Nashville Scene 4-22-21

APRIL 22–28, 2021 I VOLUME 40 I NUMBER 12 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE

METROPOLITIK: 4 GOOD GOVERNMENT’S LATEST ATTEMPT TO REPEAL THE PROPERTY TAX INCREASE IS A MESS PAGE 7

MUSIC: AN INSIDER’S LOOK AT TODD SNIDER’S FIRST AGNOSTIC CHURCH OF HOPE AND WONDER PAGE 30

Exploring responsible recycling, environmental justice, land trusts, eco-friendly services and more

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NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

CONTENTS

APRIL 22, 2021 For the Soul: Author Vincent Kelly Approaches Diversity From a Child’s Mindset

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CITY LIMITS

In the Present .............................................6 Meharry student pushes programs to end disparities in Alzheimer’s care

BY HANNAH HERNER

Metropolitik: Making a Mess ....................7 4 Good Government’s latest attempt to repeal the property tax increase has … issues

BY STEVE CAVENDISH

Pith in the Wind .........................................7

This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

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COVER STORY The Green Issue

The Nashvillian’s children’s book All People Are Beautiful fosters respect for differences

BY ASHLEY CURRIE AND URBAANITE

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BOOKS

The Full Story

With Broken Horses, Brandi Carlile pens a frank, vulnerable memoir

BY JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT AND CHAPTER 16

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MUSIC

So You Want to Recycle Responsibly .......8

As much as 46 percent of what Nashvillians put in recycling bins is unusable. How can we all do better?

BY ABBY LEE HOOD

Easy Being Green .................................... 10 Nine eco-friendly shops, services and nonprofits in Nashville

State of the World ................................... 29 On Small Infinity, Houston Kendrick takes stock of what’s deep inside

BY LANCE CONZETT

The Flame Stays Bright .......................... 29 Steve Cropper’s passion for music is as strong as ever

BY RON WYNN

THIS WEEK ON THE WEB: Watch The Shindellas Shine in ‘Money’ Should Large Corporations Be Moving Their Operations to Tennessee?

An Upgraded Goo Goo Shop Will Offer Boozy Milkshakes, a Chocolate Bar and More J. Nicole Jones Conjures Her South Carolina Family’s Storied Past in Low Country

BY D. PATRICK RODGERS

Lab Partners ............................................ 12

The Environmental Justice Initiative seeks to educate Nashvillians about environmental racism

BY ERICA CICCARONE

The Next Disaster .................................... 13 How Nashville is preparing for increasingly common severe rain events

BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT

Trust Issues ............................................. 14 Conservation land trusts in the Midstate are preserving largely untouched wilderness

BY J.R. LIND

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ON THE COVER:

Cans at River Hills Recycling Center.

Photo by Eric England

On the 1 ................................................... 30 Todd Snider brings the funk on First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder

BY DARYL SANDERS

Screengazing ........................................... 31 Alt-rockers Tape Deck Mountain ponder tech addiction’s perils on True Deceiver

BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

The Spin ................................................... 31 The Scene’s live-review column checks out Sierra Ferrell’s Pick Your Poison at the American Legion Post 82

BY EDD HURT

32 FILM

CRITICS’ PICKS

Tune in to an author event with Kendra DeColo and Ciona Rouse, celebrate Nashville Earth Day, watch Nashville Rep’s Young Voices Monologue Competition, attend the Belcourt’s Virtual Red Carpet Evening, tune in to conVERGEnce: Fatphobia in Casting and Behind the Scenes, attend Living Room Film Club for a discussion of Shiva Baby and more

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Primal Stream 51

Canadian horror, killer kaiju and a seafaring Anne Murray, now available to stream

BY JASON SHAWHAN

Heart Felt

Street Gang is an affable ode to the luminous legacy of Sesame Street

BY CORY WOODROOF

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NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD

FOOD AND DRINK

Quarantripping: 48 Hours in Paducah

A quick trip to a quaint Kentucky town yields beer, burgers, bourbon and barbecue

BY ASHLEY BRANTLEY

MARKETPLACE

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CULTURE

Pod Goals: Maggie Rose Holds Space for Women in the Music Industry to Tell Their Stories

In the latest installment of our series on local podcasts, we talk to the host of Salute the Songbird

BY MEGAN SELING

Walk a

Mile

with J.R. Lind

With feet on the street, we discover Nashville’s own unique beat – one mile at a time

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4/19/21 7:20 PM

PET OF THE WEEK! OH SONIC! He’s such a happy teenager.

(Especially when he’s outside playing with toys) 10 months old, 27 pounds, super smart and willing to please... This boy is more than ready for his pawfect forever home!

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UPCOMING VIRTUAL EVENTS THURSDAY APRIL 22 6:00PM

KATE ALBUS in conversation with CRYSTAL MALDONADO A Place to Hang the Moon FRIDAY APRIL 23 6:00PM

KENDRA DECOLO in conversation with CIONA ROUSE I Am Not Trying to Hide My Hungers from the World

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KEEL HUNT in conversation with JOHN INGRAM The Family Business

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FROM BILL FREEMAN NASHVILLE WILL MISS JUDGE TODD CAMPBELL, WHO TREATED EVERYONE WITH KINDNESS AND RESPECT When former U.S. District Judge Todd Campbell passed away on April 11, Nashville’s legal community certainly lost a legend — and those who knew him will miss this man of distinction and kindness.

His passing leaves a hole in the worlds of public service and judicial workings, but it was his compassion that was always one of the most impressive things about him.

Unless you were present at a ceremony, you would likely not know of Campbell’s dedication to welcoming new Americans. He presided over hundreds of swearing-in ceremonies for new citizens, as his recent Tennessean obituary notes.

His words to these new citizens were, “We are now the same, with the same rights and responsibilities of citizenship.”

Of course, the statement was legally accurate, but more importantly, it was welcoming and kind.

Just a few years out of law school, Campbell served as a political aide to Al Gore during his 1988 presidential campaign. Despite Campbell’s youth, he demonstrated a fierce intellect and expertise as a federal elections law expert, and Vice President Gore chose him as his counsel during the administration of President Bill Clinton. Campbell and his wife Margaret returned to Nashville in 1995 to raise their growing family.

