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24 new and new-to-us local finds we fell for in 2024
From the exhibit Sing Me Back Home: Folk Roots to the Present
Dottie West wore these Di Fabrizio boots, embellished with rhinestones and sequins, as part of a stage costume designed by Hollywood-based designer Bob Mackie.
artifact: Courtesy of the family of Dottie West artifact photo: Bob Delevante
Street View: Vanderbilt, Its Expanding Campus and Neighborhood Parking
The school reports a decrease in student and faculty drivers — but neighbors say overflow parking is still an issue BY LENA
MAZEL
LEAD School Sues Nashville
Over Reclassification
Power struggle escalates between school board and LEAD charter network BY
ELI MOTYCKA
New Discoveries
24 new and new-to-us local finds we fell for in 2024
CRITICS’ PICKS
New Year’s Eve concerts, The Local Honeys, Terminator X, Old Crow Medicine Show and more
Songwriter Eddie Schwartz recounts the bizarre twists and turns that led to ‘Hit Me With Your Best Shot’ BY JACK
Verse
Despite a thriving literary scene, Nashville lacks a poet laureate BY
Straight on ’til Morning
The River Will Be a Part of Us chronicles a Nashvillian’s remarkable youthful adventure BY MARIA BROWNING; CHAPTER16.ORG
Living With the Blues Legendary singer Tracy Nelson marks her 80th birthday with a rare show BY EDD HURT
FILM
How Does It Feel?
Timothée Chalamet visits Nashville to discuss A Complete Unknown, which opens wide on Christmas Day BY LOGAN BUTTS
Down for the Count is a grotesque gothic nightmare — and it’s spellbinding
In my 35+ years living and working in Nashville, I’ve navigated the twists, turns and now expansive growth of this wonderful place. Let me help you make the best choices in your biggest investment — real estate. I’m so grateful for my clients’ great reviews, repeat business and continued referrals. I’d love the opportunity to help make your Real Estate Goals a reality!
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JANUARY LINE UP
1.4 8 Track – The World’s Most Notorious Band, Playing Only The Favorites From The 70s & 80s
1.10 Hell’s Belles
1.11 Uncle B’s Drunk with Power String Band Show featuring Bryan Simpson w/ the Band Loula, Trey Hensley, & A Super Secret CMA/AMA/ Grammy Winning Guest
1.12 Pick Pick Pass w/ Kevin Mac, Caleb Lee Hutchinson, Garrett Jacobs
1.14 Casey Beathard w/ Tucker Beathard
1.15 Salute the Songbird with Maggie Rose, Special Guest: Caitlyn Smith
1.16 Carter Faith – Return to Cherry Valley 1.17 Luke Dick
1.23 Tip Jars to Chart Toppers Hit Songwriter Round w/ Dylan Altman, Marshall Altman, Brice Long
1.24 Charles Esten “Love Ain’t Pretty” 1 Year Anniversary Party
1.25 Take Me To Church Tribute - #1 Eric Church Tribute in America
1.26 Pick Pick Pass w/ Kevin Mac, Shanna Crooks, Will Jones
1.27 Buddy’s Place w/ Nathan Belt, Paige Rose, Ryan Larkins
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VANDERBILT, ITS EXPANDING CAMPUS AND NEIGHBORHOOD PARKING
The school reports a decrease in student and faculty drivers — but neighbors say overflow parking is still an issue
BY LENA MAZEL
Street View is a monthly column taking a close look at development-related issues affecting different neighborhoods throughout the city.
FIVE YEARS AGO, Vanderbilt University introduced a new transit program, MoveVU. The program is designed to reduce the university’s impact on Nashville road congestion and promote more sustainable lifestyles for students and faculty. According to the MoveVU website, the initiative facilitates “a transformation in how the Vanderbilt community commutes to campus — one with less reliance on single occupancy vehicles and less demand for parking — by offering a ‘daily decision’ of travel mode choice.”
By Vanderbilt’s metrics, the choices worked. Spurred first by the pandemic and later by hybrid working lifestyles, staff and students started to commute differently, more frequently telecommuting, riding the bus, carpooling, riding bikes and walking. Between 2019 and 2023, Vanderbilt surveys report that the number of walking commutes rose from 6 percent to 15 percent. Meanwhile, the number of drivers dropped from 79 percent to 48 percent.
But to some people living in the neighborhoods near the university, things looked a little different.
David Anthony, a resident of the Hillsboro-Belmont neighborhood, has lived on Fairfax Avenue since 2009. “Fairfax has always been a busy street,” he says. But over the past few years, it has become “blanketed with cars.”
Anthony says the cars seem to belong mostly to Vanderbilt University Medical Center workers. He says nearly all of them drive alone, and he sees them walk to campus in their scrubs every morning. There are also some Vanderbilt professors who park on nearby streets.
“Vanderbilt is very proud of [MoveVU], and it sounds great,” says Anthony. “But as a resident of my neighborhood, I think they’re pushing people who are still addicted to car culture just simply to park in my neighborhood.”
While Anthony recognizes that living in “an affluent, high-foot-traffic area in the middle of town” is “a wonderful problem to have,” the parking situation near Vanderbilt does raise important questions. Is the university’s transit strategy working? And as an institution with a roughly $10 billion endowment and an expanding portfolio of Nashville real estate, what is Vanderbilt’s responsibility to its neighbors?
In an email to the Scene, a representative for Vanderbilt University says that if students are parking in nearby neighborhoods, they “should not log a sustainable transportation trip” in Vanderbilt’s system that incentivizes sustainable travel. The representative pointed out some
other corrective measures, like oversight methods in their city garages to correct for trips that are logged as sustainable travel but are actually majority driving. They also say the Nashville Department of Transportation “has engaged Vanderbilt on new enforcement strategies to mitigate unpermitted parking in adjacent neighborhoods.” But in neighborhoods like David Anthony’s, many of the streets have free, unpermitted parking — in which case, there isn’t too much the university can do.
When the Scene last covered Vanderbilt’s campus expansion in 2022, Metro Councilmembers Colby Sledge (District 17) and Burkley Allen (at large) both noted that parking was a persistent community issue. The Metro Council was debating eliminating parking minimums at the time, and Sledge told the Scene that “the impact of Vanderbilt and VUMC’s professors, students and staff parking throughout the surrounding neighborhoods came up time and time again.” Allen said at the time that some employees were “unwilling to pay the relatively high cost of [university] parking when there’s free parking in the neighborhood, in their eyes.”
Vanderbilt’s campus is sizable and rapidly growing. When the Scene reported on the university’s growth in 2022, the campus was 330 acres. Now Vanderbilt’s website lists the campus’s total acreage as 340.7.
Vanderbilt representatives did not respond to the Scene’s question about how much they have spent on property in the past two years. But we do know that in October, the school spent $66.9 million buying West End properties home to Ted’s Montana Grill, Chipotle and other businesses. In 2019, they spent $103 million on other properties. In 2022, they spent $3.8 million on another building in West End. The university has also recently acquired a $46 million property for a satellite business school campus in West Palm Beach, Fla., and leased a new campus in New York.
While Vanderbilt is a significant presence in Nashville, much of its land is tax-exempt. Some advocates have suggested this policy should change nationwide. Anthony says he sometimes jokes that “Vanderbilt is a capital investment firm with a college attached to it.”
A representative for the university tells the Scene they’re taking additional steps to promote sustainable travel, including giving students and staff free passes to the WeGo bus system. They’re also “ensuring incoming students have information on transportation options and how to use the WeGo system, meeting with faculty and staff to discuss commute options, and exploring new technology and parking systems to provide more flexibility for the range of commute needs.”
Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s transit referendum — which passed by a 2-to-1 margin during last month’s election — is set to expand the range of transit options available in Nashville and decrease reliance on cars. Vanderbilt’s representative tells the Scene that West End is set for improvements including increased service frequency, smarter signals, more connected sidewalks and safety improvements. Additionally, a new local transit center “will help riders connect easier between Green Hills and North Nashville.” These changes aim to make it easier to get to campus.
But the MoveVU initiative — and the people potentially exploiting its loopholes — brings up important questions as Nashville starts to implement more connected transit options. If better transit is available, will people use it? And what exactly is keeping people commuting alone in their cars when they have other options?
Anderson supports the transit plan, but he tells the Scene that he’ll probably still see the same VUMC nurse park his large truck outside their house every weekday morning. Anderson’s prediction? He says that as the transit plan improves congestion, “the cars that are parked on my street who aren’t allowed to park on Vanderbilt’s campus will simply get there in a more orderly fashion.”
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY
LEAD SCHOOL SUES NASHVILLE OVER RECLASSIFICATION
Power struggle escalates between school board and LEAD charter network
BY ELI MOTYCKA
LOCAL CHARTER SCHOOL network LEAD Academy is suing Metro Nashville Public Schools over a change to the school’s classification. A new rezoning plan from MNPS will reclassify LEAD Cameron Middle School as a “choice” school, rather than a zoned school, requiring families to opt into Cameron rather than opt out. Attorneys for LEAD argue this violates contracts signed by the city, which made LEAD Cameron the default zoned public school for a large swath of South Nashville in 2010.
The MNPS school board approved a 2025-26 rezoning plan at a Nov. 12 meeting despite stiff opposition from alumni, students, teachers and administrators from LEAD, a six-school network based in Nashville. Attorney Justin Marsh, representing LEAD, sent a warning letter to school board members in advance, arguing that MNPS’ rezoning was “contrary to its contractual obligations in the 2021 Charter Agreement.” Marsh and LEAD made good on the litigation threat, filing a lawsuit on Dec. 16 alleging MNPS’ breach of contract.
Nashville initially granted Cameron Middle School, then a traditional MNPS public school, to the LEAD charter network in 2010 following several years of poor academic performance. Unlike other charters, which require an application process, LEAD Cameron stayed a zoned school, remaining the default enrollment option for nearby families. Over the next decade, performance metrics dramatically improved. More than 500 students are currently enrolled at LEAD Cameron in fifth, sixth, seventh and eighth grades.
Despite repeated references to Cameron as a “zoned” school in charter contracts, documents
do not explicitly guarantee the classification. Now that LEAD Cameron has accomplished its turnaround, school board members see a rezoning as well within the body’s legal rights. The new plan would rezone LEAD Cameron families to nearby Margaret Allen Middle School, where enrollment has declined by more than 40 percent since 2019. Students could still apply to LEAD Cameron, but the school would no longer be the MNPS default.
“Cameron, like our other charter schools, would be an optional school in alignment with other charters in our districts,” MNPS Director Adrienne Battle told colleagues before the rezoning vote. “We’ve had a review from our legal team as well as our charter office around that particular language. The original agreement does not specifically state that LEAD will function as a zoned charter school.”
Board members tell the Scene they have been told not to comment on the topic citing pending litigation.
LEAD sent a full lineup to the Nov. 12 meeting to speak against the plan. Aggrieved opposition included some hostile comments directed at MNPS; speakers cast the rezone not just as a legal bait-and-switch but as an insult to teachers and a disruption to families.
