PATRICK RODGERS
WITNESS HISTORY
Rosanne Cash wrote these lyrics for “The Real Me,” a song featured on King’s Record Shop an album yielding four Billboard #1s in 1987 and 1988.
artifact: Courtesy of Rosanne Cash artifact photo: Bob
Delevante
10 Moments That Defined Nashville in the 21st Century
These influential days, and their complicated legacies, will go down in city history BY
ELI MOTYCKA
Congressional Board Releases Report on Ogles’ Campaign Finances
Ethics board recommends ‘further review’ of Tennessee congressman’s past campaign filings BY
HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS
Tennessee Finalizes New Lethal Injection Protocol
The state will resume executing people on death row using the single drug pentobarbital BY
STEVEN HALE, NASHVILLE BANNER
COVER STORY
Act Naturally
Talking to Ringo Starr and T Bone Burnett about Starr’s new country album, Look Up BY D.
PATRICK RODGERS
CRITICS’ PICKS
Brittany Howard Hardcore Benefit Show, Salute the Songbird Live Recording, Lily Rose, Candyman and more
FOOD AND DRINK
Cooking With Fire
Culinary power couple Audra and Nick Guidry are heating up the Lebanon dining scene BY
MARGARET LITTMAN
Cheap Eats: Varallo’s Breakfast Bowl — $10.25
In downtown Nashville, the state’s oldest restaurant still offers big portions at uncommonly affordable prices BY KEN
ARNOLD
ADVICE KING
What Are Your New Year’s Resolutions?
When we treat loss of life as a setback, we have lost the plot BY CHRIS CROFTON
BOOKS
Infinite Little Island
Playworld, a new novel by Adam Ross, observes a year in the life of a Manhattan teenager BY SEAN KINCH; CHAPTER16.ORG
MUSIC
Good Vintage Styrofoam Winos discuss creativity and community as tools of the spirit BY JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT
Putting the Work In Stellar rapper Chuck Indigo reflects on his career ahead of his show at The Blue Room BY P.J. KINZER
Monkey Business
Robbie Williams biopic Better Man is visually audacious but shamelessly routine BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD AND THIS MODERN WORLD MARKETPLACE
ON THE COVER:
Ringo Starr; photo by Dan Winters
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Nashville flood, May 2, 2010 • PHOTO BY JUDE FERRARA
Pamela Anderson reinvents herself in The Last Showgirl
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APRIL 28
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PINAFORE PINAFORE
10 MOMENTS THAT DEFINED NASHVILLE IN THE 21ST CENTURY
These influential days, and their complicated legacies, will go down in city history
BY ELI MOTYCKA
SOME DECADES HAPPEN more quickly than others. In the late 1990s, Mayors Phil Bredesen and Bill Purcell presided over a regional commercial hub ruled by Belle Meade bankers and businessmen and attorneys, Tennessee’s second fiddle to Memphis in many ways. Shania Twain and Toby Keith were Nashville’s two main exports, and downtown was paved over for commuters who left the city quiet after 5 p.m.
Twenty-five years into a new century, Nashville is awash in wealth, people and a new set of problems facing modern boomtowns. The Scene has been here through it all, and as 2025 begins, we’re looking back on 10 events that have most shaped the city so far this century. This list favors moments that are unique to Nashville, rather than moments like the Great Recession or the COVID-19 pandemic, which influenced the nation and world.
JAN. 30, 2000 — SUPER BOWL XXXIV
The Tennessee Titans’ biggest game on America’s biggest stage launched an era of affinity for the transplant franchise. Even though the Titans lost, they lost spectacularly, riveting Nashville week after week until the closing seconds of the Super Bowl’s fateful fourth quarter, as Kevin Dyson’s outstretched arm came up inches short
of the game-tying touchdown. The team won the city’s heart mere months after settling into its new riverfront stadium. The Titans’ formidable roster — Dyson, Steve McNair, Jevon Kearse, Eddie George, Bruce Matthews — ascended to local stardom. The team spent the last of its goodwill reserves pushing through a new stadium in 2023 and, as the team ends another disappointing season after trading star running back Derrick Henry and firing coach Mike Vrabel, it has struggled to repay its self-deprecating fan base.
OCT. 24, 2006 — TAYLOR SWIFT
Taylor Swift breathed new life into Music City when, at 14, she began to fashion herself as a daughter of Nashville’s country music empire. In reality, Swift is the daughter of a wealthy Pennsylvania money manager who relocated the family to cut her first album — the triple-platinum, self-titled Taylor Swift, featuring hit singles like “Our Song” and “Teardrops on My Guitar.” She has reigned atop the music world ever since, steering pop culture through her signature eras and selling out stadiums around the world. Like Miley Cyrus, whose Nashville shoutout in 2009’s “Party in the USA” still commands rowdy crowd sing-alongs, Swift scaled her brand with the
the next decade.
MAY 1-7,
2010 — TENNESSEE FLOODS
Starting on May 1, downpours drenched the city for two days and nights. As the hours ticked by, the rain started to feel different, unrelenting, falling without mercy, filling the creek beds, culverts and streams that crisscross Nashville. Then came the flood. It’s still difficult to believe the pictures that show how the Cumberland River pooled across downtown, submerging Lower Broadway as water seeped into homes across the county. There were more than two dozen casualties across Middle Tennessee and Kentucky as a result of flooding, with 11 deaths in Nashville alone. Facing billions in property damage, the city cohered into an all-hands emergency aid effort, turning a shared disaster into a cornerstone of local identity that helped the city face a string of destructive tornadoes and flash flooding in the years that followed.
NOV. 2, 2010
— RED WAVE MIDTERMS
This is when Republicans won. Two years into President Barack Obama’s first term — and with Fox News on the rise — the GOP established a trifecta in the Tennessee Senate, Tennessee House and governor’s mansion that it has held ever since. Tennessee Democrat Al Gore, for-
city’s, each boosting the other to new heights over
TAYLOR SWIFT AT THE 40TH ANNUAL CMA AWARDS, NOVEMBER 2006
KEVIN DYSON COMES UP SHORT OF THE GOAL LINE DURING THE LAST PLAY OF SUPER BOWL XXXIV, JANUARY 2000
PHOTO: PETER KRAMER/GETTY IMAGES
merly Bill Clinton’s vice president, had wrapped his presidential campaign in Nashville in 2000. Incumbent Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen had won his second term in 2006 by 39 percentage points. Knoxville billionaire Bill Haslam took the governor’s race for Republicans in 2010 by 32 percentage points, a full 71-point swing that ended decades of party power sharing and resigned state Democrats to the wilderness for at least a generation.
OCT. 10, 2012 — NASHVILLE PREMIERES
Soap opera plotlines and country music flair quickly turned Nashville into an ABC powerhouse. Created by Thelma & Louise screenwriter Callie Khouri, the city’s TV portrayal was thoroughly fictionalized, with nods to Swift and local politics, but at least audiences got a version of the city, associating Nashville with folksy stardom and Hollywood glitz in the popular imagination. Beloved actresses Hayden Panettiere and Connie Britton instantly joined Cyrus and Swift as honorary early-21st-century pop-culture city ambassadors. The show produced six seasons’ worth of free civic press and launched careers for sisters Lennon and Maisy Stella, sometime-residents and contemporary pop stars in their own right.
JAN. 8, 2013 — KIM
SEVERSON’S “IT CITY” ARTICLE
Just a few years after Instagram included “Nashville” as an original image filter, writer Kim Severson also noticed something latent and buzzy about the city’s branding potential. Her feature for The New York Times, cheekily titled “Nashville’s Latest Big Hit Could Be the City Itself,” bestowed official recognition of the city’s cultural capital from the media elite. Beyond giving locals the simple “it city” moniker — still a frequent touchpoint for those adding to the hype and bemoaning city changes — Severson’s piece ended the “before times” energy, when Nashville felt like a wellkept secret flush with affordable home prices, friendly neighbors and ample live music. Once the Times christened Nashville, ego became the city’s defining demon.
FEB. 10, 2017 — JOCQUES CLEMMONS FATALLY SHOT BY JOSHUA LIPPERT
Joshua Lippert, a Metro Nashville Police Department officer, fatally shot a fleeing Jocques Clemmons three times, twice in the back, during a traffic stop at Cayce Homes in East Nashville. The police killing of a fleeing Black resident by a white officer, which came while the national Black Lives Matter movement was gradually building support, consolidated pushes in Nashville for police accountability. Clemmons’ case reached a crescendo when District Attorney Glenn Funk declined to prosecute Lippert, whom he determined to be acting in self-defense, as the MNPD reported that Clemmons was carrying a gun. Organizing campaigns seeking justice for Clemmons helped establish the Community Oversight Board, already a top ballot priority when MNPD Officer Andrew Delke fatally shot Daniel Hambrick, a Black
man, in North Nashville in July 2018. Funk did charge Delke with homicide, making him the first MNPD officer ever charged for an on-duty shooting. Delke took a plea deal for involuntary manslaughter in July 2021 and was released from prison in October 2022.
MARCH 6, 2018 — MEGAN BARRY RESIGNS AS MAYOR
Mayor Megan Barry pleaded guilty to felony theft of property and resigned as mayor all before lunch on a fateful Tuesday in 2018, a little more than halfway through her term. Weeks after salacious details surfaced about Barry’s affair with her bodyguard, legal and political maneuvers again put DA Glenn Funk in the driver’s seat of a major political moment, ultimately producing a handwritten plea deal that stipulated Barry’s resignation. The city bureaucracy fell to shambles, scandal snagged Nashville’s ascendant national identity, voters soundly rejected Barry’s transit referendum, and Vice Mayor David Briley, Barry’s accidental successor, survived the immediate special election only to lose the following year to John Cooper. Local politics underwent a dramatic realignment driven by reactionary sentiment.
MARCH 30, 2019 — NFL DRAFT THREATENS DOWNTOWN CHERRY TREES
Even at the time, so-titled “Cherrygate” attracted attention not just as a brief dustup but as a citywide lightning rod. On the one side, a massive national entertainment corporation trying to profit off the lucrative chaos that was Lower Broadway. On the other, ornamental cherry trees whose pink blossoms shade a downtown sidewalk. In the middle, shadowy city figures already blamed for pedal taverns and the bachelorette-industrial complex. Topline news that NFL bigwigs demanded Nashville ax 21 trees for its Draft show production — and that the city appeared ready to comply — concentrated the growing anger and resentment many residents felt toward those they believed sacrificed locals’ quality of life on the downtown altar of tourism. Cooper’s mayoral campaign successfully captured this self-righteous anger, which also reared its head in the battle to preserve Fort Negley, in the months that followed an otherwise successful NFL Draft. Voters’ same spurned attitude, this time directed toward a city-subsidized new domed stadium for the Titans, helped buoy Freddie O’Connell to victory in the 2023 mayoral race.