President Clinton soon appointed him to fill a U.S. District Court seat. His Senate confirmation made him the youngest federal judge in the country.

Campbell’s experience on the campaign trail and in Washington gave him political savvy and a heart for public service — but his experience growing up in Nashville and his memories of his childhood hometown made him the man that all of Nashville will miss.

In reading the many stories written in remembrance of Campbell, a small detail about his quiet convictions has resonated with me. Donelson was my childhood home, and it was Campbell’s too. We shared that small detail of our upbringing, and Donelson was the source of one of Campbell’s earliest positive influences. Journalist and fellow Nashville native Alex Hubbard knew Campbell well, and Hubbard has told the story of how Campbell first became involved with the Tennessee School for the Blind, which has been a fixture in Donelson since the 1950s.

Fearful of riding the bus alone, a young Campbell noticed students from the TSB also riding the bus. He thought to himself that if these students could overcome their challenges of visual impairment to ride the bus, then he too could do so without worry.

Those early childhood experiences of being impressed by someone else’s bravery and determination were the foundation of his connection to the school throughout his adulthood, where he volunteered his time for many years.

Just as importantly, this experience as a young boy in Donelson helped build Campbell’s lifelong ability to treat everyone with respect, kindness and equality. He treated the thousands and thousands of cases he presided over with

seriousness and caution. Campbell handled some of Nashville’s weightiest cases, some that still affect us today, but he approached each with caution and while paying careful attention to the law. He stayed out of the headlines during some of Nashville’s most horrific news stories, but he ensured that his cases were given the full measure of legal protection and due process.

Today, compassion and respect are not seen as often in the world of politics and public service as they once were, but those virtues were championed by Todd Campbell. His life and career exemplify the Golden Rule.

Nashville will miss Todd Campbell, this quiet man of conviction and fairness.

Bill Freeman Bill Freeman is the owner of FW Publishing, the publishing company that produces the Nashville Scene, Nfocus, the Nashville Post and Home Page Media Group in Williamson County.

Editor-in-Chief D. Patrick Rodgers Senior Editor Dana Kopp Franklin Associate Editor Alejandro Ramirez Arts Editor Laura Hutson Hunter Culture Editor Erica Ciccarone Music and Listings Editor Stephen Trageser Contributing Editor Jack Silverman Staff Writers Stephen Elliott, Nancy Floyd, Steven Hale, Kara Hartnett, J.R. Lind, William Williams Contributing Writers Sadaf Ahsan, Radley Balko, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Lance Conzett, Marcus K. Dowling, Steve Erickson, Randy Fox, Adam Gold, Seth Graves, Kim Green, Steve Haruch, Geoffrey Himes, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, Christine Kreyling, Katy Lindenmuth, Craig D. Lindsey, Brittney McKenna, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Chris Parton, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Megan Seling, Jason Shawhan, Michael Sicinski, Ashley Spurgeon, Amy Stumpfl, Kay West, Abby White, Andrea Williams, Cy Winstanley, Ron Wynn, Charlie Zaillian Editorial Intern Diana Leyva Art Director Elizabeth Jones Photographers Eric England, Matt Masters, Daniel Meigs Graphic Designers Mary Louise Meadors, Tracey Starck Production Coordinator Christie Passarello Events and Marketing Director Olivia Britton Promotions Coordinator Caroline Poole Publisher Mike Smith Senior Advertising Solutions Managers Maggie Bond, Sue Falls, Michael Jezewski, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Jennifer Trsinar, Keith Wright Advertising Solutions Managers Jeremy Aparicio, Olivia Bellon, William Shutes, Niki Tyree Sales Operations Manager Chelon Hill Hasty Advertising Solutions Associates Aya Robinson, Price Waltman Special Projects Coordinator Susan Torregrossa President Frank Daniels III Chief Financial Officer Todd Patton Corporate Production Director Elizabeth Jones Vice President of Marketing Mike Smith IT Director John Schaeffer Circulation and Distribution Director Gary Minnis For advertising information please contact: Mike Smith, msmith@nashvillescene.com or 615-844-9238 FW PUBLISHING LLC Owner Bill Freeman VOICE MEDIA GROUP National Advertising 1-888-278-9866 vmgadvertising.com

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In memory of Jim Ridley, editor 2009-2016

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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4/19/21 6:55 PM

Introducing ...

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My Schedule tool Personalized calendars for curbside customers.

Waste Wizard Categorized directory of more than 300 searchable materials for recycling, composting or drop-off.

Pickup day reminders Phone, email or app notifications for regular or service alerts.

Need Help tool Connect to hubNashville for additional resources.

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Also available online at Recycle.Nashville.gov.

nashvillescene.com | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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CITY LIMITS

IN THE PRESENT

Meharry student pushes programs to end disparities in Alzheimer’s care

BY HANNAH HERNER

M

eharry Medical College student Duni Getaneh lives in the present. It’s something she learned from a buddy through a program she helped start — National Alzheimer’s Buddies. The program now has 16 locations at undergraduate colleges across the U.S., including Vanderbilt University. The program pairs a college student with a dementia patient at an area nursing home for weekly visits. The organization had to go virtual during the pandemic, during which the group also dug into social justice initiatives.

As she pursues her degree, Getaneh spoke with the Scene about how care for people with Alzheimer’s isn’t equitable, and what can be done to change that.

What are the overlooked social and emotional challenges for people with Alzheimer’s? So when we talk about dementia patients, Alzheimer’s patients, in a nursing home, a lot of the care is geared toward medical care or essential care — like bathing and giving them their medication and making sure they eat. There’s a little focus, but not so much, on their overall quality of life, and how engaged they are with the people around them.

That is the point of Alzheimer’s Buddies, is that we want to be there bridging that gap.

Tell me about the social justice work National Alzheimer’s Buddies is doing. In a lot of our programs we partner with nursing homes, who — these nursing homes, they have a

NATIONAL ALZHEIMER’S BUDDIES Washington University, and we are going to send students to learn techniques so that they can have some presence and serve the underserved communities there. And we want to do that all over the country, including here in Nashville.

DUNI GETANEH certain responsibility in terms of the logistical side of things for our volunteers, making sure our volunteers are taken care of. That has limited us from working with nursing homes in minority communities, the underserved communities. We’re doing a lot of fundraising trying to have more presence in nursing homes that are underrepresented or underfunded.

