Nashville Scene 10-5-23

THE TROUBLING REALITY OF ONGOING SCHOOL THREATS

>> PAGE 8

CULTURE: CHATTING WITH FILTH ICON JOHN WATERS

>> PAGE 40

Raqib Shaw: Ballads of East and West features a selection of intricate paintings portraying mysterious, dreamlike realms and bizarre hybrid creatures. Inspired by Rudyard Kipling’s poem

“The Ballad of East and West,” the Kashmiri artist suggests that, no matter one’s geographical origins, the language of art has no borders. Painting with porcupine quills, Shaw renders the precise details of objects ranging from flowers to distant mountains, which are outlined in embossed gold.

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919 Broadway, Nashville, TN 37203

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Organized by the Frist Art Museum

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Supported in part by Gordon CAP Gallery Fund

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Raqib Shaw. The Adoration (After Jan Gossaert) (detail), 2015–16. Acrylic liner and enamel on birchwood; 69 5/8 x 63 6/8 in. Private collection. © Raqib Shaw. Photo © White Cube (George Darrell / Ben Westoby) Courtesy of the artist and White Cube

One-Fifth of Downtown Nashville Is Devoted to Parking. Is That a Good Thing?

As prices rise, transit advocates want to reduce car dependency to get downtown

BY COLE VILLENA

The Troubling Reality of Ongoing School Threats

Part of an ongoing national trend, Metro schools have received more than a dozen ultimately unrealized threats since August

BY KELSEY BEYELER

Pith in the Wind

This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog Nonprofits Try to Keep

Up With EverChanging

Abortion Landscape

Tennesseans sue the state over lack of medical exceptions in ban

BY HANNAH HERNER

COVER PACKAGE

Fully Booked

This year’s Southern Festival of Books is jam-packed with literary luminaries. Check out our reviews and interviews with featured authors including Margaret Renkl, Tan Twan Eng, Major Jackson and more.

BY SCENE STAFF; CHAPTER16.ORG

CRITICS’ PICKS

Becca Mancari, Phish, Suspiria, Common Feat. the Nashville Symphony, Jonas Brothers and more

FOOD AND DRINK

The Breakfast Club

Our thoughts on six Nashville breakfast sandwiches

BY ELI MOTYCKA

ART

Crawl Space: October’s First Saturday Is Full

of Text and Texture

Lars Strandh’s formalist paintings, Adam Mele’s monsterlike creatures and the Show & Sell bazaar

BY JOE NOLAN

CULTURE

Girl Power

Little Amal arrives at Centennial Park at 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 5 • PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WALK PRODUCTIONS, RESPECTIVE COLLECTIVE

Little Amal carries a big message of hope

BY AMY STUMPFL

The Filth Element

John Waters is fresh from the gutter

BY KIM BALDWIN

MUSIC

Community Health

As young people face mental health challenges, arts organizations like Girls Write Nashville are attempting to fill care gaps

BY AMANDA HAGGARD

Wayfaring Strangers

Ida Mae returns with their best album to date Thunder Above You

BY DARYL SANDERS

Dream Weaver

Pat Metheny’s five-decade career continues in impressive fashion with Dream Box

BY RON WYNN

FILM

Robert’s Rules

Documentarian Robert Mugge’s long, cinematic view of the music-making process

BY RON WYNN

A Touch of Evil

The Origin of Evil is a decadent, dark-hearted ride

BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY

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PRESIDENT JIMMY CARTER’S LONGLASTING ACCOMPLISHMENTS HAVE BEEN BENEFICIAL FOR ALL

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I WAS REFLECTING on the accomplishments of former President Jimmy Carter recently, as I saw the news of his attendance at last month’s Plains, Ga., Peanut Festival with his wife Rosalynn. He is the oldest living former president and a stalwart man of faith and practicality, and so I thought I would take the opportunity to review his accomplishments in office and honor his principles and the humanitarian work he has undertaken in the decades since.

President Carter was a rare breed of politician at the time he was elected — a Southern evangelical man of faith with progressive Democratic political ideals. Since his time in office, he has risen to be a global humanitarian with a reach that has benefited millions around the world.

His personal faith guided his decisions and his daily living, but he was careful to emphasize the importance of separating church and state. He was adamant about the danger of tying political ideals to personal faith. During his 2002 Nobel Peace Prize lecture, he quoted a teacher from his small elementary school in rural Georgia. He said his beloved teacher, Miss Julia Coleman, taught him this principle: “We must adjust to changing times and still hold to unchanging principles.”

America was undergoing rapid change and challenging economic times during Carter’s administration in the late ’70s and early ’80s. That era was marked by energy and economic woes. In many ways, the years of Carter’s administration bear similarities to today and our current challenges — the necessity of adopting alternative energy sources and our efforts to stabilize and grow the economy.

While President Carter faced domestic challenges greater than most of America’s post-war presidents, it’s the humanitarian work under-

taken during office and significantly expanded after his presidency that is most impressive.

The Carter Center, which is President Carter’s greatest professional legacy, has operated since he and his wife Rosalynn first founded it in 1982 — wasting no time in beginning their humanitarian efforts after his years in office ended. The center’s mission is simple yet profound: “Wage peace, fight disease, build hope.”

The Carters and The Carter Center have worked diligently to fulfill that mission. They have worked to eliminate the devastating Guinea worm disease, making it “likely to be the first human disease since smallpox to be eradicated.” Their efforts to support democracy and fair elections are unheralded: They’ve supported 114 elections in 39 countries in the past four decades. These are just two items that The Carter Center can list among its many accomplishments. President and Mrs. Carter have devoted their lives to improving living conditions and bringing hope to the downtrodden.

I’d like to leave you with these profound words from our longest-living and longest-married former president. They sum up his personal mission as a man, a husband, a father and a public servant: “I have one life and one chance to make it count for something. … My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can with whatever I have to try to make a difference.”

Those are truly words to live by. If we all could try just a little harder to be like President Carter, the world would undoubtedly be a better place.

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ONE-FIFTH OF DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE IS DEVOTED TO PARKING. IS THAT A GOOD THING?

As prices rise, transit advocates want to reduce car dependency to get downtown BY

COLE VILLENA

Library Garage would cost $10, while private lots just two streets over ranged from $15 to $40 for the same period.)

The Parking Reform Network’s Thomas Carpenito, who created the group’s Parking Lot Map, says high prices aren’t entirely a bad thing. If parking is priced too low, more drivers are incentivized to stay in spots longer, reducing the availability of spots for drivers arriving downtown.

“You should price it at a rate such that you keep 80 percent occupancy,” says Carpenito. “If you price it at the correct point, you’re paying for the service you’re taking.”

DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE IS one of the most popular tourist areas in the South and home to around 14,000 residents, according to the Nashville Downtown Partnership. In a city encircled by massive interstates where driving is the most common form of transportation by far, visiting the area means you’ll need a car to get there and a place to park once you arrive. So how easy is it to find a spot?

The Downtown Partnership, which tracks parking availability in the area between Interstate 40, Interstate 24 and Jefferson Street, says there are 39,128 privately owned spots in surface lots and parking decks, with around 2,000 additional curbside spaces owned by the city. The national nonprofit Parking Reform Network, which analyzed a slightly smaller area and did not include curbside parking, estimates that 19 percent of land in downtown Nashville is dedicated solely to parking — slightly below the average for metro areas surveyed.

But that doesn’t mean parking downtown is always easy — or affordable. A quick Google search will yield dozens of parking horror stories: A WKRN story last month highlighted one driver who paid $57 to park at a Metropolis parking lot downtown for less than an hour. According to the report, as of early September there had already been 66 complaints to the Division of Consumer Affairs within the Tennessee Attorney General’s Office this year. Expensive parking can hit downtown musicians

particularly hard; as the Scene reported in January, many performers don’t receive complimentary parking at the venues they’re performing at and rely on paid lots.

“It adds up, and depending on where you are, the money’s not great playing down there,” musician Josh Hedley said at the time.

The Downtown Partnership reported in 2022 that parking rates rise at around 5 percent each year. One factor that allows prices to fluctuate: The overwhelming majority of Nashville’s parking is privately owned. Unlike city-owned lots, which have rates set by the public Traffic and Parking Commission, private lots can set rates however they want and change those rates

without notice. Metropolis Technologies — a Santa Monica, Calif., company that acquired Nashville-based Premier Parking in 2022 — admits as much on its website, encouraging drivers to consult the website, not posted signs at lots, for accurate rates.

The Downtown Partnership provides lot information but notably does not post prices for private lots on its website, and a spokesperson directs drivers to Metro-owned lots if they’re headed downtown. (On a Wednesday evening during the course of reporting this story, the website SpotHero.com — one of several that tracks parking availability in Nashville — showed that an overnight spot at the city’s

There are few if any examples of American city governments regulating rates in privately owned parking lots. Tennessee has state laws against price gouging, but they apply to a limited number of food, medical and emergency goods during “abnormal economic disruption” and certainly don’t include parking. The primary regulation American cities have implemented when it comes to parking in urban areas has been to set mandatory parking minimums based on a building’s square footage, occupancy and so on.

Nashville eliminated mandatory downtown parking minimums more than a decade ago, and expanded that ordinance to apply to the city’s entire Urban Zoning Overlay last year. Supporters of the move see it as a boon for residents and visitors. Easy downtown parking, they say, shouldn’t be the top priority for cities.

“Instead of focusing on squeezing in mandated parking spaces, small business owners now can focus on creating places that people want to visit and enjoy,” then-Metro Councilmember Colby Sledge told the nonprofit Strong Towns in February.

It’s an approach many metropolitan areas are taking to increase downtown access. Rather than regulating the supply of parking, they’re decreasing the demand by bolstering access to public transit like buses and bike lanes. And there’s momentum in Nashville: Mayor Freddie O’Connell is a former chair of the Metro Nashville Transit Authority and resisted owning a car for several years. He won this year’s mayoral election by a wide margin and has pledged to improve public transit access across the city during his term.

“I’m definitely encouraged,” says Walk Bike Nashville president Daniel McDonell. “In many ways, I promote this stuff because it’s the right thing to do — it helps with the environment and sustainability — but also, it’s an inevitable result based on the market.” ▼

METRO COURTHOUSE PARKING GARAGE PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

MAP: PARKING REFORM NETWORK

THE PARKING REFORM NETWORK FOUND THAT 19 PERCENT OF DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE IS DEDICATED TO PARKING

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THE TROUBLING REALITY OF ONGOING SCHOOL THREATS

Part of an ongoing national trend, Metro schools have received more than a dozen ultimately unrealized threats since August

BY KELSEY BEYELER

JUST LAST WEEK, Nashville passed the sixmonth anniversary of the Covenant School shooting — making a recent spate of threats of mass violence in schools even more alarming.

While such incidents are not necessarily uncommon, more than a dozen ultimately unrealized threats have been made toward Nashville schools since August. Their sources can range from student social media posts to possible outof-state actors calling in false threats to garner a police response. The Metro Nashville Police Department is currently working with the FBI to investigate a recent series of threats made toward schools and other entities.

Hunters Lane High School and Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet High School both received phone threats on Sept. 13, the latter resulting in a lockdown and SWAT-style sweep.

“It’s just really traumatizing for the kids, and it’s very scary, and it’s just sad that we’ve normalized this,” says Councilmember At-Large Delishia Porterfield, whose daughter attends MLK.

Some critics think police responded too heavily at MLK, further traumatizing children with an aggressive approach. Porterfield isn’t one of them.

“I think [MNPS and MNPD] handled it as best as they could — it’s an impossible situation to handle,” says Porterfield. “My frustration is with the legislators that can make changes so that this isn’t so frequent, so that people don’t have just complete and utter access to guns.”

On Sept. 25, John Overton High School went on lockdown after two phone calls reported an active shooter. The threat was determined to be unfounded, and an Overton freshman was later charged with threatening mass violence, making a false report and abusing the 911 system. A new state law implements a zero-tolerance approach that subjects students who threaten mass violence to expulsion. MNPS’ threat assessment policy is laid out in its student handbook, which includes a multistep process determining the level of each threat, the subsequent action required and the necessary school responses.

MNPS recently sent out a letter urging parents to discuss with their children the seriousness of making such threats. It also urged students and parents not to share rumors online.

“While we know the likelihood of a phone or social media threat being credible is extremely low, our schools and the police department must take them seriously until proven otherwise,” reads the letter from MNPS Director of Schools Adrienne Battle. “MNPS isn’t the only

school district experiencing these problems.”

A surprising voice in the Overton High situation has been that of the Uvalde Foundation for Kids, a Dallas-based nonprofit created after 19 students and two teachers were killed in a 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Texas. WSMV reported that the nonprofit was initially critical of MNPS’ response to the threat, citing insufficient communication and requesting a procedural review. The foundation planned a related rally that was later canceled.

MNPS spokesperson Sean Braisted shared the response time of the Overton incident, noting that MNPD initially called the school at 12:10 p.m., and that parents received a callout from the school by 12:47 p.m. Additional messages were sent at 1:07 p.m. and 4:38 p.m. Braisted also questioned the legitimacy of the Uvalde Foundation for Kids and its founder Daniel Chapin, sharing with the Scene an investigation of the organization by the East Lansing Info — a Michigan-based citizen-run nonprofit newsroom. The investigation, which isn’t particularly thorough, highlights peculiarities about the foundation, including Chapin’s elusive nature.

The Scene reached out to Chapin, who criticized the ELi article and MNPS’ “attempt to divert attention to the true issue.” When asked for more information about his professional background, Chapin sent a link to an Amazon author page. The ELi article questions some of the experiences listed in Chapin’s Amazon bio — particularly his claim to have been a “stress/ grief first responder” at the 1999 Columbine High School shooting.

Though Braisted questioned “if Mr. Chapin represents any actual parents of Overton, or that the Uvalde Foundation for Kids is anyone beyond Mr. Chapin,” the website lists board members, including board president Michael Stevens. Stevens spoke in Nashville in June at a Metro Council-sanctioned gun violence and school safety meeting led by thenCouncilmember Jeff Syracuse. Syracuse is an advisory board member of the foundation who says he’s had a positive experience.

MNPS and MNPD respond to each school threat on a case-by-case basis. Those who see or know about suspicious behavior are encouraged to report it to schools and the police department.