MARCH
27,
2023 — THE COVENANT SCHOOL SHOOTING
Many Nashvillians remember the moment they heard the news that children had been shot at a Green Hills school. Shared trauma sears events into communities this way. As the city approaches two years since the tragedy, it’s still possible to spot the black-and-red ribbons and yard signs in Nashville neighborhoods that commemorate the three children and three staff members gunned down by a former student. Memorials overlapped with fierce marches on the state Capitol demanding legislators reform Tennessee’s lax gun laws. State Reps. Justin Jones, Justin Pearson and Gloria Johnson, members of the Democratic minority, made national news for participating in these rallies on the floor of the Tennessee General Assembly — and invoking swift retribution from GOP colleagues. Gov. Bill Lee called a special legislative session on safety as organizers, including parents from the Covenant School, strategized about how to appeal to hardline pro-gun Republicans. The issue politicized voters, especially young people and parents of school-age children, across the state, casting powerful Republican majority figures as unfeeling and amoral. Meanwhile, permissive Tennessee gun laws survived untouched.
So many other significant events took place over these 25 years. Tornadoes ripped apart the city in March 2020 and December 2023, and an RV bomb ripped apart downtown on Christmas Day 2020. Thousands of people and numerous corporations relocated here, from Amazon to Oracle to The Daily Wire. The “Tennessee Tax Revolt” built Tennessee’s modern Republican Party, and right-to-work language was enshrined in the Tennessee Constitution, discouraging labor organizing across the state. State leaders and conservative media have built a multifaceted attack on LGBTQ people, many of whom are facing mental health crises in increasing numbers. Paramore went platinum, and unranked Vanderbilt beat No. 1 Alabama. And a scrappy wildcard Nashville Predators team fought its way to the Stanley Cup. ▼
JOCQUES CLEMMONS IN 2009
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
MAYOR MEGAN BARRY RESIGNS, MARCH 2018
MAKESHIFT MEMORIAL AT COVENANT SCHOOL, MARCH 2023
PHOTO: HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS
CONGRESSIONAL BOARD RELEASES REPORT ON OGLES’ CAMPAIGN FINANCES
Ethics board recommends ‘further review’ of Tennessee congressman’s past campaign filings
BY HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS
A REPORT ISSUED Jan. 2 recommends that the House Committee on Ethics “further review” allegations related to U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles’ past campaign filings.
The U.S. House of Representatives’ Board of the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) notes in its report that the Republican representative for Tennessee’s 5th Congressional District “omitted or misrepresented required information in his financial disclosure statements or [Federal Election Commission] candidate committee reports.”
“Accordingly, the Board recommends that the Committee further review the above allegation,” the OCE report states.
The report also recommends that Ogles be subpoenaed by the House Committee on Ethics, noting that he was one of seven witnesses who did not cooperate with the OCE’s review, “declining to provide requested information to the OCE.”
In addition to the 19-page referral, the OCE also released 140 pages of exhibits, which included text messages and emails, many of which are conversations centered on reporting from NewsChannel 5’s Phil Williams, who first reported on the ongoing FBI probe into Ogles’ finances.
Williams has also reported on a string of controversies involving the congressman, including allegations of false statements about his professional and educational background and qualifications, unaccounted money meant for a children’s burial garden, civil penalty payments for multiple campaign finance violations
and the amended campaign finance reports.
Some of those scandals led prominent Nashville Republican Bobby Joslin to call for Ogles’ resignation just months into his first term in 2023, equating him to disgraced and now-former New York Republican Rep. George Santos.
The Jan. 2 OCE report also includes interviews with two unnamed witnesses who were both interviewed virtually on May 15. Though unnamed, witness No. 1 is revealed to be Ogles’ treasurer. According to Federal Election Commission records, Thomas Datwyler served as Ogles’ treasurer during the 2024 election.
As first reported by The Tennessean’s Vivian Jones, during the 2024 election cycle, some mailers sent to voters by the Andy Ogles for Congress principal campaign committee listed Lee Beaman as Ogles’ campaign treasurer, despite Beaman not serving in that role since 2022.
Witness No. 2 is revealed to be Ogles’ chief of staff and former campaign manager. According to Legistorm, a research and data website that publishes information on politicians and political staffers, Grant Henry has served as Ogles’ chief of staff since January 2023, and previously served as his campaign manager during the 2022 election.
According to the report, the other uncooperating witnesses include Ogles’ wife Monica; her parents, Hugh M. Williams Jr. and Charlene D. Williams; and Chain Bridge Bank, Evolve Bank and Trust, and First Horizon Bank.
The board unanimously approved the recommendation to the Committee on Ethics, and shortly after, the committee released the follow-
TENNESSEE FINALIZES NEW LETHAL INJECTION PROTOCOL
The state will resume executing people on death row using the single drug pentobarbital
BY STEVEN HALE, NASHVILLE BANNER
This story is a partnership between the Nashville Banner and the Nashville Scene The Nashville Banner is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization focused on civic news. Visit nashvillebanner.com for more information.
THE TENNESSEE DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION has finalized a new lethal injection protocol, clearing the way for the state to restart executions. The state’s death penalty had been on hold since May 2022, and the last execution was in February 2020.
The new protocol will use a single drug, pentobarbital, instead of the three-drug cocktail the state used to kill seven men between 2018 and 2020. Fourteen states have used pentobarbital, a barbiturate, to execute people, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
The pause in Tennessee executions came after Gov. Bill Lee called off the execution of Oscar Smith, acknowledging an “oversight” in procedures
ing statement:
“On August 2, 2024, the Committee received a referral from the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) regarding Representative Andy Ogles. … In order to gather additional information necessary to complete its review, the Committee will review the matter pursuant to Committee Rule 18(a). The Committee notes that the mere fact of conducting further review of a referral, and any mandatory disclosure of such further review, does not itself indicate that any vio-
around the testing of lethal injection drugs. Lee asked for an independent review of the state’s execution process, which subsequently found that several recent executions had been conducted without proper testing of the lethal injection drugs.
In a statement accompanying the department’s announcement in late December, TDOC Commissioner Frank Strada said he is “confident the lethal injection process can proceed in compliance with departmental policy and state laws.”
But more legal challenges could come.
Nashville-based supervising assistant federal public defender Kelley Henry tells the Nashville Banner in a written statement that the TDOC announcement was “notable for its lack of detail.”
“The secrecy which shrouds the execution protocol in Tennessee is what allowed TDOC to perform executions in violation of their own protocol while simultaneously misrepresenting their actions to the courts and the public,” Henry writes. “We agreed to stay our investigation into the multiple improprieties with TDOC while the department’s review took place. According to the agreement, we should have 90 days to review the new protocol and file an amended complaint in federal court.”
Henry also cited a pending U.S. Department of Justice review of the use of pentobarbital in executions.
“We know from the scientific data that single drug pentobarbital results in pulmonary edema which has been likened to waterboarding,” she writes. “No new execution dates should be set until we have an opportunity to con-
clude our litigation.”
lation has occurred, or reflect any judgment on behalf of the Committee.
“In order to comply with Committee Rule 7 regarding confidentiality, out of fairness to all respondents, and to assure the integrity of its work, the Committee will refrain from making further public statements on this matter pending completion of its initial review.”
Scene sister publication the Williamson Scene reached out to Ogles’ office for comment but did not receive a response. ▼
The Tennessee Supreme Court is responsible for setting execution dates after the state’s attorney general requests them. There are no executions scheduled currently.
Forty-six people — 45 men and one woman — remain on Tennessee’s death row. They generally fall into several categories. Several men — including Smith, Harold Nichols and Byron Black — were granted reprieves by the governor that could now be lifted. In other cases — including that of the state’s only condemned woman, Christa Pike — the AG’s office has requested an execution date, which has not yet been set. Many others are still appealing their cases in court.
People sentenced to death before 1999, when lethal injection was adopted as the state’s primary execution method, can choose electrocution instead.
On Jan. 2, the Associated Press reported that the Tennessee Department of Correction is refusing to release its new manual for executing death row inmates. State prison officials denied a public records request by the AP, citing a statute that keeps the identities of those carrying out executions confidential. “However,” the AP reports, “that same statute says the existence of confidential information in a record is not a reason to deny access to it, noting that the confidential information should be redacted.” A redacted version of the state’s execution protocol has been issued to media in the past. ▼
PHOTO: HAMILTON
U.S. REP. ANDY OGLES, OCTOBER 2024
Look Up out Friday, Jan. 10, via Lost Highway Records
Playing Jan. 14-15 at the Ryman
Talking to Ringo Starr and T Bone Burnett about Starr’s new country album, Look Up BY
D. PATRICK RODGERS
“IF YOU FIND THAT, get me one,” says Ringo Starr. “I don’t know where mine is anymore.”
Starr is at home in Los Angeles on a November morning, telling the Scene via video call about his misplaced copy of Ernest Tubb’s out-of-print album Midnight Jamboree. The record, released in 1960, features performances from Midnite Jamboree, the WSM radio show launched by Tubb at his Nashville record shop in 1947 and still airing to this day, though it has since changed locations a handful of times. The album, as Starr tells it, was a major influence in turning him on to country music more than 60 years ago.
“He had all these new country people, new guys singing, writing, and he was giving them all a great break, because he put them on this record,” says Starr of Midnight Jamboree, which featured performances by Kitty Wells, Patsy Cline, Webb Pierce and Buddy Emmons, with songs written by Harlan Howard and Marty Robbins, among others. “That was a very important record for me, because it was great, and it was a lot of different styles. It was all country, but it was different. The songs were different.”
ACT NATURALLY
The 84-year-old former Beatle is speaking to the Scene from behind dark shades, a peace-symbol pendant dangling from his necklace. He’s in his guest house, or perhaps former guest house — “Now we have no guests, because I’m taking it over,” he says — where he’s tracked his drum and vocal parts on everything he’s recorded over the past 15 years. Starr’s latest effort is Look Up, his first full-length album in six years and first country record in more than a half-century. When asked why a country album, and why now, Starr chalks it up to his willingness to take an unexpected “right turn” when life hands him one.
“Life is good,” he says, “and I’m easy with myself.”
Starr had busied himself during the pandemic by recording and releasing a series of four- and five-song EPs, largely co-produced with his frequent collaborator Bruce Sugar. Then came a chance encounter in 2022 with Nashville-based musician and producer T Bone Burnett. Burnett and Starr were at the famed Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles, where George Harrison’s widow Olivia Harrison was celebrating the release of her book Came the Lightening: Twenty Poems for George. Starr and Burnett had known each other since the mid-’70s, so Starr asked the super-producer if he’d like to send him a song.
“I was in the middle of doing sort of a poprock EP, and he sent this track, and it was the most beautiful country track I’d heard in a long time,” says Starr. “So far-out. And so then I made a right turn. I thought, ‘Hey, maybe I’ll do a country EP.’ … So anyway, we’re hanging around in this room, and we’re talking about songs, and I said, ‘Well, how many songs have you got anyway?’ And he said, ‘Well, I got nine,’ and he had them in his pocket.”
“I didn’t know if he would like any of the songs or not, so I just kept writing until there were nine songs, and then he liked all of them,” Burnett tells the Scene. “He said, ‘Well, let’s just do an album then.’ And I said, ‘Great, let’s do it, let’s go.’ He said, ‘Will you produce it?’ And I said, ‘Yes, enthusiastically yes, I will.’”