One of the things we’re doing [is] in St. Louis, Missouri, a predominantly minority area [that] is very underserved. So National Alzheimer’s Buddies is partnering with

Can you tell me about some of the racial disparities when it comes to Alzheimer’s? One of the things that we’re focusing on is, in some cultures, Alzheimer’s disease is really not a thing. It’s like losing memory over time, it’s just a part of the process of aging. And so these individuals don’t seek medical help, because they don’t see it as a problem. So one of our goals with the social justice initiative is to educate these communities about early-onset Alzheimer’s.

Alzheimer’s disproportionately affects African Americans. So if that’s the case, then there should not be a discrepancy in terms of the care that we’re providing to these communities. But that discrepancy exists. It is not

our goal — our responsibility, really — for National Alzheimer’s Buddies to solve that.

But from the perspective of educating communities, that’s one of the things that we want to do.

One of the things that we actually found out is in African American communities, they tend to care for their loved ones at home, instead of just sending them to a nursing home. So that’s also a problem, because we don’t do home visits. So we’ve entertained the possibility that maybe we should have our students visiting people’s homes to see if we can even be helpful in that way.

You’ve talked about the impact of the program, how it impacts the students as well as the patients. What I really love about this program

is the multigenerational aspect in what you’re doing. A lot of the time … you read [about] these great things for the Alzheimer’s patients, but really, we’re also doing great things for the young people, because FOR MORE INFORMATION ON we’re inspiring them, we’re NATIONAL ALZHEIMER’S BUDDIES educating them so that in the VISIT ALZBUDDIES.ORG future, they can also be part of the solution.

What do you take away from your direct service in Alzheimer’s Buddies to your future profession as a doctor?

NATIONAL ALZHEIMER’S BUDDIES

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We’re always buddy-first, which means it’s just being in touch with my humanity and having empathy for someone who’s going through a very unknown and a very terrifying time of their life. I come every week, and my buddy doesn’t remember me. But that’s OK. Because each day, we’re creating a new memory. So each day we’re doing something that — she may not remember it, but that experience for her is a big deal. And actually, what we’ve seen is every week, they may not remember who you are, but she sort of expects this person that comes and sees them.

I don’t have to be playing music for them or something. I could just literally sit with my buddy, and just read a newspaper next to her and that by itself is very powerful, because you can just be present for that person. And that is the kind of physician that I want to be, just be there for my patients when they need me. It was challenging in the beginning to just be present. But over time, I’ve learned to just be in the moment.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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CITY LIMITS METROPOLITIK

likely violates Tennessee constitutional prohibitions about retroactivity.

The second would change the rules on recalling public officials, allowing an officeholder to be booted with just 10 percent of voters signing a petition.

It also bans this hypothetically booted officeholder from appearing on the ballot in the subsequent election to fill the seat. That means, for example, in District 2 — where Kyonztè Toombs beat DeCosta Hastings by a margin of 130 votes out of a total of 2,571 in 2019 — just 257 people would be required to remove Toombs from office and keep her off the ballot. As At-Large Councilmember Bob Mendes points out, it would likely put a target on any elected city official who pissed off a vocal minority of citizens, liberal or conservative. While conservatives would love to get Mendes, progressives would surely target Steve Glover and others, plunging the city into an endless series of recalls.

So how did we get here?

Conservatives are furious at Mayor John Cooper. They’ve already failed at efforts to have him recalled, so they want to not only change the rules, but also prevent Cooper from defending his seat. It seems more than a little troubling that — though a mayor has to get more than 50 percent of the vote to win — just 10 percent of voters could effectively remove them from office. It’s a veto enacted via an extreme minority.

But just as important, conservatives can’t win elections in Davidson County, so they have resorted to attempting to change the charter to achieve their political objectives.

At most, out of 40 seats there are five to seven conservatives on the Metro Council,

depending upon the issue, meaning they would never have the ability to roll back the property tax increase and impose a cap. But through a ballot measure in a low-turnout election, they might be able to whip up enough anger to get 51 percent of the vote.

And chances are the Davidson County Election Commission, the only Nashville public office where Republicans are a majority, will send this to the voters.

Having purged two Republicans deemed insufficiently conservative — Emily Reynolds and Jesse Neil — the county GOP and newly named DCEC chair Jim DeLanis have been working furiously behind the scenes to grease the path for the referendum to make it to the ballot.

After former Tennessee Supreme Court Associate Justice and Republican Bill Koch — who had been representing the election commission as outside counsel — gave DeLanis an opinion that the Baker Donelson attorney didn’t agree with, DeLanis declared Koch an adversary and sought new representation. Ultimately he and the Republicans settled on James Blumstein, a Vanderbilt law professor and longtime conservative legal activist.

DeLanis has now spent three meetings carrying water for the 4 Good Government group. He has alternately sparred with Metro Legal Director Robert Cooper and given extra time for Roberts to badger the commissioners with dire warnings about what “the people” are expecting from them. It’s one thing to sympathize with the group’s anti-tax position — it’s another entirely to drag public meetings out four hours to get in the weeds with Cooper over case law and arcane pieces of the Tennessee Code Annotated.

And all of this, including Roberts’ preemptive suit to require only 9,000 or so signatures as the threshold, is happening before the commission has even voted whether to put the measure before voters.