“I’m here to ask that you deny the proposal that would rezone students from Cameron Middle to Margaret Allen Middle,” LEAD Cameron principal Briana Shelton told the board. “We see the same challenges that a traditional public school encounters and are really energized by that work and want to keep doing it.”
The next speaker, LEAD director of student support Regina Schumacher, claimed LEAD
Cameron could serve South Nashville better than MNPS.
“I attended the community meeting held at Glencliff High School on Monday, Oct. 21,” said Schumacher. “There was one person in attendance who did not work for MNPS or LEAD. This community meeting was a farce; it was a box to be checked. If the people who are often the face of the school are unaware of what’s happening, how is it even possible that the families we serve know what’s going on? This lack of communication is unacceptable and is a proof point for why LEAD is a better steward of the South Nashville community.”
At legal issue is the charter contract signed in 2010 and renewed in 2021 between LEAD and MNPS. While language woven throughout does treat LEAD Cameron as a zoned school, no explicit stipulation guarantees that status, as Battle told board colleagues before the November vote. But the lawsuit’s broader focus — the complex power-sharing agreements between charters and local school districts — extends beyond South Nashville.
Administrators and principals have navigated the many distinct relationships between districts and charters since “school choice” became a key political issue a decade ago. Charter networks and appeals processes have flourished under Gov. Bill Lee, who has yet to fully implement his planned universal voucher program. Charter critics decry the destructive spiral that follows the outflow of students and resources from traditional public schools, while proponents stress the transformative power of a market-based education system. ▼
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
LEAD CAMERON MIDDLE SCHOOL
24 new and new-to-us local finds we fell for in 2024
It’s the last week of the year — and our last issue of the year — and if you’re anything like us, you’re ready for a reprieve from all the year-end lists and retrospectives. We’ll admit that we here at the Scene are responsible for some of them, from our Dec. 12 issue’s Top Local Albums Critics’ Poll to our forthcoming annual Jim Ridley Film Poll (coming in January).
But for this week’s cover package, rather than doling out awards or counting down any ranked lists, we’ve gathered up some of our favorite local finds from the past year. Some are brand-new, like East Nashville’s bread-and-wine outpost Butterlamp or Mr. Aaron’s Goods’ brick-and-mortar location. Others, like McNamara’s Irish Pub in Donelson and the Nashville-produced Stendig Calendar, have been around for many years — we’ve just recently fallen in love with them.
Cinnamon rolls, breweries, game nights and resources for parents-to-be — you’ll find all that and more in this week’s issue, put together by the Scene’s staff and contributing writers. Read on for our favorite discoveries of 2024.
1 BUTTERLAMP
Late this summer, husband-andwife team Benjamin and Katie Rose Tyson opened Butterlamp on the East Side property formerly home to Hobson United Methodist Church. About three months later, the self-described bread house and wine bar earned a spot on The New York Times’ “25 Best Restaurants in Nashville Right Now” list. That’s quick work. But as we also discovered this fall, the honor is well-deserved.
Former Audrey chef Benjamin Tyson sets the menu with offerings like tomato toast, deviled eggs in a skirt (try them), crudités, marinated olives and pork-fat fries. Wine ex-
pert Katie curates a lineup that includes sparkling, skin-contact, red, chilled-red, rosé and white wines. (Nonalcoholic beverages are on offer as well.) On a large mirror behind the bar, Butterlamp lists oysters and “cultured, cured and tinned” specials — that’s cheese, meat and fish, respectively — as well as take-home breads including a cracked-pepper sourdough loaf. Every bite and every sip feels decadent.
It’s nice to see adaptive-reuse spaces like this one transforming obsolete or underutilized buildings. It’s also nice to see a pair of hospitality experts living out their dream and bringing something unique to a tucked-away neighborhood like East Nashville’s Eastwood.
D. PATRICK RODGERS
BUTTERLAMP
2
AMY HEAD COSMETICS
I’m not much into makeup. I often don’t like the way it feels on my face — and also, who has the time? Well, apparently I do have the time now that Amy Head Cosmetics has opened in Germantown.
The brand was founded by Amy Head, who wanted to offer non-comedogenic, made-in-theU.S., phthalate-free products, and she wanted people to have a good experience learning to use them. Her daughter, Nashvillian MacKenzie Walker, opened the tiny boutique in February, and it is unlike any other cosmetic shop I have stepped into. The products don’t feel like I have paint on my face, and there’s zero pressure to buy anything. In fact, I’ve seen MacKenzie ask folks at the register if there was anything she needed to put back, because she knows that sometimes your eyes are bigger than your wallet when you are testing out colors. There’s no charge for personalized sessions, just a minimum purchase. MacKenzie also draws out exactly how she applies things on a piece of paper so you can replicate the process at home. The shop is also filled with handbags, jewelry and good-smelling gifts, many of which were things I gave to people this year. Added bonus: I haven’t forgotten to pack a toothbrush or sunscreen once since I started using my Amy Head travel toiletries case. MARGARET LITTMAN
3 MR. AARON’S GOODS’ BRICK-AND-MORTAR
Egg sandwiches build neighborhoods. I don’t have the space to fully prove that thesis, but thanks to Aaron Distler, I don’t need to. Mr. Aaron and his Goods — longtime favorites of the Scene — are already demonstrating how fresh pasta, springy bagels and fine accoutrements are the perfect recipe for a community magnet up Gallatin Pike.
After earning his name as a wholesaling pastificio in Nashville kitchens, Distler moved his operation into a brick-and-mortar retail cafe this year, making it even easier to decide what’s for dinner. ELI MOTYCKA
4 STUDIO PILATES
How many healthy people older than 50 do you know who still do Orangetheory? F45? CrossFit? As someone who hates exercise but also wants to, you know, stay alive, I’m always searching for something I can stick with to stay active or even strong. Studio Pilates makes that possible. The local outfit is run by Elena LaMadrid, a professional dancer who did a stint at Nashville Ballet before realizing what she really wanted to do was bring the benefits of Pilates — stability, flexibility, strength, better posture — to others.
Try your first class for $18 in The Nations or East Nashville, and you can work out, stretch and be on your way within an hour. Instructors will help you as much (or as little) as you like with the reformer, a machine that sounds scary but isn’t, and they’ll keep it interesting and dynamic — 170 classes in, I’ve never had the same one twice. Simple as it sounds, let’s be clear: Pilates will kick your ass, in the best way. My husband loves to tell people that now, if someone breaks in, he can just sleep through it because I can take them. Is this ludicrous? Perhaps. But it sure feels good to hear. ASHLEY BRANTLEY
5 VEGAN CHARCUTERIE BOARD AT THE FOX
When you’re looking for vegan food, you get used to seeing your options either relegated to a tiny, light-green box on a menu or served at entirely plant-based restaurants that can veer into the territory of, “Our food is vegan, so let’s make it super healthy and keto and gluten-free and …” The Fox Bar & Cocktail Club avoids these common tropes with its vegan charcuterie boards, which include ingredients from Renegade Foods, The BE-Hive and Rebel Cheese. They get a full page in the Fox’s menu and cost exactly the same as the bar’s non-vegan options, which is rarely the case.
I visited the East Nashville bar with a vegan friend this autumn and found it refreshing to enjoy a night at a cool spot that just so happened to have too many vegan options to order in one visit. I do not keep a plant-based diet and have enjoyed many meat- and dairy-based char-
cuterie boards, but I enjoyed the vegan version so much that I see no reason to order a traditional board next time I go. My vegan dining companion enjoyed the board too, especially when paired with some of The Fox’s excellent cocktails. COLE VILLENA
6 AMERICAN LEGION POST 82’S CARD NIGHT
Like many, what brought me into American Legion Post 82 in East Nashville was Honky Tonk Tuesday — a weekly event that recently relocated to Eastside Bowl. The Legion now offers “Eighty Two’s Day” on Tuesday nights, hosting bands, two-stepping and country dance music. But the early-week people-watching extravaganza isn’t all the club has to offer. On Thursdays, a small but energetic group plays card games — including my new favorite, cribbage. On a recent visit to the Gallatin Pike outpost, I was thrilled to sip on a less-than-$10 vodka-tonic and accept an invitation to learn a new-to-me card game. I’ve been thinking about that blissful 90 minutes of screen-free fun ever since.
The American Legion is a gathering place for veterans and their relatives, who can each become members, but you don’t have to be a member to enjoy it. It’s a great option to leave the house and have a drink without paying a lot or braving a crowd. There’s turkey shooting, karaoke, bluegrass and songwriter nights too, if those are more your speed. American Legions are the type of places my grandparents and their friends would hang out. I’m happy to see them through to a new generation. HANNAH HERNER
7 PROFS & PINTS
If you’re a Scene reader, you’re a lifelong learner. (You’re also very cool. Go you!) That makes you the perfect audience for Profs & Pints. At the lecture series — which began in Washington, D.C. — professors from our city’s excellent schools lecture on their areas of expertise as ticketed attendees enjoy beers at a local bar. I attended a talk from Vanderbilt University’s Brandon Hulette about sex work in Nashville during the Civil War and had a blast, but past editions have focused on the cosmos, folklore, art — pretty much anything you’d learn about
in a cool elective class in school. It’s a laid-back affair that feels like a good deal for everyone involved: Attendees get to learn something new in a fun environment, local bars get to welcome in new faces, and lecturers get to share their passions with a paid audience rather than sleepy college kids. COLE VILLENA
8 DRUNKEN DISNEY SINGALONG AT SID GOLD’S REQUEST ROOM
If you’re a Disney adult (or a parent who knows all the Disney songs by osmosis), I’d love to introduce you to the Drunken Disney Singalong, which takes place the first Thursday of every month at Sid Gold’s Request Room in East Nashville. Head to the back room of the piano-karaoke bar (reservations suggested), where performers expertly sing songs from The Jungle Book, Moana and many other Disney movies, delivering classics in perfect voice alongside excellent piano accompaniment.
This is not “adults stumbling over the words while knocking back a few” karaoke. This is quality entertainment that will remind you that, yeah, you live in Music City — even in the back room at a bar on Gallatin Pike, talent surrounds you. All attendees are encouraged to sing along, but even if you don’t, it’s quite a show.
ELIZABETH JONES
9 SPREAD MARKET & LARDER’S SOURDOUGH CINNAMON ROLL
There are plenty of reasons to pop into Spread Market & Larder, the delightful neighborhood market that set up shop in a Germantown bungalow in 2022. The superette offers a curated array of wines, daily sandwiches, tinned fish, sodas and specialty condiments, not to mention sourdough made with a “very old” starter and heritage grains from Kentucky.