The result is an 11-track album featuring the talents of an array of relative newcomers and established writers and performers alike, many of whom live in or have direct connections to Nashville. There are tracks written or co-written by Starr, Burnett and Sugar, as well as legendary singer-songwriters Billy Swan and Paul Kennerly. Nashvillian Daniel Tashian co-produced, performed on and co-wrote several songs, while breakout bluegrass stars Billy Strings and Molly Tuttle provided guitars and harmony vocals on several tracks each, and pop duos Lucius and Larkin Poe both appear on a track apiece. Regular Burnett collaborator Alison Krauss contributed harmony vocals on album closer “Thankful.”
It’s a vibrant, lush album of what Burnett refers to as “American music,” splitting the difference between classic country and a more contemporary pop-rock sound. It’s out this Friday via UMG Nashville imprint Lost Highway Records, and next week, Starr and his band will
appear at the Mother Church of Country Music in support of the record.
CONVERSING WITH T Bone Burnett is a bit like talking to an American music historian, not unlike a member of the famed Lomax family of archivists, though he might balk at that description. Talking to the Scene by video call from his home in Nashville — his primary residence since the pandemic — Burnett brushes his trademark swoop of silver hair back across his forehead as he leans forward to speak.
“When I think of Ringo, I think of rockabilly music, mostly,” says Burnett. “All of his stuff — ‘Honey Don’t,’ ‘Matchbox,’ ‘Act Naturally,’ ‘What Goes On,’ ‘Don’t Pass Me By,’ even ‘Octopus’s Garden’ — were all country songs. Also I knew that when he was 16 he wrote to the Houston Chamber of Commerce to find out where [legendary country-blues performer] Lightnin’ Hopkins lived, because he wanted to move near Lightnin’ Hopkins. And also the name Ringo Starr sounds like the sheriff of Dodge City, Kan., you know. It’s a cowboy name, so I wrote him a cowboy song. I wrote what I thought of as a Gene Autry song.”
That first song is “Come Back,” which is also included on Burnett’s 2024 solo album The Other Side. Starr’s version is the only song on Look Up that doesn’t feature Starr’s drumming — though it does feature his surprisingly lithe whistling, as well as rich, gorgeous vocal harmonies by Lucius’ Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig.
With 13 Grammy wins out of 20 total nominations, Burnett has a storied career that has included collaborations with Bob Dylan, Delbert McClinton, Roy Orbison, Brandi Carlile, B.B. King, Elton John, Leon Russell, Gregg Allman, Ralph Stanley and Gillian Welch, among countless others. He also produced the music for the films O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Cold Mountain, Walk the Line and Crazy Heart — winning a Best Original Song Oscar for the latter’s “The Weary Kind” — and television shows like ABC’s Nashville, which was created by his wife Callie Khouri. But as with many performers, Burnett’s output slowed with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Until 2024, that is, a year that ultimately proved to be Burnett’s most productive in recent memory. In addition to Look Up and his own The Other Side, the producer and guitarist also collaborated with his friend Elvis Costello on their long-simmering project The Coward Brothers.
“I took a few years off during the ‘emergency,’ as Elvis calls it, and I think running into Ringo at the Chateau Marmont kicked off this whole spate of songs,” he says. “I mean, I wrote 12 songs or something for myself on The Other Side. During the pandemic, [Costello and I] wrote that whole Coward Brothers thing. … But then, when the Ringo thing happened, I’ve written probably 40 or 50 songs since he asked me to write him the song.”
The tracking process for Look Up was split between Nashville and L.A. Burnett and bassist Dennis Crouch — “about as solid and groovy a bass player as has ever lived,” the producer says — would lay down the foundation of each song
“When I think of Ringo, I think of rockabilly music, mostly,” says Burnett. “All of his stuff
— ‘Honey Don’t,’ ‘Matchbox,’ ‘Act Naturally,’ ‘What Goes On,’ ‘Don’t Pass Me By,’ even ‘Octopus’s Garden’ — were all country songs.”
at Burnett’s studio in Nashville’s Germantown neighborhood. They then sent the tracks to Starr, and Burnett traveled to Los Angeles to track drums and vocals in Starr’s guest house.
“He’d do two takes, and he never did more than two takes, and he never planned anything,” says Burnett. “And always when he started, I thought, ‘Wow, where is this going? What’s he doing?’ … But by the time he got to the end, I thought, ‘Oh, of course.’ Like with the song ‘Breathless,’ you know. In the first two verses, he plays a fill after the third line of the verse. Nobody’s ever done that in history.”
“All my life [people have said], ‘Oh, play that fill again,’” says Starr of his drumming. “I cannot play a fill twice. I can’t do the same fill because I come off in an emotional moment, you know? So I’m usually [right on] the next take, unless we’ve got something worked out. Otherwise, I’ll
just wing it because I feel it.”
“There’s no real sense in how I play,” he says with a laugh. “But the no sense is great.”
But there is some sense to it. Starr notes that the visceral emotion he felt in the early country songs of performers like Lightnin’ Hopkins — songs he characterizes as “She’s left, the dog’s dead, I got no money for the jukebox, things are rough” — is something he tries to capture in his two-take drumming. Like with the uptempo shuffle of album opener “Breathless,” which features what Burnett ultimately describes as his favorite drumming on the record — Starr’s flourishes don’t land at the start of a chorus or a bridge, where most drummers would put a bit of flash. Instead, Starr’s parts rise and fall with the lyrics, or with the track’s acoustic guitar solo, played nimbly by the famously swift-fingered Billy Strings.
Salute the Songbird with Maggie Rose
From platinum-selling chart-toppers to underground , household names to undiscovered gems, Chief’s Neon Steeple is c bringing the very best national and regional talent back to Broadway.
JANUARY LINE UP
1.4 8 Track – The World’s Most Notorious Band, Playing Only The Favorites From The 70s & 80s
1.10 Hell’s Belles
1.11 Uncle B’s Drunk with Power String Band Show featuring Bryan Simpson w/ the Band Loula, Trey Hensley, & A Super Secret CMA/AMA/ Grammy Winning Guest 1.12 Pick Pick Pass w/ Kevin Mac, Caleb Lee Hutchinson, Garrett Jacobs
Casey Beathard w/ Tucker Beathard
Salute the Songbird with Maggie Rose, Special Guest: Caitlyn Smith
Carter Faith – Return to Cherry Valley
1.17 Luke Dick
1.23 Tip Jars to Chart Toppers Hit Songwriter Round w/ Dylan Altman, Marshall Altman, Brice Long 1.24 Charles Esten “Love Ain’t Pretty” 1 Year Anniversary Party
1.25 Take Me To Church Tribute - #1 Eric Church Tribute in America
1.26 Pick Pick Pass w/ Kevin Mac, Shanna Crooks, Will Jones
1.27 Buddy’s Place w/ Nathan Belt, Paige Rose, Ryan Larkins
“I had always been curious about [Burnett’s] process in the studio, and I was a little nervous when I went in about playing well and doing a good job,” says Tuttle, who describes her experience playing on Look Up as both “the honor of a lifetime” and “absolutely surreal.” The vocalist, guitarist and mandolinist contributed to four songs, including the title track and album standout “I Live for Your Love.”
“At one point T Bone talked about how he makes records in a fluid way that changes to fit each project,” says Tuttle. “For this record we were laying down parts remotely over Ringo’s drum and vocal tracks, which worked well because it gave a lot of room to experiment with different instrumentation and ideas but kept the arrangements centered on Ringo’s playing and singing.”
Though the album is imbued with the technical prowess of Tuttle, Strings, Tashian, Crouch and all the rest, its defining feature is its confident emotional range rather than the skill of its players.
“I’m working with five people right now all over 80 years old,” says Burnett. “Willie Nel-
Bob Dylan, Twyla Tharp, Meredith Monk and Ringo Starr. And the thing I can say about working with people over 80 is it’s all second nature. There’s no insecurity, there’s no doubt, there’s no fear of the future. We’ve all got a great future behind us, and that’s how it is. I mean, I think Ringo has probably always been that way. I think he’s a very instinctive player, instinctual player.”
THE PATH THAT led Starr from his early years listening to country music recorded at Ernest Tubb Record Shop to playing songs from his new country album at the Ryman — which is just a few hundred feet away from the former Tubb Records building on Lower Broad — has been anything but a straight one.
As Starr tells it, in The Beatles’ earliest days, the band was being influenced by a swirl of American music, from Johnny Cash and Waylon Jennings to Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent and any Motown albums they could get their hands on.
“We did some country songs, The Beatles, and we did Motown songs,” says Starr. “Because, in
“There’s no real sense in how I play,” Starr says with a laugh. “But the no sense is great.”
all honesty, at the beginning, we were like every band in Liverpool. We were a cover band. So one night, I went to a gig, and there were three bands on, and the other two drummers didn’t make it, and I just played with the three bands. The curtains closed, and there’s another band, and I’m still there, curtains close, I’m still there — because we were all playing, really, the same songs.”
“The Beatles are very much an American music band,” says Burnett. “Even though they were from England, they didn’t give up on our music. When they came out, the charts were Frankie Avalon and very, very safe things, Pat Boone and those sorts of things. So we’re all beneficiaries of [what The Beatles did]. Billy Strings is a beneficiary of that. Molly Tuttle’s a beneficiary. All of us are. The first country-rock song of all was [The Beatles’] ‘I Don’t Want to Spoil the Party.’ You know, you could say that every country act today goes back to that song.”
As noted by Burnett, many of the 11 Beatles songs featuring Starr on lead vocals are what you could call country music, or at least rockabilly — be they originals like “What Goes On” and “Don’t Pass Me By” or covers like Carl Perkins’ “Honey Don’t” and “Matchbox” and Buck Owens’ “Act Naturally.” But Starr’s second solo album, Beaucoups of Blues — produced by legendary pedal-steel player Pete Drake over a whirlwind three days in Nashville just months after The Beatles’ dissolution — was the drummer’s last serious foray into making country music for many decades.
In the roughly 54 years since releasing Beaucoups of Blues, Starr has issued dozens of albums both as a solo artist and with his supergroup the All-Starr Band. Though Starr did team up with Owens in 1989 to revisit “Act Naturally” as a duet, the majority of his output since Beaucoups has been rock and pop music. But country music is in Starr’s musical DNA, and as an artist who’s always been willing to make an unexpected “right turn,” he followed his muse when the op-
portunity to make a country record presented itself.
And one Look Up song in particular speaks to Starr’s lifelong musical journey.
“I love the song ‘I Live for Your Love,’ and Ringo really loves that song,” says Burnett of the album’s fifth track, which features rich swaths of pedal steel performed by prolific sideman Paul Franklin. “Billy Swan wrote the verse — ‘I don’t live for the future, I don’t live for the past.’ … I think those two lines are really important to Ringo, because I think there’s this temptation when you have as profound a past as he does, there’s always some kind of pull back to it. I don’t think he resisted exactly, but I think he wants to live very much in the present. He’s got a full life. You know, The Beatles were maybe five years of his life when he was a kid, and it’s colored everything else he’s done. So that song’s really — I find it touching. I find his version of it very touching. I think Molly’s singing on it is beautiful. Her playing — she’s playing all that acoustic guitar stuff on it — I think her playing is really beautiful on it.”