“People need to realize that we take these seriously and that we do investigate every single threat to try to determine the person that made the threat so that charges could be brought,” says MNPD spokesperson Brooke Reese. ▼

At a small ceremony in Judge David Briley’s courtroom Sept. 25, the former mayor swore in the current mayor, Freddie O’Connell just before 8 a.m. O’Connell explained that the stripped-down event was necessary so he could legally start work. Five days later, O’Connell was sworn in again at Public Square Park, alongside other city officials as part of an all-day celebration kicking off Metro’s new legislative term. Last week, O’Connell announced several key departures and new hires. Former Councilmember At-Large Bob Mendes will serve as O’Connell’s chief development officer overseeing projects like the impending redevelopment of the East Bank

Judges of the U.S. Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned preliminary injunctions against Tennessee’s ban on gender-affirming care for minors last week, allowing the ban to proceed while litigation continues in trial courts. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti celebrated the win, which has been cast as among the nation’s most aggressive legal incursions into trans individuals’ access to gender-affirming health care. Conservative lawmakers in Tennessee became fixated on banning trans health care after right-wing provocateur Matt Walsh targeted Vanderbilt University Medical Center for offering options like puberty blockers and hormone therapy to minors.

Prominent Tennessee Republicans G. Kline Preston IV, a local attorney, and Steve Gill, a conservative pundit, recently traveled to occupied territory to help Russia stage elections amid the nation’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Gill and Preston were two of 34 “election observers” brought in by Russia to help the occupying country claim legitimacy in state propaganda. Conservatives in the far-right wing of the GOP — including U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, who represents Nashville — brought the U.S. to the brink of a government shutdown fighting federal aid to Ukraine.

G. KLINE PRESTON IV

NONPROFITS TRY TO KEEP UP WITH EVERCHANGING ABORTION LANDSCAPE

Tennesseans sue the state over lack of medical exceptions in ban

BY HANNAH HERNER

IT’S BEEN JUST over a year since Tennessee’s nearly total ban on abortion went into effect, and accessing the care has only become more complicated.

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Earlier this month, Tennessee patients and providers joined a lawsuit led by the Center for Reproductive Rights in three states. The suit asks the state court to clarify what circumstances qualify for the medical exception to the ban — something local providers, including Dr. Laura Andreson, who is part of the suit, have been advocating for from the beginning. In this year’s legislative session, Tennessee’s law was changed only slightly to allow abortions in cases of ectopic pregnancies, a dead fetus or molar pregnancies and to eliminate an affirmativedefense requirement for providers. It leaves out any exception for fatal fetal anomalies.

“Because of the state’s cruel laws, I was forced to carry a baby for months that was never going to live,” says Nicole Blackmon, one of the plaintiffs suing the state of Tennessee. “I was in terrible pain and could even have had a stroke and died, but I could not afford to travel out of state for an abortion. I was condemned to endure both physical and emotional torture, knowing that I was going to deliver a stillborn. How can Tennessee politicians stand by while this happens to people like me? I want some good to come out of my ordeal, so I am joining this case.”

The map of available places to receive an abortion is shrinking. Indiana recently instituted a ban on abortion, forcing Tennesseans going out of state for care to shift to Illinois, where they will join Ohioans and now Indiana residents. Locally based abortion fund Abortion Care Tennessee wasn’t sending many funds to Indiana, says founder Robyn Baldridge, which she says is because the state was able to handle the demand without outside help. On the other hand, Illinois has already been struggling to keep up with the demand and is asking for more funds, she says.

Because of wait lists at clinics and delays in securing travel and lodging, women are receiving abortions later in their pregnancies. This makes for more complicated and expensive procedures — sometimes up to $10,000 for a surgery, Baldridge says.

Back in the spring, things were more optimistic for Abortion Care Tennessee. Baldridge stood on the stage at the organization’s April variety show at The Blue Room at Third Man Records and let the audience know that the fund had enough money to fulfill almost any request.

But donations are currently down 76 percent

from this time last year, she says.

“I was really trying to, at the spring event, say, ‘We’re here, you helped us get here, but we will not be able to stay here if this momentum doesn’t sustain or the costs increase,’” Baldridge tells the Scene. “That’s what’s happened.”

Abortion Care Tennessee is currently searching for an executive director, which will help them pivot to more traditional fundraising methods like expensive dinners and deeppocket individual donors. Events like the variety shows will be less for survival and more for community, she says.

Baldridge also says she feels the energy around abortion care has diminished.

“I think there was a real window of time where businesses knew it was a really shitty PR move to not support an abortion organization … then everyone moved on,” she says. “None of us, especially at ACT, fault anyone for whatever decision they make. But the collective feeling is a feeling of discard. We’re getting more [abortion support] requests than ever. The costs are so much more than they were last year.”

Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi, on the other hand, has gained and sustained supporters, board chair Kristal Knight tells the Scene. The organization pivoted to a navigation program in which they employ social workers to help coordinate care and payment for patients in need of abortions.

According to Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi’s 2022 report, the organization gained 5,528 new donors, making for a total of 13,365 that year.

“Our individual donors, many of them have doubled down because they understand that there are still people out here who need care, and the only way that we can continue doing that is through the robust fundraising that we have,” Knight says.

In the wake of the state’s disqualification from the Title X program for refusing to share abortion options earlier this year, Planned Parenthood of Tennessee and North Mississippi is set to receive $8 million in Title X funding just for preventative reproductive care routed through the organization’s Virginia arm.

Tennessee’s ban affects neighboring blue states too, Knight points out.

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ully ooked

This year’s Southern Festival of Books is jam-packed with literary luminaries

The 35th annual Southern Festival of Books lives up to its slogan — it truly is a celebration of the written word in all its forms. From Oct. 18 through 22, the Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park, the Tennessee State Museum, the Tennessee State Library & Archives and additional sites throughout the city will be packed with authors of all stripes. Nonfiction heavyweights like Tracy Kidder and Timothy Egan will be joined by fiction GOATs Ann Patchett and Lorrie Moore. There’s a panel on creativity led by Nashville notables Mary Gauthier, Kevin Griffin and Ruta Sepetys. Photographer Stacy Kranitz will speak about her long-term project documenting Appalachia just hours after curator Kami Ahrens discusses the new edition from the beloved Foxfire series, The Foxfire Book of Appalachian Women. And that’s not to mention all the Y.A. and children’s books offerings.

In the following pages — with indispensable help from Maria Browning and the folks at Chapter 16, an initiative of Humanities Tennessee that provides the Scene with books coverage — we’ve highlighted just a handful of our favorites from the fest. We hope our coverage will make it easier for you to create your schedule. There’s a chance we’ve made it even harder.

For more details on this year’s festival, visit sofestofbooks.org. —

LAURA HUTSON HUNTER, ARTS EDITOR

For more reviews and interviews with Southern Festival of Books authors, visit nashvillescene.com

PRAISE SONG AND ELEGY

Margaret Renkl on beauty, climate change and her literary devotional The Comfort of Crows

BY SARA BETH WEST

ESSAYIST AND NEW YORK TIMES columnist (and former Scene staffer) Margaret Renkl brings her keen eye and tender observations to her Nashville backyard in The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year. Starting in winter, Renkl seeks — and finds — a remarkable clarity as she moves week by week through each season of a difficult year of change.

As the world around her tilts, Renkl grounds herself in the natural world of fox, bluebird and toad, urging her readers to stop and notice the beech trees and the snakeroot, “to consider the deep hollows of the persimmon’s bark, the way the tree has carved its own skin into neat rectangles of sturdy protection.” She knows that only those who love this fragile world will work to protect it, noting, “The world is burning, and there is no time to put down the water buckets. For just an hour, put down the water buckets anyway.” The Comfort of Crows is both praise song and elegy — for this world, for time passing, and for the unique chance to experience both.

Renkl answered questions by email.

The Comfort of Crows chronicles a year in your Nashville backyard, starting in winter, a season you explain has shifted from “least-favorite” to welcome, asking, “Who could fail to embrace a season so beautiful and so fragile?” Are beautiful things always fragile? They don’t always seem fragile to me, but I suspect they’re always ephemeral. Even beautiful things that appear to be solid and everlasting really aren’t — the mountain will always fling itself into the sea given enough time.

In “Metamorphosis,” you describe the toad habitat you and your brother, Billy Renkl, built as children, explaining, “I am not interested in the plants — or, it must be said, in beauty — but Billy is an artist, and he arranges the plants around a piece of slate.” How has your opinion on beauty changed since then?

POET FOR THE PEOPLE

Prine on Prine shines with the beloved songwriter’s heart, humor and humanity

BY DAVID WESLEY WILLIAMS

THERE WERE MANY John Prines. We were lucky that way. There was Prine the young folkie and “New Dylan,” but with songs even Bob couldn’t write: “Angel From Montgomery,” “Hello in There,” “Sam Stone.”

Billy’s capacity for perceiving beauty is still more comprehensive than mine is, and he is far more interested in beauty for beauty’s sake than I am. In his garden, for instance, extravagant beauty is the central goal, while I am mainly feeding my wild neighbors. At least half the flowers in my garden have “weed” as part of their names, and decades of seeing the world through that lens has formed my concept of beauty. Seeing a bumblebee feeding from a flower’s nectar, or a goldfinch tearing the flower apart to reach its seeds, is what makes the flower beautiful to me.

Billy’s art accompanies this book, as it did for Late Migrations. How does that creative partnership work for you? How do your two art forms speak to each other? Gardens aside, Billy and I have always had a similar aesthetic, and Billy’s work is often grounded in or inspired by a written text. I urged him to think of the art he was making for The Comfort of Crows as not fundamentally different from the way he would think about

making any other body of work that is grounded in the natural world. What he came up with exceeded my wildest hopes. His images aren’t illustrations. They’re works of art.

How has climate change affected your relationship with the land and its creatures? We moved around a lot when I was a child, but the woods were always nearby. The creeks were always running, and the birds were always singing, and the toads were always catching moths beneath streetlights. I think that’s part of why I’ve always thought of the natural world as my most reliable home. But the ravages of climate change, among many other human-wrought depredations, have made it very clear that the natural world isn’t steadfast at all. The natural world is in convulsions, and I am in a state of nearly constant grief.

What advice do you have for our younger generation, who might find it all too easy to despair? I hope younger people will tell themselves the

same thing I tell myself every single day: Despair never saved a single bird or a single turtle or a single grasshopper or a single toad. It certainly never saved a river or an ocean or a planet. We don’t have time for despair. The natural world needs us fired up and furious and fighting like hell to save it. Despair is for when the battle is lost, and the battle to save this green and gorgeous world is not yet lost. It is nowhere near lost. But it will take everything we have to save it.

To read an uncut version of this interview — and more local book coverage — please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee. ▼

THE COMFORT OF CROWS: A BACKYARD YEAR BY

MARGARET RENKL

SPIEGEL & GRAU

288 PAGES, $32

RENKL WILL APPEAR AT DAVID LUSK GALLERY ON OCT. 14, THE SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF BOOKS OCT. 21 AND HARPETH HALL SCHOOL OCT. 24.

There was Prine the rocker, looking louche on the cover of Sweet Revenge, and sounding it on the opening lines: “I got kicked off of Noah’s Ark / I turn my cheek to unkind remarks / There was two of everything, but one of me.” There was rockabilly Prine, produced in Memphis by Sam Phillips’ sons, with a little help from the old man. Country Prine, dueting with Connie Smith. And in the later years, having survived cancer and the fickle whims of culture, there was Prine the legend, beloved for his wit and humanity — and still with a stellar album in him at age 71. They were all great. And they’re all here in Prine on Prine, a collection of interviews (with a

man who hated to be interviewed, not that you can tell) and “encounters,” as the subtitle puts it, edited by veteran music critic, Prine friend and occasional Scene contributor Holly Gleason.

The book spans 50 years and features the likes of film critic Roger Ebert, famed interviewer Studs Terkel, music critics Robert Hilburn and Robert Christgau, then-U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser, and Dave Cobb, who produced Prine’s late-life gem of an album, 2018’s The Tree of Forgiveness. There are stories, straight Q&As, radio and TV transcripts, excerpts from a movie script, even recipes.

Over the course of 300-plus pages, we meet

all those Prines. But mostly we hang with the one and only John — poet of the people, patron singer of the human condition, able to make us cry, laugh, feel a little less lonely and follow him anywhere (from Montgomery to Muhlenberg County, from heaven to the “dog-racing side of town.”)

And fame? Glory? Nah, none of that, please. He didn’t play that game, had no interest in making the same album again and again to suit the market. Formula is for pop singers and soft drinks. Prine was like Dylan, going where the music took him, whether anyone followed or not. As Gleason writes in her introduction:

AUTHORS AT THE FESTIVAL

EDITED BY LINDA BEHREND

What doesn’t get nearly enough attention is his seeking musical restlessness. Intimate folk records. Grinding ravers. Soul-undertowed songwriter fare. Summer campfire standards. Myriad dance rhythms. Oldschool Southern gospel. Horn blasts. Steel guitar that melts over the tracks. Electric guitars that both buzz and twirl.

In other ways, he was the anti-Bob. Dylan’s inscrutable, Prine was open. Approaching Dylan in public might require some nerve — not for nothing is he known for disguises. But Prine was welcoming — at least he was that night I spied him across the lobby of The Peabody in Memphis, a few hours after seeing him play the Beale Street Music Festival. Finally, where Dylan’s humor tends to bite, Prine’s was more likely bemused. Not that Prine would put himself in such exalted songwriting company, mind you.

Here’s a telling passage from Lloyd Sachs’ 2005 piece in No Depression magazine, on how such

ROMANCE AND REVOLUTION

Tan Twan Eng’s The House of Doors creates a world of false facades and alter egos

BY SEAN KINCH

THE TITLE OF Tan Twan Eng’s new novel, The House of Doors, comes from a scene when the protagonist, Lesley Hamlyn, visits a wealthy friend’s private collection of decorated doors, dozens of them “suspended on wires so thin they seemed to be floating in the air.” Walking among them, she has “the dizzying sensation … of a constantly shifting maze, each pair of doors opening into another passageway, and another, giving me no inkling of where I would eventually emerge.”

The novel as a whole possesses a similar multiform quality, with illusions and reality layered in profuse combinations. Stable marriages are revealed to be shams, old friends conceal their identities, and political operatives manipulate crowds to garner support. In Tan’s world of false facades and alter egos, it’s hard enough to distinguish friends from adversaries; what is more difficult is learning the truth about yourself.

The primary action of the novel takes place in Penang in 1921, then a part of the U.K.’s Straits Settlement on the Malay Peninsula (and Tan’s birthplace). Lesley Hamlyn and her husband Robert, a colonial lawyer, receive a visit from the celebrated writer W. Somerset “Willie” Maugham, a friend of Robert’s from decades earlier in London. Both men undergo personal crises. Robert, suffering from a lung ailment, wants to move his family to the dry plains of South Africa. Maugham, who travels with his “personal secretary” Gerald Haxton, learns in Penang that a risky investment, which he had

a young man wrote those deep, knowing and empathetic songs on his debut album, John Prine:

hoped would provide him financial freedom, has instead failed utterly, leaving him virtually penniless.