There is a real question regarding whether 4 Good Government gathered enough signatures. Currently, the answer is “barely,” with the group turning in roughly 200 more verified names than the 12,142

collecting more revenue simply on a reappraisal; in short, the tax rate has to be cut so that the reappraisal is revenue-neutral. In fact, roughly half of property owners will end up paying more in taxes. … Tech giant Oracle is planning to bring 8,500 jobs with an average salary north of $100,000 to town. But contributor Betsy Phillips is concerned that Oracle — a company with a track record for supporting diversity and equality in the workplace — moving to Nashville takes a tool away from people fighting for a more progressive Tennessee, who have long argued that the state’s reactionary laws on LGBTQ people and the often-barely-coded racism of its leaders discourage businesses from moving here. “But here we are, being evil,” she writes, “and FedEx is still here; GM is still here; Amazon’s still moving in, and now here comes Oracle. As far as our state legislature is concerned, there is no downside to passing these bills. They cause no problems. They don’t cause the businesses that brag about their progressive values to even hesitate

to come here. They aren’t causing businesses to leave.” … An East Nashville woman was among the half dozen nationwide who developed a rare blood clot condition after receiving the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccination. The clotting issue prompted the CDC to “pause” use of the vaccine. Nevertheless, the woman — who requested anonymity — told the Scene: “I would urge folks who have access to other vaccines to get them and be confident that they’re doing a safe and important thing.” … Prompted by the case of Pervis Payne — an intellectually disabled Black man who was facing execution in December before he received a reprieve due to COVID-19 concerns — state House and Senate committees approved a bill that would create a procedure for Tennessee courts to hear the intellectual disability claims of some death row prisoners. In 2002, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that the execution of people with intellectual disabilities was unconstitutional. But there is not a legal procedure through which a Tennessee court

MAKING A MESS

4 Good Government’s latest attempt to repeal the property tax increase has … issues

BY STEVE CAVENDISH

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rang up a longtime observer of Metro politics to see what he thought about the latest attempt by anti-tax advocates to get a charter amendment before voters that would repeal last year’s property tax increase.

“It’s a shitshow on steroids,” he said.

That’s an apt description. For two solid weeks, the Davidson County Election Commission has been able to do little more than hold one paralyzed meeting after another as they try to figure out how not to get sued and what to do with the lawsuit that’s already been filed against them, and to determine what parts of 4 Good Government’s charter amendment petition might actually be constitutional enough to put on the ballot. The last time this played out in the fall, a court found that significant parts of a petition weren’t legal and could not be placed on the ballot.

In one corner, you have attorney and 4 Good Government leader Jim Roberts and most of the conservatives in Nashville, incensed at the property tax increase passed last year when COVID threatened to blow a hole in the Metro budget. In the other, you have the Nashville Business Coalition and most of the city’s establishment, not thrilled by the tax increase but also wary of passing a measure that could kneecap Nashville’s ability to govern itself.

There are six parts to the provision, but two stick out as being especially problematic. The first would cap property tax rate increases at 3 percent per year and revert the city’s tax rate to the 2019-20 fiscal year rate. Not only would this likely force big cuts to school and police budgets, it also

THIS WEEK ON OUR NEWS AND POLITICS BLOG: Mayor John Cooper made an appearance on a local TV morning show last week and gleefully announced that his next budget will include “the largest property tax rate reduction ever.” As ever, the devil is in the details (and the arcanity of tax law).

It’s not that the mayor was lying, necessarily, it’s just that he chose his words very carefully. See, he said “property tax rate reduction.” And that’s true — by all estimates, Metro’s tax rate will decrease, but that’s only because Davidson County is in the midst of a mandated reappraisal. As anyone with a frontal lobe knows, property values have skyrocketed since the last valuation four years ago. State law prohibits a local government from

CONSERVATIVES CAN’T WIN ELECTIONS IN DAVIDSON COUNTY, SO THEY HAVE RESORTED TO ATTEMPTING TO CHANGE THE CHARTER TO ACHIEVE THEIR POLITICAL OBJECTIVES. most agree are required. However, election attorney Jamie Hollin — who has sued the Davidson County Election Commission and won twice in the past four years — pointed out a number of flaws in the petitions at Saturday’s meeting, including the fact that the commission had likely ignored its own rules in at least one case. As of press time on Monday, DCEC staff had begun counting and verifying the signatures again.

By Thursday, the commissioners might be able to get past the signature issue and on to whether the proposed charter amendments are even constitutional. But that decision is likely to be fractious, and there is sure to be litigation, no matter the outcome. And to add another degree of difficulty to all of this, there is probably no way to hold an election before the Metro Council approves a budget for the next fiscal year, casting even more confusion on what exactly voters are being asked to repeal, given whatever our new tax rates may be.

It’s a bouillabaisse of lawyers, activists, legal arcana and outrage.

In other words, it’s a shitshow on steroids.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

can hear a person’s post-conviction claim on the issue. The Tennessee Supreme Court called for legislators to create one. … Laurie CardozaMoore, who led opposition to the construction of a mosque in Murfreesboro, once claimed that 30 percent of Muslims are terrorists. She also spread disinformation about the 2020 presidential election, and now she’s the newest member of the state’s textbook commission after the state Senate approved her appointment. Her term expires in June. The commission is not scheduled to review any civics or history materials during her tenure. …

Metro Nashville announced the homeless shelter at the Fairgrounds Nashville, set up in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, is scheduled to close July 1. The decision is prompted in part by a rising rate of vaccination among Nashvillians, including those experiencing homelessness.

NASHVILLESCENE.COM/PITHINTHEWIND EMAIL: PITH@NASHVILLESCENE.COM TWEET: @PITHINTHEWIND

nashvillescene.com | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

Exploring responsible recycling, environmental justice, land trusts, eco-friendly services and more Inspired by Earth Day, we at the Scene have dedicated this week’s cover package to environmental issues. We’ve got a round-up of eco-friendly shops, services and nonprofits, as well as a look at responsible recycling. We also dive into disaster mitigation as it relates to climate change, look at an initiative designed to educate Nashvillians about environmental racism, and explore some of Middle Tennessee’s land trusts.

SO YOU WANT TO RECYCLE RESPONSIBLY As much as 46 percent of what Nashvillians put in recycling bins is unusable.

How can we all do better?

BY ABBY LEE HOOD

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sound not unlike rain patters incessantly at the back of the open-air building where trucks dump material at Nashville’s River Hills Recycling Center. This is the largest recycling facility in Nashville, and that

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sound is a thunderstorm of sorts. It’s a steady stream of pill bottles, drink cans, cardboard boxes and other materials hurtling through a large machine called a drum feeder, which sends the items down a conveyor belt to be sorted.

Although operations manager Dilan Vince says the drum feeder can handle about 20 tons of material per hour, not everything that ends up at the River Hills facility is recyclable. In fact, Jenn Harrman, the waste reduction program manager for Metro Public Works, says as much as 46 percent of what Nashville puts into residential recycling bins is unusable. She says that’s a high contamination rate compared to other cities, but Metro is working to educate residents with new initiatives like the Waste Wizard app on the Public Works website. The app launched a few weeks ago, and Harrman says her department is constantly adding to the 300 materials residents can quickly

search and learn how to recycle — or if they can be recycled at all.

