big as he is. He’s a seasoned and soulful singer who understands the electrifying magic that occurs when a remarkable voice meets a hit song.

20

WITNESS HISTORY

FEB

Tuesday, January 9

ANALOG SOUL

FEB

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

JAN

115 27TH AVE N. OPEN WED - SUN 11AM - LATE NIGHT

07 09 10 14 21 28

JAN

WED 1.10

05 - 06

JAN

1.7

JAN

SUN

4PM THE DOSSTONES FREE 9PM SOCIAL CIG, START AHEAD, QUOTES FROM MOVIES & WILL PFRANG 4PM SPRINGWATER SIT-IN JAM FREE 9PM THE RED 72’S 5PM WRITERS @ THE WATER OPEN MIC

JAN

1.6

JAN

SAT

JAN

Nashville singer songwriter with credits like Joe Cocker, Michael Bolton, Tim McGraw, Rivers Cuomo, and more, Steven comes fresh from a stint on THE VOICE as a member of Team Camila, bringing his full band to the Analog stage.

DOORS: 6 PM SHOW: 7 PM GA: $20

Museum Membership Receive free admission, access to weekly programming, concert ticket presale opportunities, and more.

FULL CALENDAR ALL SHOWS AT ANALOG ARE 21+ 1808 WEST END AVENUE, NASHVILLE,

MKTG_Scene 1/3 Page_PrintAd_01.04.24.indd 1

12/21/23 11:31 AM

TN

NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 4 – JANUARY 10, 2024 • nashvillescene.com

31

7PM Quinn O’Donnell • Tommy Habib • Sara Syms 9PM Reveal Music Group Presents: Desember

sat 1/6

7PM Eva Cassel w/ special guest 9PM Raeya • Jenny Rae

mon 1/8

7PM Karaoke Monday w/ Britt Ronstadt

tues 1/9

7PM Pony Up Tuesdays

wed 1/10

7PM Karaoke Wednesday w/ Meg Gehman

Live Piano Karaoke 6 NIGHTS A WEEK! *Closed Tuesdays

EAST NASH V I LLE

THU 1.4

CLOSED for Winter Break

FRI 1.5

PIANO KARAOKE 6-9 w/Bella Dorian PIANO KARAOKE 9-1 w/Kira Small

SAT 1.6

TABITHA MEEKS 7-9 PIANO KARAOKE 9-1 w/Benan

SUN 1.7 MON 1.8

SUN 1.7

• STAMMER • DUDLEY • NEIGHBORHOOD FOLKLORE

TUE 1.9

ULTIMATE COMEDY • FREE LOCAL STAND UP!

INDUSTRY NIGHT 6-1 PIANO KARAOKE 8-12 w/Dani Ivory

SAT 1.13

• FASCINATION STREET

SHOW TUNES @ SID’S 7-9 PIANO KARAOKE 9-12 w/Krazy Kyle

FRI 1.19

• LEE SYATT

WED 1.10 HAGS REEL TO REEL HAPPY HOUR 6-8

BURLESK 8-9 ($7) PIANO KARAOKE 9-12 w/Paul Loren

WED 1.24 • WILD PARTY • COUSIN SIMPLE • MODERN DAY MIRACLE

*available for private parties!* 3245 Gallatin Pike • Nashville TN 37216 sidgolds.com/nashville • 629.800.5847

2412 GALLATIN AVE

@THEEASTROOM

The crew at DIY spot Foxwood puts together great bills in a delightful countryside setting that’s well worth a trip to Kingston Springs. If you’ve ever cursed your luck for having to miss one of their shows because you couldn’t make the drive, you’re in luck: On Saturday, they’re bringing the party to us by taking over Eastside Bowl’s venue space all evening. At the top of the lineup is outstanding and communityminded MC R.A.P. Ferreira, who recently opened a Nashville iteration of his Soulfolks Records and Tapes music shop and hip-hop community center. The rest of the bill gives you lots of reasons to show up early, including shoegaze-y experimental rockers Total Wife, songsmith Rick West (whose 2019 EP Fwd: has a curiously funky bent to it), songsmith Nash Hamilton (whose tunes lean more toward folk and who’ll be releasing a new single called “Maslow” on Friday), Afrobeat champions Afrokokoroot and up-and-coming rock outfit Baby Wave. And you won’t want to go home early either, as DJ Afrosheen takes over the decks into the latenight hours.