The narrative spine is the burgeoning relationship between Lesley and Willie. Though initially put off by Willie’s fame and his demands as a guest, Lesley begins to confide in him. In turn, Willie reveals his financial catastrophe and confesses that he needs a sensational new story to help refill his coffers. Lesley has just the inspiration he needs. Knowing Willie’s taste for “unhappy marriages and adulterous affairs,” she shares the untold side of a scandal involving a friend of hers that rocked Penang in 1910, when the wife of a schoolmaster shot and killed a man she said had attempted to rape her. As Lesley unfolds the details of the trial and the gossip surrounding that unfortunate woman, she also relates dark secrets that belie the basis of her own, apparently blissful marriage. The novel’s refrain, “Every marriage has its own rules,” seems universal.

Tan, whose earlier novels The Gift of Rain and The Garden of Evening Mists contain echoes of Maugham’s work, follows the old master’s pattern of braiding domestic drama with political tension. Willie’s visit to the Hamlyns and his questions about the province prompt Lesley to recall a visit a decade earlier from Dr. Sun Yat Sen, the Chinese leader who was determined to overthrow the Manchu emperors. Willie suspects that Lesley’s interest in the handsome revolutionary extended beyond admiring his dream of liberating China’s peasants. Tan’s portrayal of the tension between white colonials and native populations in the years before and after The Great War suggests that the era of British domination was nearing its end.

Tan’s novel, gripping for any reader, holds special appeal for fans of Maugham and his work. Tan depicts Willie’s routine — dawn walk, breakfast and shower, followed by four hours of writing — and makes repeated references to his

“Hey, I just figured I knew about what I was writing about, but that doesn’t make me smart,” said Prine. “To be able to have those insights about people, that doesn’t mean you have any answers. All you’re able to do is give the police a good description of the guy who robbed the place.”

As for the Dylan comparisons, Prine would say the better one would be someone from the country field — or in a nod to his family’s Kentucky roots, bluegrass legend Bill Monroe. Well, sort of: “I always figure that if Bill Monroe didn’t know how to play quite so good and would sing a little off-key, we might sound a little more like each other,” he told Bob Millard for a Country Song Roundup magazine story in 1985.

His singing and playing suited his songs just fine, of course. A smooth, pretty voice and flashy picking would just get in the way of lines like, “She was a level-headed dancer, on the road to alcohol,” or, “The air’s as still as a throttle on a funeral train,” or (insert your favorite here). Ah, those songs. They’re some of the best we’ll

ever have.

But Prine didn’t just entertain us. He enriched us. He enriches us still, with the music he left. He shows us how to laugh at our follies. He shows us that a sense of humanity isn’t just important to our survival in this “big, old, goofy world” — it’s practically all that matters. In this wonderful book, he shows us all that — and also how to make his favorite cocktail, the Handsome Johnny.

He’s here, our old friend, on every page.

To read an uncut version of this review — and more local book coverage — please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee. ▼

PRINE ON PRINE: INTERVIEWS AND ENCOUNTERS WITH JOHN PRINE

EDITED BY HOLLY GLEASON

CHICAGO REVIEW PRESS

370 PAGES, $19.99

GLEASON WILL DISCUSS PRINE ON PRINE OCT. 21 AT THE SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

popular fiction. Everyone, it appears, has read his famous story “Rain”; some are offended by its prostitute heroine, but most want to know when he will write something equally exquisite. Willie himself speaks of his novels Cakes and Ale, The Moon and Sixpence, and The Painted Veil as if they are wise fables that illustrate deep, painful truths.

Tan’s Willie emerges as crow-like, attracted to shiny objects and unabashed about repurposing his friends’ confidences in fiction. Surely, he rationalizes, when they unburden themselves to a writer, they know there’s a chance he will use them in stories. But not just any story is worthy of retelling. In Willie’s view, a “love interest” is essential: “A story without love,” he says, “well, it just wouldn’t work.”

The House of Doors, which shifts in time from 1921 to 1910 to 1947, plays clever games with the connections between fiction and history. Tan points out in the acknowledgments that his novel “features” the murder trial of Ethel

Proudlock, Lesley’s friend who appears by name here (though Tan pushes the date of the trial back one year). That same case provided real-life Maugham with material for “The Letter,” a story that appears in The Casuarina Tree, a copy of which Willie sends to Lesley 25 years after his visit to Penang. Tan doesn’t mention that Maugham, who had a nose for good material, also adapted that story into a stage play, which was then used in four different cinematic versions, each with a different inflection on the original story — a constantly shifting maze, indeed. ▼

THE HOUSE OF DOORS BY TAN

TWAN ENG BLOOMSBURY 320

PAGES, $28.99

TAN WILL DISCUSS THE HOUSE OF DOORS AT THE SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF BOOKS OCT. 21

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David Arnold (I Loved You in Another Life)

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A REVOLUTION ON THE AIRWAVES

Night Train to Nashville tells the story of two men behind WLAC’s groundbreaking R&B broadcasts

BY JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT

WITH Night Train to Nashville: The Greatest Untold Story of Music City, Paula Blackman chronicles the history of WLAC, the Nashville radio station remembered for its radical R&B broadcasts during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. Blackman’s grandfather, Edward “Gab” Blackman, was an executive at WLAC. In Jim Crow-era Tennessee, Gab had a controversial yet lucrative business idea: play music by Black artists and advertise to a Black audience on the radio. Despite fierce racist opposition, WLAC’s R&B shows became a hit, with Black and white listeners loyally tuning in across the country.

Inspired by her grandfather’s stories, Blackman put 15 years of research into a compelling work of creative nonfiction. The author made space for the perspectives and experiences of Black Nashvillians by featuring revered businessman William “Sou” Bridgeforth as a prominent character. As the owner of a storied North Nashville nightclub, the New Era, Bridgeforth was responsible for giving legends like Etta James, Jimi Hendrix and Little Richard a stage to light up in Nashville. Most exquisitely, Blackman’s book portrays how WLAC and Nashville’s R&B scene brought Black

WIDE AWAKE

Tracy Kidder’s Rough Sleepers is a compelling narrative and call to action

BY AMANDA HAGGARD

SEVERAL TIMES THROUGHOUT Tracy Kidder’s nonfiction book Rough Sleepers, he references the story of Sisyphus to describe the work of homeless care providers in Boston. The book follows Dr. Jim O’Connell and a street medical team for five years as they battle a slew of systemic barriers to health care for people living on the streets.

In case the story isn’t familiar, Sisyphus was a figure in Greek mythology who cheated death, and as punishment he spent eternity rolling a giant boulder up a hill only to have it fall back down each time. It’s a feeling many working with unhoused people come to recognize — not so much cheating death as the feeling that the journey toward getting people into housing is often one step forward, two steps back.

Working in homelessness probably wouldn’t have been O’Connell’s first choice, but exposure to people in need made a difference in his trajectory. In 1985, after O’Connell graduated from Harvard Medical School and performed his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital, the chief of

musical expression to the forefront of pop culture in the segregated South. Blackman answered questions via email.

WLAC’s signal reached almost half of the country. What was the significance of the station’s famed R&B broadcasts coming from the Jim Crow South?

R&B is an offshoot of the blues, and the blues were birthed in the Mississippi Delta. Most of the iconic musicians who were launched on WLAC came directly to the station from the Chitlin’ Circuit (the Black clubs and juke joints that provided the traveling performers their livelihood). Like the bandit who, when asked why he robbed a bank, replied “because that’s where the money is,” the Jim Crow South is where the Black musicians and their audiences were. And no station with any significant reach in this country targeted them.

An important collaborator in writing the book was Harriett Bridgeforth Jordan, the daughter of Sou Bridgeforth. How did the two of you navigate reconstructing your family members’ respective conversations and narratives? When Harriett and I met in person, we’d already had numerous conversations. The pattern we developed was, after I’d done my chapter outline, we discussed it. She’d clarify the details, correct errors, sometimes in published accounts that were misreported. She provided a more nuanced, personal perspective, including rewording the dialogue. This became a most enjoyable and rewarding experience — for both of us. Today we’re as close as sisters.

What made the legendary nightclub scene in North Nashville such an exciting place to play for Black musicians in the 1950s and ’60s? Most Black men were manual laborers, and most women worked as domestics. Just knowing they could see someone like Little Richard, B.B. King or Ray Charles at a club on Saturday provided the inspiration they needed to make it through a backbreaking week. There was tremendous joy in the clubs on Fridays and Saturdays and jubilation in the churches on Sunday.

What are your thoughts about Gab building career success from the work of marginalized Black musicians and a mainly Black audience? One of my friends, a professor at Tennessee State, wrote her dissertation on that subject. Looking at this in retrospect, one would assume the musicians would have been resentful. Her research confirmed my grandfather’s claim that the R&B musicians loved WLAC, the deejays and even the sales staff. WLAC’s broadcast and the multitude of broadcasts that copied their playlists allowed the musicians to earn a living doing what they loved. For that reason, the musicians themselves were the station’s most loyal fans. The audience, however, was different. They loved the station for the programming but were often taken advantage of by the station’s shameless promotion of huckster products. I don’t

believe Gab had many sleepless nights over the shoddy products they sold C.O.D. He considered truth in advertising an oxymoron. If you were “moron” enough to fall for a crazy spiel and order “100 redtop baby chicks” to be delivered through the mail, you learned very quickly to be a more discerning buyer.

Why do you think it’s important for younger generations in Nashville and the South to hear WLAC’s story, especially in such fraught times for Tennessee politics? Learning from our individual past mistakes — say ordering baby chicks through the mail — is not altogether different from learning from our collective past mistakes.

When we learn from the past, we avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. We avoid becoming a “moron” who will fall for a huckster’s spiel, be that for a product over the airwaves, a bill in the state legislature or the ballot box for the next occupant in the White House. ▼

NIGHT TRAIN TO NASHVILLE: THE GREATEST UNTOLD STORY OF MUSIC CITY

BY PAULA BLACKMAN HARPER HORIZON 336 PAGES, $29.99

BLACKMAN WILL APPEAR AT THE SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF BOOKS OCT. 22

medicine asked him to help create a health program just for people living on the streets in Boston. He has been there ever since, with a cast of other helpers, attempting to provide health care to patients whose needs often don’t fit into the rigid mold of the U.S. health system.

Through O’Connell, Kidder gets an up-close view into the moments when the boulder feels the heaviest. People he treats sometimes get sicker. They die. They get into housing and lose housing. Others ride an endless roller coaster of street life. His focus is on those who, for various reasons, don’t typically spend nights at city shelters. So-called “rough sleepers” often bed down in wooded areas and in tents spread across the city. There are moments of relief, respite and victory in O’Connell’s work, but these are always celebrated briefly and often overshadowed by the next person who needs help.

The parallels between the tragic narratives in Boston and the realities on the streets in Tennessee’s urban areas are obvious, especially in the realm of health care. In one scene in the book, O’Connell happens upon one of his patients who’d been discharged from a hospital. The man is found in his hospital gown on the streets of the city. It’s hard for anyone to get well and stay well without a roof over their head.

Kidder, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his

The Soul of a New Machine, has a unique ability to detail an individual life like O’Connell’s and make it part of a broader truth. He shows how much impact even one dedicated person can have on many lives. O’Connell, revered as something of a saint in homelessness circles in Boston, talks of the changing of the guard there, of folks he cared for being replaced by a bevy of new folks on the street with new issues. He too will ultimately be replaced by someone with a passion for the same grueling work.

Yet Rough Sleepers makes it clear that the needs O’Connell has dedicated his life to addressing cannot be erased by a few saintly individuals. The program he built is the largest of its kind in the nation, exceptional in its scope and mission, but Kidder points out that even this massive effort hasn’t made the dent in overall homelessness that O’Connell envisioned. Near the end of the book, Kidder outlines part of a speech O’Connell gave to important donors at a gala in 2018.

“I like to think of this problem of homelessness as a prism held up to society, and what we see refracted are the weaknesses in our health care system, our public health system, our housing system, but especially in our welfare system, our educational system, and our legal system — and our corrections system,” O’Connell said. “If we’re going

to fix this problem, we have to address the weaknesses of all those sectors.”

Kidder follows with more context for O’Connell’s remarks, noting the staggering inequality between Black and white residents in Boston regarding homelessness, as well as the toll taken by economic anxiety:

Homelessness was fed by racism, income inequality, and a cascade of other related forces. These included insufficient investments in public housing, as well as tax and zoning codes that had spurred widespread gentrification and driven up rents. Many poor and moderately poor Americans lived with the fear of losing housing, which can itself harm bodies and minds as well as social relations in families.

These observations still apply far beyond Boston. In short, while O’Connell is not the only one out there pushing the boulder up the hill, it’s going to take a lot more work and support from all of us to reach the top. ▼

ROUGH SLEEPERS: DR. JIM O’CONNELL’S URGENT MISSION TO BRING HEALING TO HOMELESS PEOPLE BY TRACY KIDDER RANDOM HOUSE 320 PAGES, $30

KIDDER WILL DISCUSS ROUGH SLEEPERS OCT. 21 AT THE SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

HELIOTROPE

BY PALMER PICKERING

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A standalone Epic Fantasy story that’s full of heart. Slow-burn, descriptive prose makes you forget your real life while you become part of the found family of a retired warrior turned stone mason, a pair of orphans, and animal companions. A bloody coup starts a journey to heal old wounds and rekindle ancient magic.

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fiction – poetry – creative nonfiction – children & young adults – TV, screen & stage

RECALLING THE ‘CLINTON 12’

Rachel

Louise Martin chronicles the battle to desegregate an East Tennessee high school

BY JANE MARCELLUS

A FEW CHAPTERS into A Most Tolerant Little Town, Rachel Louise Martin tells what happened on a Sunday morning in the fall of 1956, a few days after 12 Black students attempted to desegregate Clinton High School in East Tennessee.

One of those students, Gail Ann Epps, was worshipping with her family at Mt. Sinai Baptist Church when congregants felt “a distant shudder through the floorboards … a vibration from somewhere deep down in the earth.”

Running to the windows, they saw tanks pulling into their small town, followed by armored personnel carriers, jeeps and helmeted soldiers carrying automatic rifles.

The Black families felt relief. After a tumultuous week, Gov. Frank G. Clement had called out the National Guard. Help had come, finally.

Surprisingly, few know the Clinton High story. Although it was the first school in the South to attempt court-ordered desegregation in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling, the events in Clinton have largely gone missing from history, overshadowed by more urban civil rights stories such as that of the Little Rock Nine, who desegregated Central High School in Little Rock, Ark.,

FASCIST BUFFOONS

Timothy Egan chronicles the rise and fall of the KKK in the 1920s

BY HAMILTON CAIN

MIKE PENCE, FORMER governor of Indiana and Donald Trump’s vice president, was often mocked during the 2016 presidential campaign for calling his wife “Mother.” But as Timothy Egan reveals in A Fever in the Heartland, another devout woman known as Mother captivated Hoosiers a century ago when a resurgent Ku Klux Klan enlisted her to recruit Protestant women recently given the right to vote.