But over the past year, my partner and I have discovered Spread’s debilitatingly good sourdough cinnamon rolls. While, yes, the shop makes savory loaves like rosemary-cheddar and demi baguettes, the cinnamon roll — rich, chewy, buttery and topped with a generous helping of icing — is quite probably the most
AMY HEAD COSMETICS
SPREAD MARKET & LARDER’S SOURDOUGH CINNAMON ROLL
addictive item Spread offers. It’s the kind of treat you’ll pop in the fridge, planning to share it with your loved one for breakfast — but will find yourself eating in secret at midnight, bathed in the light of the open refrigerator, because you couldn’t resist its call. D. PATRICK RODGERS
10 BARRIQUE BREWING
A convenient waypoint between East, West, North and South, this expansive brewery was on the East Bank before it was cool. Yesterday’s Rain, a London Style Porter and the Springfield Blanc (a white-grape wild ale) show off the impressive breadth and precision of the tap room’s far-ranging offerings. One of Barrique Brewing’s particularly ambitious ventures flushes a wild sour with the Tennessee pawpaw, a pulpy fruit produced by the mating tree of the same name. ELI MOTYCKA
11
GOODTIMES FULL SERVICE BAR
Over the past seven months, GoodTimes has become a go-to weekend hangout for my wife and myself. The Wedgewood-Houston bar offers everything you need for a night out — delicious food, fun drinks, top-notch service and great vibes. We’ve tried just about everything on the menu, which changes periodically but is always centered on classic bar food like burgers and wings, and we’ve yet to find something we didn’t like.
The Lucky’s Burger, a double-patty smash burger featuring pimento cheese and pickled red onions alongside the usual burger toppings, is a highlight. Make sure to also get a basket of fries. The drinks run the gamut from frozen cocktails to beer-and-a-bump com-
bos. (My favorite “bump” — their name for a draft cocktail shooter — is the Miami Vice, a piña colada-strawberry daiquiri mashup.)
The wood-paneled, checkered-floor interior is straight out of the ’70s, and there’s a jukebox selection to match. The year-and-a-half-old establishment also hosts local DJs who spin a variety of curated set lists. And perhaps most importantly for us non-East Nashville dwellers looking for a late-night location, they’re open until 1 a.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. LOGAN BUTTS
12 STENDIG CALENDAR
The Stendig Calendar might be the oldest item in this cover package, but sometimes the best new discoveries are the ones that have long been right under our noses. For more than 50 years, the iconic Stendig Calendar has been printed in Nashville. I’m not sure what the bigger feat is — the fact that Nashville can claim the rights to the only calendar that’s in the collection of the Museum of Modern Art, or that the calendar’s crisp, modernist design hasn’t been co-opted by some corny mural by now.
Thank God the folks at Nashville’s Cromwell & Co. know not to mess with the greats, and our fair city can quietly, humbly continue to be part of one of the coolest designs of the 20th century. Designed by Massimo Vignelli in 1966, the Stendig Calendar is so straightforward that it’s almost funny — its minimal Helvetica typeface and tight kerning are completely understated, but at an oversized 122 by 92 centimeters, it’s like an eye chart you could see from across the street. There’s simply no reason that a calendar should be that big — other than the fact that it looks fantastic. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER
13 ALLEY TAPS
When friends want to “go downtown and see live music,” they know we’re going to offer a very short list of places: Robert’s, Layla’s, Acme and — if you venture as far as the Gulch — the Station Inn. I’m not young enough to care about the newest bar from a moderately talented white guy, and I’m not dumb enough to pretend anyone “accidentally” uses the N-word. So when I stumbled into Alley Taps earlier this year, I breathed a sigh of relief. Tucked safely away on the “other side” of Printers Alley (between Church and Commerce), the cozy bar is decidedly chill, serving unfussy drinks and lively covers to in-the-know locals and curious tourists. You can’t see the stage from the door, and you often have to sidestep a (seemingly strategic) construction barricade to step inside, which helps crowd control. The acts that play here are always game to take requests, but they also have enough talent to whip out an original here or there (very sparingly). The best part: Every time I follow a group of rowdy tourists over to this side of the Alley, they always keep truckin’ right past Taps on their march to Broadway. Cheers to hiding in plain sight. ASHLEY BRANTLEY
14 ROB MATTHEWS’ SUBSTACK
For those who know much about the artist and Vol State professor, it might come as a surprise that Rob Matthews is something of an internet influencer. He has a Substack, and it’s really good. Matthews has long been one of the city’s most interesting, dynamic, ever-developing artists, but he’s also an ace writer and critic. His Substack is filled with insightful musings about what it means to make art, grow older and be part of a community, but it also fills out the edges with music and book recommendations that run the gamut from Steve Reich to Kim Deal. And he’s promised to publish an essay every month starting in January, so keep an eye out for more of Matthews’ particular brand of curmudgeonly optimism. I can’t get enough. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER
15 McNAMARA’S IRISH PUB
Landing a prime table in the McNamara’s dining room can feel a bit like a staycation. Though the classic Irish-style neighborhood pub opened 15 years ago this February, it’s ripe for discovery (or rediscovery) to those who haven’t spent much time in Donelson. A strong, dedicated
ALLEY TAPS
UPCOMING SHOWS AT THE MUSEUM’S CMA THEATER
JANUARY 25
FEBRUARY
APRIL
TICKETS
DECEMBER 30 & 31
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW
WITH THE KENTUCKY HEADHUNTERS AND STEVE POLTZ (12/30) AND MAGGIE ROSE AND BIG RICHARD (12/31)
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OPRY 100 AT THE RYMAN
FEATURING LAINEY WILSON, CRAIG MORGAN, STEVE EARLE, KELSEA BALLERINI & MORE
JANUARY 18
WHITEY MORGAN AND THE 78’s
FEBRUARY 2
BURTON CUMMINGS OF THE ORIGINAL “THE GUESS WHO” WITH JIM MESSINA
FEBRUARY 3-6
OLD DOMINION
7-SHOW RYMAN RESIDENCY
FEBRUARY 7
MORGAN WADE WITH AMY RAY BAND
MARCH 13
KEB’ MO’ & SHAWN COLVIN
local crowd keeps the dim restaurant buzzing with chatter, and Guinness suddenly seems like an obvious beverage choice. Once house entertainer Sean McNamara takes the stage, a spirited dinner turns raucous in the best possible way. Irish folk songs, a natural entrée for crowd participation, go best with the small list of “Mama Mac’s” kitchen favorites. ELI MOTYCKA
16 THE KITCHEN NASHVILLE
As it turns out, the perfect multigenerational kitchen shop has been tucked into a strip mall in Belle Meade for the past seven years. Need a new Staub? A show-stopper salad bowl? Geometry towels? The Kitchen has it all, and is stuffed to the brim with goodies that will delight both grandparents and college-age folks building their home-kitchen inventory. While it’s been open since early 2018, The Kitchen doesn’t let its inventory get stale, selling both utilitarian kitchen items and the trendiest new tinned fish. Owner Jessica Jones regularly checks in to see what you’re looking for and to ask shoppers if the store needs to carry anything new.
The Kitchen also features cooking classes in its back kitchen. You can learn to make sushi or shuck an oyster. It’s a sweet reminder that there are cool spaces all over this city if you know where to look. ELIZABETH JONES
17 BALLAD BINGO AT VARIOUS LOCATIONS
Quite frankly, I’m a bit of a trivia hater. It makes me feel dumb, stunts table conversation and, much of the time, the clues aren’t all that interesting. (Sorry.) My new suggestion is Ballad Bingo, an activity that brings together the best parts of bingo and “Name That Tune.” Identify the song during a short clip and mark it on your card. A “Bingo!” stops the carefully cut and curated playlist. Regional trivia company Nerdy Talk calls this “bingo with a Nashville twist.”
Each card has a new theme, so like trivia, it’s helpful to have a diverse team. I’m never going to ace “2000s pop punk,” but I did contribute well to the “pop divas” card. It’s something Nashville commuters can enjoy too, as Nerdy Talk offers it in suburbs and rural towns includ-
ing Lebanon, White House, Murfreesboro and Clarksville. As a painfully competitive person, I can attest that this is a place where most any music fan can hold their own (including myself), and a welcome new-to-me weeknight activity. Find a full list of locations at Nerdy Talk’s site.
HANNAH HERNER
18 KREWECAR
When ridesharing was invented, I swore off driving tricky places forever. The airport, I-40, the godforsaken Mall at Green Hills — I was never again going to spin my wheels behind the wheel unless I had to. And then a baby happened. We quickly found out that the only thing worse than flying with a baby is having to drag said baby, along with all your bags and the carseat you had to travel with, around the parking lot at BNA looking for your car during a snowstorm in a scene that ends with everyone crying. (Yes, that is a true story.)
Before the next flight, my family found KreweCar. Simply request a car through the app, select how many carseats you need — front- or rear-facing! — and enjoy the convenience of carefree, curbside travel that you thought you forfeited with procreation. The app and service are still somewhat new, so request your ride a day in advance if you can. (They suggest at least six hours of lead time.) Bonus: KreweCar also serves New Orleans, Charleston and Orlando, so they’ve got you covered at both ends of your trip. ASHLEY BRANTLEY
19 RESOURCES FOR PARENTS-TO-BE
Since my wife and I decided to have a baby, one of the biggest things I’ve learned is that the unexpected is a big part of what to expect when you’re, er, expecting. On top of reading and talking with lots of folks, taking prenatal classes and working with a doula have been incredible and eye-opening.
Birthing and breastfeeding classes offered by Vanderbilt Nurse-Midwives at Melrose and Mt. Juliet are free, and don’t require that you plan to deliver at Vanderbilt. Our instructor has decades of experience as a labor and delivery nurse (and more importantly, a mother). In addition
to hands-on training, she shared a wealth of resources with us as well as in-depth explanations of how some things outlined in them might be different in real life.
We are also lucky to be able to hire a doula from East Nashville Doula. It’s unlikely that we’ll have our beloved OB with us when it’s time for our son to make his grand entrance. Having one consistent and experienced presence — who’ll help us with things like interpreting medical questions quickly and confidently and even jumping in on comfort techniques — is also huge. We’ve had just one meeting so far, but I already wish everyone had someone like her to guide them through any complex medical situation. Being nervous about such a big change is natural, but having these resources has helped us feel ready to embrace it. STEPHEN TRAGESER
20 HATTIE JANE’S MULEKICK COFFEE ICE CREAM
Hattie Jane’s Creamery isn’t new. Claire Crowell opened it in 2016, and I had eaten it on my regular jaunts to Columbia. (See my New Discovery on Gold’s Deli below for more on my love of Columbia.) It’s small-batch ice cream made from milk from local cows, using ingredients from other local purveyors. Since Hattie Jane’s opened its latest location on Lebanon Pike in Nashville
around this time last year, I’ve been on a regular Mulekick Coffee kick.