At River Hills, bags of aluminum cans peek out of piles of material. While cans are recyclable and aluminum is valuable, a bag could damage equipment if it becomes wrapped around machinery, shutting down the facility until workers can cut the bag out. Those bags of cans will likely end up in a landfill. (The lesson: Make sure your recyclables are loose in your bin, not bagged.)

If Nashvillians aren’t always great at recycling, how can we do it better? Harrman says aside from the app, Metro offers free online webinars to educate residents — recent events covered topics on sustainability, from recycling to climate change. Metro’s recycling website also has extensive information about what’s recyclable, and drives home Harrman’s “bottles, jars and jugs” mantra about the type of plastic that’s recyclable. She says the recycling symbols

on plastic can be confusing, but residents should remember that the numbers inside the symbols only indicate the type of plastic, not whether it can be recycled.

“If it doesn’t fit that category, it’s not recyclable in our program,” Harrman says. “A lot of folks get frustrated because they can’t recycle as much as they used to, but you were never actually recycling those items.

They ended up in landfills.”

While the contamination rate is high, not all Nashville residents are confused by the process. Chris Ann Lunghino — policy and communications director for large-scale solar farm developer Silicon Ranch Corp. — could best be described as committed to recycling. Lunghino lives in an East Nashville apartment building and runs a miniature waste management system in her closet.

Her building offers some recycling, but only broken-down cardboard boxes. Because Metro only collects bins from residential

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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“PUTTING WASTE IN A LANDFILL CREATES A LOT OF GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSIONS THAT CONTRIBUTE TO CLIMATE CHANGE, AND ALSO RESULTS IN POLLUTION OF THE SURROUNDING SOILS, WHICH EXTENDS TO OUR WATER SYSTEMS THAT AFFECT PEOPLE’S HEALTH.”

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

—CHRIS ANN LUNGHINO

homes, Lunghino organizes her compost and recycling in reusable aluminum bins and carts it to a drop-off center every other week in a borrowed car.

“Putting waste in a landfill creates a lot of greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change, and also results in pollution of the surrounding soils, which extends to our water systems that affect people’s health,” says Lunghino.

Lunghino says she has worked with management at her building to try to implement a better recycling program, but has made little progress. She understands the challenges of pickup at apartment buildings but hopes Metro expands recycling collection to buildings and businesses. In the meantime, she lives as green a lifestyle as possible, buying organic produce and eschewing air conditioning. She says being mindful can have a big impact, and she encourages residents to focus on what they can do instead of solely blaming corporations that contribute heavily to climate change.

Other Nashvillians do feel a little helpless,

PHOTOS: ERIC ENGLAND

RECYCLING SORTING AT RIVER HILLS RECYCLING CENTER

CARDBOARD AT RIVER HILLS RECYCLING CENTER

nashvillescene.com | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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4/19/21 6:13 PM

and say recycling isn’t enough. Metro’s website says more than half of the city’s waste comes from business and industry, and couple Landon Funk and Ben Kurland say holding corporations accountable for their waste is important.

“Individual action can feel demoralizingly insignificant when the climate crisis is happening on a global scale,” Kurland says. “A handful of companies create the majority of the pollution.”

Funk says Kurland has encouraged her to recycle more since the pair moved in together, and they both were surprised to hear that plastic tubs and clamshell containers — like the ones their Trader Joe’s ice cream cones come in — aren’t recyclable. Funk also says using pesticidefree and reusable menstrual products is an important aspect of the couple’s environmentally friendly lifestyle.

Greenpeace’s plastic projects leader Kate Melges echoes the couple’s concern, saying plastic is one of the biggest sources of pollution, and that corporations producing single-use plastic have told consumers the responsibility for recycling starts at home.

“Corporations need to be held responsible for their waste,” Melges says. “For decades they’ve been putting responsibility on consumers for dealing with their packaging.”

Melges says she would tell Kurland not to give up, and would remind him consumers have a lot of power with their dollar. Residents can advocate locally for reusable and refillable packaging, and give their dollars to companies that provide these options. She acknowledges it can be disheartening to go shopping considering the prevalence of plastic packaging, but says we should feel empowered to tell companies we want greener products.

Voting with our dollar and buying into eco-friendly companies may become even more important in Nashville, as many of our landfills are set to fill up and close in the next few years. Todd Lawrence, executive director of nonprofit Urban Green Lab, says the organization educates residents about Metro’s priorities, like the current Solid Waste Master Plan, which “will serve as a roadmap to achieving Zero Waste over the next 30 years,” according to Metro’s website. Lawrence says landfills filled up faster than expected with debris from the downtown bombing.

Although he says future waste could be shipped to other communities, creating more emissions and increasing waste collection prices, the Solid Waste Master Plan is putting us on the right track.

As for Nashville residents like Funk and Kurland, there’s more to learn about recycling every day. While both are committed to holding corporations accountable, they’ll continue improving their individual efforts as well. The couple plans to start using Metro’s Waste Wizard app to increase recycling efficiency in their home in The Nations. It’s a learning process.

“We recycle both the box and [plastic] tray,” says Kurland of the pair’s icecream-cone packaging. But after finding out that the plastic bit isn’t recyclable?

“We won’t recycle the tray anymore.”

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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EASY BEING GREEN

Nine eco-friendly shops, services and nonprofits in Nashville

BY D. PATRICK RODGERS

THE GOOD FILL

thegoodfill.co East Side-based refill shop The Good Fill helps Nashvillians avoid the use of disposable plastics by offering bath, body and pet products (and more) to be taken home in reusable bottles and other containers. Bring your own glass bottle — or purchase one in the store — and pay by the ounce for shampoo, soap, laundry or dish detergent, all-purpose cleaner and more. The shop also offers eco-friendly products like compostable scrub brushes and organic mesh produce bags.

THE GOOD FILL

TURNIP GREEN CREATIVE REUSE

turnipgreencreativereuse.org Every year, Turnip Green Creative Reuse in Wedgewood-Houston diverts thousands of pounds of discarded materials that otherwise might end up in a landfill. The nonprofit uses these materials for afterschool projects and reuse workshops, as well as for stocking its artist marketplace with “handcrafted arts and crafts from local reuse artists.” Visit Turnip Green’s website for details on how to donate or shop for materials and other ways to get involved.