Raised a Quaker, Daisy Douglas Barr experienced a vision in her youth and shifted to preaching. Her sermons packed auditoriums. But her work in the temperance movement “evolved into a broader vision of white supremacy maintained by the rising political strength of women.” As Egan opines, a “big heart that had once brimmed with benevolence for fallen humans had shriveled into a raisin of racial animus.” Barr joined forces with D.C. “Steve” Stephenson, Indiana’s Grand Dragon, who named her Imperial Empress of the Women of the Ku Klux Klan.

Barr is but one of a colorful if sinister support-

Martin, the author of Hot, Hot Chicken: A Nashville Story, discovered Clinton in 2005 while working as a research fellow at Middle Tennessee State University. She continued the project as a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina, eventually spending almost 18 years interviewing former students, families, administrators and townspeople while delving into historical documents and contextual material.

Not everybody wanted to talk to her. “Honey, there was a lot of ugliness down at the school that year; best we just move on and forget it,” one white woman told her. Fortunately, Martin didn’t forget. Instead, she pieced together some 60 interviews, presenting events from multiple perspectives to show what people — Black and white — grappled with in that place and time.

Segregationists remained largely quiet the first day as the 12 walked from Freedman’s Hill to the school, but they grew increasingly violent as the week wore on. Some formed a gauntlet along the Black students’ route, carrying signs with racial epithets. Inside the school, they harassed, tormented and sometimes physically attacked their new classmates. Meanwhile, white mobs downtown attacked any Blacks who happened to pass through. Several small bombs went off. Finally, the sheriff realized he needed reinforcements and called the governor. The other white camp, though, realized de-

ing cast in A Fever in the Heartland. The main attraction is Stephenson. Imagine a blend of Bull Connor’s racism, Robert Moses’ political skills, P.T. Barnum’s hucksterism and Ted Bundy’s sexual sadism and you’d be pretty close to Stephenson. A man seemingly without a past (he’d been raised poor in Oklahoma), he hitched his star to the resurrection of the Klan at Stone Mountain, Ga., in 1915, the same year D.W. Griffith’s Klan hagiography, The Birth of a Nation, filled cinemas and was screened for Woodrow Wilson in the White House.

Heavyset and puffy-faced, Stephenson had already mastered the twin arts of charm and bullying, a triumph of American self-mythologizing. “He could talk a dog off a meat-wagon, as they said in those parts,” Egan writes. “He sounded educated, an incontinent user of five-dollar words, even if the college he’d attended changed with each telling.” He saw a business opportunity outside the South, claiming the Midwest as fertile soil for his vision of ascendant white supremacy. He bought a mansion in an upscale suburb of Indianapolis and berthed a yacht in Toledo. As Klan membership burgeoned, Stephenson built an empire, becoming a self-anointed ruler with an eye on Washington and boasting that he was above the law.

In some ways he was the right-wing man at the right-wing time. The “Klan blessed” immigration restrictions imposed by the National

segregation was the law of the land, whether they liked it or not. The Sunday that Epps saw the tanks arriving, the Rev. Paul Turner told his white congregation over at First Baptist, “It is important to be a Christian first and a segregationist second, not a segregationist first and a Christian second.” His point was radical, since some whites believed the Bible mandated segregation, though others saw it as morally wrong, despite cultural pressure.

One of the most intriguing aspects of Martin’s book is the way she shows how white views differed and evolved over time. Turner eventually offered to escort the Black students to school, thinking he could protect them, but was savagely beaten by segregationists. Typing teacher Margaret Anderson, meanwhile, tried to help the Black students acclimate. Though she accepted desegregation reluctantly at first, she championed it in two lengthy New York Times articles in the early 1960s.

In spring 1957, Bobby Cain, one of the 12, became the first Black student in the South to receive a diploma from a previously all-white school, although some white students tried to ambush him as he walked off the stage. He attended Tennessee State University debt-free, thanks to contributions from across the country. Epps graduated too, but others among the 12 weren’t so lucky. One was expelled when he defended his brother in an attack by whites,

Origins Act of 1924 “slashed new arrivals from eastern and southern Europe to a bare trickle, shutting out Jews and olive-skinned Catholics.” The legislation blocked African and Asian immigrants as well. But hypocrisy was rampant. Though Stephenson thundered about the necessity of Prohibition and the purity of white women, he was a drunk and a serial rapist who would literally feast on the flesh of his victims.

Madge Oberholtzer, Stephenson’s 28-year-old neighbor, was lively and independent, a Hoosier version of a flapper who’d driven herself across the U.S. when women drivers were still uncommon. She met the twice-married Stephenson in early 1925, and he was immediately smitten with her. Despite some uneasiness on her part, she agreed to work with him on a policy plan for children’s nutrition. Unbeknownst to Madge, Stephenson was setting a trap, one he’d deploy horrifically on a midnight train to Chicago in March of that year.

Egan, winner of a National Book Award and a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, lures us into his narrative with muscular yet agile prose, re-creating in minute detail Madge’s tragic fate and the legal aftermath that finally broke Stephenson’s febrile pursuit of power. The bright, confident young woman inadvertently halted a plot — a few plots, actually — but at great cost.

Egan seasons A Fever in the Heartland with arresting anecdotes and historical bon mots that

and two families left for California to escape the turbulence. The following fall, Clinton High was bombed.

For all its nuanced exploration of a time that seems both remote and sadly familiar, A Most Tolerant Little Town pulls no punches. In “A Note on Language,” Martin says she retains racial slurs in quotations to illustrate “how racism infected white American culture in the 1950s.” It is a bold choice, but the Clinton story would not be well served by euphemism.

Martin does not believe the story is over. Representations of Black children entering schools, including the statues now at Clinton’s Green-McAdoo Cultural Center, are misleadingly triumphant, she argues, allowing people “to pretend that segregation and racism no longer exist.” Instead, she distinguishes “desegregation” (attending school alongside one another) from “integration” (sharing friendships and the same opportunities in a place where all feel welcome).

True integration, she contends, “is an experiment we have yet to try.”

To read an uncut version of this review — and more local book coverage — please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee. ▼

A MOST TOLERANT LITTLE TOWN: THE EXPLOSIVE BEGINNING OF SCHOOL DESEGREGATION

BY RACHEL LOUISE MARTIN SIMON & SCHUSTER 384

PAGES,

$29.99

MARTIN WILL APPEAR AT THE SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF BOOKS OCT. 22

enrich the book’s larger arc. The Anti-Saloon League, the Horse Thief Detective Association, a rural recording studio that made an indelible mark on American music — these all evoke a reactionary if creative America still reeling from the loss of young men in the Great War and the millions cut down by the 1918 flu pandemic. Ordinary folk were primed for Stephenson’s fascistic message, his worship of wealth, his buffoonery — a grifter package that still haunts us 100 years later.

Egan gooses his pacing in the book’s final act, a dash of John Grisham in the Jazz Age. At the height of its popularity, the Klan controlled governments and law enforcement agencies across the nation. From Oregon to the Rocky Mountains to Long Island, cavalcades of Klansmen, Klanswomen, and “Klan Kiddies” spread the gospel of militant white Protestantism. A Fever in the Heartland is a cautionary tale. We’re closer to that past than we think. ▼

A FEVER IN THE HEARTLAND: THE KU KLUX KLAN’S PLOT TO TAKE OVER AMERICA, AND THE WOMAN WHO STOPPED THEM

BY TIMOTHY EGAN

VIKING

400 PAGES, $30

EGAN WILL DISCUSS A FEVER IN THE HEARTLAND OCT. 21 AT THE SOUTHERN FESTIVAL OF BOOKS

Vanderbilt University Press

Panels

Joel Ebert & Erik Schelzig, authors of Welcome to Capitol Hill

Jerome Moore, author of Deep Dish Conversations

Jeff Fasano, photographer of Americana Portrait Sessions

Frye Gaillard, co-author of A Word on Words

Brian Fairbanks, author of Wizards

Rob Curran, co-author of Journey without End

From Dixie to Rocky Top by Carrie Tipton Ghosts Over the Boiler by Katie OwensMurphy

The People’s Plaza by Justin Jones

Intent by David Barton Smith

Malicious

vanderbiltuniversitypress VanderbiltUP

www.rodvick.com

INVINCIBLE LANGUAGE

Major Jackson’s latest collection combines new and old poems to dazzling e ect

BY ERICA WRIGHT

MAJOR JACKSON POSSESSES an almost superhuman ability to see himself and his world clearly. His sixth poetry collection, Razzle Dazzle: New and Selected Poems 2002-2022, reads like a superhero’s origin story.

We see the biographical details of the poet’s life alongside the evolution of his poetic style. In “A Promise of Canonization,” he writes, “I quote Wordsworth, Zagajewski, and Dao / I come from gunshots and beatdowns, raw and dirty.” Here and elsewhere, Jackson positions himself between spheres, ultimately showing us that everything is worthy of this poet’s searing gaze.

The new poems here, collected in a section titled “Lovesick,” are elemental: necessary as well as preoccupied with wind, water, earth and fire. “Let Me Begin Again” sets the tone, proclaiming, “This time, let me circle / the island of my fears only once then / live like a raging waterfall / and grow a magnificent mustache.” This opener is so … well, dazzling that it’s hard to imagine the following pages sustaining that level of energy, yet they do.

I’m often drawn to debut collections because of an ineffable quality that lies somewhere between recklessness and exuberance. There’s a riskiness created by lack of outside pressure. Of course, most writers hope to publish their work, but those first forays onto the page can be wild and maybe even pure. We see this in Jackson’s first collection, Leaving Saturn. More surprisingly, we also see that edginess in “Lovesick,” alongside the poet’s signature technical mastery. In “Making Things,” the speaker explains, “I want to be / all razzle-dazzle before the darkcloaked one / arrives for a last game of chess.” While Jackson’s work may have matured over the years, it certainly hasn’t mellowed. There is a leitmotif that appears in “Lovesick” that, if present, is not as prominent in Jackson’s earlier books. The notion of kindness is mentioned more than once. It exists in parallel to rage, again pointing to the poet’s duality. The prose poem “Ferguson” reimagines the killing of Michael Brown as a fairy tale in which a teenager isn’t murdered. Instead, the young man has decided to sleep in the street for a spell. Spectators watch with bated breath for him to rise. “The police,” Jackson writes, “cordoned off his body, and after some time, declared him dead because they had only seen black men

lying prone on the street as corpses, but never as sleeping humans.”

In the poem “Think of Me, Laughing,” the speaker describes himself at a protest, saying, “Don’t shoot!” The poem then shifts into memories described as luxuries, including aperitifs in Italy and sing-alongs to Marvin Gaye. The speaker states, “I do not regret my little bout with life,” which seems to be a sort of radical kindness to the self. “Invocation” begins, “Down here we have inherited an arcade of stars / and want kindness that can stop a bomb.” In other hands, this theme might feel saccharine or, worse, disingenuous. In Jackson’s capable ones, we find kindness as a weapon, ready and sharp.

Razzle Dazzle is arranged so that the newest poems are followed by the oldest. Leaving Saturn was released in 2002 and beloved by critics and readers alike, myself included. What I remember most about my own early reading experience is the phrase “tragically hip” being a perfect description of the book’s ethos. The speaker of “Blunts” recalls smoking weed for the first time and confessing to his friends that he wants to be a poet. His friends consider this goal as they hear yelling from apartments above, smell hotdogs down the street and watch plastic flap on a shopping cart. The effect is immediate: The young poet’s ambitions are at odds with his surroundings. And yet his friends don’t laugh. Instead, one suggests, “So, you want the tongue of God.” Looking back, it’s clear that Jackson has always been concerned with the gap between physical and intellectual worlds, suggesting that they exist in tandem.

In the poems from Holding Company (2010), Roll Deep (2015) and The Absurd Man (2020), we see Jackson’s interests both expand and deepen. He combines the personal and political with often unexpected insights. “Going to Meet the Man” describes a standoff between the police and protesters as “a barricade of shields, helmets, batons, and pepper spray: / on the other, a cocktail of fire, all that is just and good.”

The final poem in Razzle Dazzle is called “Double Major,” implying that the poet also sees two versions of himself. A man with more pedestrian concerns — washing behind his ears and getting to bed at a reasonable hour — gently ribs the man who stares back at him in the mirror. That other Major “believes he can mend his wounds with poetry.” And there are worse beliefs. ▼

RAZZLE

DAZZLE: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS 2002-2022

BY MAJOR JACKSON

W.W. NORTON

288 PAGES, $26.95

FESTIVAL OF BOOKS OCT. 22

“[T]ough to get inside information on how the music business really works, but Rich offers you a front row seat.”

—Pete Fisher, Former VP/General Manager, Grand Ole Opry & CEO, Academy of Country Music

“The best way to learn about something is to learn from someone who is at the top of their game.”

—Michael Knox, Producer, President of Peermusic Nashville

THE BOOK!

Fostering Nashville’s literary culture through writing workshops, events, & community outreach.

Behind all m yth is a g rai n of truth

‘A grand spirit of master storytelling.’

– Kirkus Reviews starred review

The world destroyed her. Now she’s the only one who can save it.

Barnes & Noble, Amazon, and other booksellers.

Because Nashville is so much more than honky-tonks and bachelorettes...

CRITICS’ PICKS: WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF THINGS TO DO

SATURDAY, 10/7

MUSIC [DEHD IN THE FLESH] DEHD

There are few bands in the 21st century that have created a sound as unique and immediately identifiable as Dehd. With songs that feel both timeless and of the moment, the Chicago-based indie-rock trio has released five studio albums since its formation in 2015 and has amassed millions of Spotify listens in the process. Melding passionate vocals from lead singer-bassist Emily Kempf with the retrotinged guitar licks of Jason Balla and the booming, steady-as-she-goes percussion of Eric McGrady, Dehd is not only one of the most exciting indie-rock bands in the country, but also one of the most unique and unforgettable live acts touring today. To put it bluntly, you haven’t lived until you have spent an evening with Dehd. Be sure to catch their set at The Basement East with opening act Sarah Grace White.