My love of Donelson’s Lebanon Pike is well documented, from the new library to Bagelshop’s parklet to The Plus Closet. When I’m headed back to Inglewood from my Donelson jaunts, I stop into Hattie Jane’s for the ice cream made from Columbia’s Muletown Roasted Coffee. On Tuesdays, pints are $2 off, so that’s my pick, but there are other daily specials Sundays through Thursdays. Sometimes I check out the rotating seasonal flavors and some dairy-free options. The tiny space is popular with the after-school crowd, and the energy makes ice cream seem like the treat it is. MARGARET LITTMAN
21 GOLD’S DELI
Is one hour (each way) too far to drive for a sandwich? You’ll have to answer that for yourself. For me, the answer is no — at least not when it means a pastrami sandwich from the new Gold’s Deli in Columbia. I’ve long been a fan of the Columbia Arts District, so obviously I was thrilled when George Kougias opened Gold’s Deli in May in the Row & Co. complex. His marketing materials joke that the sandwiches are bigger than the seating area — and with just 300 square feet, it’s true that the restaurant has just one row of stools where you can sit at the counter. Kougias is affable and friendly, so I
PHOTO: ANGELINA CASTILLO
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
HATTIE JANE’S MULEKICK COFFEE ICE CREAM
recently sat at the counter and drank a bottled Shirley Temple (no, I am not embarrassed) while I ate my sandwich. But most folks take them to go, either to sit outside where there is lovely green space across from the historic train depot, or back to the office.
As everyone knows, I’m a classic pastrami-and-mustard fan, but the Reuben and roast beef are solid choices, and Southerners will appreciate the creamy chicken salad sandwich. Gold’s is open every day except Tuesday, which is a real gift if you’re in Columbia on Sundays or Mondays, when many other places are closed. Gold’s also offers catering. If you order a bunch of pastrami sandwiches from Gold’s Deli for your party, send me an invite. MARGARET LITTMAN
22 MUSIC CITY TEA
My wife has been on a tea journey this year, and I’ve been lucky enough to join the ride. Her latest loose-leaf adventure took us all the way out to an unassuming house in Murfreesboro — the current home of Music City Tea. We stepped inside to a dining room that had been converted to a tea parlor and showroom, featuring a few tables and walls lined with tea bags, cups and teaware.
Owner Jenny Zhong doesn’t just answer questions as you shop; she sits you down at a table in the parlor and pours cup after cup of tea imported from China, some of it sourced from her home region, describing its flavor, its origin and even the folk tales associated with the tea variety. She serves tea gongfu style — loose tea leaves are placed in a gaiwan (a small jar with a lid), doused in boiling water and immediately poured into small cups. It’s a casual, homey experience, and you’ll probably leave with a new favorite tea. (I was partial to the green oolong.)
You can order from Music City Tea online, but I think half the fun of the shopping experience is meeting Zhong and taking a seat by the gaiwan. While the business has been operating for years (previously from a now-closed storefront in downtown Murfreesboro) the gongfu experience was a first for me, and I bet even seasoned tea aficionados would find something new in Zhong’s impressive inventory. ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ
Driving from Nashville to Memphis sucks. It’s flat and boring but also bumpy and crowded, and until recently, Jackson was just a giant pothole. That’s where Vonlane comes in.
The first-class bus will ferry you between the two cities for roughly $130 one way. Meet at the Omni downtown and get dropped off at the Hilton in East Memphis in about three hours. It’s faster, easier and cheaper than renting a car (once you factor in gas plus parking) or a rideshare to and from the airport.
You can work, sleep or play on your phone thanks to free internet and big, cushy seats. The included meals (sandwiches, muffins, salads) are better than they need to be. Attendants will bring you snacks and drinks all the livelong day, and you can even bring dogs lighter than 10 pounds in their carriers. Critically, there is a bathroom, which means no holding it — or stopping at rest areas. Best of all: They now go to Knoxville and Atlanta, the latter of which has an airport I’d gladly pay $260 to avoid altogether.
ASHLEY BRANTLEY
24 IN THE CLUB
In October of last year, I wandered over to Nashville Post associate editor Hannah Herner’s desk with an idea: “Let’s join every club in Nashville.” Both of us had fond memories of clubs and teams back in school, and we felt sure there must be some similar way to meet people, try new things and just do stuff, even (or maybe especially) in a city as big as Nashville. So began our In the Club series, in which we visit local hobby groups, performing arts ensembles, game nights and everything in between to see how normal Nashvillians explore their passions and build community.
So far, we’ve found most of the groups ourselves, but my favorite experience came when a member of the Nashville Backgammon Association emailed us to visit his group ahead of a tournament. That pitch turned into a fun story and inspired me to try out the game myself, and now both Hannah and I are hungry for more. (Hannah’s experiences inspired her to help found the Twilight Society of Middle Tennessee, which you can find on Instagram at @twilightsocietyofmiddletn.) My hope is that someone reading this will email us about their own club to visit and write about, whether it’s an exotic pet appreciation society, a scuba club, an Elvis impersonator meetup or anything else. If you meet regularly, and you’re passionate about something, and you want others to share in that passion, hit us up at cvillena@nashvillescene.com or
Maybe you’ll be a New Discovery in 2025. COLE VILLENA ▼
GOLD’S DELI
UPCOMING EVENTS
PARNASSUSBOOKS.NET/EVENTFOR TICKETS & UPDATES
MONDAY, JANUARY 6
6:30PM
ADAM ROSS
with MAYOR FREDDIE O'CONNELL at PARNASSUS Playworld
TUESDAY, JANUARY 7
6:30PM
ADAM HASLETT with ANN PATCHETT at PARNASSUS Mothers and Sons
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 15
6:30PM
TYLER MERRITT at BELMONT UNIVERSITY This Changes Everything
6:30PM
THURSDAY, JANUARY 16
KWAME ALEXANDER with ROD MCGAHA at PARNASSUS How Sweet the Sound
FRIDAY, JANUARY 17
6:30PM
JENNIFER MOORMAN & JENNI L. WALSH at PARNASSUS
The Vanishing of Josephine Reynolds & Ace, Marvel, Spy
TUESDAY, JANUARY 21
6:30PM
BETSY WILLS & ALEX ELLISON at PARNASSUS Your Hidden Genius
JIMMY HALL AND THE PRISONERS OF LOVE featuring KENNY GREENBERG
RESURRECTION: A Journey Tribute
THE LONG PLAYERS Celebrate “After The Beatles: The Songs of John, Paul, George & Ringo” featuring BETH NEILSEN CHAPMAN, PHILIP CREAMER, BEN CYLLUS, WALTER EGAN, DON HENRY, MICHAEL KELSH, KATHY MATTEA, CHUCK MEAD, PETE MROZ, GARY NICHOLSON, KIM RICHEY, MAIA SHARP, AARON LEE TASJAN, SETH TIMBS, JON VEZNER & BRIAN WRIGHT... and maybe some surprise guests!
TRACY NELSON’S 80th Birthday Party with STEVE CONN
ACE Horns Presents the album “AN EVENING WITH SILK SONIC” featuring APRIL RUCKER, SARINA JOI CROWE, CRAIG ROBINSON & JOVAN BENDER
GUILTY PLEASURES New Years Eve with SWEANY & SLUPPICK
Happy New Year!
Roots Radio Presents Finally Friday featuring THE TWANGTOWN PARAMOURS, SCOTT LEVI JONES & THE CARLILE FAMILY BAND HIPPIES AND COWBOYS with THE GEORGIA THUNDERBOLTS
2/5
SANG. IT. FIRST. WITH BRIDGETTE TATUM & MARLA CANNON-GOODMAN JAMIE MILLER
kumite,
night 12 lily rose magic city hippies w/ mustard service airshow & three star revival the whigs w/ The Medium & Jack Shields fulton lee
blind pilot w/ dean johnson
Dylan LeBlanc x David Ramirez clay street unit the Music of grateful dead for kids (11:30AM) van halen tribute (8pM)
WROCKFEST 2025 1/24 EAGLEMANIACS: THE MUSIC OF DON HENLEY AND THE EAGLES
casual sects w/ Quiet Local (7PM)
The Local Honeys w/ Darrin Hacquard (9PM) travollta ft. Zëta Ræ and Miriam Kass Dead Runes w/ Shitfire and American Goon
The Creekers (7PM)
Campanula w/ The Ever Flower Company and Miles
Connor & The Masterplan
Dead Alive w/ Fatal Attraction, Outpost, and Ugly Bones
Liam Slater w/ Dan Cousart
the deltaz w/ noah nash
Corey Parsons w/ Libby
Visit
calendar.nashvillescene.com for more event listings
TUESDAY, DEC. 31
MUSIC
[SHOULD AULD ACQUAINTANCE] NEW YEAR’S EVE CONCERTS
Looking to kick a cruddy year to the curb? Or maybe you want to put an exclamation point on an unforgettable 2024? No matter the reason for your revelry this New Year’s Eve, there’s no shortage of entertainment options in Music City. Let’s dig into a few of our favorite picks. Go big (pun … intended?) at Nashville’s Big Bash, the annual free year-end concert at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park. This year’s lineup includes hometown hero Jelly Roll, hitmaking guitar guy Keith Urban and country-pop crooner Kane Brown. Those unable to attend in person can catch the show on CBS. Additionally, CBS will host a Big Bash satellite stage inside Brooklyn Bowl Nashville this year. The ticketed event includes performances from Parker McCollum, Cody Alan and Caylee Hammack.
Those wanting a live gig that’s not as big but nonetheless rowdy can head to Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge for a year-ending show curated by The Last Troubadours that includes Joshua Quimby, Jackie Straw, Molly Ruth and more. At Rudy’s Jazz Room in the Gulch, The Wooten Brothers host a funky jam called “The Get Down.” A few blocks from Rudy’s, bluegrass band Green River Revue plays at the Station Inn. In Madison, Eastside Bowl offers a Honky Tonk Tuesday-themed party with The Cowpokes, Chuck Mead, Hannah Juanita and more. In Midtown, The End serves a one-two punch with locals Spirit Ritual and Kendel LeGore (plus a DJ set from Rose Corpse).
And it wouldn’t be New Year’s Eve in Nashville without a handful of tribute shows. Nashville’s essential ’90s cover group My So-Called Band plays The Basement East, while locals Wild Love and The Love-In team up to play a night of Arctic Monkeys tunes at The East Room. At Hutton Hotel, Scott Mulvahill and Friends pay tribute to two classic albums with a one-night performance of Paul Simon’s Graceland and Prince’s Purple Rain. At 3rd & Lindsley, time-tested music plays on with Guilty Pleasures, a cover group with a songbook that runs from the late 1970s through the early ’90s.