JUNKDROP

junkdropnash.com Junkdrop bills itself as the “most ethical junkremoval solution in Nashville.” The service offers curbside pickup as well as clean-outs for homes, businesses, storage spaces and more, with donated items like appliances, clothes, furniture and construction materials going to those in need. Junkdrop partners with organizations like Habitat for Humanity, Goodwill and the Oasis Center to get donated materials to underprivileged Nashvillians.

SAGE REFILL MARKET

sagerefillmarket.com Located near the corner of Wedgewood and 12th Avenue South, Sage Refill Market offers “low-waste and package-free options for household cleaning and personal care products.” Sage Refill stocks green products from popular vendors like Tru Earth, Music City Suds and PlantPaper, offering biodegradable cleaners, charcoal compost filters, reusable fabric gift wrap and much more.

RECYCLENASH

recyclenash.com Davidson County doesn’t offer a door-to-door recycling service for glass — and that’s where the folks at RecycleNash come in. The company offers curbside pickup for residents of West Nashville, East Nashville, Belmont, Belle Meade, Brentwood, Hermitage and West End for $10 a month. Glass is estimated to take 1 million years to decompose, but as noted by RecycleNash, it is 100 percent “reusable and recyclable with no loss in purity or quality.”

BLISS AND THE TRASH PLANTS

instagram.com/blissandthetrashplants Run by Bliss Cortez, Bliss and the Trash Plants

NASHVILLE FOODSCAPES

redistributes “abandoned” food and plants to folks in the community who might need them. The group collects overstock and food donations from area farms, gardens and businesses to build grocery and supply kits for people struggling with housing and financing — particularly queer folks and people of color. Cortez is soon relocating to Atlanta, with hopes of establishing another Trash Plants branch there.

NASHVILLE FOODSCAPES

nashvillefoodscapes.com Nashville Foodscapes endeavors to get more Nashvillians growing their own food — “yard-to-table style.” The company customizes yards and homes, consulting with clients about permaculture principles, water conservation and other earth-friendly methods.

As Scene culture editor Erica Ciccarone put it in our 2020 Best of Nashville issue, “By specializing in trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals that produce edible fruits and vegetables, Foodscapes takes a holistic approach to landscaping, reminding us that our relationship with the earth is reciprocal.”

NASHVILLE TREE FOUNDATION

nashvilletreefoundation.org Since 1986, the dendrophiles at local nonprofit the Nashville Tree Foundation have worked to preserve urban forests and identify some of the oldest trees in the county. The group has planted more than 10,000 trees and designated more than 25 arboreta since its inception. Visit the organization’s website to make a donation, sign up for volunteer opportunities or suggest a site for more trees to be planted.

TURNIP GREEN CREATIVE REUSE

TRI-STAR RECYCLING

tsrecycle.com As the only e-recycling company in Nashville certified by the R2 Technical Advisory Committee, Tri-Star Recycling manages the ethical disposal of surplus electronics that could otherwise lead to ecological contamination. Having worked with schools, hospitals, tech firms, auto plants and more, Tri-Star notes that improperly handled electronic waste can lead to “chronic illnesses and death to exploited communities overseas when managed unsafely, which is devastating yet preventable.”

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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LAB PARTNERS

PATRICK KING

W

BY ERICA CICCARONE

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“... IN REALITY, WHEN YOU LOOK AT THE NUMBERS, THE OVERWHELMING MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE IN CLIMATE CHANGE AND BELIEVE THAT THINGS HAVE TO BE DONE AROUND CLIMATE CHANGE ARE BLACK AND BROWN.” —PATRICK KING preservation, says Padgett, who participated in the HIDE study of Cayce Homes.

Says Padgett, “Historically, environmental preservationists and conservationists’ ideals were brought forth in response to the Industrial Revolution, which brought mass destruction upon the natural environment’s ecosystems, water and resources in North America as we, in our thirst to develop as an industrialized nation, cut down every tree, mined every mountain and drained every river we could find. But in many cases, that was a human-versus-nature ideal.” With the environmental justice movement, he says, the definition of “environment” has been broadened to include the people who live in

CAYCE HOMES

the environment. “Most people would not think of the destruction of the Black community by the construction of Interstate 40 in the 1960s as an ‘environmental issue’ or case study, but it absolutely is. It caused mass destruction to the human environment that we’re still trying to recover from.”

In an effort to bring environmental justice education to the fore, Urban Green Lab has embarked on the Nashville Environmental Justice Initiative to get the topic into our schools and communities. According to King, the objective is “to grow a culture of learning around environmental justice here in Nashville that protects our most marginalized populations in town.” To do PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

hen you think about climate activists, who comes to mind? Greta Thunberg? Al Gore? A recent study by Yale University’s Climate Change Communication program found that Latino and Black Americans are more likely to be alarmed or concerned about climate change than whites.

“The environmental sector suffers from an alarming amount of whiteness,” says Patrick King, the sustainability education manager of local nonprofit Urban Green Lab. “There’s a perception that it’s a space only for affluent white folks, when in reality, when you look at the numbers, the overwhelming majority of people who believe in climate change and believe that things have to be done around climate change are Black and brown.”

This may be because Black, Latino and indigenous Americans are disproportionately impacted by environmental stressors, including here in Nashville. In 2016, a study by the group Health Impacts of Degraded Environments collected ambient and indoor air quality in and around James A. Cayce Homes in East Nashville. The team, headed by Dr. Kimberly Jackson, also conducted health interviews with residents. The results were clear: The residents of Nashville’s largest public-housing complex were disproportionately sick — the area had one of the highest rates of asthma in Davidson County — and the environmental factors in these homes and backyards could be to blame.

HIDE found that pollutants indoors — like mold, pest allergens and nitrogen dioxide — exceeded public health standards. Outside, pollution came from auto emissions on I-24, which lacks the environmental engineering that separates highways from residential neighborhoods in places like Green Hills. At the time of the study, toxic substances were being legally released into the air within two miles of Cayce Homes. HIDE also found that recycled tires used in place of mulch on the community’s playgrounds were releasing toxic substances into the air.