5 P.M. AT EASTSIDE BOWL 1508 GALLATIN PIKE S.

FILM

SUNDAY / 1.7

HEATING & COOLING

(615) 255-2527 · mortonplumbing.net

Thanks for voting us Best Plumber in Nashville!

32

FOXWOOD STORMS THE EASTSIDE BOWL

STEPHEN TRAGESER

Morton Plumbing

PRESENTED BY

[ON THE RUN]

L&L Market | 3820 Charlotte Ave thisisthefinale.com

[WHAT’S COOKING]

SUNDAY SUPPER: BIG NIGHT

The Belcourt’s Sunday Supper film series is officially underway, giving foodie moviegoers a collection of mouth-watering, food-heavy movies that’ll have you clamoring for something to eat immediately after a screening.

The first throwback movie out the gate is the 1996 directorial debut of actors Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci, an Independent Spirit Award-winning dramedy that’s really about that eternal/internal struggle between making pure art and making a buck. In Big Night, Tucci and veteran TV actor Tony Shalhoub play a brotherly duo who run a struggling Italian restaurant in 1950s New Jersey. The brothers set up a showstopping dinner in the hopes that ItalianAmerican singer Louis Prima will attend and hopefully sing the restaurant’s praises. Scott,

TUESDAY / 1.9 MUSIC

fri 1/5

Minnie Driver, Isabella Rossellini, Ian Holm and a pre-West Wing Allison Janney are the other attendees of this feast. This critically acclaimed film (which will screen in glorious 35 mm!) once had me making timballo — a simplified version of timpano, the pasta/meat cake that is the feast’s main course — for my former coworkers one night. Yeah, they didn’t eat any of it. CRAIG D. LINDSEY 7 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.

[FEATS OF STRENGTH]

THE HERCULEONS

The HercuLeons are back! The local supergroup — whose name was inspired by “the great and soulful Leon Russell” and the fact they do some musical “heavy lifting” — returns to 3rd & Lindsley for another Tuesday night residency that begins on Jan. 9. The HercuLeons were born during the pandemic when the group’s two standout lead vocalists, bassist John Cowan and fiddler Andrea Zonn, began collaborating on material remotely. As the project came together, they added guitarist Tom Britt, keyboardist-vocalist Jody Nardone and drummer Andy Peake to round out the lineup.

The group did a monthlong residency at 3rd & Lindsley a year ago, and it was so successful that they’re stretching it to six weeks this time.

During this year’s run, the group will be joined by a number of special guests, beginning with Darrell Scott and including Wendy Waldman, Jim Photoglo, Rodney Crowell, Jonell Mosser, Mike Farris and legendary soul man Dan Penn.

Waldman produced The HercuLeons’ debut album, which blends Appalachian music, soul, rock and jazz into a sound they call “Pop Americana.” The record is scheduled for a Sept. 6 release. DARYL SANDERS 7:30 P.M. TUESDAYS THROUGH FEB. 13 AT 3RD & LINDSLEY 818 THIRD AVE. S.

WEDNESDAY / 1.10 FILM

4PM Open Mic Night w/ lori kelley 9PM Ellie Stone • Grace O’Shea • Madison Steinbruck

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thur 1/4

for families with children ages 12 and younger, this free monthly program offers a wide range of activities that explore art, literacy, music and more. This Saturday’s program is built around Dolly Parton’s delightful children’s book, Coat of Many Colors — which is, of course, based on the beloved song of the same name. Children can enjoy story time with Parton’s Imagination Library, and then make their own art inspired by the story’s colorful coat and themes of kindness, acceptance and understanding. To learn more about these and other programs, visit kidsvilleonline.org. AMY STUMPFL 10:30 A.M. SATURDAYS AT THE PARTHENON 2500 WEST END AVE.

[WHO GOES THERE?]

WINTER CLASSICS: THE THING

One of my favorite scenes in movie history is the blood test from John Carpenter’s The Thing, the horror maestro’s adaptation of the 1938 John W. Campbell novella Who Goes There?

Claustrophobic, ultra-paranoid and a little disgusting, it’s a perfect six-minute distillation of the science-fiction/horror classic. Don’t get me wrong — I love the iconic, genre-defining Halloween as much as the next movie fan. But when it comes to Carpenter’s filmography, it’s hard to top Kurt Russell, Keith David and an army of character actors stuck in Antarctica with a shape-shifting, blood-curdling alien. Bonus points are awarded for the booming Ennio Morricone score that always sends a chill down my spine. LOGAN BUTTS JAN. 10 & 12 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.

NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 4 – JANUARY 10, 2024 • nashvillescene.com

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ART: CRAWL SPACE

FORM BEATS CONTENT AT JANUARY’S FIRST SATURDAY EVENTS This month’s art crawl highlights include digital objects at Unrequited Leisure and Hamlett Dobbins’ works on paper at David Lusk

THE GREEN OF FRIENDSHIP AT DAVID LUSK GALLERY

THE FIRST FIRST SATURDAY shows of 2024 include subjects and stories, identities and other content. But the best exhibitions favor formalist explorations over amplifying activism or unpacking personal themes. The results are sharp and smart displays of paintings, sculpture and digital works that emphasize texture over text, palettes over politics, and sensual surfaces over subjects.

WEDGEWOOD-HOUSTON My avatar bounded into a sun-kissed outdoor space framed by thoughtful exterior architecture the first time I visited Decentraland’s Genesis Plaza in the fall of 2020. A black blimp floated in a blue sky dotted with candy-colored treetops. It winked at me with its blinking “The World Is Yours” sign. Just like Tony Montana arriving in Miami, I’d made the journey to one of the crypto capitals of the pandemic’s boffo digital art and culture boom. Damn, it feels good to be a gangster.

Decentraland’s collection of virtual worlds felt a little bit like Second Life, a little bit like a clunky video game, but it was populated by a creative community during a time when arts gatherings in the real world were limited or simply canceled. Strolling the gallery spaces in Decentraland actually reminded me of stumbling upon weird creative installations and pop-up displays in NYC’s Lower East Side, or like a vaster and brasher version of Nashville’s own First Saturday happenings. This was around that time when our events had been reduced to the still-underrated YouTube videos local galleries edited for their streaming version of the Art

BRIDGING THE INFINITE AT TINNEY CONTEMPORARY Crawl. Digital art, virtual galleries and the markets they cater to are for real, and they’re here to stay.

Future Folk: Superbia is a display of digital objects at Unrequited Leisure. Jessye McDowell sculpts pixels into goblets and chalices to be used in virtual rituals by virtual cultures in virtual worlds. McDowell embraces the unhinged aesthetics native to blockchain art platforms, marrying the Dutch Golden Age to Bored Ape avatars, heart emojis and digital animation.

There’s also a sound component by Nashvillian Kelli Shay Hix. It’s gorgeous stuff, and a smart and sensual doorway into the virtual experiences and spaces that have become a part of our natural lives — especially since the pandemic.

There’s an easy connection to be made here between the era of European colonialism and some notion of digital colonialism. But digital culture is about decentralized pioneering in a new frontier being created by the explorers themselves. There are no armadas. No kings.

At its best, digital culture is more Stranger in a Strange Land than Heart of Darkness. Grok it for yourself at Unrequited Leisure this Saturday night. ➡ DETAILS: Opening reception 5-8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 6, at Unrequited Leisure, 507 Hagan St. Hamlett Dobbins’ The Green of Friendship opened at David Lusk’s Nashville outpost on Jan. 2, but they saved their celebration for First Saturday. Dobbins’ abstract paintings are synonymous with the Memphis art scene. Like many painters, Dobbins mostly deals in big canvases,

but the charm of this new display is its scale and substrates. The Green of Friendship is a works-onpaper show. The reduced size of the art means more separate pieces to ponder. It’s also a format that finds Dobbins indulging in improvisation and experimentation, which results in an intriguing variety of forms and colors, textures and tones. Dobbins uses splashes of vibrantly colored fluid inks to capture the dappled light the artist studied in the Old Forest Arboretum of Memphis’ Overton Park. The works’ lively palette is also a shout-out to Dobbins’ mentor David Dunlap — the pair’s creative connections also inspired the exhibition’s comradely title. Dobbins is one of the best-known artists in the region, but his formalist preoccupations also make him “a painter’s painter.” The Green of Friendship is another entry in Nashville’s January displays that include themes, subjects and narratives, but ultimately emphasize tones, textures, lines and compositions. ➡ DETAILS: Opening reception 3-6 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 6, at David Lusk Gallery, 516 Hagan St. EAST NASHVILLE Embodiment is a group show opening at Red Arrow on Saturday night. The exhibition’s roster is all women artists, and while there is feminist and feminine content here, Embodiment is primarily a formal exploration of textures and materials, boasting a winning variety of smart art about art. Albuquerque, N.M.-based painter Eleanor Aldrich’s “Nancy and the Bloody Handprint” is the show’s signature image. It’s a great example of Aldrich’s bewitching brushwork — she renders figures in narrative scenes

“SOFT SUNSET,” MADIHA SIRAJ

“THE GREEN OF FRIENDSHIP 03,” HAMLETT DOBBINS

BY JOE NOLAN

with gluey gobs of paint, and leaves her surfaces tantalizingly sculptural and abstracted. Another highlight is Lauren Gregory’s iconic portrait of Red Arrow gallery director Ashley Layendecker.