Festivities continue at The Blue Room, where Sparkle City Disco spins vinyl into the new year. The 5 Spot in East Nashville hosts a New Year’s Eve edition of the Tight Five Tuesday that includes Menna, Ross Livermore, The Jeff Woods Band and more. At The Mil inside Cannery Hall, bluegrassmeets-rock band Tophouse headlines a gig that features support from The Wildwoods. Those wanting to brave Lower Broadway can head to Acme Feed & Seed, where the bar and venue holds a Disco Rodeo-themed shindig, the self-proclaimed “first rodeo of 2025.” At The Fairgrounds Nashville, a two-night EDM festival called To the Future concludes with DJ performances from Wooli, Trivecta and more. MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER
NASHVILLE JAZZ ORCHESTRA BOXING DAY PAGE 18
GIMME GIMME DISCO PAGE 18
TERMINATOR X PAGE 20
NASHVILLE IN HARMONY PAGE 20
JELLY ROLL, KANE BROWN AND KEITH URBAN AT NASHVILLE’S BIG BASH
THURSDAY
/ 12.26
MUSIC
[BOOGIE WOOGIE SANTA CLAUS] NASHVILLE JAZZ ORCHESTRA BOXING DAY
The United States is one of the only former United Kingdom colonies where Boxing Day isn’t celebrated. Boxing Day — the day after Christmas — evolved from churches and aristocracy offering gifts to those in need. If you want a chill way to celebrate this overlooked holiday, or just a way to avoid the family you spent Christmas with already, seeing the Nashville Jazz Orchestra is the way to do it. Founded by the late trumpeter Jim Williamson, the long-running NJO has celebrated Boxing Day for years with a wintery mix of Yuletide big-band jazz. The program combines timehonored Christmas melodies punched up in the tradition of all the great jazz orchestras of the 20th century. Special guests over the years have included original soul man Charles “Wigg” Walker, singer and educator Christina Watson and guitar and banjo wiz Jack Pearson. P.J. KINZER
8 P.M.
609
COMMUNITY
[PITCH IN]
VISIT YOUR LOCAL RECYCLING CENTER
What is Boxing Day, that mysterious holiday that comes after Christmas on the big wall calendar you bought for your workspace? According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, it’s a holiday celebrated in British Commonwealth countries as a day on which “servants, tradespeople, and the poor traditionally were presented with gifts.” It’s also a busy day for sports leagues like the Premier League. Neat! We don’t celebrate this holiday in the United States, but it’s as good a time as ever to figure out what to do with your own boxes (or wrapping paper, or general scraps) after the holidays, one of the highest trash-producing times of year. Nashville operates four convenience centers that accept most forms of residential waste and recyclables: East Convenience Center (943A Dr. Richard G. Adams Drive), Ezell Pike Convenience Center (3254 Ezell Pike), Omohundro Convenience Center (1019 Omohundro Place) and Anderson Lane Convenience Center (939A Anderson Lane). There are also 10 recycling-specific dropoff spots throughout the greater Davidson County area, including in Brentwood, Antioch, Green Hills and Old Hickory. Don’t expect a gross city landfill, either — while individual sites vary, the dropoff point closest to me is a tidy spot located near the wonderful Two Rivers Park in Donelson. You can visit the Waste and Recycling page on nashville.gov for more information, including hours and exactly what’s accepted at each center. COLE VILLENA
YEAR-ROUND THROUGHOUT NASHVILLE
FRIDAY / 12.27
MUSIC [SUN SHINES BRIGHT] THE LOCAL HONEYS
The big sound Montana Hobbs and Linda Jean Stokley favor on The Local Honeys’ 2022 self-titled album takes the Kentucky duo away from their home territory, but it’s an advance over their minimalist 2016 release Little Girls Actin’ Like Men. Hobbs and Stokley met at Kentucky’s Morehead State University and became the first two female graduates of the school’s Kentucky Center for Traditional Music. What’s most striking about both Little Girls and The Local Honeys is the way the songwriting makes connections between Jean Ritchie and Tom T. Hall and current country-adjacent artists like Tyler Childers and S.G. Goodman. Hobbs and Stokley’s latest album works as a kind of rock record — the sonics don’t overwhelm the stories. The duo’s artistry comes through most clearly on the album’s “Dumbass, Nebraska,” though their cover of Ritchie’s “The L&N Don’t Stop Here Anymore” is perfect. As they told Still: The Journal: “As new age women, we try and shed an inkling of light on the present woes of our mountains, the plight of the hardened woman, the sometimes tragically humorous actions some must take to survive, and the preconceived notions of mental illness in the Bluegrass region and Appalachian Mountains of our old Kentucky home.” Darrin Hacquard opens. EDD HURT
9 P.M. AT THE BASEMENT
1604 EIGHTH AVE. S.
MUSIC
[MAMMA MIA, HERE I GO AGAIN] GIMME GIMME DISCO
Imagine: You’re on the dance floor with your friends. It’s Friday night. New Year’s Eve is just around the corner. After enjoying a proper pregame, getting ready together and somehow getting everyone into an Uber, you make it to your event. But it’s not just any event — it’s the Gimme Gimme Disco at Brooklyn Bowl. Lights are flashing, the whole room is shaking because the speakers are turned up as loud as they’ll go, and everyone is singing along to “Mamma Mia.” The whole “my life is a movie” trope is silly and obnoxious, but you can’t deny the magic of singing and dancing to “Gimme! Gimme! Gimme! (A Man After Midnight)” with all your favorite people. Brooklyn Bowl’s latest edition of their ABBA-themed dance party is the perfect excuse to get dressed up and have a night out, without the added pressure of New Year’s Eve. And if you happen to fall into the unfortunate age range of 18 to 20, this is your chance to celebrate and get all of your Instagram pictures for New Year’s Eve as you come to terms with the fact that you can’t go out on the town for New Year’s (RIP). KATIE BETH CANNON
8 P.M. AT BROOKLYN BOWL
925 THIRD AVE. N.
NATURE
[TAKE A BREAK] MARSHMALLOW HIKES
’Tis the season for crazy schedules and plenty of holiday hustle. But sometimes all you need to help clear the mind is a little bit of fresh air, and Owl’s Hill Nature Sanctuary is just the place to find it. Their annual Marshmallow Hikes offer a unique way to experience the park’s 300 acres, where more than 2,000 species of native plants and animals make their home.
Guests will enjoy a peaceful hike through the winter woods. Afterwards you can warm yourself by the fire while sipping hot chocolate and feasting on roasted marshmallows. While you’re there, be sure to check out upcoming events, including a Family Geocaching Day (Jan. 25) and Naturalist Workshops (Feb. 1 and March 8). The Marshmallow Hikes do tend to book up, so advance registration is recommended. To help protect the sanctuary’s diverse wildlife and fragile habitats, please be sure to leave pets at home. AMY STUMPFL
ONGOING THROUGH JAN. 11 AT OWL’S HILL NATURE SANCTUARY
545 BEECH CREEK ROAD IN BRENTWOOD
SATURDAY / 12.28
[FALL INTO THE SUN]
MUSIC
THE LONG PLAYERS
World’s greatest tribute band The Long Players return to 3rd & Lindsley Saturday night for a special themed performance they’re billing as “After the Beatles.” The band — guitarists Bill Lloyd and Steve Allen, drummer Steve Ebe and bassist Brad Jones — will be joined by an impressive list of guest vocalists and musicians to celebrate the solo recordings of John, Paul, George and Ringo. “The Long Players have covered Paul McCartney’s Band on the Run, John Lennon’s Imagine and George Harrison’s All Things Must Pass,” Lloyd says. “But those are far from the scope of what their careers really were, and this way, we get to perform a lot of their other hits as solo artists.” While there’s always a chance an unexpected special guest or two may sit in with the group, the announced slate of guest vocalists includes Kathy Mattea, Beth
PHOTO: CASE MAHAN
Saturday, January 4
SONGWRITER SESSION Brinley Addington
NOON · FORD THEATER
Sunday, January 5
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Lee Turner
1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, January 11
SONGWRITER SESSION Tommy Karlas
NOON · FORD THEATER
Sunday, January 12
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Justin Schipper
1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, January 18
SONGWRITER SESSION
Caylee Hammack
NOON · FORD THEATER
Sunday, January 19
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Josh Matheny
1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Saturday, January 25
SONGWRITER SESSION Lily Rose NOON · FORD THEATER
Sunday, January 26
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Jason Coleman
1:00 pm · FORD THEATER Sunday, January 26 INTERVIEW AND PERFORMANCE Rosanne Cash
3:30 pm · FORD THEATER LIMITED AVAILABILITY
Saturday, February 1 FAMILY PROGRAM
Riders
in
the
Sky 10:00 am · FORD THEATER FREE
WITNESS HISTORY
Museum Membership
Nielsen Chapman, Walter Egan, Kim Richey, Chuck Mead, Aaron Lee Tasjan, Gary Nicholson, Philip Creamer, Ben Cyllus, Don Henry, Michael Kelsh, Maia Sharp, Pete Mroz, Scott Sullivant, Brian Wright, Jon Vezner and Seth Timbs, who will also sit in on keys. In addition, percussionist Paul Snyder will perform with the band.
DARYL SANDERS
8 P.M. AT 3RD & LINDSLEY
818 THIRD AVE. S.
MUSIC
[I’LL BE BACK] TERMINATOR X
City Winery may be a far cry from The Terrordome, but the club will host master DJ and Public Enemy beatmaker Terminator X for one of Nashville’s last big hip-hop events of 2024. With his unique techniques of breaks and scratching, The Terminator set the hardcore soundtrack for the radical lyrics of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame rap group. With a résumé that includes masterpieces like It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back and Fear of a Black Planet (possibly my favorite hip-hop album ever), The Terminator redefined the sounds that DJs could craft. His solo debut, 1991’s Terminator X & The Valley of Jeep Beats (which actually features a Ford Bronco on the cover), even samples Black Flag’s “Rise Above” for the furious lead single “Buck Whylin’.” But his follow-up, 1994’s Super Bad, brought hip-hop back to ground zero, as X made an album with the two pioneers who defined the DJ role, DJ Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash. Though T-X took a break from music in 1998 to pursue emu farming, he has been active again in recent years, bringing his rarified talents to festivals and clubs worldwide for those of us who missed him most. P.J.
SUNDAY / 12.29
MUSIC
[CELEBRATING 20 YEARS]
NASHVILLE IN HARMONY
As Tennessee’s first musical arts organization created specifically for members of the LGBTQ community and its allies, Nashville in Harmony has been bringing people together since 2004. This weekend, you’re invited to help celebrate the group’s 20th anniversary with a special performance at the Ryman. The evening promises a great mix of seasonal and holiday classics, plus original music and favorite songs
from the chorus’s past 20 years. Audiences can also look forward to a slew of guest artists, including Kira Small, Megan Murphy Chambers, Melinda Doolittle and Morgxn. Former artistic director Don Schlosser and former accompanist Bob House will be on hand to honor the occasion, along with Mayor Freddie O’Connell, Rep. Justin Jones and more. For artistic director Wesley King, the concert feels like a full-circle moment. “I took this job in the midst of a global pandemic that saw this organization shrink to 43 members,” he says. “I wasn’t so sure we’d make it to our 20th anniversary, but here we are. We have grown beyond what we once were and
are stronger for it.” AMY STUMPFL
7:30 P.M. AT THE RYMAN
116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.