It’s an example of environmental racism: when a group of people bears a disproportionate share of environmental consequences because of their race, and a person’s ZIP code can predict their health and well-being. The answer to environmental racism is environmental justice, a movement that is described by its founder Dr. Robert Bullard as “embracing the principle that all people and communities have a right to equal protection and equal enforcement of environmental laws and regulations.”

Though the environmental justice movement started in the 1970s, it has recently gained mainstream attention. Here in Nashville, researchers like HIDE’s Jackson and Tennessee State University’s Dr. David Padgett have been studying it for a long time. Environmental justice goes beyond traditional ideas about conservation and

PHOTO: STEVEN ROMERO OF MUSIC CITY CREATIVE

The Environmental Justice Initiative seeks to educate Nashvillians about environmental racism

this, King says the organization will make recommendations for where environmental justice education can take place, such as in local public schools and public universities throughout the Southeast. The nonprofit also hopes to learn what locals view as socioenvironmental issues in their communities, so Urban Green Lab can develop a learning module that trains residents not just in environmental principles, but in collaborative problem-solving as well.

King cites what are known as heat islands as another key issue. Public housing projects like Cayce have more concrete and less natural ground, so they tend to be several degrees hotter than spots like the tony and lush Belle Meade. “Heat kills more folks than flooding, hurricanes and storms,” King says. “It promotes worse air quality. What does that mean for communities who have been historically disinvested by the city and suffer from outstanding health issues and lack of access to health care? There are so many contributing factors, and heat only exacerbates that, specifically with the young and old.”

Padgett points to the years-long battle to stop landfill construction and expansion in the predominantly Black middle-class neighborhood of Bordeaux as another example of environmental racism. Because environmental justice considers people themselves to be part of the environment, its issues extend to transportation, food security, housing and more. What Urban Green Lab is proposing could harness the energy of Generation Z environmentalists and put it to work in their communities. But before they can make any recommendations, they have to do some research.

Urban Green Lab found a natural partner in TSU, the historically Black university that has been deeply engaged in environmental and agricultural research for a century. Dr. Sky Georges, a professor in the TSU Department of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, is leading three studies with grad student Devin Ross. The team will analyze environmental justice curricula in public universities in the Southeast; survey Nashville middle and high school science teachers about their attitudes regarding the subject and whether they are incorporating environmental justice into their coursework; and collect data about resident needs and concerns.

“As an HBCU,” says Georges, “I think TSU has a responsibility to lead the conversation, and oftentimes, minority-serving institutions are not invited to participate or lead. … Tennessee State University is also a land-grant university, whose mission is to better the lives of Tennesseans. In so doing, you have to not only engage but actively participate in [proposing] recommendations and solutions.”

Ross hopes that the work of TSU and Urban Green Lab will extend outside the state.

“Our study can potentially be a blueprint for change,” says Ross, “so we have an environmental justice concept incorporated into classrooms.”

King says education has to extend to various stakeholders — including government partners, private development firms and residents — and the organization is casting a wide net. Environmental justice looks different in every city, and the work being done

by Urban Green Lab and TSU should give us a clearer picture of what equity, access and justice look like in our communities.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021

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4/19/21 6:14 PM

THE NEXT DISASTER

How Nashville is preparing for increasingly common severe rain events

T

he flash flooding around Nashville late last month didn’t leave as strong an impression as the historic widespread flooding of May 2010. There were fewer indelible images of submerged landmarks, fewer national news hits.

But in some areas of the city, the deluge in 2021 was even worse than 2010, and some people are still trying to dig out.

At Lesby and Roberto’s home along Nolensville Road, the rainwater flowed “like a river,” Roberto remembers. The couple’s home — which they rent and share with Lesby’s sister, brother-in-law and three kids between the two couples — sits in a lowlying area between the busy South Nashville thoroughfare and a small tributary of Sevenmile Creek. Water from the nearby stream gushed into their home; weeks later, mud still cakes the floor, kitchen tiles buckled from the rising water. Roberto points out shopping carts and other debris left beneath a bridge by the storm, worried the blockage could exacerbate future rains.

Though the Honduran couple are undocumented, they weren’t shy about sharing their story via an interpreter, though we’re leaving out their surnames.

The night of the flood, Lesby decamped with the children to a friend’s house while Roberto stayed at the home, sleeping on a mattress that kept him out of the water on the floor. The strong smell of dampness remains, and the family worries about their kids sleeping in the stinky air. Since then, the family has bounced around to different locations, staying at a hotel paid for by a philanthropic organization for a while and finally moving into a new apartment with three months of rent paid by another organization. With their cars flooded and other needs arising, Roberto had to stay home from his construction job for weeks.

“The hardest thing has been with the children, taking them back and forth to the hotel, to the house, not having that stability,” Lesby says.

Roberto and Lesby say the owner of their home has not been helpful and has threatened to withhold their deposit or call the police if they do not clean out the damaged house.

“This is something that happened to us, and it’s worth telling,” Roberto says.

The family has lived in the home for less than a year, but neighbors say it also flooded in 2010. And with experts predicting increasingly common severe rain events in Nashville, induced in part by climate change, more and more families will be faced with Roberto and Lesby’s expensive, traumatic experience.

“As Nashville continues to rebuild from the flood and recover from the ongoing pandemic, we have to make sure that our hardest-hit communities receive the relief they need,” says Lisa Sherman-Nikolaus, executive director of the Tennessee Im-

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT

NASHVILLE’S 2010 FLOOD migrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, which has helped coordinate response in the immigrant-heavy communities where flooding was most severe. “We’ve experienced so much loss over the past year, and while resilient, our communities are suffering.

We need equitable and inclusive emergency response and relief that prioritizes the communities that are too often left behind in these critical moments.”

At the Harding Place Condos, not far from Lesby and Roberto’s house, even more families — many of them workingclass immigrants — were turned out of their homes after the flood. Though only some of the units were damaged by floodwaters, everyone was evacuated a few days later when Metro officials determined that submerged electrical equipment posed a fire hazard. The resulting scene was chaotic, according to Metro Councilmember Courtney Johnston, who was on the scene helping coordinate the evacuation.