Next week, Ringo Starr & Friends will play two nights at the Ryman in support of Look Up. Co-produced by Starr, Burnett and Van Toffler, the Jan. 14 and 15 shows will be filmed for a special and will feature performances of many Look Up songs and — according to Starr — “‘Octopus’s Garden’ in a country style.”
Starr has of course played the Ryman on a number of occasions, including as recently as September 2023, shortly after being inducted into Nashville’s Musicians Hall of Fame. But the sanctity of the venue is something he’s never taken for granted.
“To me, to be on that stage that was like the place all of the big shots of the ’50s and ’60s were playing — that was the country music I came in with,” says Starr. “And so every time I’ve played there I had this moment: ‘Wow, I’m at the Ryman.’” ▼
son,
Saturday, January 11
SONGWRITER SESSION Tommy Karlas NOON · FORD THEATER
Sunday, January 12
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Justin Schipper 1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Thursday, January 16
OPENING RECEPTION Snapshots 5:00 pm · HALEY GALLERY
Saturday, January 18
SONGWRITER SESSION Caylee Hammack NOON · FORD THEATER
Sunday, January 19
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Josh Matheny 1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, January 25 HATCH SHOW PRINT Block Party 9:30 am, NOON, and 2:30 pm HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP LIMITED AVAILABILITY
Saturday, January 25
SONGWRITER SESSION Lily Rose NOON · FORD THEATER
Sunday, January 26
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Jason Coleman 1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, February 1 FAMILY PROGRAM
Riders in the Sky
10:00 am · FORD THEATER FREE
MANNY PLAYS MOZART with the Nashville Symphony & Chorus
JAN 9 TO 11 | 7:30 PM
Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor Tucker Biddlecombe, chorus director Emanuel Ax, piano
ChoralperformancesaregenerouslysupportedbyC.B.RaglandCompany.
JAN
FEB 13 TO 15 | 7:30 PM Pops Series West Side Story Film with Live Orchestra with the Nashville Symphony
JULIA WOLFE’S FLOWER POWER AND BEETHOVEN’S SEVENTH with the Nashville Symphony
JAN 16 TO 18 | 7:30 PM
Enrico Lopez-Yañez, conductor
Ravel’s Bolero
Celebrating 150 years of Ravel with the Nashville Symphony
Vitamin String Quartet: The Music of Taylor Swift, Bridgerton, and Beyond
PresentedwithouttheNashvilleSymphony.
JAN 24 & 25 | 7:30 PM
JAN 26 | 2 PM
Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor Bang on a Can All-Stars
Choralperformancesaregenerouslysupported byC.B.RaglandCompany.
THURSDAY / 1.9
THURSDAY-SATURDAY, JAN. 9-11
MUSIC [MOZART CITY]
MANNY PLAYS MOZART FEAT. NASHVILLE SYMPHONY
The second full week of 2025 brings up the gut-wrenching question of whether you’ve been keeping up with your New Year’s resolutions. Did you go to the gym? Have you been doomscrolling, or did you somehow put your phone down? It can be daunting — unless you’ve decided to make your New Year’s resolutions fun. For example, you could try supporting your local arts programs once a month, whether it’s theater, orchestras, art galleries or workshops. Manny Plays Mozart, featuring pianist Emanuel Ax with the Nashville Symphony, is the perfect chance to get started. The Grammy-winning pianist will perform Mozart’s Overture to Cosí Fan Tutte and his enduring Concerto No. 20 in D Minor for Piano and Orchestra. Giancarlo Guerrero — who will leave his position as the symphony’s music director following this season — will then lead the orchestra on Maurice Ravel’s sweeping Daphnis et Chloé. A night at the Schermerhorn is peaceful, it’s moving, and it’s one of those rare moments when you can sit back and really appreciate your life for a second with a glittery, classy dose of joy.
KATIE BETH CANNON
JAN. 9-11 AT THE SCHERMERHORN
1 SYMPHONY PLACE
THEATER
[THE SCOTCH PLAY] INEBRIATED SHAKESPEARE:
MACBETH
Inebriated Shakespeare is back at The City Winery this weekend and ready to kick off its ninth season with a boozy — and decidedly bloody — Macbeth. For those who’ve never experienced an Inebriated Shakes show, the set-up is simple: Seven fearless actors begin the performance by drinking shots, then attempting to “soliloquy under the influence.”
Inebriated Shakes favorite MacKenzie TierneySmith directs and takes on various roles with a cast that includes Storm Sloan, Angelo Tate, Caroline Brady, Zach Williams, Alyssa Borg and J.R. Knowles. It’s a great lineup, to be sure. But what impresses me most is the actors’ ability to improv their way out of even the most outrageous situation while generally keeping a handle on the original text. It’s a wild ride, and audience members are encouraged to get in on the fun by donating $5 shots. But do keep in mind that Inebriated Shakes encourages responsible drinking. Keep an eye out for upcoming performances at The Blue Room (Jan. 18) and Cannery Hall (Feb. 7). AMY STUMPFL
7:30 P.M. AT CITY WINERY
609 LAFAYETTE ST.
MUSIC
[STORY OF MY LIFE] ONE DIRECTION NIGHT
I can count the previous iteration of One Direction Night as one of the most fun evenings of my adult life. The touring event, Up All Night: A One Direction Party, at The Basement East in June lived up to its fan-built reputation, providing a delicious mix of deep cuts and hits, cardboard cutouts, merch and a moment set aside for fans of each boy. My friends, my Harry Styles Barbie doll and I had the time of our lives. The organizers of One Direction Night: The Ultimate Dance Party do have their work cut out for them, especially because one huge thing has happened since the last iteration: Liam Payne died. It’ll be a bit challenging to sing his hit “Strip That Down” with the right tone, but I’m willing to give it a try. Lots of fans can count One Direction as a common interest in many of their friendships. I’m grateful for the opportunity to meet like-minded people, dance and fangirl (verb), and even mourn a little bit among people who get it. See y’all there! HANNAH HERNER
8 P.M. AT ROW ONE STAGE AT CANNERY HALL
1 CANNERY ROW
MUSIC
[REAL GRASS] PETER ROWAN WITH SAM GRISMAN PROJECT
The music of the Grateful Dead intertwined with bluegrass from the beginning of the Dead’s career. By the time Jerry Garcia cut the 1975 album Old & in the Way with a group of pickers that included singer and guitarist Peter Rowan, mandolinist David Grisman and Nashville fiddler Vassar Clements, the bluegrass-rockDead marriage was sealed. Old & in the Way was a massively influential — and big-selling — album that paved the way for all manner of forays into hybridized bluegrass. Thursday’s show at the Ryman will feature Rowan along with David Grisman’s son Sam Grisman, who plays bass in a band called Sam Grisman Project. Joining the younger Grisman for this Nashville show will be Music City fiddle ace John Mailander, drummer Chris J. English and a slew of great players that includes Sam Bush, Jerry Douglas, Tim O’Brien and Lindsay Lou. Grisman & Co. specialize in songs that go down easy amid the expert picking, and they’ve recently included the Dead’s 1980 fan favorite “Althea” and Bush and David Grisman’s “Hartford’s Real” in their sets. EDD HURT
7:30 P.M. AT THE RYMAN
116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.
FRIDAY
/ 1.10
BOOKS
[1,000 WORDS OF EAST NASHVILLE] AN EVENING WITH JAMI ATTENBERG
Cliché as it may be, a lot of us want to write a book before we die. Hell, some of us even want it to be good. I’m someone who falls into both camps, and I can tell you Jami Attenberg’s book 1000 Words: A Writer’s Guide to Staying Creative, Focused, and Productive All Year Round is one of the most generative craft books I’ve ever read. In 2018, Attenberg had two weeks to finish a book she was writing. As she searched for motivation and accountability, she and a friend decided to write 1,000 words a day for two weeks. When Attenberg posted about it online and added the hashtag #1000wordsofsummer, a movement was born. What began as a personal source of motivation and a few tagged posts on Twitter became a newsletter, a book and now an inperson workshop. I was lucky enough to take this workshop at the Mississippi Book Festival, and Attenberg unlocked something in my writing that I’d previously been fighting with for years. If you have any kind of writing goal in 2025, this class — hosted by The Porch and co-sponsored by The Bookshop — is a fantastic place to start. KIM BALDWIN
6 P.M. AT HANNA BEE COFFEE
1035 W. EASTLAND AVE.
[CITY OF STARS]
FILM
FIRST KISS FRIDAY: LA LA LAND
Dreamers, romantics and lovers of all things swoon-worthy, take note: La La Land is lighting up The Franklin Theatre for First Kiss Friday. The Franklin Theatre has been a beloved part of Main Street since 1937 — and a place where generations have shared laughter, tears, fresh popcorn and even first kisses. The theater invites you to kick off the new year with something romantic on the big screen, whether you’re rolling solo, watching with friends or having a night out with your significant other. Emma Stone and Ryan Gosling deliver unforgettable performances in the visually stunning and emotional musical, which centers on love and ambition in Los Angeles. With a dazzling original soundtrack and breathtaking cinematography that captures old-school Hollywood nostalgia, director Damien Chazelle’s La La Land is the perfect way to escape reality for a few hours. It was also critically acclaimed, winning a record seven Golden Globe nominations and six Oscars. Even if musicals aren’t your thing, the story’s enchanting journey is bound to sweep you off your feet — and maybe bring a few tears.
JAYME FOLTZ
7 AND 10 P.M. AT THE FRANKLIN THEATRE
419 MAIN ST., FRANKLIN
SATURDAY / 1.11
MUSIC
[HAPPY BIRTH-HAYES TO YOU] HAYES CARLL AND BAND OF HEATHENS
Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Hayes Carll is throwing a bash for his 49th birthday Saturday night at Brooklyn Bowl, and you’re invited. For the first part of the show, Carll will be joined by Austin-based roots-rock legends Band of Heathens. Led by singer-songwriters Ed Jurdi and Gordy Quist, Band of Heathens are old friends with whom Carll made an album last year, Hayes & The Heathens. “We’re gonna start off with Hayes and The Heathens as advertised no opener, just get straight into it,” Carll tells the Scene. “After that, we’ll take a break, then it’s
gonna be a kind of Hayes and friends after-party show.” Carll will be backed during the second part of the bash by bassist Jared Reynolds, guitarist Brian Wright, fiddler Luke Moller, pianist Thayer Sarrano and drummer Mike Meadows. Ray Wylie Hubbard, Butch Walker, Aaron Raitiere, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Caroline Spence and Ben Chapman are among the musical friends scheduled to perform. The show will also serve as a quasi release party for the 20th anniversary vinyl release of Carll’s second album Little Rock, the first self-released record to top the Americana Radio Chart. DARYL SANDERS