MONDAY
/ 12.30
MUSIC
[ETERNAL
TROUBADOURS] OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW
Old Crow Medicine Show’s New Year’s Eve shows at the Ryman have become an institution since 2009, when the band began its holiday run at country’s Mother Church. Bandleader Ketch Secor remains a sharp showman, and the group has expanded its palette on recent albums. They harked back to their folk roots on 2018’s Volunteer, which was produced by Dave Cobb. Meanwhile, 2022’s Paint This Town is notable for the drumming of now-departed skinsman Jerry Pentecost, who brought a big beat to the proceedings. Paint This Town sounds like Secor & Co. were parsing Bob Seger and Uncle Tupelo albums to get the album’s expansive, heartlandof-America sound, and the album’s “Honey Chile” is a convincing stab at Southern rock. With songs about Black country pioneer DeFord Bailey and John Brown, Paint This Town might be Old Crow’s most political album to date. On 2023’s Jubilee the band folds in contributions from Sierra Ferrell and Mavis Staples, along with a guest spot by Old Crow co-founder Willie Watson. Jubilee peaks with “Miles Away,” written by Secor and Molly Tuttle. For this year’s two-night run at the Ryman, the band will follow openers The Kentucky Headhunters and Steve Poltz on Monday night and Maggie Rose and Big Richard on Tuesday. EDD HURT DEC. 30-31 AT THE RYMAN
116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.
THE LONG PLAYERS
OLD CROW MEDICINE SHOW
PHOTO: CHRIS WOOD
CULTURE
IT’S A LITTLE weird that Nashville doesn’t have a poet laureate. Our neighbors in Hendersonville and Murfreesboro do. Tennessee has a state poet laureate.
But Nashville doesn’t, even though the city is becoming as much a destination for writers as musicians. It hosts the popular Southern Festival of Books annually. The Porch is a small but mighty nonprofit that offers writing classes year-round and has landed prominent guests for its fundraisers, including U.S. poet laureate Ada Limón. The city recently established a youth poet laureate, but not an (Older? Non-youthful?) counterpart.
Even with all the talent and events and great bookstores in town, it feels like something is missing.
Major Jackson, the author of six poetry books and a professor at Vanderbilt University, says a poet laureate contributes a lot to the community, capturing the moments of a community’s life in a poem and showing young people the “social function of literature” in our daily lives. A poet laureate may advocate for the art form, and also “gives voice to the will, the desires, the observations, the fears of the people,” he says.
Jackson also notes that Nashville has a long and complicated history with poetry. Vanderbilt graduate Robert Penn Warren was one of the earliest U.S. poet laureates in 1944. He was also a member of two overlapping and influential literary groups in the 1920s and ’30s — The Fugitives and The Southern Agrarians. Both collectives emphasized conservative, Southern traditionalism alongside certain aesthetic styles, but it wasn’t exactly a monolith — Warren evolved into an advocate for integration while fellow Fugitive Donald Davidson remained a staunch segregationist.
The Southern literary scene thankfully grew more diverse, and these days in Nashville you can find poetry slams, literary pop-ups and even some multimedia productions — like the Nashville Ballet’s adaptation of local poet Caroline Randall Williams’ book Lucy Negro, Redux
“Poets keep finding their way here and then creating their own communities,” says local poet Ciona Rouse. Rouse came to Nashville 22 years ago, and has been setting up events, readings and more since her arrival. Many new-in-town poets get pointed her way, and she can name off quite a few poetry collectives and literary organizers in town. She thinks a poet laureate should be someone who helps create spaces for people to engage with poetry.
Rouse is working on a new literary space herself. Her goal for 2025 is to open a poetry-
BLANK VERSE
Despite a thriving literary scene, Nashville lacks a poet laureate BY ALEJANDRO
centric bookstore and bourbon bar called Bard’s Towne, and she has hosted recent pop-up reading events at Nelson’s Green Brier Distillery and the Frist Art Museum under the name.
Chet Weise, editor-in-chief of Third Man Books, also has experience building a literary community. Drawing on his years in the DIY punk rock scene, he set up a showcase called Poetry Sucks circa 2012. Participants in the series later contributed to Third Man Records’ first book, a poetry anthology called Language Lessons
Weise believes a poet laureate should not be thought of as “the best poet” in town. Instead they should be “an ambassador of poetry,” someone “able to communicate the importance and usefulness of poetry to the community.”
Stephanie Pruitt Gaines, a local poet and owner of The Creativity Bar — a soon-to-open crafts space and artsy gift shop in Donelson — expresses some concerns about the city’s ability to manage the poet laureate role. After all, the Metro Arts Commission stumbled its way through a pitched controversy over how it distributes grants to artists and nonprofits.
She also worries about sparking tensions between certain styles of poets in town, or that the city would be validating certain traditions over others. Still, despite the reservations, she notes it would be nice to have the city affirm the importance of poetry.
“What excites me about a poet laureate is that it reminds us that language can help us acknowledge important moments and important places,” says Pruitt Gaines, adding that poets are particularly good at processing big ideas into just a few lines.
Jackson acknowledges there can be tension between academic and performance poets — the “page versus stage” divide — but he doubts the public would focus on those distinctions. That said, he does think short two-year terms would work well in a city with a literary community as diverse as Nashville’s.
The Scene reached out to Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s office to gauge his interest in establishing a poet laureate, but did not hear back in time for publication. Sources tell the Scene, however, that the mayor himself has taken poetry classes at The Porch.
“We are a poetry town,” says Rouse, “so why not play that up?”
Unsurprisingly, the poets who spoke with the Scene agree that poetry is important — Weise calls it “lifeblood.” Jackson calls it “the most democratic” art form.
“Everyone has access to their feelings and their emotions,” says Jackson. “All you need is a paper and pen.” ▼
RAMIREZ
CHET WEISE BELIEVES A POET LAUREATE SHOULD NOT BE THOUGHT OF AS “THE BEST POET” IN TOWN. INSTEAD THEY SHOULD BE “AN AMBASSADOR OF POETRY,” SOMEONE “ABLE TO COMMUNICATE THE IMPORTANCE AND USEFULNESS OF POETRY TO THE COMMUNITY.”
CIONA ROUSE
STEPHANIE PRUITT GAINES
CHET WEISE MAJOR JACKSON
PHOTO: JAMIE GOODSELL PHOTO: TRAVIS
PHOTO:
BOOKS
STRAIGHT ON ’TIL MORNING
The River Will Be a Part of Us chronicles a Nashvillian’s remarkable youthful adventure BY
MARIA BROWNING
ON JULY 3, 1981, a group of young people from the U.S. and Germany launched a homemade raft on the Missouri River near Kansas City, determined to float to St. Louis and from there all the way down the Mississippi to New Orleans. They named the raft Eulenspiegel after a character in German folklore. Tom Bates, who organized the trip, asked his friend Justus Wayne Thomas, an aspiring photographer, to join the crew and document the two-month journey. Those photographs are collected in The River Will Be a Part of Us, along with reflections from Thomas and other crew members. Atlanta curator and cultural historian TK Smith provides an introductory essay.
The book’s epigraph from Peter Pan — “Second star to the right and straight on ’til morning” — suggests the youthful spirit that animated the trip and the practical challenges it entailed, both of which are evident in the pictures. “The feelings of romance conjured by Thomas’s photographs come not simply from their visual beauty but from the content’s context within the visual culture of the United States,” Smith writes. “The images create an immediate sense of nostalgia for something yearned for but rarely experienced — adventure.”
Thomas, a Nashville native who still calls the city home, answered questions by email.
What prompted you to publish these photos after so many years? Tom Bates and I intended to create a book or magazine article for publication shortly after the raft trip. But the draft Tom was writing while we were still on the raft was lost to the river just outside New Orleans. The crew scattered around the world when the trip was over, and we all returned to our individual lives. Most of us lost track of the others. My Ektachrome slides were stored in a box in the back of a closet, and I went off to law school.
In 2006, I bought a film scanner, which enabled me to convert all my images from the raft trip that I had stored on film into digital files that could be easily shared. Thanks to the internet, the crew members started reconnecting around 2010, and in 2011, we met in Winter Park, Colo., for a 30th anniversary Eulenspiegel reunion.
A rekindled personal interest in photography, a new perspective gained by the passage of several decades, easy digital access to my images from the raft trip, and renewed connections with my raft mates stirred a fresh determination in me to tell the story of the Eulenspiegel and its crew.
You were invited on the trip to document it, which must have required you to stand apart to some de-
gree, observing. Do you think that made your experience of the journey different from your crewmates’? When the camera was in my hands, everyone understood what I was doing and why, so I did “stand apart” while taking photographs. But most of the time, my camera was tucked away in its camera bag, and I was just another crew member. I was also not the only crew member with a camera on board. There are several photographs of me taken by other crew members in the book. So I was both a photographer and a subject during the trip.
One of my favorite pictures in the book is a wide shot in which the raft is nestled against the bank, looking tiny and fragile compared to the expanse of the river. This trip involved some real danger. How frightened were you? Pilots have described flying as “hours of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror.” We became reasonably confident in our ability to navigate the river safely, but a few incidents were genuinely frightening. The first was our arrival in St. Louis at night, just after an electrical storm. A fortuitously draped mooring line prevented us from being crushed underneath a barge berthed in front of the Goldenrod showboat at the river bank near the Gateway Arch National Monument.
Handsome Pants is a playful young pup that adores physical touch! He is content sitting with you receiving ear rubbins, but he will be just as happy out playing and running with you! He is extremely loyal, but takes a few minutes to warm up. The world is still big and brand new to him, as he has spent most of his life in different shelters. Consider giving him a home this holiday season!
Further downriver, we were sucked into a chute that carried us back into a dark wilderness. Our raft scraped over a waterfall before re-emerging into the Mississippi River.
The book’s epigraph from Peter Pan seems appropriate — you were all so young! But people of all ages were engaged by what you were doing. Would you do it today if you had the chance? The raft trip was physically taxing, and I’m not sure I could do it now. But I hope the book inspires a few young people to take a similar leap so that in 40 years, they’ll be privileged to answer some “why in the world” questions.
To read an uncut version of this interview — and more local book coverage — please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee. ▼
The River Will Be a Part of Us By Justus Wayne Thomas Daylight Books 124 pages, 100 color photographs, $50
Adopt. Bark. Meow. Microchip. Neuter. Spay.
MUSIC
YOU MAY NOT know Eddie Schwartz’s name, but you certainly know his work. Born and raised in Toronto, Schwartz became a well-regarded recording artist north of the border in the early 1980s, and has had even greater success as a producer and songwriter, with writing credits that include Paul Carrack’s “Don’t Shed a Tear” and The Doobie Brothers’ “The Doctor,” not to mention cuts by America, Joe Cocker, Donna Summer, Rascal Flatts and Rita Coolidge. But his first (and biggest) hit, Pat Benatar’s “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” very nearly wound up on the dustheap of musical history.
Over a recent lunch at the fabulous Frankie’s 925 Spuntino, Schwartz, who has lived in Nashville since 1997, shared the wild tale of one of the most defining hits of the 1980s. (Disclosure: He’s a friend of mine.)
When Schwartz arrives in Los Angeles in late 1978, he has good reason to be excited. The young singer and songwriter has just inked a deal with ATV, the same publishing company that is home to The Beatles’ catalog.
But the meetings at ATV don’t go exactly as he hoped. The president and vice president love four tracks from the bare-bones five-song demo he brought along. But when it comes to Schwartz’s favorite tune, “Hit Me With Your Best Shot,” they don’t mince words.