ROB HINKAL

8 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT EAST

917 WOODLAND ST.

THURSDAY, 10/5

MUSIC

[ROCK ’N’ ROLL OBSCURA]

TAV FALCO’S PANTHER BURNS W/LEO LOVECHILD AND BAD BAD LUCK

As one of the most eclectic performers in rock ’n’ roll for more than 40 years, Tav Falco continues to bring his unique brand of primal rhythm-and-blues-meets-voodoo-cabaret to a cult following of fans around the world. Falco arrived in Memphis in the late ’70s, where he hooked up with blues icon R.L. Burnside and legendary artist-producer Alex Chilton and found cohorts in The Cramps while recording with Chilton at Sam Phillips’ studio. Veering from garage rock to flamenco, rockabilly to avant-garde, Falco has always been one to follow his own distinct muse. “What has attracted me from the beginning is a feeling for noise and commotion,” says Falco. “Even with love ballads and hanging ballads, I seem to inflict undercurrents of white noise and fuzzy tonalities bristling beneath the surface. I’m not convinced that what I evoke with the electric guitar is as much music as it is an abstraction of amplified sounds driven to the threshold

of tribal frenzy.” Falco returns to Music City after the release of Nashville Sessions: Live at Bridgestone Arena Studios last year. New York City art rocker Leo Lovechild kicks things off, along with the haunting sounds of locals Bad Bad Luck. JASON VERSTEGEN

7 P.M. AT THE COBRA

2511 GALLATIN PIKE

FILM [HIT OR MISS?]

STAFF PICKS: CARNIVAL OF SOULS

Is Carnival of Souls — Herk Harvey’s protoLynchian, 1962 psycho-thriller in which a church organist for hire (Candace Hilligoss) begins to wonder if she actually survived an automobile accident (the creepy-ass ghouls

COMMON FEAT. THE NASHVILLE SYMPHONY PAGE 26

BROTHERS OSBORNE PAGE 28

ESMÉ PATTERSON ALBUM

RELEASE PAGE 30

PHOTO: ATIBA JEFFERSON

who keep haunting her would beg to differ) — a classic scarefest worth your time? It really depends on who you ask. Thirty years ago, Rolling Stone critic Peter Travers put it high atop his list of the scariest movies on home video you’ve never heard of. It’s also one of the earliest horror movies to be released via The Criterion Collection. However, if you go on Tubi, those Mystery Science Theater 3000 alums over at RiffTrax have devoted not one but two episodes to roasting the hell out of this flick, mostly calling out its languid pacing, bad acting and overall lack of story. Nevertheless, Bri over at the Belcourt thinks it’s essential October viewing, praising it as “a perfect example of how resourceful low-budget filmmaking can transform a forgotten B-movie into an enduring classic.” So see if this chiller can freak you the fuck out this week.

CRAIG D. LINDSEY

8 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT

2102 BELCOURT AVE.

MUSIC [DREAM ANOTHER]

MAKAYA McCRAVEN

Makaya McCraven wasn’t an obvious choice to play Bonnaroo earlier this year: Rather than playing the rock, hip-hop and EDM that’s featured so heavily on the Farm, McCraven is a drummer and bandleader known for critically acclaimed jazz projects. But great music is great music, and McCraven’s quintet drew enthusiastic and curious crowds to This Tent on the festival’s final day. One of the joys of jazz is seeing such great artists in a variety of musical environments and bands, so even if you saw him at ’Roo, stop by McCraven’s performance at The Blue Room for a fresh look at his musical and creative expression. There’s no word on what the band will look like yet, but it’s safe to assume this show will look different from his last stop in Nashville, when he led a 13-piece band at the Schermerhorn to perform In These Times

COLE VILLENA

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

623 SEVENTH AVE. S.

FRIDAY, 10/6

MUSIC

[JAM BAND OGS TIMES THREE] PHISH

Phish has never played Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, but that will be rectified Friday night when the jam-band legends begin a three-night run there. It will be the band’s first set of shows in the city since the summer of 2021, when they headlined two nights at Ascend Amphitheater. The dates at the Bridgestone kick off a short fall tour that concludes with three nights at the United Center in Chicago the weekend after two midweek shows at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. While Phish’s fall mini-tour is not being celebrated as such, it does in a way mark the 40th anniversary of the band’s founding in Burlington, Vt., in October 1983. As for what attendees can expect at the Nashville dates, as Phishheads well know, guitarist Trey Anastasio, bassist Mike Gordon, drummer Jon Fishman and keyboardist Page

McConnell almost never play the same set twice. But if the set lists from their summer tour are any indication, fans at the Bridgestone performances can expect to hear material spanning the full breadth of their career, including songs from their most recent studio release, 2020’s Sigma Oasis DARYL SANDERS

OCT. 6-8 AT BRIDGESTONE ARENA

501 BROADWAY

MUSIC [GOLDEN] BECCA

MANCARI

Local indie-pop favorite Becca Mancari’s inaugural headline tour will stop in Nashville at Third Man Records’ Blue Room Friday. After releasing their third album Left Hand on Captured Tracks in August, Mancari has been busy opening for fellow Nashvillian Joy Oladokun. Left Hand is Mancari’s most genreexpansive and vulnerable album to date, exploring themes of love and forgiveness with a grace that comes only through careful, deliberate self-work. More than anything, it’s an ode to chosen family with collaborations from producer Juan Solorzano and additional writing on single “Over and Over” from Nashville expat Liza Anne. Mancari has been teasing special surprises for the Nashville show — Atlanta alt-rocker Girlpuppy is set to open on this onenight-only occasion, a live string section will join Mancari’s band, and with collaborations from Brittany Howard, Julien Baker and Paramore and HalfNoise’s Zac Farro across Left Hand, there’s no telling who might show up. The music will start at 8 p.m., and if one show isn’t enough, Becca Mancari (or rather DJ Cari) is hosting an afterparty following the show at

MUSIC [GO!]

COMMON FEAT. THE NASHVILLE SYMPHONY

Common’s career has seen plenty of twists and turns, from beef with Ice Cube to experimenting on Electric Circus to his own forays into acting. (He debuted on Broadway in 2022’s Between Riverside and Crazy.) But the Chicagoan has endured — through several presidencies and even the rise and fall of various rap subgenres, including the “conscious” style he’s associated with. Sure, he can be a smidge too artsy or preachy at times, but he also brings a lot of soul and skill to the microphone. Whether he’s dropping battle raps or offering sharp political observations, Common always brings a lot of depth and warmth to each verse. That quality should meld well with live instrumentals, as he takes to the Schermerhorn to perform with the Nashville Symphony. The program promises hits like “Love of My Life (An Ode to Hip Hop)” and “Glory,” but Common’s got a deep and diverse catalog that can keep the audience on its toes.

ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

7:30 P.M. AT THE SCHERMERHORN

1 SYMPHONY PLACE

FILM [SCREAMIN’] TALES FROM THE CRYPT PRESENTS: DEMON KNIGHT & DEMONS

Who’s ready for Full Moon Cineplex’s insanely gory double feature of people trapped

somewhere, fending off demonic mofos and trying to stay alive? The double bill starts with Tales From the Crypt Presents: Demon Knight, a 1995 big-screen spinoff of the ’90s HBO horror anthology show, directed by Ernest Dickerson (Juice). This combo of camp and carnage has a boarding house full of societal dregs (including a pre-Will Smith Jada Pinkett, Thomas Haden Church and Charles Fleischer, aka the voice of Roger Rabbit) going toe to toe with a demonic crew (led by Billy Zane, who you either know as The Phantom or that POS from Titanic) looking to set off the apocalypse. Then you’ll go back a decade to 1985 with Demons, the Dario Argentoproduced grisly grossout (directed by Lamberto Bava, son of giallo legend Mario Bava), in which some unfortunate moviegoers are stuck in a theater with a horrifying, hungry horde. BTW, Full Moon will play Knight again on Saturday night, and it’ll be paired up with Argento’s iconic supernatural show Suspiria (which has its own Pick this week).

CRAIG D. LINDSEY

7 P.M. AT FULL MOON CINEPLEX

3455 LEBANON PIKE

SATURDAY, 10/7

FILM [BROKEN MINDS] SUSPIRIA

With all due respect to fans of cult classics The Craft and Hocus Pocus, if you’re going to watch one atmospheric chiller about witches on the big screen this October, make it Suspiria. Giallo pioneer Dario Argento’s masterpiece, Suspiria is a freewheeling mix of vibrant colors and brutal murders set to a soaring prog-rock

Wilburn Street Tavern. HANNAH CRON

8 P.M. AT THE BLUE ROOM AT THIRD MAN RECORDS 623 SEVENTH AVE. S.

BECCA MANCARI

synth soundtrack from Goblin. Forget the Luca Guadagnino and Dakota Johnson remake from 2018; the original is for the true horror heads. For bonus spooky points, check out Full Moon Cineplex’s Movie and Haunt package, where one ticket gets you into both a film screening and the Slaughter House haunted attraction.

LOGAN BUTTS

9 P.M. AT FULL MOON CINEPLEX

3445 LEBANON PIKE, HERMITAGE

MUSIC

[MUSIC

IN THE MEADOW] MATT BELSANTE

If you’ve never experienced a concert at Owl’s Hill, you’re in luck: The scenic nature sanctuary is continuing its popular Music in the Meadow series with Nashville-based big band singer-songwriter Matt Belsante. Belsante serves up a variety of jazz standards along with a couple of original compositions, and his sound is reminiscent of the great crooners of the 1940s and ’50s. Guests are welcome to pack a picnic dinner (don’t forget your chairs, blankets and bug spray!) and enjoy an evening of music under the stars. Ticket sales go to support the nonprofit’s many public programs. While you’re there, be sure to check out the calendar of upcoming events, including the Fall Native Plant Sale and Fall Color Hikes. One note: To help protect the sanctuary’s diverse wildlife and fragile habitats, please leave all pets at home.

AMY STUMPFL

SATURDAY AT OWL’S HILL NATURE SANCTUARY

545 BEECH CREEK ROAD, BRENTWOOD

MUSIC

CHAPPELL ROAN

Who among us has not screamed, “Gaaaawd, what have you done? You’re a pink pony girl and you dance at the club. Oh mama, IIIII’m just having fun, on the stage in my heels. It’s where I belong, down at the Pink Pony Club,” this summer? Chappell Roan is the woman responsible for this and an album full of glittering pop ballads and bangers. It’s a performance piece of sorts for the Missouri native born Kayleigh Rose Amstutz, who will stop in Nashville in support of her first album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess. She hits all the pop-star marks: a carefully curated aesthetic for each song, gorgeous hair, makeup and outfits, and even a choreographed dance to possibly her best song, “HOT TO GO!” She’s invited local drag queens to open for each night of the tour and orchestrates a nightly theme for the fans to coordinate outfits. Princess behavior.

a Grammy Award in 2022 for “Younger Me,” a landmark song for mainstream country that chronicled T.J.’s struggles as a once-closeted gay man. On the new album, the brothers deliver a collection of tunes that straddle a line between groovy, fun-as-hell country-rock (like “Might as Well Be Me” or “New Bad Habit”) and stories of hard-earned life lessons (like album single “Nobody’s Nobody” and standout cut “We Ain’t Good At Breaking Up”). And no matter what new cuts the duo decides to bring to Nashville, it’s sure to be a rowdy night for all involved. Fancy Hagood opens. MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER

8 P.M. AT ASCEND AMPHITHEATER

310 FIRST AVE S.

FILM

SUNDAY, 10/8

MUSIC

[OH BOY, OH BOY, OH BOY!]

YOU GOT GOLD: A JOHN PRINE CELEBRATION

performance. If you ask me, it’s also the best movie of its decade. Arrival screens as part of the Belcourt’s Invasion! series. LOGAN BUTTS

OCT. 8 AND 10 AT THE BELCOURT

2102 BELCOURT AVE.

325

MUSIC [SELF-TITLED BROTHERS] BROTHERS OSBORNE

Brothers Osborne — the country music duo featuring T.J. Osborne, one of the best baritone singers in Nashville, and (you guessed it) brother John Osborne, a show-stealing guitarist — roll back to Music City, U.S.A., this week in support of a new self-titled album. The 11-track effort marks the first from Brothers Osborne since winning

[NOBODY

GETS LEFT BEHIND (OR FORGOTTEN)]

INVASION!:

LILO & STITCH

Lilo & Stitch looms large in my memory for a somewhat fluky reason. In the film, the koalalike “cute and fluffy” Stitch is a genetically engineered extraterrestrial killing machine unleashed upon Earth — but since it’s a family film, he learns the value of family from a lonely child and doesn’t actually kill anyone. His original in-film name is “Experiment 626,” and my older brother’s birthday is June 26 (6/26). He loved the character, had a little plushie of him and used the number 626 in things like his RuneScape username, so in my mind, this was one of the most significant films of all time. Even if my childhood cinematic critique wasn’t quite accurate, the film is worth revisiting. All the Disney hallmarks of friendship and believing in yourself and yadda yadda yadda are there, but they play out in a delightful setting full of moments that make you go, “That is what a spaceship in Y2K Hawaii would look like!” and, “It makes sense that this six-legged alien loves Elvis!” I’m not the only one with special memories of this film; other fans and critics have praised its portrayal of Hawaiian culture and characters, sisterly love and ohana. It shows twice this weekend as part of the Belcourt’s ongoing alien-centric Invasion! series. COLE VILLENA

OCT. 7-8 AT THE BELCOURT

2102 BELCOURT AVE.

The ever-glowing influence of John Prine continues to burn this week with the second year of You Got Gold, a multinight celebration of the late folk hero’s rich songbook. Hosted by the Prine family and benefiting The Hello in There Foundation (a local nonprofit fundraising effort founded by the singer’s widow Fiona Prine), You Got Gold returns for surprise tribute lineups at the CMA Theater (Sunday) and The Basement East (Monday) before culminating Tuesday with a night at the Ryman Auditorium on what would’ve been Prine’s 77th birthday. Who’s set to appear? We don’t know! But that’s part of the fun. When You Got Gold launched last year, surprise guests included Kacey Musgraves, Tyler Childers, Bob Weir, Brandi Carlile … and the list goes on. And those who didn’t score a ticket to one of the shows can still celebrate Prine this week; his longtime independent label Oh Boy Records is hosting a slew of daytime events — including trolley tours of the singer’s favorite Nashville spots and a sing-along session at Brown’s Diner — for fans wanting an extra slice of Prine lore (and a plate of meatloaf along the way). MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER

OCT. 8-10 AT VENUES AROUND NASHVILLE

FILM [STORY OF YOUR LIFE] INVASION!: ARRIVAL

For my money, Denis Villeneuve has had the most impressive past decade of any active director. The French Canadian filmmaker reeled off a series of commercial and critical hits (Prisoners, Enemy, Sicario, Blade Runner 2049, Dune) that stun both aesthetically and with their ultra-cynical stories. The high point of his hot streak, and the film that lets the most hope sneak in through the darkness, is 2016’s Arrival, based on “Story of Your Life,” a 1998 novella by Ted Chiang Simultaneously a thoughtprovoking drama and a sci-fi puzzle box, Arrival is a showcase for a tour-de-force Amy Adams

MONDAY, 10/9 MUSIC [BURNIN’ UP] JONAS BROTHERS

The JoBros are back in the news cycle thanks to a seemingly tumultuous divorce between frontman and middle brother Joe and his now-ex Sophie Turner. For the record, I was always a Kevin girl. Meanwhile, the band is on tour. The Jonas Brothers, a New Jersey-born trio of pastor’s kids and real brothers who first garnered popularity for wearing purity rings and starring in Camp Rock, have taken a page from Miss Swift in their FIVE ALBUMS. ONE NIGHT tour. The set list does not disappoint. The new album The Album is full of pop gold including “Montana Sky” and “Celebrate!” You’re guaranteed to hear Nick sing “red dress,” and the song that changed all of our brain chemistry — “Lovebug.” (In addition, please do not look at me in the eyes during “When You Look Me in the Eyes.”) Even if you’re Team Sophie, not going to this would hurt you more than it would hurt Joe. If you miss it this time, there’s a second date on Oct. 20. (Think of Kevin!)