8 P.M. AT BROOKLYN BOWL
925 THIRD AVE. N.
[FORGET IT, JAKE]
FILM
2024 IN TRIBUTE: CHINATOWN
Let’s not dance around the dark facts that taint this film’s legacy: Just a few years after the release of 1974’s Chinatown, director Roman Polanski was arrested and charged by Los Angeles authorities with drugging and sexually assaulting a 13-year-old. After accepting a plea bargain, the French Polish filmmaker fled to Europe to avoid formal sentencing. The 91-yearold remains there to this day. Three years before his arrest, and five years after his wife Sharon Tate was brutally murdered in the couple’s home by Charles Manson’s followers, Polanski released what is widely viewed as one of the best neo-noir films in cinematic history. Nominated for 11 Oscars — it won just one, Best Original Screenplay for Robert Towne’s phenomenal script — the film stars an in-his-prime Jack Nicholson as Jake Gittes, a private investigator set loose on the trail of an increasingly complex mystery in 1930s Southern California. Full of twists and turns and captivating performances from Nicholson, Faye Dunaway, Diane Ladd and John Huston, Chinatown set a high bar for New Hollywood crime cinema. In honor of screenwriter Towne, who died in July, the film is showing twice this weekend as part of the Belcourt’s 2024 In Tribute series. D. PATRICK RODGERS JAN. 11-12 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
PHOTO: DAVID M c CLISTER
HAYES CARLL
CHINATOWN
SUNDAY / 1.12
MUSIC [LET’S ROCK] BRITTANY HOWARD HARDCORE BENEFIT SHOW
Brittany Howard could never be put into a box. She’s made homages to the best of the blues, folk, punk, R&B and Southern rock, all while making something entirely her own. Her work with Alabama Shakes may be her best known, but her solo catalog and contributions to Bermuda Triangle and Thunderbitch stand the test of time in their own rights. At The Basement East, Howard will debut a brand-new hardcore project under the name Kumite. She’ll be backed by members of the band Second Spirit, who will also play their own set at the show. They’ll be joined by Inner Peace and local scene mainstay Snooper. Proceeds from the show will benefit Second Harvest Food Bank of Middle Tennessee, Launch Pad and the Southern Movement Committee — Howard and her partner decided to donate the show’s sales to these organizations to cultivate a sense of community in the wake of the 2024 presidential election. If that’s not enough to sell you a ticket, here’s what Brittany herself had to say about the show when she spoke to the Scene in November: “No matter what happens, we’re going to take care of each other. It turns out the orange one was elected, and I don’t know what’s going to happen next. But whatever happens, I know we’re going to take care of each other, period. This might be a one-time-only deal, so I would just encourage people to come out if you want to see it because you’ll probably never see it again!” HANNAH CRON 7:30 P.M.
ST.
in the Final Destination films and a henchman in the original The Crow. But his most iconic role is the bee-summoning title character in the Candyman franchise. Rocking a long-ass coat and a hook for a hand, dude was a badass boogeyman, bringing the pain to everyone and anyone throughout a trio of films and even showing up for a cameo in that Jordan Peele-produced reboot from 2021. For its 2024 In Tribute series, the Belcourt will take viewers back to where it all started: the 1992 cult fave in which Todd got stung all to hell (he did get $1,000 for every time he was stung though) as the vengeful spirit who terrorizes a Chicago housing project and thirsts after Virginia Madsen’s snowbunny grad student. CRAIG D. LINDSEY
8 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT
2102 BELCOURT AVE.
TUESDAY / 1.14
[SYNCHRONI-MUSIC-CITY]
MUSIC
A TRIBUTE TO THE POLICE
1986 was a year of marvels: A dozen grade-A eggs cost 87 cents in the U.S., Halley’s Comet crossed the night sky for the first time in decades, and at arguably the height of their cultural influence, The Police disbanded. Drummer Stewart Copeland, guitarist Andy Summers and bassist/vocalist Sting together recorded six platinum albums, earned five
MONDAY / 1.13
MUSIC
[DON’T RAIN ON MY PARADE] SHOW TUNES AT SID’S
If you’re going to check out Show Tunes at Sid Gold’s Request Room, it’s time to get into the theater-kid mindset. For two hours, it’s all show tunes, all the time — and the performers don’t hold back. The fervor with which I saw a man sing and dance to “Turkey Lurkey Time” at a previous iteration still inspires me to this day. We also got a song from Mulan, and a very timely and beautiful rendition of Wicked’s “The Wizard and I.” Our request for someone — anyone! — to please sing “Good Morning Baltimore” from Hairspray was also graciously accepted by host and local theater legend Megan Murphy Chambers. She typically enlists a special guest or two to carry the show, but singing along as an audience member is encouraged. Show Tunes caters to a more experienced group of singers, but it’s followed by Piano Karaoke With Krazy Kyle. You’d be hard-pressed not to want to get up and sing after watching this talented lineup. HANNAH HERNER
7 P.M. AT SID GOLD’S REQUEST ROOM
3245 GALLATIN PIKE
FILM [HOOKED] 2024 IN TRIBUTE AND MUSIC CITY MONDAYS: CANDYMAN
We definitely lost a real one when African American actor Tony Todd died a couple months ago, a few weeks before his 70th birthday. The towering, deep-voiced Todd was a horror mainstay, providing memorable menace in roles like the death-obsessed funeral director
Grammy Awards and were inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. In celebration of the iconic English rock band’s enduring legacy, ace producer Dustin Ransom is prepared to lead a cast of notable area musicians through an evening of hit songs spanning The Police’s timeless discography. “I know how much this music means to people, and obviously to myself as well,” says Ransom, “so I try to give [the audience] something that helps us all share a transcendent experience.” The stacked lineup includes David Ryan Harris, Gabe Dixon, Cody Belew, Them Vibes, Jeremy Lister and many more stellar artists. Stewart Copeland’s drum tech and assistant since 1980, Jeff Seitz, will also join the festivities as a special guest. This show just might have attendees walking on the moon by night’s end. JASON VERSTEGEN
8 P.M. AT 3RD AND LINDSLEY 818 THIRD AVE. S.
WEDNESDAY / 1.15
MUSIC [PURE BEAUTY]
SALUTE THE SONGBIRD LIVE RECORDING FEAT. MAGGIE ROSE & CAITLYN SMITH
In the annals of pop country, Maggie Rose’s 2024 album No One Gets Out Alive stands tall as a piece of pop music that registers as country by virtue of Rose’s voice and her location in
BRITTANY HOWARD
MAGGIE ROSE
Jonell Mosser with Special Guests Maura O’Connell & Vickie Carrico with Carrie Welling
Ryan Spencer Cook, Philip Shouse & Christopher Williams (8pM) rubblebucket w/ hannah mohan
Mon Rovîa w/ oliver hazard
Liam Slater w/ Dan Cousart (7pm)
ponzi w/ Women Are Smarter & Moonbus (9pm)
the deltaz w/ noah nash (7pm)
Mikey Demilio w/ Meredith Lane & The Flooks (9pm)
Corey Parsons w/ Libby Weitnauer and Hannah Juanita & Mose Wilson
Skylar Raine, HellFrog, Max Langlinais
June & Giles
harf. w/ Thomas Rowland
Lawndry, Trash Man (7pm)
the cold stares w/ myron elkins (9pm)
forbidden highway
WMOT Roots Radio Presents Finally Friday featuring ETHAN SAMUEL BROWN, BEN CHAPMAN & LILLY WINWOOD
baylee lindsey & casey noel (7pm)
Kid Pastel, The New LA, Sam Varga (9PM)
lb beistad w/ toy dinosaur (7pm)
Miranda And The Beat w/ Cowboy Killer, Night Talkers, The Serpenteens (9PM)
matt koziol w/ Rylie Bourne
Sasquatch and the Sick-A-Billys w/
A Tribute to JEFF BECK featuring KEITH CARLOCK, ADAM NITTI, MICHAEL WHITTAKER, PHIL KEAGGY, CHRIS RODRIGUEZ, GORDON KENNEDY, RANDY NATIONS, JIMMY HALL, JONATHAN CRONE, TOM HEMBY & more!
A Tribute to THE POLICE featuring DAVID RYAN HARRIS, GABE DIXON, CODY BELEW, THEM VIBES, JEREMY LISTER, DEREK WEBB, ANDY DAVIS, MODA SPIRA, ALEXI SASKI, ABBIE PARKER, JEFF SEITZ with COURT CLEMENT, CALEB CROSBY, ROY AGEE, JAKE BOTTS, ANDREW GOLDEN ROSIE & THE REVIVAL with Special Guests
EMILY WEST featuring LUKE DAVIDS with NICK CONNORS
Nashville, where she’s lived since 2008. You might compare No One to Dusty Springfield’s 1969 Dusty in Memphis, which is a classic of popsoul crossover And for once, that comparison isn’t off base — Ben Tanner’s production of No One creates a richly ornamented space for Rose that draws from pop masters as diverse as John Lennon, Jeff Lynne, Chaka Khan and Delaney & Bonnie. In particular, Peter Levin’s piano evokes late-period Beatles, Harry Nilsson and Simon & Garfunkel on tunes like “Thinking of You” and “Vanish.” Rose & Co. go for pure beauty on No One Gets Out Alive, and that puts it within shouting distance of the sublime Dusty in Memphis. Rose has been hosting an excellent podcast, Salute the Songbird, which is now in its fourth season. She talks to musicians who are also busy expanding country’s palette, and recent episodes have featured guitarist Grace Bowers and singers and songwriters Emily Ann Roberts and Sunny Sweeney. Wednesday’s live taping at Chief’s will feature Rose in conversation and performance with songwriter and singer Caitlyn Smith, whose latest album is 2023’s High & Low EDD HURT
7:30 P.M. AT CHIEF’S 200 BROADWAY
MUSIC
[RUNNIN’ THROUGH TOWN]
LILY ROSE
Lily Rose launches her 2025 tour at The Basement East on Wednesday. It might be the start of a new year, but it’s just a continuation of Rose’s astonishing momentum. Rose is part of a new wave of Nashville artists who favor guitars and vulnerability above red Solo cups, and she knows how to craft a meaty hook that’s destined for arena sing-alongs. Rose’s latest album Runnin’ Out of Time balances songs about good times and parties with those inevitable latenight ponderings asking where it all leads. Rose and her band bring irresistible chemistry to the stage, and she’ll only improve on her game as she shares more of herself and hones her voice. Following her stop in Nashville, Rose will hit the road for 15 more dates in the Southeast and Midwest. RACHEL CHOLST
7:30 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT EAST 917 WOODLAND ST.
LILY ROSE
Grab your tickets to the annual Margarita Festival and enjoy a dozen margarita samples from the city’s best marg makers!
Sip and shake the night away while DJs rock the park and you enjoy food truck fare, salsa dancing, photo booth fun and much more!
• A dozen margarita samples from the best marg makers in town
• Access to the VIP lounge with additional seating, fans and free water
• Complimentary light bites
• And more!
COOKING WITH FIRE
Culinary power couple Audra and Nick Guidry are heating up the Lebanon dining scene
BY MARGARET LITTMAN
AUDRA AND NICK GUIDRY have opened a number of restaurants over the course of their careers, so they’re not surprised when people compliment their food. After all, they’re known for being among the best bakers (her) and open-fire chefs (him) in the Southeast — Nick’s Instagram handle is @cookswithfire. But something different has been happening over the past year.
“My wife and I talk about this pretty frequently,” Nick says. “It is almost odd, when we open something like the cocktail bar. Last week alone, I was thanked at least two dozen times. The hospitality world is so hard. It’s so tough, mentally, emotionally and physically. To open something and have people be thankful that you opened it and that you invested in the city, that’s really kind of rewarding.”