“‘We think it’s beneath you as a writer,’” Schwartz remembers them saying. “‘That may be the worst song we’ve ever heard.’”
Schwartz had written “Hit Me With Your Best Shot” at a low point. He was in his mid-20s and felt like his music career was going nowhere. Feeling utterly despondent, he decided to see a therapist a friend had recommended.
“It was this sort of experimental therapy, and one of the things we did was punch pillows,” Schwartz recalls. “So after a session where I punched a lot of pillows — to get out hostility, anxiety, whatever — I walked out on the porch of the place. The phrase ‘Hit me with your best shot’ just came to me, and I thought, ‘There’s something there.’”
So he jotted it down in a notebook. It would be a couple years before he wrote the song — while taking college courses, he pulled out that notebook and happened upon the phrase.
“Writing the song was an act of defiance against … the music business that seemed to have no place for me,” Schwartz says. “The ‘tough cookie,’ you could argue, is the music business, because that’s who I was wrangling with, and so far, not winning any battles. … I think the breakthrough I had was understanding that I can wrap this idea in what appears to be a song about the battle of the sexes.”
After his meeting at ATV, Schwartz stays in Los Angeles for a few months to write. Much of that time is spent begging ATV to let him
PILLOW TALK
Songwriter Eddie Schwartz recounts the bizarre twists and turns that led to ‘Hit Me
With Your Best Shot’
BY JACK SILVERMAN
make a proper “Hit Me” demo. Eventually, just to shut him up, they relent. He has a friend playing with Elton John who brings in some of his bandmates.
“It was this little studio in Hollywood, owned and operated by a guy named John Rhys,” Schwartz says. “One of the guys from ATV was there as the producer, supervisor. We listened back to the demo, and he turned to John and said, ‘Erase it.’ I had spent all this time begging to get this demo, and this guy says, ‘Yeah, I hate it. I still think it’s one of the worst songs I’ve ever heard.’ He thought it would reflect badly on them if it got out. … Now, we recorded it on 2-inch 24-track tapes, so my despondency went to a whole new level.”
Feeling defeated, Schwartz books a flight back to Toronto for the next morning.
“I was packing my stuff,” he says, “and the
phone rings in the apartment. ‘Hi, this is John Rhys, the engineer on the session. … Listen, I want you to come over for dinner tonight.’”
“It was amazing, like a gumbo kind of thing,” Schwartz recalls. “And we sat outside on this little balcony overlooking Hollywood, and he reaches into his breast pocket, takes out a cassette and puts it in my pocket, and says, ‘I had to erase the tape because ATV’s one of my biggest clients. But before I did, I made one copy of it. You can’t play it for anybody now, because they’d fire me, but there will come a time and a place.’”
Schwartz flies back to Toronto the next day, dejected. About six months later, the phone rings, and it’s Marv Goodman, who has just been hired to work at ATV’s new office in New York. He likes Schwartz’s work and asks if there’s anything he hasn’t heard yet.
“And ‘bing,’ this little bell rang in my head,” says Schwartz, “and I said, ‘Well, I’ve got this one song. Everybody hates it, but I think it’s pretty good. Can I send it?’ I couldn’t afford to make a copy. … So I put the one existing cassette in a padded envelope and sent it down.”
When the tape arrives, Goodman still has two weeks left at Chrysalis Records before he starts at ATV. Schwartz isn’t present, but he recalls the scene as Goodman described it to him.
“He put it in his cassette player in his office at Chrysalis, and started playing it,” Schwartz says. “And he loved it, and he kept turning it up, playing it over and over. Pat Benatar was having a meeting with her A&R guy at Chrysalis, Jeff Aldrich. She didn’t really like any of the stuff he was playing her, and then she started hearing ‘Hit Me’ through the wall. Marv was in the next office, and she got up and went into his office and said, ‘What’s that?’’
Benatar recorded the song for her album Crimes of Passion, released in August 1980. Schwartz was thrilled to have a cut, but when he heard the album, “Hit Me” sounded nothing like he had envisioned. To him it was a defiant, tongue-in-cheek tale about the harsh realities of the music biz machine. “But she turned it into a big rock anthem,” Schwartz says. He wasn’t sure what to think about it. And he’d been beaten up by the industry enough that he didn’t have any expectations.
It’s not until early spring 1981 that he first hears it on the radio, and begins to realize it’s a massive radio hit. He’s strolling down Yonge Street, a bustling Toronto thoroughfare. It’s an unseasonably warm day, and businesses have their doors propped open. As he passes House of Lords — a renowned salon that styled hair for the likes of David Bowie, Axl Rose and Kiefer Sutherland — a song blasting from the salon’s speakers stops him in his tracks.
“I’m standing there in the doorway,” Schwartz recalls, “and I think I started to drool. … There’s these two rows of barber chairs, and there’s a guy looking very mod at the back — on the phone, pointing at me and having a very animated conversation. He puts down the phone, and I’m still standing there, sort of in a state of shock.”
Apparently, Schwartz’s peculiar behavior prompted the salon worker to call the police.
“I feel a tap on my shoulder and turn around,” Schwartz says. “There’s two cops, and they said, ‘Come on, buddy, move along.’ And I went, “No, no, they just played my song!’ And the guy looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, sure they did. Tell your story walking,’ that kind of thing. That’s the first time I heard it on the radio.”
And it was all thanks to pillow-punching therapy and a prescient recording engineer named John Rhys. ▼
AN ATLANTIC RECORDS PROMO SHOT FROM 1981
LIVING WITH THE BLUES
Legendary singer Tracy Nelson marks her 80th birthday with a rare show
BY EDD HURT
“NASHVILLE IN 1969 was just heaven.”
This is how Tracy Nelson begins telling me about moving to town during a great year for popular music. The singer and songwriter landed in Nashville with her band Mother Earth after playing a show here in early 1969. Nelson has lived in the Nashville area ever since, and she’s continued to record and play shows at her own rather deliberate pace. In 1969 she released two Nashville-recorded albums that merged R&B, rock ’n’ roll and country. Earlier this year, Nelson garnered her third Grammy nomination, for her 2023 full-length Life Don’t Miss Nobody She attended the Grammy ceremony in Los Angeles, and she didn’t win, but the nomination — in the Best Traditional Blues album category — shone a light on Nelson’s immense contributions to music over the past 60 years.
“The West Coast — and New York perhaps more properly — [were places where musicians] just had this attitude of how great they were because they were in a band,” Nelson says, speaking from her home in Burns, Tenn., about 35 miles west of Nashville. On Sunday, Nelson, who was born on Dec. 27, 1944, in Madison, Wis., marks her 80th birthday with a rare full-band show at 3rd and Lindsley. The performance will feature a group of musicians that includes keyboardist Steve Conn, guitarist Larry Chaney and
singers Dianne Davidson, Vickie Carrico and Lisa Oliver-Gray. Also on hand will be Sylvia Tepper, who sang with Mother Earth as a member of The Earthettes in the late ’60s.
The music on Life Don’t Miss Nobody embodies Nelson’s wide-ranging approach. She retools Eugene McDaniels’ 1966 song “Compared to What” as a modified New Orleans-style groove. As she told me in 2023 about the track, “I had to put some digs to Trump in there.” You can interpret Life Don’t Miss Nobody politically. For Nelson, who lived and recorded in San Francisco in the waning days of the counterculture, it’s a record she’s happy with.
“I have found the recording process really arduous and kind of stressful every time I’ve made a record,” she says. “It’s one of the very few records I’ve ever made that I will go back and listen to just for the hell of it. When I listen to early Mother Earth records, it’s like, ‘Who the fuck is singing that stuff?’ I wasn’t as good a singer then as I am now.”
Nelson’s voice remains compelling on Life Don’t Miss Nobody — an accurate, blues-tinged missile. For longtime fans of her 1960s and ’70s work with Mother Earth and as a solo artist, it’s a validation of her approach. With Mother Earth, Nelson was an experimental bandleader operating in a post-R&B zone that remains unique
to the band. Nelson artfully rewrites the New Orleans-style 6/8 ballad on her 1968 tune “Down So Low,” perhaps her best-known song. She soars into gospel space on 1970’s “Andy’s Song,” a superb track from Mother Earth’s Satisfied, which was cut at Nashville’s Jack Clement Recording Studio.
The whiff of countercultural incense you pick up on Mother Earth’s 1968 debut Living With the Animals is present on 1969’s Make a Joyful Noise, which the group recorded at Mt. Juliet recording studio Bradley’s Barn that year. Among the musicians who played on Make a Joyful Noise are guitarist Pete Drake, pianist Hargus “Pig” Robbins and fiddler Johnny Gimble — all now-legendary Nashville session musicians. The album’s combination of soul and country remains prescient.
Nelson recorded Mother Earth Presents Tracy Nelson Country in Nashville in mid-1969 with Pete Drake and guitarist Scotty Moore producing her on a set of country and blues songs that includes Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right” and Bill Owens and Dolly Parton’s “Why, Why, Why.” Released in September 1969 — about a month after Make a Joyful Noise — it stands with The Flying Burrito Brothers’ The Gilded Palace of Sin as an essential document of the early country-rock movement.
“Those were the days when the record labels
were just throwing money away,” Nelson says. “I think we got a $15,000 budget. I was embarrassed, because our budget [for the Mother Earth albums] was, like, $100,000 or something. So I went to Pete Drake and I said, ‘Mercury is coming up with a budget, but it’s not much — it’s only $15,000.’ He said, ‘I could make six records with that.’”
Indeed, those were different days. Nelson released two stylistically disparate records at virtually the same time, and her label signed off on it, even at a somewhat reduced budget for Tracy Nelson Country. No matter the motivation or the commercial calculations, the album — like all of Nelson’s work — has endured. As she tells me, she’s working on a new record.
“I just can’t decide what direction to take. I’ve still got about 30 tunes left over from the last record. What I really want to do is the [same] kind of record I’ve ever done: Just pull together a bunch of tunes that I really like and get the right musicians, and then do it.” ▼
Playing 7 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 29, at 3rd and Lindsley
HOW DOES IT FEEL?
Timothée Chalamet visits Nashville to discuss A Complete Unknown, which opens wide on Christmas Day BY
LOGAN BUTTS
A lot of ink is spilled discussing the ins and outs of rock stardom and movie stardom. There’s no exact criteria for either one, no specific threshold of commercial success or critical acclaim to pass. They’re both a “you know it when you see it” type of thing. To use the parlance of modern social media, it’s strictly vibes-based. The ability to command a room might be the No. 1 trait associated with this level of stardom. There’s a difference between “just” being famous and being a full-blown star.
Early in his career, Bob Dylan had it, whatever it is, as much as he simultaneously seemed to loathe having it and relish wielding its power. Timothée Chalamet seems to hold a similar degree of power. Whether he’s setting the internet on fire by showing up at his own look-alike contest or displaying his supreme Ball Knowledge, Chalamet may very well be Hollywood’s own Lisan al Gaib, ready to save us from our current movie-star crisis.