HANNAH HERNER

7 P.M. AT BRIDGESTONE ARENA

501 BROADWAY

TUESDAY, 10/10

MUSIC [MYSTIFYING MUSICAL FUSION] BLACK VIOLIN EXPERIENCE WITH THE NASHVILLE SYMPHONY

Prefer your classical music with a bit of a twist? The Nashville Symphony has got you covered, as the Black Violin Experience arrives at the Schermerhorn, promising “a mystifying musical fusion” that balances classical string sounds with modern hip-hop beats and vocals.

HANNAH HERNER

6 P.M. AT BROOKLYN BOWL

THIRD AVE. N.

JONAS BROTHERS

WITNESS HISTORY

This Regal archtop model was given to a young Dick Curless by a friend of his father, Emery Fields, who also taught him how to play it. Further down the line, Curless became known for his truck-driving songs like his 1965 national hit, “A Tombstone Every Mile.”

From the exhibit Dick Curless: Hard Traveling Man from Maine

artifact photo: Bob Delevante

Featuring a dynamic pair of classically trained artists in violist Wil Baptiste and violinist Kev Marcus, Black Violin has been shattering musical and cultural stereotypes from the very beginning. The two first met at Dillard High School in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., playing together in orchestra class. They teamed up again after college, creating beats for various South Florida rappers and establishing a distinctive sound. The Grammy-nominated duo is joined onstage here by Nat Stokes on drums, DJ SPS on the turntable and Liston Gregory on keys — with principal pops conductor Enrico Lopez-Yañez leading the Nashville Symphony. Fans can also look forward to a great opening set from Son Little. To learn more about Black Violin’s extensive programs for young musicians, check out blackviolinfoundation.org. AMY STUMPFL

7:30 P.M. AT THE SCHERMERHORN

1 SYMPHONY PLACE

MUSIC

[INCANTATIONS]

ESMÉ PATTERSON ALBUM RELEASE

When we talk about folk-rock or bluesrock, we’re generally talking about blending two sets of traditions to create a distinct third thing. Songsmith Esmé Patterson, who recently relocated to Nashville from Colorado, uses elements of folk, blues and rock ’n’ roll in ways that don’t sound quite like any of the constituent parts or like any of the well-

of growth and renewal through the end of good things, telling more about it by the way she sings them: “I’ve been coming down / Yes, I put my feet down on the ground / Gotta come down sometime.” Tuesday at The 5 Spot, she’ll celebrate Notes From Nowhere with support from two fellow superb songsmiths: Abby Johnson, whose self-titled debut LP came out Sept. 15, and Ziona Riley. STEPHEN TRAGESER

9 P.M. AT THE 5 SPOT

1006 FOREST AVE.

MUSIC [NEED TO KNOW] TOM PETTY TRIBUTE

A lot of people regard the late Tom Petty as an avatar of rock ’n’ roll, which isn’t puzzling. The Florida-born singer, songwriter and guitarist made good music that’s indebted to the 1960s work of Bob Dylan, The Byrds and The Beatles, and his well-made tunes went down easy, like an all-American antidote to the crude entreaties of the punk era. He was an eccentric singer who sang in a childlike tone that might have helped put him across as a Rock Everyman. Apart from a few singles, like 1978’s “I Need to Know” and 1979’s excellent “Here Comes My Girl,” I’ve never been a fan of his most popular work — “Breakdown” might be a song of defiance, but the tune sounds generic to me.

established amalgamations either. On her new LP Notes From Nowhere, Patterson subtly and sparingly uses rock grit and electronic production techniques to enhance meditative folk and blues songs about grounding yourself in your relationships with yourself, other people and the universe. In “Coming Down,” she uses just a few simple words to relate her experience

I do like his albums, on which his excellent band was free to explore the post-Byrds world of what I guess you’d call power pop. Tuesday at Brooklyn Bowl, a bunch of Petty fans get together to pay tribute to his work. Country singer Wynonna Judd will be on hand, along with Brittney Spencer and singer-songwriter Charles Wesley Godwin. Also on the bill will be bluegrass star Sierra Hull and jam-band giant Vince Herman. The show benefits the nonprofit company Backline, which helps music-industry professionals access mental health and wellness resources. EDD

7 P.M. AT BROOKLYN

925 THIRD AVE. N.

BLACK VIOLIN EXPERIENCE

BREAKFAST OUTSIDE THE home often requires some element of expedience — maybe you’re on your way to work or an early engagement. Thus, for this roundup, convenience is our first scoring category, roughly defined as the ease with which the sandwich can be acquired. As for the item itself, we note two scoring criteria: inside and outside. The inside includes egg, default toppings and available toppings, though sandwiches were ordered without any add-ons for simplicity and standardization. Outside is the bread, biscuit or bagel. For the fourth and final criterion, quality is weighed against price for a value score. Each category (convenience, inside, outside, value) is scored from 1 to 3: either lacking (1), sufficient (2) or exceptional (3). That means the review of a sandwich sufficiently convenient with excellent fillings on subpar bread for an absolute steal would end like this: 2/3/1/3

To qualify, the kitchen must be open by 8 a.m. and the order must have egg between bread. This categorically disqualifies popular and delicious morning choices like breakfast tacos and chicken biscuits.

THE BREAKFAST CLUB

Our thoughts on six Nashville breakfast sandwiches

BY ELI MOTYCKA

EGG & CHEDDAR BISCUIT

DOSE

Car parking is a challenge during busy hours at either Dose location and nearly impossible at Murphy Road, where Grand Cru employees guard the wine store’s proprietary spots. Dose lines can slow down a quick morning, and the kitchen makes each sandwich to order, tacking on a wait that often hits 10 minutes. Even the heroic Murphy Road barista staff can barely stave off constant waves of coffee hounds from Vanderbilt and Sylvan Park. A modest square of egg, cooked evenly, comes melded to a fluffy fresh biscuit with an equally generous cheddar allowance. Additional points for the cheese-pull. It’s a full breakfast at $7.50, making the Dose biscuit a solid treat for those with a little extra time before work. 1/2/2/2

EGG & CHEESE BISCUIT

RAISE THE ROOST AT 7-ELEVEN

Offering dozens of prewrapped sandwiches at a grab-and-go hot food display on one the city’s major commuter routes, Gallatin Avenue’s Raise the Roost — 7-Eleven’s in-house fast-food counter — could not be more convenient. Doors open at 5 a.m., and the Roost’s vast array of

breakfast offerings can be cleared out in a few hours, implying a dedicated crowd of morning shoppers. Add-ons include sausage, bacon, even fried chicken, married to a passable egg mixture and melty orange cheese product most comparable to a Kraft single. The biscuit is moist and buttered with the pleasing density of dessert shortcake. One sandwich is typically near $4, but a fall combo offers two for $6, a ridiculously good deal. Be warned — what you save at the register you will likely pay for in long-term medical complications thanks to maxed-out calorie and fat stats; this is firmly fast food, and the Scene cannot ethically recommend this high-scoring sandwich for daily or even weekly consumption. 3/2/3/3

FOCACCIA EGG SANDWICH DOZEN BAKERY

Ample free car parking and decent neighborhood walkability offset Dozen’s made-to-order service and reliable traffic, securing passable convenience. The dense rectangle of baked egg comes dressed with a perfect romesco, sprigs of dill, fresh arugula and actual cheddar, all packed between a sweet and savory honey focaccia. An institution of Nashville’s baking

scene, Dozen has hit on something of a cult classic with the Focaccia Egg, which frequently sells out before noon. A steep $8.50 makes this a firmly upmarket sandwich, but you pay for exactly what you get. 2/3/3/2

EGG & CHEESE SANDWICH NASHVILLE BISCUIT HOUSE

A drive-thru lane gives patient patrons one window directly into the bighearted chaos that is the Nashville Biscuit House. Few Old Nashville staples are still this far down Gallatin Avenue, making Biscuit House an essential breakfast spot for transplants, longtime residents and tourists. Just because it has the trappings of a fast-food restaurant doesn’t mean it’s always fast (I waited 25 minutes in the car, including 15 at the order window) — that’s not because the staff doesn’t value service, but rather because a drive-thru window might not make sense when loyal customers pack your dining room nearly every morning. Color variations confirm that the egg is hand-scrambled, topped with molten orange American cheese and nestled between a mercifully petite golden-brown biscuit. The $6 biscuit comes with a complimentary side of hash browns or grits, an easy win on value. 2/2/3/3

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

PHOTO: ANGELINA CASTILLO

EGG & CHEDDAR BISCUIT AT DOSE

FOCACCIA EGG SANDWICH AT DOZEN BAKERY

10.19 10.18

EGG & CHEESE BAGEL CRIEVE HALL BAGEL CO.

MALINDA

10.16 DOVE WEEK WITH JESUS IN A BAR FEATURING: CONSUMED BY FIRE, LYDIA LAIRD AND MORE!

10.17

BEN OTTEWELL & IAN BALL (OF GOMEZ) BRING IT ON 25TH ANNIVERSARY TOUR WITH SPECIAL GUEST BUDDY

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10.21 CITY OF LAUGHS FEATURING

A

Just a year into its spacious storefront, Crieve Hall Bagel Co. has become a go-to neighborhood meeting point for breakfast south of Nashville. Stop in on any given weekday morning and you get the sense that the strip malls dotting Nashville’s former suburbs could be made cool again. Car parking is easy, service is quick, and a to-go window scores convenience points for CHBC. As with other list peers, a baked egg balances consistency and efficiency while slightly sharp cheddar adds umami zing. Swiss (and vegan sausage) are other options at the register. Seeds drip off the chewy sourdough everything bagel, neatly wrapped for on-the-go eating. At $7.89 without add-ons after taxes, this substantial sandwich dares us to mark it as overvalued. Sourdough is expensive, though, and Crieve Hall likely set its prices amid the punishing inflation of 2022. 2/2/3/2

EGG & CHEESE BUN HERO

Newcomer Hero, which set up Charlotte and Wedgewood-Houston locations earlier this year, built a regional reputation in various Georgia and Alabama suburban enclaves. Its menu puts

simple flair on common staples, executing one step above fast food while dressed up in better marketing and intentional interior design. The Fourth Avenue outpost serves foot traffic while Charlotte hits West Side commuters. The kitchen flips orders around quickly, convenience partially born from sparse crowds as the brand builds a base in Nashville. The sandwich-ofchoice combines a creamy scrambled egg — get it folded, like a French omelet — with pepper jam and a riff on Thousand Island dressing. Double-time condiments work well with the fluffy, buttery bun, leading to a quick and satisfying sandwich experience for under $6. 2/3/2/2

The roundup officially ends here, with a few comments on notable city breakfast sandwiches of the past and present. Such scrutiny on Nashville’s breakfast options started with a staff conversation following the abrupt retirement of Sweet 16th’s egg-and-cheese biscuit (aka “one to go”), which we honor with an emeritus 3/3/3/3 Butter, Eggs & Bakin, a stone breakfast cottage on Hart Street, boasts powerful biscuit recommendations but was closed on two attempts. Two Hands on Eighth Avenue would have earned a 0 on value, breaking the list’s scoring criteria with a $14 bacon, egg and kale roll. ▼

EGG & CHEESE SANDWICH AT NASHVILLE BISCUIT HOUSE

PHOTO: ANGELINA CASTILLO

WEDGEWOOD-HOUSTON

Content-focused artwork is about something. Formalist artwork is something. And encountering an exhibition of Lars Strandh’s formalist color-spectrum paintings in this era of content-forward gallery programming can feel as invigorating as the first chilly day of fall. Strandh is a regular on Zeitgeist Gallery’s roster, and this new exhibition is the Norwegian artist’s fifth solo show with the gallery — and his first Nashville show since 2014. Spectrum is built around a display of a dozen acrylic-on-canvas works of various colors — from yellow through red, blue and green, and back to yellow. Smaller blackand-white paintings round out the exhibition. Strandh’s painting has always been about color, and the cake-frosting textures of his surfaces where each of the artist’s meticulous brushstrokes is registered in infinitely explorable horizontal lines. These repeating left-to-right patterns read like ripples on water, or rows of crops in a field, or the metaphysical horizons of a lifetime of experiences receding into both the future and the past. For me, Spectrum is about looking at colors and textures, but like all of Strandh’s Zeitgeist displays, it’s also a show about landscapes — geographical and ethereal. It’s about horizons of desire, and the ebb and flow of memories lost and found.

➡DETAILS: Opening reception 5-8 p.m. Saturday at Zeitgeist Gallery, 516 Hagan St.

OCTOBER’S FIRST SATURDAY IS FULL OF TEXT AND TEXTURE

Lars Strandh’s formalist paintings, Adam Mele’s monsterlike creatures and the Show & Sell bazaar

BY JOE NOLAN

Strandh’s show is the most intense display opening in Nashville on Saturday night, and the exhibition across the street at Red 225 in The Packing Plant is the perfect complement. Washington, D.C.-based artist Adam Mele’s art is graphic and illustrative, knowingly irreverent and a little bizarre. Etruscan art, Bazooka Joe bubble gum comics, Indonesian street art and the Chicago Imagists all inform Mele’s self-taught practice. The artist’s detailed acrylic-on-canvas works feature the recurring motif of a Kilroy-esque cartoon peeking out from plants and superimposed onto the faces of wild animals. Mele likes to paint borders on his surfaces to visually frame his images, and his flora and fauna are decorated with obsessive markings, tying the exhibition together with repeating design elements. The Chicago Imagists often get confused with New York pop artists — both schools loved comic art, but the Chicago artists also looked to surrealism while the pop artists in the Big Apple were swooning over advertising imagery. Mele’s monster-like creatures and displaced faces speak to Dalí and Dr. Seuss more than packaging design, and the show feels so illustrative that I’d love to see a collab between the artist and some of the writers, printmakers and zinesters who frequent the Free Nashville Poetry Library’s Show & Sell events.