The latest batch of gratitude the couple received was for Olivia Craft Cocktail and Oyster Bar, which opened in Lebanon in late November. Olivia is named for the Guidrys’
daughter and has a vibe, like her, that’s both feminine and strong, Audra says. The bar joins the Guidrys’ portfolio of other restaurants and bars, including East Nashville’s Pelican & Pig and Slow Hand Coffee and Bakeshop next door, Slow Hand Bakehouse in Lebanon and Leon’s Famous Deli, which they own with a business partner in Mt. Juliet. They’ve been at work on Juniper, which will be located in downtown Lebanon, since 2022 (they think 2025 will be the year Juniper finally opens its doors), as well as some other projects that aren’t yet ready for public discussion.
The couple moved to Lebanon less than three years ago, looking for somewhere to raise their family. “Eating and drinking out is our hobby,” Audra explains — but when they got to Lebanon, they noticed there weren’t a lot of independent restaurants for their regular date nights. They didn’t have as many options for a good pastry and a cup of coffee as they had in Nashville.
“You should not have to drive 45 minutes to get those things,” Audra says.
Lebanon Mayor Rick Bell had noticed the same thing and could not agree more. When he took the oath of office in December 2020, he unveiled a plan that included attracting more restaurants to the suburb, which is 30 miles east of downtown Nashville.
“An essential part of that endeavor has been to encourage and assist local entrepreneurs,” Bell says. “This is everything from helping them find locations to creating an easy way to navigate through the permitting process and having an incentive package for our historic square.”
Bell and his wife previously had dined at Pelican & Pig and were excited about a restaurant of its caliber coming to Lebanon. “One restaurant would have been great,” Bell says. “I had no idea that they wanted to open multiple concepts. Slow Hand has been a huge hit. Olivia just opened and has quickly become
a hot spot on our square. They are currently working on Juniper, which I am really excited about.”
Lebanon economic development director Sarah Haston notes that there are a few other independent restaurants both on the historic square and in the larger historic district, including a brewery, a sitdown restaurant with a bourbon bar, a tea house and several other salad and healthy-eating spots. Most have opened since 2019.
Audra uses the Slow Hand Bakehouse in Lebanon to prepare baked goods and pastries for all of their restaurants (the East Nashville Slow Hand doesn’t have room for all the equipment), and everything is then baked on site where it is served. Pastries are rustic, Audra says, in that they are not highly decorated cakes but more homestyle baked goods. Her biscuits, cinnamon rolls and sea salt chocolate chip cookies are particularly popular.
While the Guidrys have a reputation as flying
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
AUDRA AND NICK GUIDRY
AT OLIVIA CRAFT COCKTAIL AND OYSTER BAR
under the radar, particularly compared to other independent restaurant owners, their work is hardly a secret. Pelican & Pig was featured on Netflix’s Somebody Feed Phil when the show came to Nashville in 2021. The restaurant is well-loved by folks in the neighborhood and recommended by Airbnb owners in the area, bringing in tourists as well as locals. Even though it opened in 2019, it still can be hard to nab a table. The early idea behind Pelican & Pig was a nod to their roots (Nick’s in Louisiana and Audra’s in Florida), with each of their culinary specialties.
Juniper will also be focused on Nick’s beloved
CHEAP EATS
open-fire cooking style, and will also feature seafood and handmade pastas. Maybe a pizza oven. “I think in Nick’s heart there’s always going to be some form of live fire,” Audra says. The space has exposed brick and a design that honors the building’s history.
The couple also co-owns Leon’s in Mt. Juliet with business partner Hunter Briley. Both Briley and Nick have Cajun roots — Briley’s grandfather is from Baton Rouge, La., and Nick is from New Orleans. The result is a New Orleansesque lunch spot with muffuletta and other sandwiches, plus sandwich fixings served atop loaded fries. Nick had hoped to have pastrami
on the Leon’s menu (and did so briefly), but the prep was too much for the small space. He did serve pastrami at a Pelican & Pig pop-up in 2024 and promises that’s not the last we’ll hear about pastrami from him. Bread for Leon’s po’boys is from Leidenheimer Bakery Co. in New Orleans. Slow Hand had been located on 10th Avenue South. When the landlord for that property sold, the Guidrys looked at other properties and saw the site that became Slow Hand Coffee and Bakeshop on Gallatin Avenue in East Nashville. The adjacent space was such a good deal, Audra says, they didn’t want to let it go, and that’s when Pelican & Pig came to be. At the time, Slow
Hand was a little bit of an outlier in its location. Now Nick estimates there are more than 15 coffee shops in a one-mile radius. Reflecting on such changes helps the couple imagine future projects. “You start thinking about, ‘What does the market need? What do I want to do for one, and two, what does the market need?’” says Nick. “And then you evaluate what, logistically, you can make money on. We’ve got a laundry list, probably of five to 10 different concepts we want to do. My brain is just constantly moving.” ▼
VARALLO’S BREAKFAST BOWL
— $10.25
In downtown Nashville, the state’s oldest restaurant still offers big portions at uncommonly affordable prices
BY KEN ARNOLD
LOCATED DEEP IN the heart of Nashville’s downtown core, Tennessee’s oldest restaurant still stands proudly, serving breakfast and chili options — and still doing it at a price the working class can afford. Varallo’s has a vast menu of options that are so affordable you might feel like you’re walking back in time. But I want to focus on the one menu item I keep coming back to time and time again.
The Breakfast Bowl is basically a full American breakfast in a large foam cup. It’s packed tight with biscuits, scrambled eggs, hash browns and your choice of bacon
or sausage, drowned in sausage gravy to make a bowl of pure Southern-style comfort food. I recommend a few splashes of Louisiana hot sauce, which is available on the table, to give the bowl an extra bit of kick. Altogether, the Breakfast Bowl is a quart of delicious food that’s representative of the traditional culture of the area for just $10.25 — a competitive price anywhere in Davidson County, let alone downtown Nashville. Varallo’s is a special treat that comes with nearly 120 years of history. In a part of town beset by rapid development, it’s important to hold onto the historic parts of downtown and have a few bastions of affordability for the hardworking
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
ADVICE KING
WHAT ARE YOUR NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS?
When we treat loss of life as a setback, we have lost the plot
BY CHRIS CROFTON
In 2014, comedian, musician, podcaster and Nashvillian Chris Crofton asked the Scene for an advice column, so we gave him one. Crowning himself the “Advice King,” Crofton shares his hard-won wisdom with whoever seeks it. Follow Crofton on Twitter and Instagram (@thecroftonshow), and check out his The Advice King Anthology and Cold Brew Got Me Like podcast. To submit a question for the Advice King, email bestofbread@gmail.com.
Dear Advice King, Happy New Year! What is a realistic New Year’s resolution?
Thanks!
—Hank in Hoboken
HANK IN HOBOKEN?! Now we’re talking!
[Sweeping orchestral noise indicates the start of a musical number.]
One good resolution would be to write more limericks.
There once was a man from Hoboken Whose pants split when he was showboatin’ He headed to the store
To buy some more (pants)
But he got arrested for indecent exposin’
I quit. That’s a terrible resolution.
[Orchestra screams obscenities, destroys instruments.]
But it’s a better idea than reading the news!
[Nine-year-old plays Raiders of the Lost Ark theme on trombone.]
Except for the Nashville Scene. You should read that.
[Cymbal crash.]
I’m kidding around. The guy who sent in the question wasn’t even really named Hank in Hoboken. I made that up. His real name is Frank from Fresno!
[Orchestra starts up.]
OK, I’ll stop.
My staff (my mother) is tired of responding (politely) to hate mail from the “make advice columns great again” crowd: “While we appreciate your interest, to our knowledge, there is no such thing as an ‘Advice Column Tribunal,’ so Chris has no plans to appear in front of it. Thanks! Penny Crofton.”
Speaking of the kind of news you shouldn’t read, the other day I saw an especially disheartening Associated Press headline. It was about the recent plane crash in South Korea, in which 179 people died. It was published less than 24 hours later. The headline was “Jet Crash Disaster
Marks Another Setback for Boeing.” Onehundred-seventy-nine humans died in that jet disaster. And in case you needed a reminder, that’s the only thing we have going here — humanity.
Humanity and animals and crops and little shelters called houses and little pipes carrying water around. All that infrastructure was made by, and is designed to serve, humans. How did “Boeing” enter this equation? What is the point of labeling the deaths of innocent people a “setback” in a timeline that stretches backward and forward over billions of years? I’ll tell you what the point is. It’s to diminish the value of human life. To make it seem as if we are but a small part of some grand, for-profit “project.” It’s directly connected to Elon Musk’s obsession with birth rates.
Existence is not a for-profit project — it’s our brief time on earth. If flying kills us, we should stop flying. If birth rates go down, we should enjoy the peace and quiet. I resolve to remember that there is no urgency to any of this, except the urgency imposed upon us by a certain type of human — “the hurtling people,” I call them. People addicted to narratives and often driven by substances. When humans become bit players in those narratives, and we treat loss of life as a setback — or some kind of indicator — then we have lost the (actual) plot. We are all in this together, not as “birthrates” or “setbacks,” but as the community currently lucky enough to be alive for a few instants on the back of this giant, undulating, inscrutable serpent we call time.
No more cold brew for me?
Allow me fix that AP headline: “Maybe We Fly Around Too Much and There Aren’t Enough Competing Companies to Properly Incentivize Safety, but Mainly a Bunch of People Died Today and Their Families Are Devastated, so Maybe Don’t Put the Damn Thing in a Market Context Immediately, You Desensitized Monster.”
And I forgive you, Associated Press reporter. We have all been raised to think this way. I resolve to try to break this fever. We are here to do whatever our hearts desire, but together. We are the networks, the machines and the products. We are beholden only to each other and our shared health and happiness. Namaste.
An unhoused person is just as valuable as Peter Thiel. Namaste again.
HAPPY NEW YEAR! ▼
INFINITE LITTLE ISLAND
Playworld, a new novel by Adam Ross, observes a year in the life of a Manhattan teenager
BY SEAN KINCH
GRIFFIN HURT’S NAME is a misnomer. The protagonist of Adam Ross’ new novel, Playworld, Griffin has a loving family, attends a tony Manhattan prep school and, as the star of a television show, possesses distinction among his peers. He’s handsome, talented and popular; if his grades aren’t stellar, who can blame him? Griffin confronts questions common to 15-year-olds — Who am I? Who will love me? — but he does so from a privileged foundation.
Plus, he’s living in the world’s greatest city at a time — 1980 to 1981 — when its gritty allure hasn’t been sanitized and Disneyfied. Ross, the editor of The Sewanee Review, offers impressions of New York that recall Nick Carraway’s sensing the city’s emanation of “non-olfactory money.” Young Griffin, crossing back into Manhattan from Long Island, “caught glimpses” of highrise “luxurious apartments.” “They were each a promise of some greater future in which you might revel in height, in roominess,” Griffin says. “Even now, when I find myself returning to New York after a long absence, I feel that same thrill.” He and younger brother Oren and their friends roam the midtown streets like young lords, “living in our tiny world on that infinite little island.”