I was able to witness this aura in person recently when Chalamet made a stop in Nashville on a whirlwind press campaign. On a Friday night in early December, college kids lined up around the block at the Belcourt Theatre in Hillsboro Village hoping to catch a glimpse of the 28-year-old phenom ahead of a private screening of the Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, which features Chalamet as the
iconic singer. Media members were able to get in a few quick questions with the actor — who also served in a producer role for the film — before the screening. Despite the chaos going on around us, Chalamet’s answers were thoughtful when they could’ve easily been phoned in.
“[Playing a real person] is a gift because the guy exists,” Chalamet said backstage at the Belcourt. “So the material is out there, the interviews are out there. … In some ways, [it’s] more challenging and limiting to play a real person, but also a gift. … I had to push myself as an actor.”
In a post-Walk Hard world, it can be difficult to watch a by-the-numbers musician biopic without constantly rolling your eyes. But A Complete Unknown’s cast elevates what is a mostly conventional film. Chalamet gives it his all, from mimicking Dylan’s distinct vocal idiosyncrasies to turning in legitimately impressive musical performances, of which there are many in the music-forward movie.
“I grew up on what was on the menu in American pop culture in the early to mid2000s,” said Chalamet. “I wouldn’t change anything, and I loved it. But this was like getting exposed to a whole new breadth of music and art. … The splintering around getting to be a Bob fan, maybe for some people it’s the other way around. They get deep into The Beatles or
Townes Van Zandt or The Rolling Stones or Paul Clayton, some of those people would lead into Bob. For me, it was the other way around. I got into Bob, and I splintered out.”
Unlike with some music biopics, the supporting players really get a chance to shine in A Complete Unknown. Edward Norton (as Pete Seeger) and Elle Fanning (as Sylvie Russo, a fictionalized version of Dylan’s girlfriend Suze Rotolo) are the film’s beating heart, while a feisty Monica Barbaro nearly steals the show as Joan Baez. Things get a bit mawkish when Dylan’s most famous songs are being performed, but it’s hard not to get swept up when Chalamet and Barbaro share the stage.
Boyd Holbrook throws heat as Johnny Cash, the second on-screen iteration of the country legend from director James Mangold, who also helmed the Oscar-winning Cash biopic Walk the Line. Although the film ends before Dylan’s time in Nashville, Music City is still represented thanks to Holbrook’s hilarious performance as Cash and a brief cameo from Dylan superfan and Nashvillian James Austin Johnson as the MC at a folk club.
“I was in Minnesota yesterday, in Bob’s birthplace, and it was important for me to come to Nashville,” Chalamet said. “I wanted to hit the places that were true to Bob and true to his path and his journey. And I think Nashville is a
really big city for him, and it’s just an honor to be here.”
Mangold and co-writer Jay Cocks use Dylan’s relationship with folk legend Woody Guthrie to sort of bookend Dylan’s journey, at least the parts that are covered in A Complete Unknown Scoot McNairy, in a nearly wordless role, infuses a sadness into the movie as Guthrie in the throes of Huntington’s disease. He helps the emotional response feel earned rather than exploitative or cheap.
The movie also isn’t afraid to show Dylan’s thornier side; this isn’t full-on hagiography. He burns bridges and pisses people off, but it’s all part of a mystique that is somehow both carefully crafted and — sorry — freewheelin’.
Mileage may vary among Dylan fans and completists. But with its electric cast and workmanlike precision from Mangold, A Complete Unknown is worth a family trip to the cineplex over the holiday season.▼
A Complete Unknown R, 141 minutes
Now playing at local Regal and AMC locations
DOWN FOR THE COUNT
Robert Eggers’ Nosferatu is a grotesque gothic nightmare — and it’s spellbinding
BY D. PATRICK RODGERS
THE 1922 SILENT FILM Nosferatu holds a fascinating and unique place in film history. Directed by German innovator F.W. Murnau, the film was essentially a knockoff adaptation of Bram Stoker’s groundbreaking 1897 novel Dracula. The unauthorized adaptation brought a copyright suit from Stoker’s estate, with a German court ruling that all copies of Nosferatu be destroyed. They weren’t, and Nosferatu went on to become one of the most influential horror films in cinema history.
Writer-director Robert Eggers’ decision to remake Nosferatu — not Dracula — is an interesting one. In his early 30s, Eggers burst into cinema with his 2015 debut feature The Witch, a transfixing folk-horror masterwork featuring Anya Taylor-Joy in her first leading role. While Eggers has stuck exclusively to dark historical fiction, his approach has shifted in the past decade. The 2019 two-hander The Lighthouse was something of an absurdist comedy, while 2022’s The Northman — a riff on the Scandinavian legendary character that inspired Shakespeare’s Hamlet — was an action-packed revenge epic. Nosferatu, then, is a return to the form Eggers established with The Witch: grotesque, horrifying and spellbinding.
Set in late-1830s Germany, Nosferatu opens on real estate agent Thomas Hutter (a fully committed Nicholas Hoult, perpetually drenched in flop sweat and panicked about the eyes) being given a seemingly innocuous task by his employer. He’s to deliver a contract to Count Orlock, a very old and very reclusive nobleman living in Transylvania, a small country “isolated in the Carpathian Alps.” Despite the protestations of his loving but distressed new bride Ellen (Lily-Rose Depp) — who, unbeknownst to Thomas, already has some sort of dark psychic connection to Orlock — he heads eastward to fulfill his duty.
Orlock is, of course, an unequivocally nasty old freak. He’s played to the absolute hilt by Bill Skarsgård (no stranger to transformative prosthetic makeup and costuming, as we’ve seen in It and The Crow), his face and vampiric status withheld from us by Eggers and DP Jarin Blaschke until the timing is just right, his voice deep and thunderous as he commands Thomas and reaches out to Ellen in her dreams. A film this sinister and unrelenting would of course be nothing without committed performances, and Skarsgård isn’t alone in that regard. Simon McBurney, Emma Corrin, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, and past Eggers collaborators Willem Dafoe and Ralph Ineson are all completely immersed and convincing. As Thomas’ friend Friedrich, Taylor-Johnson is riddled with consternation at the existence of something as preposterous as a vampire. As idiosyncratic, occult-obsessed professor Albin Eberhart von Franz, Dafoe offers possibly the closest thing to comedic relief Nosferatu has. And if you aren’t sold on Depp in Act 1, you will be by the time her performance hits its most intensely physical in Act 3.
The entire film rides on Eggers’ skill with tension and release, drifting between color and black-and-white as Orlock enters and exits the frame. And when the time comes for Orlock to drain his victims of their blood — and don’t you worry, the time will come — it is a deeply visceral affair. This isn’t an elegant, Anne Ricestyled glamour vampire, caressing a victim’s neck before delicately attaching his lips to the flesh. Skarsgård’s Orlock is more akin to a ravenous predator — part lion, part lamprey — draining the life force from his victims’ chests in pulsing, convulsing throes. It is dark, creepy, nasty stuff.
Though The Lighthouse visive, and The Northman success it should’ve been, Eggers really doesn’t miss. He is an all-in sort of director, spending years on research, penning his own scripts and — understandably, given his background as a production designer — developing a distinctive visual style. This is not a filmmaker who’s going to approach a remake without something of his own to offer.
Nosferatu has much to offer.
1 Classic sitcom streaming on BritBox, familiarly
6 Cos. offering connections
10 Jordan’s only coastal city
15 San Francisco organization supporting women in the arts
16 No longer relevant
17 Burj Khalifa’s home
18 1850: 350,000+ words
21 Instrument that gave rise to the guitalele, in brief
22 “Bam!”
23 Chevy coupes
24 1862: 530,000+ words
27 Major highway through the southern U.S.
28 Early birds?
32 Structural supports
35 On ice longer than normal, say?
36 Volume divided by height
37 Tool
38 Thénardier and Bovary: Abbr.
39 Princess played by Halle Bailey in a 2023 film
40 Just pulls off, with “out”
41 Taunt
42 One hanging out in the cold
43 Students run for it
45 “Stop with that!”
46 1957: 550,000+ words
51 Not easy to find
54 Sewing machine inventor Howe
55 Third letter of Athens, in ancient Athens
56 Cheeky review of 18-, 24- and 46-Across
59 1990s sitcom nerd
60 Dark purple shade
61 Ancient region considered a birthplace of Western philosophy
62 Records
63 Acts like
1 Performer with a concert tour titled “Straight Up Paula!”
2 Stop with that!
3 No. 1’s
4 Bird-related prefix
5 Cry over spilled milk, perhaps?
6 “Pass the ball to me!”
7 Abnormally deep sleep
8 Eponymous youth sports organization, the largest of its kind in the U.S.
9 Location within an office building: Abbr.
10 Some eBay revenue
11 “Why don’t you take a picture — it’ll last longer!”
12 Help with wrongdoing
13 ___ grazing (winter farm feeding strategy)
14 Bolsters
19 Court matters
20 Place to park a camper
25 Character in a classic whodunit
26 Contemptuous chorus
29 Prince saved from drowning by 39-Across
30 Piece of old movie equipment
31 Word with bake or fire
32 Image file format
64 Some gag Christmas gifts DOWN
33 Like some barrel-aged spirits
34 Invoice unit
35 “That’s on me”
38 U.S. city named for a geological formation
39 Not wired, say
41 N.B.A. player-turned-sports analyst Rose
42 ___ Khan, former Pakistani prime minister
44 Battalion commanders in the U.S.M.C.
45 Dresses down
47 Not a straight shot
48 Davis with the memoir “Dying of Politeness”
49 .com commerce
50 Tots’ pops
51 Theater throwaway
52 Gala throwaway
53 Informal green lights
57 School record, for short
58 Joey of children’s lit
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It is my privilege as your elected Criminal Court Clerk to notify all citizens of Davidson County, that relative to grand jury proceedings, it is the duty of your grand jurors to investigate any public offense which they know or have reason to believe has been committed and which is triable or indictable in Davidson County. In addition to cases presented o the grand jury by your District Attorney, any citizen may petition the foreperson (foreman) of the grand jury for permission to testify concerning an y offense in Davidson County This is subject to provi- sions set forth in Tennessee Code Annotated 40-1 2-105. Pursuant to Tennessee Code Annotated 40-12104 and 40-12-105, the application to testify by any citizen must be accompanied by a sworn affidavit stating the facts or summarizing the proof which forms the basis of allegations contained in that application. Your grand jury foreperson is Theeda Murphy. Their address is 222 Second Avenue North, Washington Square Building, Suite 510, Nashville, Tennessee 37201. The grand jury will meet at 8:00 A.M. on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays for three (3) months. Submission of an affidavit which the applicant knows to be false in material regard shall be punishable as perjury. Any citizen testifying before the grand jury as to any material fact known to that citizen to be false shall be punisha- ble as perjury. For a request for accommodation, please contact 862 -4 260 NSC
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BEST PLACE NEARBY TO SEE A SHOW First Bank Amphitheater
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