➡DETAILS: Opening reception 6-9 p.m. Saturday at Red 225, 507 Hagan St.

The Free Nashville Poetry Library pulled out all the stops at their first Zine City Fest celebration of all things DIY publishing during last weekend’s Artville happenings in Wedgewood-Houston. And their October Show & Sell event is set to feature new creators, familiar faces and lots of artsy (and wordsy) gifts at every price point. FNPL kingpin Matt Johnstone referenced Jack Kerouac’s “October in the Railroad Earth” when hyping this event on the library’s Instagram account (@nashvillepoetrylibrary). Head down to The Packing Plant and see the outdoor bazaar for yourself under a “blue sky of perfect lostpurity.”

➡DETAILS: 3 p.m.-sunset Saturday at The Packing Plant, 507 Hagan St.

Coop closed out September with their Into the Fold exhibition at The Packing Plant’s Zine City Fest event. Coop is sticking with the textual themes for the month of October with The Intersection of Art, Text and Design. Here in the standard-less, uncategorized hell of our postmodern moment, it’s reassuring to be reminded of a time when there were clear lines — if not boundaries — demarcating art and design. Of course, back then we were always complaining about how the separations seemed arbitrary and unfairly enforced. The ink is always greener on the other side of the newly established cultural norms. Text is ubiquitous in designs of all kinds, but the

writer in me is a sucker for visual artists from Cy Twombly to Ed Ruscha to Jean-Michel Basquiat who found novel ways to incorporate written language into their compositions. And my favorite aspect of this group show at Coop is how it highlights the use of text in art beyond advertising design, poster-printing, greeting-card messaging and holiday decorating. This show features work by Patrick Vincent, Danielle Myers, Natalie Tyree and Taylor Walton

➡DETAILS: 1-9 p.m. Saturday at Coop, 507 Hagan St.

DOWNTOWN

The Frist’s Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage includes work from Lovie Olivia, and the artist’s latest solo exhibition opened at Tinney Contemporary on Sept. 16. It continues this month through Oct 28. Beauty as Method is a predictably multimedia affair that marries collage and assemblage techniques to Olivia’s flair for fresco painting. Beauty as Method, like Olivia’s work in the Frist show, is brimming with content about Blackqueer-femme-Southern identity. But it’s the artist’s formal innovations — like her unique blending of printing and mold-making, and her conceptual use of data records in her collaged portraits — that make Olivia’s work remarkable.

➡DETAILS: Reception 2-8 p.m. Saturday at Tinney

Contemporary, 237 Rep. John Lewis Way N. ▼

“UNTITLED,” LARS STRANDH

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LITTLE AMAL MAY represent a very small girl, but this 12-foot puppet of a 10-year-old Syrian refugee carries a big message of compassion and hope for displaced people everywhere.

Part of an extraordinary global arts project called The Walk, Amal — whose name means “hope” in Arabic — is manipulated by four puppeteers, including one on stilts, and was designed and built by Handspring Puppet Company, the creative force behind the internationally acclaimed play War Horse. She began her journey at the Syrian border in 2021, and has since visited more than 15 countries. Currently working her way across the United States from Boston to San Diego, Little Amal arrives at Nashville’s Centennial Park this week, and will be welcomed with a free community performance hosted by OZ Arts.

“Centennial Park is such a beautiful space for people to come together, and I think that’s really one of the biggest parts of this effort,” says Nashville choreographer Shabaz Ujima, who is directing the performance. “As Amal walks from place to place, crossing the continents, she is searching for a space to call home. So we

GIRL POWER

BY AMY STUMPFL

wanted to create an opportunity for people to gather, and to show her that here in Nashville, she has a community that cares for her.”

Ujima describes the event as “an intergenerational community celebration that shows Little Amal’s journey of weathering a storm as she tries to find home.” The huge project features choreography from Ujima and frequent collaborator Thea Jones, while showcasing community partners such as the Centennial Park Conservancy, Conexión Américas, Shackled Feet Dance, Global Education Center, Celebrate Nashville and more.

“It was important to me that we include a wide range of organizations that are not only dedicated to the beauty of art and dance, but also to the beauty of humanity,” Ujima says. “So I think what excites me most is the fact that we’re going to have such a wide range of people, who are able to move and express themselves with their bodies. We’re going to have children from the age of 6 or 7 from Centennial Performing Arts. We’re going to have elders from Shackled Feet Dance. We’re going to have people from Friends Life Community, which is a group of individuals with disabilities. We’re going to have

what I believe is a true village that represents all of Nashville.”

Ujima says he is particularly excited to “showcase the power of girls,” pointing to the strength and resilience of refugee children such as Amal.

“I wanted to stay true to who Little Amal is — a 10-year-old child,” he says. “When you think about what these displaced children and families are going through — these are things we will never truly understand. But there’s something about Little Amal that allows us to connect with her story. Children, especially, are just so willing to let go of the things that make us different in order to connect — and that’s important to the story we’re going to share here.”

As associate artistic director with Little Amal’s walk across America, Enrico Dau Yang Wey has seen many examples of such connection over the past two years.

“I think one of our puppeteers said it best: ‘This is often a tour, not of places, but of people,’” says Wey, who’s been with the Amal team since the first workshop in London in 2019. “The community events can be very impactful, but the things that really stick with me are the intimate

little moments where people are interacting with Amal. I remember a little girl in Turkey who walked up and said: ‘My name is Amal, too.’ Or when we were in the middle of an event at the New York Public Library, and I saw a man holding back tears. You don’t know what these people’s stories are, or why they’re feeling this way, but we asked Amal to just walk over to him and put a hand on his shoulder — it was really powerful.”

While the arts have long provided a way to promote connection and build empathy, Wey sees puppetry as being particularly effective, because it asks us to “fill in the story.”

“As a puppet, Amal creates a collective empathetic response,” he says. “You start thinking: ‘Oh, I think she’s cold or hungry, or looking for a place to sleep tonight.’ And once you begin that process, you’re immediately connected. When you’re watching a human actor, you don’t necessarily feel that need to fill in the blanks for them. But there’s something about Little Amal — she sort of becomes a vessel for everyone’s stories. And when she leaves Nashville, she’ll carry those with her wherever she goes.” ▼

Little Amal carries a big message of hope

Little Amal arrives at Centennial Park at 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 5. To learn more about this free community event, visit ozartsnashville.org.

PHOTO COURTESY OF THE WALK PRODUCTIONS, RESPECTIVE COLLECTIVE

THE FILTH ELEMENT

John Waters is fresh from the gutter

BY KIM BALDWIN

JOHN WATERS HAS been busy. On Sept. 17, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures opened a full-scale exhibition called John Waters: Pope of Trash. A day later, Waters received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He’ll be at City Winery on Oct. 7 with a new show, Devil’s Advocate. When we spoke, he said he’d just finished writing it the day before. So the show is brand-new — or as Waters calls it, “fresh from the gutter.”

“I always change the show every year,” he says. “My stuff is so topical, and things change so fast. I might update it before I come there if something happens.”

We discussed the recent slate of anti-LGBTQ legislation in Tennessee, and the targeted attacks on the trans community. “I don’t know why that makes people so nervous,” he says. “Be whatever you want!” He’s talked to a lot of young people, and they’re not nervous about it. “The kids think it’s no big deal,” he says. “It’s amazing.”

“My favorite thing is that all parents now — I never thought I’d hear this — cry, ‘Can’t you just be gay?’”

Waters has been working with and showcasing drag queens in his work since the 1960s, most notably Divine, and he thinks any attempt to stop the culture by the Tennessee GOP is too late. “Today drag queens, because of RuPaul, are accepted in deep Middle America,” he says. “People love it.”

Frequent themes in Waters’ live shows are optimism, hope and humor. He believes that if you have a sense of humor, you will always be an optimist. “How you have a sense of humor is how you win any argument,” he says. “Not by making people feel stupid, not making your enemy feel stupid — even when they are.”

Devil’s Advocate is about the young people of

today, who Waters says are constantly changing and becoming more accepting. He’s confused by the new sexual revolution — one he says makes the one he’s from look tame.

“It’s me asking questions,” he says. “The new generation has finally done what I tell them to do: Pick up things that make me nervous.”

About Nashville, he says, “I love the local color. I hate that it’s getting wiped out. I liked it when people would take me to the worst dive places. They were fun. I don’t really have time to do that anymore anyway, but I always have a nice audience there.”

Waters has built a career on being censored, which he says is a big help. “They waited too long, like all people that try to censor,” he says, talking about the so-called drag ban. “The same way it’s way too late to stop gay marriage. Even people that are monster homophobes know gay people now. It’s too late!”

Waters is looking forward to coming to Nashville and having a multigenerational audience.

“My audience is just minorities that can’t get along in their own minority.”

At the end of our interview, I tell Waters that I’ve read Peyton Place, which I heard was the first book he ever read. “Oh my God — the ‘V’ of Betty’s crotch,” he says. “That was the first thing I ever masturbated to. It’s probably the last thing I would masturbate to today. [Laugh] Put that in your paper!” ▼

John Waters’ Devil’s Advocate Saturday, Oct. 7, at City Winery, 609 Lafayette St.

PHOTO: GREG GORMAN

JOHNSTON STEVE AUSTIN

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COMMUNITY HEALTH

BY AMANDA HAGGARD

WAYFARING STRANGERS

Ida Mae returns with their best album to date Thunder Above You

BY DARYL SANDERS

IDA MAE’S NEW ALBUM Thunder Above You opens with a groovy percussion loop that sets a swinging tone for not only the opening track and first single “My Whispers Are Wildfire,” but for the entire record.

“It’s a Moog drum machine that Ethan programmed,” vocalist-guitarist Chris Turpin says of the loop, speaking with the Scene by phone from the U.K. where he is visiting family.

Ethan is multi-instrumentalist-producer Ethan Johns, who handled drums and percussion and assisted with the mix on Thunder Above You, the third studio album by the husband-and-wife rock duo of Turpin and vocalist-keyboardist Stephanie Jean Ward.

Working with Johns and bassist Nick Pini, the same rhythm section that accompanied them on their first two records, the duo recorded the album quickly — 12 songs in a week.

“Steph was seven months pregnant at the time, so we knew we had to get a record in the bag,” Turpin explains.

YOUNG PEOPLE ARE struggling with mental health. Even before the COVID-19 pandemic forced students out of school and away from community, kids were facing an increased level of depression, anxiety and suicidal ideation, according to a 2021 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the decade leading up to 2020, the report shows steep increases in the percentage of young people with feelings of sadness and hopelessness, with more than 40 percent of young people in 2021 experiencing these symptoms persistently.

Jen Starsinic is the executive director of Girls Write Nashville, a nonprofit songwriting mentorship organization that works with female and nonbinary teens. She says that in Girls Write programs, organizers encounter young people who need help with a spectrum of mental health challenges, from general anxiety to depression and the effects of abuse. She says Girls Write participants often begin to process various traumas through forms of creative expression like writing lyrics and music. Girls and LGBTQ students in particular need support: The same CDC report shows that more than 60 percent of young girls say they experienced persistent feelings of hopelessness and sadness; that number jumps to 70 percent for LGBTQ youth.

“Definitely what we’re hearing and what we’re seeing and what we’re observing and … also seeing in data is that students are really struggling with their mental health,” Starsinic says. “They’re undergoing traumatic experiences, just like every person does, and not necessarily having a lot of resources for them.”

Michael Zuch, a licensed master social worker and clinical therapist at the Nashville Center for

Trauma and Psychotherapy, says the pandemic “made it worse, as you can imagine. It just exacerbated the problems, though — so the problems are the same. They’re just deeper than they were before.”

Some of the concerns that come up generally in Zuch’s clientele — who are about 50 percent families and kids and 50 percent adults — are broad societal issues like political polarization, fear of mass shootings and climate change as well as typical types of abuse, trauma and neglect.

“What I think is great is that young people are more politically engaged, but there’s a cost, because they’re dealing with these huge existential questions without having the tools in the community to process them thoroughly in the same way that we adults do,” Zuch says. “Spaces where expression is used, like at Girls Write, really allow young people to build the community they’re looking for.”

In the case of Girls Write, and for many others working in spaces with children, there’s both a legal responsibility to report cases of abuse and the duty to do right by young people needing help, Starsinic says. It’s important to the organization to provide a space where young people are trusted, safe and able to get help when they need it.

The nonprofit’s annual fundraiser, set for Oct. 8 at 3rd and Lindsley, will feature Nashville artists and Scene faves Katie Pruitt and Daisha McBride, as well as four artists who either acted as Girls Write mentors or were in the program themselves: Crystal Rose, Purser, Magdalene and Eva Cassel. The benefit includes a push for funds for general services, but will focus partially on

the crucial demand at the organization for a licensed clinical social worker to aid in case management and follow up with students experiencing crisis.

In his practice, Zuch works toward an understanding that there are various ways people can build community, which often improves their mental health. Zuch is careful to say social media is not damaging to young people on its own, but the internet is not always a helpful environment if kids don’t have the tools to understand what they are exposed to. He points to the positives of social media for necessary community building — especially for LGBTQ youth, who may find significant comradery among friends with similar experiences they find online. But the direct connection that music programs like Girls Write have with community building makes them a prime space for young people to both access mental health care and find like-minded peers, leading to better health outcomes overall.

“I think having more and more nuanced conversations and resources around [mental health] that moves beyond just the intellectual and into creating community together is, at the end of the day, what we’re all craving and what we’re not getting,” Zuch says. “And it’s what kids need too.” ▼

“Everyone we spoke to said, ‘You have to get this record done before you have a baby,’” Stephanie Jean adds with a laugh. “I’d say it was probably the least prepared we’ve been for the studio just because of the timing of things.”

With assistance from engineer Fraser Latimer, they recorded the album in May 2022 after transforming a mansion owned by a childhood friend in Turpin’s hometown of Norwich into a makeshift studio.

“We had just rolled out of tour, and we literally built the studio in a day,” Turpin says. “Everyone lived in the house, cooked all our own food. We set up a live room, and we cut two songs a day. And that’s how we made the record. It was just magical.”

Thunder Above You indeed has an undeniable magic, which is derived in part from the way the album was made — very few takes and very little overdubbing.

“We wanted this to be much more a moment in time,” Turpin says. “When you perform live like that with open microphones — there were no booths, and there was no separation between the drum mics and the vocal mics — it just creates a really big conversation in the room if you’ve got the right players. And I think what comes across is how in the pocket and how much groove there is, you know, because all the musicians are really listening to one another as every note is being played. I think the record has such an atmosphere because of that energy.”

While Thunder Above You has all the elements that have been hallmarks of Ida Mae’s distinctive sound on their previous recordings — clever and poetic wordplay, memorable musical hooks, monster guitar riffs, accomplished musicianship and their unique, soulful vocal blend — the album represents a ripening and broadening of that captivating sound. The record is funkier and swings more than earlier studio releases Chasing Lights and Click Click Domino.