Though Griffin’s life is charmed, he still finds himself in baffling situations. The relationship between his artistic parents — mother Lily a dancer, father Shel an actor — appears to be intimate (Shel buys Lily lingerie for Christmas), yet their daily lives are separate and their emotional turmoil inscrutable. “Why does Mom sometimes slur her words at night?” Griffin wants to ask his father. “Why does Mom say none of your friends are her friends?” Feeling lingering guilt about causing a fire that destroyed their apartment years ago, Griffin sees a therapist but makes little progress. Playworld illustrates the truth that one gains wisdom only by making one’s own mistakes. By that measure, Griffin is on the path to true profundity.
Among the pickles he wanders into is his peculiar, clandestine affair with Naomi Shah, a family friend whom he begins meeting after school. In her Mercedes, they drive to empty parking lots bordering the Hudson River, where they talk and touch, their stolen hours existing in the gray area between affection and sex. Naomi caresses him and calls him “my sweet boy”; Griffin doesn’t know how to reply. When their relationship, whatever it is, runs its course (for now), he feels ambivalent about their parting. He knows their backseat fondling is unseemly (or worse) but soon misses her attention. No matter — soon enough Griffin finds himself an age-appropriate object for his burgeoning desires.
Ross’ episodic bildungsroman is replete with telling details that track Griffin’s steps to maturity. He struggles with the adult burdens of the television show’s schedule, surrendering his summers to the grind of 12-hour days on set. Yet he’s also a child who, on an empty bus, grabs the straps and pretends he’s flying down Columbus Avenue. The novel’s set pieces — including Thanksgiving dinner in New York and Christmas with relatives in Virginia — provide a sensory richness, a lived-in feeling that augments our sympathy for the often-hapless protagonist. Griffin knows he shouldn’t eat those extra slices of cream chipped beef on toast, not during wrestling season, but he can’t resist the temptation. The wrestling scenes create the same mixed feelings Griffin experiences with Naomi. He appreciates the confidence bestowed on him by Coach Kepplemen but feels uneasy about their private sessions. In Griffin’s free periods, Kepplemen leads him to a basement, where they grapple in the semi-dark. “I experienced no fear of being overmatched or overwhelmed,” Griffin says, “but I suffered instead the vague, humiliating sense of being subjected,” a discomfort that intensifies when Kepplemen’s genitals break loose from his shorts.
Griffin feels more comfortable, marginally, on the set of his television series, Nuclear Family, where he plays Peter Proton in a clan of scientists/superheroes. Ross removes the glamour from Griffin’s time at NBC studios. He
Name: COCO
Age: 1 year 11 months
Weight: 41 lbs.
is tormented by makeup artists and production assistants, and finds no camaraderie with cast members. Their shooting schedule spills into the fall, forcing Griffin to spend mornings on set and then race to school, where he falls behind in every class. His only relief comes in moments when the cameras roll. A natural actor, he feels at ease speaking scripted lines and responding to invented catastrophes. It’s the real world that gives him fits.
Playworld offers a nostalgic retrospective of the time when Americans debated the Carter-Reagan election and grabbed the gusto of Schlitz Beer. Griffin’s family registers the shocks of John Lennon’s assassination and the Iran hostage crisis, darkness balanced by disco frolics and Griffin appearing with Muhammad Ali on Candid Camera. A year in the life of an amiably blinkered young man, Ross’ novel captures the phase when the adult world seemed as close as the next subway stop.
For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee. ▼
By
Adam Ross Knopf
528 pages, $29
Adopt. Bark. Meow. Microchip. Neuter. Spay. CoCo? CoCo!
There’s nothing imaginary about this furry friend. CoCo is a curious and cuddly pup who loves to explore! Her favorite game is tug. She already knows “sit” and “come”. CoCo gets along well with dogs who can match her energetic playstyle. She is looking for a home with an adopter who is as patient and sweet as she is!
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Playworld
GOOD VINTAGE
Styrofoam Winos discuss creativity and community as tools of the spirit
BY JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT
IF YOU FREQUENTED now-closed Midtown institution J&J’s Market and Cafe during the 2010s, at some point you almost surely placed your coffee order with Trevor Nikrant, Lou Turner or Joe Kenkel, the members of stellar DIY outfit Styrofoam Winos. After finishing their studies at Belmont University, the three friends and songwriters worked the cafe by day and jammed out together in their free time. In the beginning, the intention wasn’t to start a band, but that’s just how the chips fell.
Inspired by local lifer artists like Chris Davis (of arts nonprofit FMRL) and The Cherry Blossoms (of whom Davis is a member), as well as the weird and worn spirit of places like J&J’s, Betty’s and Springwater, the Winos set out to create a communal ensemble from the inside out. Since their earliest shows, the trio’s members have switched instruments and lead vocals from song to song in a carousel of sharp chops and superb lyricism. All three actively pursue their own solo projects, and each has two full-length records under their belt. Collaboration and free expression are at the core of their creative philosophy, and that commitment shines through in every release.
The Winos cut their second record Real Time live to tape at The Bomb Shelter and released it in September (with vinyl available via Sophomore Lounge). We caught up with the group at the end of 2024, after they returned from a lengthy tour across the Midwest, Texas and the Southeast.
How does playing in the band affect your solo projects and vice versa?
Joe Kenkel: The biggest thing is being around great songwriters. Spending time with really intentional songwriters makes you think, when you’re in your own private space working on a different project, “How can I bring the intention I feel in the Winos into my own stuff?”
Lou Turner: I have recorded most of my solo stuff with [Kenkel and Nikrant], in some way, and that’s a big way it’s influenced me. Something might be solo in name, but I really love the collaboration of the Winos, and I want it in every music experience. … I want to feel that freedom of collaboration and looseness around it, and not just be, like, myself in a sandbox.
Trevor Nikrant: For me, recording bass or drums on my own music is totally influenced by having internalized the way they both play. The whole shared musical language … as well as the songwriting.
LT: We want to make stuff each other likes. It’s cool to have space to go be your own version of yourself apart from a band. It makes everything feel more capacious. I’ll have an idea, and I’m like, “This is just too idiosyncratic for anyone to need to chase it with me, so maybe this is a ‘me’ song.” Maybe that’s true, maybe it’s not, but to
have the freedom to be able to bring it into a group or to go off on your own — it’s really nice that we all have that inter-independent relationship. That’s always been there from the beginning, which I don’t think a lot of bands have.
What inspired your decision to rotate instruments from song to song?
TN: At first, just necessity. We all wrote songs, but none of us had a band … and that boggles people’s mind sometimes.
LT: It’s fun to entertain people — underrated sometimes. It entertains us. … It keeps it really fresh to change stations song to song. I’m never bored during a Winos set. Ever. It pushes us to be better at all the things we do and to play to each other really well no matter what we’re doing. I think it just makes you better at everything to know what it’s like in every situation. Like Trader Joe’s — it’s like the Winos of grocery stores. They ring a bell and switch stations.
JK: So you go from, like, stocking to cashier?
LT: Yeah. It’s so they all respect each job. So that every job gets done well because there’s different eyes on it.
TN: Be sure to say we are very inspired by Trader Joe’s.
Oh, I will. “Influences: David Berman and Trader Joe’s.” Who are some of the artists in your community in Nashville who you feel really inspired by?
LT: Kyle Hamlett is someone who we are all huge, slathering fans of, and have collaborated with in different ways. He collaborates furiously with so many different people, and is also such an individual. I think that is a really cool duality that is kind of Wino-y, and something we try to do.
JK: Our friends in Crave On. … They make really cool, idiosyncratic songs that are so good and in their own style.
TN: Body Electric and everything Andie Billheimer does. She’s an amazing musical mind.
What are your hopes for the community of musicians in Nashville who you live and create with?
JK: First and foremost, that they keep making music. Everyone is killing it in regards to the songs they are making and putting out. I think more places to play would be crucial for our community in particular.
LT: More places like Random Sample that are community-rooted and interdisciplinary. That’s something we all really love and are encouraged by, and it’s really nice to see in Nashville: different types of art being uplifted together in the same space. … People not getting discouraged. Continuing to find a way to do this and do it for their life … and not worry about how many streams they’re getting on Spotify. Truly: Make your music available, but then try to forget about that.
TN: I wish there was a word for sending energy to people to help them not get discouraged. Just like a big hug.
LT: We get that on tour from our extended network of friends that do this in other places. It’s nice to get your cup filled in another place and remember that people are slogging everywhere and have community everywhere. When we come back home, it’s always like, “OK, we got to repay our karma.” Someone let us sleep on their floor, we’ve got to let a band stay with us now and cook them breakfast. … Go to shows you’re not playing, and really try to be there for other people. I’d love to see more of that, and I’m talking to myself, too.
TN: More one-on-one, like, “I love this lyric” or “I love this bill.” People sharing their close listening experiences to each other’s music is the most wind to put in sails for anyone making stuff.
What do you do when the music industry rears its ugly head and Spotify, like, takes all of your money?
TN: This tour we just went on was packed full of sweeties in various towns just putting so much heart into running venues and throwing shows and supporting the whole thing. It’s ugly out there, for sure. I guess we kind of, by default, knew from the beginning we didn’t want all the diamonds and rhinestones. We kind of expected to be pretty close to the ground for maybe just forever, because it’s more fun.
How are you guys feeling about the coming year? What role does making art in a community play in
these very heavy, hard, sad times?
JK: On a very granular level, making weird shit is a great mini form of rebellion that’s important for our little community. Speaking personally, for mental health, creating stuff that doesn’t fit into the straight and narrow path feels great. It’s like, “Fuck whatever else is going on, I’m just going to make this weird little piece of art.” While that might not necessarily be, like, “helpful,” it is what is important to do.
LT: Like: “AI could never! Big business could never!” It’s important to be your weird little self.
TN: It’s inherently political, I feel like, because you’re just creating joy and something you care about out of thin air. It hasn’t been preapproved by an approving body, or it hasn’t been commodified into something.
LT: It’s important to support your local subculture, as my friend Dan would say. The more we can create another world, the more the shitty existing world can migrate to that one. We have to keep creating a new world, and not let fear keep you from doing small things, because small things are all we have to do really.
TN: They are only small things if some power says they are small.
What is 2025 looking like for the Winos?
TN: Hopefully making some new songs. More touring for sure.
JK: Looking back a year ago excites us to look forward a year, because a year ago we had barely started the writing and recording of Real Time. … It’s just exciting to imagine what could be different for us in a year’s time. ▼
Real Time available now Follow @styrofoamwinos on Instagram for updates
PHOTO: HILARY BELL
PUTTING THE WORK IN
Stellar rapper Chuck Indigo reflects on his career ahead of his show at The Blue Room
BY P.J. KINZER
“MY WIFE AND I, we have two kids, and we have a group of friends that are married as well, with kids,” says Nashville MC and singer Chuck Indigo, who’s taken some time out of his holiday schedule to squeeze in a chat on New Year’s Day. “We all went to a friend’s house out in Murfreesboro last night and did a big thing for the kids.”
Anyone who takes in Indigo’s lyrics or peruses his social media could tell you that family is at the forefront of what he does. When I ask about his show coming up Friday at The Blue Room at Third Man Records, a coy smile stretches across the wordsmith’s face.