It’s painted in oils on fake fur. It’s part pop art, part velvet Elvis, and it’s the most must-touchit-now artwork in this show about tantalizing surfaces. The show also includes work from Lilah Rose, Vadis Turner and Mia Weiner. ➡ DETAILS: Opening reception 6-9 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 6, at Red Arrow, 919 Gallatin Ave. DOWNTOWN Islamic art traditions are a treasure trove of nonrepresentational imagery and designs, evoking spiritual notions about the transcendent and ineffable. Artist Madiha Siraj’s art bridges sculpture, painting and installation, offering a contemporary take on Islamic aesthetics. Like Embodiment at Red Arrow, Siraj’s Bridging the Infinite display at Tinney Contemporary includes content about identity and religion, but it’s also another great example of a formal display about textures — both sculptural and visual. Siraj fabricates and paints countless floral forms before attaching them to circular panels where her little round gardens blossom into sculptural displays featuring eyegrabbing design gradients in popping color palettes. I always appreciate forward-looking artists, and this 21st-century take on age-old Islamic decorative art traditions is as fun and fab as it is faith-based. ➡ DETAILS: Opening reception 2-8 p.m. Saturday, Jan. 6, at Tinney Contemporary, 237 Rep. John Lewis Way N. ▼

NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 4 – JANUARY 10, 2024 • nashvillescene.com

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12/29/23 11:34 AM

BACK OF THE BOOK ACROSS 1

The class of ’26 in ’24, say

6

Its approval is often sought, in

9

2

7’1” four-time N.B.A. champion

34

Recover

3

Cylinders like the 20,000+ housed

35

___ Seok-jin of K-pop’s BTS

in London’s Musical Museum

36

Soaks (up)

40

Org. sued by the State of New

brief

4

Not chilly, like chili

Sit on the throne

5

Forte and Strong once worked on 41

Club mixer

6

Bean in Egyptian cuisine

44

Salt flat, once

16

Result

7

Bottom-of-the-barrel material

46

___-de-Marne (French

17

Unlikely patron of a vegan

8

One who sells space or time,

restaurant

informally

department) 48

Indulges, with “to”

18

High-level advisers

9

Find another person to play

49

Stray

19

Make do

10

Chemical kick-starters

52

Actress Sokoloff of “The Practice”

20

Unfold, as a series of events

11

Aoki of golf

53

Be of use

22

Beside

12

Wise guy

55

Disney title role for Liu Yifei

25

Sudden contraction

13

What Tupperware containers do,

56

Takes in the paper?

26

___ Gorbachev, former Soviet

57

Besmirches

58

More than a favorite

59

“Don’t just sit there!”

60

Bit of sporting gear with a bell

helpfully

NO. 1130

York in 2020

labor?

14

Evidence that one is going into

it, for short

EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ

first lady

15

Admit (to)

29

Toddler on “Family Guy”

21

Sixth notes?

33

Astonishes

23

Scot’s refusal

37

Clearing, as device storage

24

___ Scouts

38

Fish in a dragon roll

27

___ Paulo

61

Scale abbr.

39

Tanner’s applications

28

Opera piece

65

“I’m in heaven!” sound

42

Org. in the Oscar-winning

30

One getting into a cab, perhaps

66

E’en if

documentary “Citizenfour”

31

“Not ___ many words”

43

Armada ship

32

Jennifer who wrote “A Visit From

45

Unscripted comedy

47

French region known for its

guard

PUZZLE BY JEFFREY MARTINOVIC AND JEFF CHEN

the Goon Squad”

rieslings

33

Gaming company with the Yakuza franchise

50

1978 Nobel Peace Prize recipient

51

Deserved comeuppance

54

Enterprise Holdings holding

57

Science fiction concept depicted

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE

three times in this puzzle 62

“Yo”

63

Big name in digital documents

64

War of words, in a sense

67

Opportunity on Mars, e.g.

68

Is yet to come

69

Zippers on a snowy day

70

Bartender’s serving, perhaps

71

Orchestra section

Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/ crosswords ($39.95 a year).

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