“I think it was just the reality that we’d been out playing Click Click Domino songs in front of a lot of people, and I think we just got a little groovier and a

As young people face mental health challenges, arts organizations like Girls Write Nashville are attempting to fill care gaps

Girls Write Nashville benefit show 6:30 p.m., Sunday, Oct. 8, at 3rd & Lindsley

PHOTO: LAURA ROCKETT

GIRLS WRITE NASHVILLE STUDENT SHERLYN

little heavier,” Turpin says. “I think we both sort of pushed ourselves to play a little more, you know, because we’ve always been hidden by the songs a little bit. But for this record, we wanted to really play a little more. Steph, I think, really shows what she can do.”

Stephanie Jean steps further into the spotlight on the new record, both as a keyboardist and vocalist. While she doesn’t credit her pregnancy for that, she does acknowledge it affected her voice.

“We found that with the expanded belly, it definitely gave me a richer tone,” she says, laughing.

In many ways, Thunder Above You is a reflection of their life on the road and the approximately 500 shows they’ve performed across America since moving to Nashville from the U.K. in 2019, opening tours for Willie Nelson, Greta Van Fleet and Marcus King, among others. Tracks like “American Cars” and “Feel the World Turning” are clearly informed by their travels.

“When we’ve headed out the last five years across

DREAM WEAVER

Pat Metheny’s five-decade career continues in impressive fashion with Dream Box

BY RON WYNN

AN INSTANTLY IDENTIFIABLE sound, masterful technique and unending creative ambition are just some of the qualities that have stamped guitarist, bandleader and composer Pat Metheny as a key figure in contemporary jazz circles since the late ’70s. From his days as a student and later colleague of Gary Burton’s at Berklee through decades of heading various combos, as well as his lengthy partnership with Lyle Mays that mirrored those of other great jazz unions like Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn, and his unrelenting desire to explore numerous idioms, Metheny has never resorted to imitation nor become musically stagnant.

The Kansas City native’s list of memorable LPs is extensive. He’s frequently toured throughout his career, and his latest, this time a solo endeavor, comes to the Ryman Auditorium Monday night. His newest release, July’s Dream Box, is a nine-song, 56-minute collection, his third for BMG’s Modern Recordings. Metheny compiled it over the course of 2022, going through a host of songs he’d placed on his laptop during 160 days on the road.

But it would be a mistake to assume Dream Box merely represents an update of things he did on either 1979’s New Chautauqua or 2011’s What’s It All About due to its being a solo guitar release. From the standpoint of its lean yet passionate voicings, it can be favorably compared to 2004’s One Quiet Night, except his playing is far more forceful on most of these tunes — particularly the originals that represent its finest moments. Composer, music professor and jazz historian Bob Gluck, the author of a forthcoming volume for the University of Chicago Press titled Pat Metheny: Stories Beyond Words, characterizes the guitarist’s work, both past and present, in this fashion.

the U.S., me and Steph in the car, and the guitar in the backseat and you know the radio playing, you kind of feel a bit like a drifter, a kind of wayfaring stranger moving through all these strange moments,” Turpin says. “And you kind of feel like a shadow passing through these towns.

“And it does something to you, and I’m not entirely sure what it is, and I’m not sure I’ll ever work it out. But I know it’s a little addictive, and you become more magnetized and drawn to it. The sense of moving through other people’s lives and being sort of privy to little moments of their existence, feels like a very spiritual, holy thing to be able to do.” ▼

“Metheny’s music has steadily unfolded over these five decades in a multitude of ways,” writes Gluck, who is also a pianist, rabbi and professor of music at the State University of New York, Albany. “As early as the 1980s, his music began to expand in scale and orchestration, while he also continued to grow as an architect of concise short forms. He has always been at the leading edge of emerging musical technologies, from sequencing to automata (the MIDI-controlled robotic instruments on his album Orchestrion), to expanding his sonic palette with a wide variety of guitars and electronics.

“True to Metheny’s musical history,” Gluck says, “the current solo tour will certainly include

all kinds of surprises, in this case not only the quiet ballads featured on Dream Box but a wide range of repertoire, a multitude of guitars, uptempo Orchestrion ensemble works … you name it. The idea of evolution can also imply constant discovery and the invention of new ways to explore and expand one’s lifelong ‘musical DNA.’”

Evidence of that expansion includes the subtle Latin melodic flavor and blues intonation on Dream Box’s “Trust Your Angels,” as well as the crisp melodic approach and lean chordal structure of the opening number “The Waves Are Not the Ocean.” He delves into the Brazilian mode with his cover of Luiz Bonfá’s “Manha de Carnival” (“Morning of the Carnival”), easily nav-

igating and exploring the tune’s samba/cumbia foundations. By contrast, he provides Russ Long’s “Never Was Love” — not exactly a jazz standard and more a favorite of rockers — with some intricate and impressive melodic exposition. Metheny’s sentimental side is showcased through his rendition of Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn’s “I Fall in Love Too Easily,” though it’s doubtful Cahn would have included the touches of reverb Metheny utilizes throughout.

Dream Box is both beautifully lyrical and superbly performed, another significant addition to one of the most varied and individualistic legacies and catalogs among modern improvisers and composers. ▼

Playing 7:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 9, at the Ryman Auditorium

Thunder Above You Out Friday, Oct. 6, via Vow Road Records

PHOTO: JIMMY KATZ

Saturday, October 7

SONGWRITER SESSION

Joe Doyle

NOON · FORD THEATER

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3:00 pm · HATCH SHOW PRINT SHOP LIMITED AVAILABILITY

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Kostas

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Saturday, October 28

POETS AND PROPHETS

Luke Laird

FEW FILMMAKERS HAVE taken audiences more deeply inside both the process of making music and the personalities of its most exciting and creative figures than Robert Mugge. He’s among a select group that also includes such greats as Les Blank and D.A. Pennebaker. Anyone unfortunate enough not to have seen any of his 30-plus films — most of them music documentaries — can get a comprehensive view of Mugge’s magnificent cinematic legacy through his new volume Notes From the Road: A Filmmaker’s Journey Through American Music Mugge will be among the guests at this month’s Southern Festival of Books. (More on that in this week’s cover package.) He’ll devote 35 of the presentation’s 60 minutes to showing brief excerpts from four of his earliest films: Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise (1980), Gospel According to Al Green (1984), The Return of Rubén Blades (1985) and Saxophone Colossus, his 1986 work on jazz legend Sonny Rollins. The remaining time will be devoted to a discussion of his new volume, plus audience questions.

During a recent email interview, Mugge cites a dual obsession with music and cinema as prime early motivation.

“Coming out of college, I had two key interests: music and film,” Mugge says. “An obvious way to pursue both was to make films on music-related subjects. Of course, I’ve always felt that the best music films are about more than just music. So even when my primary concerns

A TOUCH OF EVIL

ROBERT’S RULES

Documentarian Robert Mugge’s long, cinematic view of the music-making process

BY RON WYNN

have been musical styles, genres, performers, composers, etc., I’ve still managed to examine human personality, racial and ethnic identity, religious belief, political doctrine, social interaction, cultural tradition, regional geography and community support, because these inform our understanding of the worlds out of which traditional music emerges.”

Mugge’s films have covered a wide spectrum of styles and genres, from jazz and blues to reggae, Tex-Mex, zydeco and Hawaiian. One of his earliest films spotlighted Pulitzer-winning classical composer George Crumb.

“I’m drawn to big talent, unique (often eccentric) personalities, and compelling background stories,” Mugge says when asked how he chooses his subjects. “For example, with Al Green, I was able to capture one of the world’s great singers at the peak of his powers, while also examining his sometimes traumatic personal life, various notions of love (from the romantic to the spiritual), and the connections between African American sacred music and secular music.”

Mugge cites Stephen Sondheim, Allen Toussaint, Carla Bley, Dion DiMucci, Julius Hemphill and Harlan Howard as some of the artists he’s wanted to profile but hasn’t been able to for various reasons — from unexpected deaths to difficulties obtaining the necessary funding. Though

The Origin of Evil is a decadent, dark-hearted ride

BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL is practically two hours of Sébastien Marnier declaring that Brian De Palma is one of his favorite filmmakers.

The French director works many of the psychological-thriller legend’s tricks into his psychological thriller: overhead shots, slow dissolves, splitscreen sequences. Hell, the movie even begins with the camera lecherously roving around a women’s locker room, much like the salacious opening sequence from De Palma’s Carrie, set in a girls’ locker room.

Like in most De Palma thrillers, we also have a mysterious female protagonist. Stéphane (Laure Calamy) is a fish-plant worker who gets reacquainted with her wealthy father (Jacques Weber), whom she didn’t grow up with. Of course, when she visits the old man at his swanky (and cluttered) Mediterranean mansion, she’s greeted by a family who’s just as off-putting as she is. The business-minded daughter (Doria Tillier, gloriously icy) wants Stéphane gone the minute she meets her, while the chain-smoking matriarch (a vainglorious Dominique Blanc) is too busy being a compulsive shopaholic to incite much animosity. The business-minded daughter’s daughter (Céleste Brunnquell) is mostly around taking pictures, hoping to escape this poisoned clan she’s unfortunately bound to by blood.

With the old man ailing after a stroke and the fam ready to carry on his business without him, Stéphane — who’s ready to do anything for her daddy — has come along at the right time. Of course, we learn in the second hour that Stéphane, who has a girlfriend (Xavier Dolan regular Suzanne Clément) in prison, has some hidden motives of her own.

he hesitates to label any single film a favorite, he mentions those with which he’s had the deepest emotional ties.

“Seriously, I love all my films for one reason or another, because I make each of them out of a desire to learn and experience new things,

Notes From the Road: A FIlmmaker’s Journey Through American Music

By Robert Mugge

The Sager Group 364 pages, $21.99

Mugge will discuss Notes From the Road Oct. 22 at the Southern Festival of Books

and to bring attention to artists I genuinely care about,” Mugge says. “But among those to which I have the strongest emotional connections are Gospel According to Al Green, Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise, Saxophone Colossus with Sonny Rollins, Hawaiian Rainbow, The Kingdom of Zydeco, Blues Divas, New Orleans Music in Exile and, well, all of them.”

After having compiled such an impressive array of films, Mugge’s now in reflective mode — though he admits there remain some elusive projects.

“Of course (some remain),” he says. “But I rarely approach artists about a project until I have a sense of where I can get financial backing, and I’ve grown tired of fundraising to the point where I now prefer writing to filmmaking. I do plan to make more films, but right now, I’m enjoying more solitary projects like my recently released memoir.” ▼

Evil is basically a tribute to eat-the-rich thrillers made by French filmmakers. (De Palma, who has famously divided his time between New York and Paris, is considered an honorary Frenchman.) Along with De Palma, you also get whiffs of Claude Chabrol and René Clément, two Frenchmen who have done adaptations of Patricia Highsmith’s The Talented Mr. Ripley — which should tell you exactly what you’ll get with this flick. Fans of Succession may also get a kick out of the so-deranged-it’s-funny family politics that pop off when Stéphane arrives. Weber’s devious, ambiguously depraved dad certainly gives Brian Cox’s Logan Roy a run for his money in the piece-ofshit-patriarch department.

Even when you see a lot of the twists coming, this decadent, dark-hearted mix of opulence and deceit may win over those who’ve been once again craving the kind of stylish, sensual thrillers that Hollywood used to drop all the time in the ’80s and ’90s. (I assume the Belcourt will come up with an

erotic-thriller retrospective any day now.) But considering the fact that Evil is inspired by how Marnier’s working-class mother rediscovered her bougie pops when he was a kid, there’s an endearing undercurrent flowing amid this nasty, damn-near-tongue-in-cheek insanity.

Even with a wackadoo final act, this nutty noir is basically about a woman looking to belong — even if that belonging is in an affluent, dysfunctional family you’ll end up pitying more than envying. You may not learn the origin of evil in The Origin of Evil. But after seeing these people turn into gotdamn savages — surrounded by all this money — you’ll indeed get a sense of what’s the root of all evil. ▼

THE ORIGIN OF EVIL

R, 125 MINUTES; IN FRENCH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES OPENING FRIDAY, OCT. 6, AT THE BELCOURT

ACROSS

1 Follower of November

6 Main character in a Verne novel

10 Preserves, maybe

13 Instant ___

14 Actress Lena of “Chocolat”

15 Neural conductor

17 2009 fantasy rom-com starring Zac Efron

18 “Need a hand here!”

19 What the dish congee is made from

20 Food item that may be candied

21 Strongly implied

24 “Caught ya!”

25 Hang loose?

26 Former N.B.A. star who has unofficially served as a peace ambassador with North Korea

28 “___ all mad here”: Cheshire cat

31 “Understood”

33 Oodles

34 Made cuts to, maybe

38 Made cuts to

42 Base of an encipherment

43 Shade that might be made in the shade?

44 Fall in the winter

45 Holds on to

49 Site for artisans

50 Chips in England

53 Casual negatives

55 Seeming eternity

56 Desert feline

58 Where to find canines

61 Undergarment shade

63 Ewe got this!

64 Kerfuffle

66 Worker’s cry of relief

67 Any of three major-league brothers

68 The first “O” of O/O

69 Word with rack or trick

70 Antiquity

71 Scumlike

DOWN

1 Authorize

2 Long, long yarn

3 Kind of session for a procrastinator

4 “What ___ missing?”

5 Vacation time, informally

6 Zero chance of a good result

7 Popular store chain with a green, red and orange logo

8 2002 film that earned Eminem two MTV Movie Awards

9 Out of jail early, perhaps

10 Preserves preserver

11 Fundamental math assumption

12 Dark brown shade

16 Like many colors in 1980s fashion

22 Templeton of “Charlotte’s Web,” for one

23 Hypes

25 Members of the Flat Earth Society, e.g.

27 2008 rom-com starring Katherine Heigl and James Marsden

28 Ragamuffin

29 The monster Typhon was said to be trapped under it, in myth

30 NBC comedy starring Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin

32 Peeps

35 Something mad people do

36 “I” problems?

37 Covered with condensate

39 1935 Hitchcock thriller, with “The”

40 Corrodes

41 Inherent nature, figuratively

46 Like some cats and plumbing

47 “Haven’t the foggiest!” … or, when the first two letters are put at the end, an essential part of seven answers in this puzzle

48 Balneotherapy locale

50 Rapper Curtis Jackson, more familiarly

51 Unrefined

52 Land where the concept of zero was developed

54 Cultural values

57 ___ contendere

58 Singer Mitchell

59 [Cough cough]

60 Guarded

62 Juvenile stage of a newt

65 Noted head turner

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