“One of the big things I’ll just say is my family will be there in attendance,” he hints. “Like, my entire family.” Indigo pauses for effect before revealing his secret plot like a Bond villain in the third act. “My daughter’s gonna come on
stage and do a little one-two with me,” he says, glowing with pride. Indigo’s little girl will make her stage debut with a feature on “Love Me Still,” a mesmerizing earworm from If You Know, You Know…, his 2023 EP.
“She loves that song,” Indigo continues, explaining that his daughter closes her eyes and sings along when the track comes on at home.
“She didn’t know that I was singing the song until we were playing it in the house. And my wife is like, ‘You know, that’s Daddy, right?’”
Before taking on the stage name Chuck Indigo as a rapper on the rise in Nashville, the young dad and lyrical wiz played basketball under his birth name, Nick Drake, at Montgomery, Ala.’s Faulkner University.
“I didn’t manage to dodge the athlete-to-rapper pipeline,” Indigo says with a chuckle. I ask the former Faulkner guard why the best rappers to come out of that pipeline were all former basketball stars. Before Cam’ron and Mase were platinum-selling superstars, they were two of the most promising high school hoops phenoms in “The Mecca,” New York City. NBA luminaries like Jason Kidd, Damian Lillard and Shaq all successfully crossed over from the court to the microphone. Even Music City’s own Starlito first made a name for himself playing at Hume-Fogg and on Junior Olympic teams.
“I always kind of looked at basketball like it’s synonymous with art,” Indigo explains. “That’s what drew me to the sport itself. I’m a rhythm person, right? So for me, it’s all about flow and rhythm.”
He also explains how the flow of an MC and the dance of a basketball game each require putting in the effort. Indigo says his rigorous basketball schedule prepared him for the sweat equity he needed to create good music.
“College basketball was like … you wake up early, you go to the gym — get your shots up,” he says. “After the classes, you go to the weight room. Then you go to practice. Then you get more shots up, and then you go.”
The effort Indigo puts in shines through. Tracks like “I CANT” from his recent album UNTIL I GET THERE offer a beautiful fluidity and melodic nature. Indigo’s style sounds effortless and delicate, meticulously crafted to look like it all comes easy for him. I ask whether jazz is a big influence in his craft.
“I was telling somebody this the other day, the influence really comes more so from gospel music,” he says. Indigo grew up singing in the church choir, another community that has nurtured future superstars (see: Usher and Montel Jordan), and one that Indigo credits for his sense of melody and groove. “I didn’t start listening to
rap music, or really any other type of genre, until I was a sophomore or junior in high school. … It was straight church, basketball, church, basketball. My mom wouldn’t even give me an MP3 player until my ninth-grade year in high school.” Released in November, UNTIL I GET THERE has elevated Indigo’s status as an artist. His singles have even gotten big pushes in South America.
“There was a radio station out there that picked ‘THE JUICE’ as a song of the week,” he notes. “And I’ve been seeing those numbers go up in Brazil and Colombia ever since then.”
The album’s sweeping hooks and dreamlike neo-soul underpinnings are reflected on the cover, which features a painting of the rapper floating over the Nashville skyline, complete with a WeGo bus and the twin spires of the AT&T building. Like the late English musician who shares the name Nick Drake, Chuck Indigo’s chief role is as a songwriter. That’s something he shares with other MCs in town, which has a major impact on the character of Music City rap.
“I think it nests Nashville hip-hop artists in a special pocket. Because I’ve always told people — when they say, ‘Well, what’s the Nashville sound?’ We don’t really have one, because this is a songwriter city.” ▼
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
Playing 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 10, at The Blue Room at Third Man Records
CURTAIN CALL
Pamela Anderson reinvents herself in
BY HANNAH HERNER
JUBILEE!, THE LAST Las Vegas show featuring showgirls, closed in 2016.
If you visit the Strip you can see something resembling showgirls — women posing in revealing rhinestone sets and tall feather headpieces, offering to take photos with tourists — but you won’t see them perform. Director Gia Coppola’s new film The Last Showgirl gives viewers the chance to relish an old Vegas icon. In a dreamy 89 minutes, it follows a fictional veteran of this now-lost art, Shelly Gardner (played by Pamela Anderson), as she struggles to reinvent herself when her trade becomes obsolete.
During a recent virtual press conference, Anderson told press she wanted a rebirth for herself, from her image as a Playboy model and red-bathing-suit-clad Baywatch star to that of a serious actress. Her Last Showgirl role has already earned her a Golden Globe nomination for Best Female Actor in a Motion Picture (Drama) — though she lost out to I’m Still Here’s Fernanda Torres at Sunday’s ceremony. In recent years, Anderson has starred as Roxie Hart in Chicago on Broadway; was the subject of the documentary Pamela, a Love Story; released Love, Pamela: A Memoir, which featured her poetry; and even authored a cookbook titled I Love You: Recipes From the Heart Filmmaker Coppola (yes, of the Hollywood Coppolas) says that while she was watching Anderson’s documentary, it struck her that she was the one for the part, which was written by Kate Gersten.
MONKEY BUSINESS
Robbie Williams biopic Better Man is visually audacious but shamelessly routine
BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY
I FEEL SORRY for anyone who goes into Better Man cold.
Adventurous moviegoers who want to take in a rock ’n’ roll biopic (especially those who just got through seeing Timothée Chalamet as Bob Dylan for A Complete Unknown’s two-and-a-half hours) will most likely find themselves befuddled all to hell while watching this. Not only does it give us a fantastical account of Brit-pop prince Robbie Williams’ ascent to superstar status, but it also portrays Williams as a chimpanzee. I’m also quite certain many viewers will get stuck trying to figure out who the fuck is Robbie Williams. (You might want to take in Robbie Williams, the four-part docuseries Netflix dropped in 2023, before taking this on.)
Williams is a particularly fascinating pop star, in that he’s very famous all over the world — except in America. I remember when he tried to reach stateside audiences in the late ’90s and early 2000s, when boy bands and those who did time in boy bands (like Menudo alumnus
The Last Showgirl
“I could see that there were some parallels, but I could also see a woman that was really hungry to express herself creatively, and that she has just a well of knowledge with art and so much to draw from that I knew it had to be her,” Coppola said during the press conference.
Anderson is supported by a nearly unrecognizable Jamie Lee Curtis, who plays Shelly’s best friend Annette, a former showgirl, with perfect comedic timing and rough-around-the-edges attitude. (An aside: I appreciate that both Anderson and Curtis have been vocal about their decisions to avoid extensive plastic surgery and age naturally.) Dave Bautista is perfectly cast as tough-on-the-outside, soft-on-the-inside club manager Eddie. I loved seeing one of my childhood favorites, former Disney Channel regular Brenda Song, execute a compelling dramatic role, and another lady of my era, Miley Cyrus, provided the haunting original song “Beautiful That Way.” Carrying some of the film’s most heart-wrenching scenes, Billie Lourd co-stars as Shelly’s daughter Hannah, and Kiernan Shipka plays young showgirl Jodie, bringing depth to the story.
Hannah wants to be a photographer, and Shelly bristles at another character’s suggestion that her daughter should go into graphic design, a more stable career path. Shelly’s showgirl schedule always made Hannah feel neglected, and now there isn’t much to show for it — but Shelly loved it, and doesn’t that count for something? It’s a sentiment that those in precarious
professions can identify with.
When the Scene asked Anderson how she hopes her younger co-stars’ Hollywood experience will differ from her own, she pointed out that she feels former child stars Song and Shipka and legacy actress Lourd (the daughter of Carrie Fisher and granddaughter of Debbie Reynolds) have more experience in the industry than even she does.
“I just hope that they are taking on projects that they’re very proud of,” Anderson said. “Because everything is in this world forever, so every choice we make leads us down this road. I feel like I took an unorthodox route to the beginning of my career. This feels like the beginning of my career, so I’ve just scratched the surface.”
Though I assumed The Last Showgirl would feature more dance performance sequences than it did, by the end of the movie, I didn’t care. (I was too wrapped up in a feeling I describe as “Landslide-y” — a melancholic state, its name
turned Latin megastar Ricky Martin) were all over the charts. This movie doesn’t even get into how Williams, a former bratty member of the British boy band Take That before he became an even brattier solo artist, struck out with the Yanks. (The lack of recognition around these parts may explain why he used to live in L.A. with his wife and kids.)
Williams giving himself a primate makeover certainly adds more confusion to the mix. The movie never really stops to explain why Williams (played here by English actor Jonno Davies in a motion-capture performance) is literally monkeying around throughout this thing. Eventually, you get the idea that Williams (who provides cheeky voice-over narration) is basically a rock ’n’ roll animal, relentlessly entertaining the masses even though he at one point refers to himself as “unevolved.”
Williams hooks up with The Greatest Showman director Michael Gracey in creating a fact-based fantasia filled with boisterously staged, CGI-enhanced musical numbers set to Williams’ biggest hits. (It’s like Williams saw Bohemian Rhapsody and Rocketman and went into hold-my-beer mode.) They’re rousing and elaborate enough to almost make you forgive the story, scripted by Gracey, Australian actor-singer Simon Gleeson and Oliver Cole, which hits us with the familiar biopic beats. We see Williams rising out of the working-class gutter, seeking fame and fortune but mostly craving the attention he doesn’t get from his dad (Steve Pemberton), who left his family to be a middling lounge singer. We also have Williams going through a rocky romance with Nicole Appleton (Raechelle Banno) from the all-girl group All Saints, which serves as a composite of all the
inspired by the Fleetwood Mac song, during which I think about the passage of time.) The Last Showgirl does feature show-stopping Bob Mackie designs that had been in museum storage for 30 years. The filmmakers also enlisted some of the dancers from Jubilee! to help the actors manage the heavy costumes.
Anderson told press she wasn’t sure if she’d ever get to do a dramatic film like The Last Showgirl, so she gave it all she has. It will be clear to viewers that it’s personal.
“Everything I’ve gone through in my life, from childhood till now, it was all worth it,” Anderson said. “I put it all in this film. It has a place to live now, and I can let a lot of that go.” ▼
high-profile relationships Williams had over the years. (He also had a dalliance with former Spice Girl Geri Halliwell.)
As Williams achieves A-list success, he predictably slides into drug-fueled excess, dulling the pain of being lonely (he appears to have only one true friend throughout the film) and unfulfilled while also being haunted by versions of himself, watching in disapproval from the audience. One insane sequence has Williams battling throngs of these imaginary Robbies during a mammoth outdoor show. And of course, there’s the thing that truly drives him off the deep end: the third-act death of a beloved family member.
As far as rock biopics go, Better Man is visually audacious but shamelessly routine. Its CGI wizardry can’t cover up the fact that we’ve seen this story oodles of times before. Yet it has a spirited, divisive attitude (much like Williams) that will either win you over or have you continuously asking yourself, “What the fuck was that?” on the ride home.
As I walked out of the screening I attended, I saw a woman in her seat either laughing or crying. Was she so baffled by what she just witnessed that she started having the giggles, or did the movie’s sentimentality get the waterworks going? Or was it both?
I’ll tell you this: You certainly won’t have that kind of response after watching A Complete Unknown ▼
The Last Showgirl R, 89 minutes
Opening Friday, Jan. 10, at Regal and AMC locations
Better Man R, 135 minutes Opening Friday, Jan. 10, at Regal and AMC locations
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and
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