Johnston’s District 26 includes much of the hardest-hit areas from the most recent flood. She estimates that hundreds of her constituents are now homeless.

“When we have an emergency like this, that is when government is the most needed,” Johnston says. “We should have had a more swift response, we should have had a more coordinated response, and I can tell you, when the dust settles from this, we will, because I’m not going to let it go. … What we have is a ton of resources, but what we don’t have is coordination of those resources. And that’s chaos, and I can’t respond to chaos with chaos.”

Lots of people, including at Metro government, are working to mitigate the impacts of future flooding. That work started in earnest after the 2010 flood and continues today.

Metro — along with federal partners

— has bought more than 400 homes in flood-prone areas, most of which have been demolished and converted to green space.

The city has added regulations requiring new development to better absorb rainfall.

Metro continues to update its flood maps, with the goal of giving residents and emergency responders better information about potential floods. And in addition to other moves, Metro is working on bolstering its river gauge system and floodproofing water treatment and other water facilities.

“When you look at a map of Nashville, you see a lot of creeks and streams, which is a blessing, but it also puts us at higher risk of flooding,” says Sonia Allman of Metro Water Services. “We need to always be aware of our flood risk. You think of that right after a flood, but as years go by you tend to forget the severity and you forget that risk until you receive another reminder, as we just did.”

But when inundated with the amount of rain that fell in 2010 — or in March — even the best-intended mitigation efforts are likely to fall short and leave at least some residents vulnerable, including in places beyond federally designated flood zones.

“We can’t develop solutions that are absolutely bulletproof,” says Hiba Baroud, a Vanderbilt University professor whose research focuses on infrastructure resilience and data science.

Instead, Baroud says, the goal is to focus on reducing “shocks” to the system. An additional goal of her work, she says, is to make sure “we don’t think of the built environment as just the buildings or just the infrastructure, but think about it in terms of the people who rely on these services, thinking about the built environment as a service provider to people.”

There have been new development regulations — including those targeted at what

Metro Water Services’ Allman describes as a loophole for infill developments like talland-skinnies. But the rapid-fire build-out of Nashville’s neighborhoods and business districts in the decade-plus since the 2010 flood has not helped the situation.

Dr. David Padgett, a longtime Tennessee State University professor focusing on hydrology and geography, has seen the issue firsthand, including in his outside work advising on climate-change mitigation in lowlying places like New Orleans and Miami. In Nashville, the effects of climate change are less obvious, at least until another flood hits.

And Padgett, like other experts, predicts the rains will keep coming.

“People would be amazed at how much plants absorb in terms of volume of water,” Padgett says. “That’s why when we denude the land of plants and grass, you immediately see runoff increase. You can see what happens when we pave over, bulldoze, cut down trees, and that water has no place to go except perhaps your living room and basement.”

Often, he says, those effects are felt more acutely in poorer neighborhoods — whether that’s because of a lack of investment in mitigation efforts, a lack of trees and open space or other compounding factors. It could also be attributed to who is asking for help for the neighborhood. For example, he says, “If Ms. Jenkins from the East Side goes to the meeting and says, ‘Well my house is getting flooded,’ and she’s angry and doesn’t present a solution,” she and her community will have less success than a well-resourced, well-connected community.

But that’s changing, if slowly.

“A lot of communities even here in Nashville are becoming much more aware of the role they can play in flood mitigation,” Padgett says.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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TRUST ISSUES

Conservation land trusts in the Midstate are preserving largely untouched wilderness

O

BY J.R. LIND

ne of Nashville’s greatest assets is that open space is never too far away. It doesn’t take long to get from the evermore bustling center of the city to the by-God countryside. Drive five minutes west on River Road, say, or Whites Creek Pike, and it’s like being in the middle of nowhere.

And it’s not just on the fringes of the county. There are pockets of undeveloped land — sometimes even wild land — tucked close to the core. It’s why the geckering of foxes is a not-uncommon sound within sight of downtown, and why deer control much of East Nashville. It also goes a long way in explaining the persistent endemic sinus pressure.

It’s not easy to protect these wild places.

As the old phrase goes, they’re not making any more land, and so developers lust after the shrinking inventory of open space, and money talks louder than overwhelming public sentiment — as has become apparent time and again in the decade of Nashville’s latest boom.

But money can also serve as an expression of sentiment, and that’s the space where conservation land trusts do their work.

Groups like TennGreen Land Conservancy and the Land Trust for Tennessee team with landowners to permanently protect environmentally significant or historically important sites — or sometimes, just nice natural places. Often this is done with conservation easements, an agreement between the owner and the trust that limits how the property can be used or subdivided. But sometimes, it takes more than that. Sometimes the trust buys the property outright, usually then transferring ownership to another entity — state or local governments, typically — for long-term management.

Facing long odds and deep pockets, land trusts have managed to save some prominent properties. The Land Trust for Tennessee helped acquire land along the boundary of Radnor Lake State Natural Area, for example, expanding the popular urban wilderness. It holds a conservation easement for Hill Forest in Bellevue, one of the largest urban forests in the country. TennGreen purchased the West Meade Waterfall, the headwaters of Richland Creek, and transferred ownership to Metro in 2013. In 2019, the Branstetter family donated the forested hillside near Bellevue Valley Shopping Center to TennGreen to preserve it (presumably) in perpetuity.

But it’s not always the largesse of the fabulously wealthy — and the Branstetter heirs are certainly that — that helps save these spaces. In Hendersonville, a 73-acre farm was in the developers’ sights. The Batey Farm is the last undeveloped space of any size on the eastern peninsula in the lakeside suburb, and supply and demand being what they are, it carried a price of more than $4 million. The City of Hendersonville

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SOAK CREEK FARM was able to muster up enough to buy the lower 35 acres, but a local group — Friends of Indian Lake Peninsula — was left to raise the last $1 million for the adjacent 38-acre forested hillside. With TennGreen’s help, the group hit the mark in less than four months.

More than 850 households — including from 11 other states — donated. More than 40 percent of the donations were $200 or less.

Charmingly, more than $1,000 came from lemonade stands. Batey Farm is slated to become a city park.

Land saved by the trusts has a variety of uses. The Land Trust for Tennessee often simply preserves farmland, protecting it from subdivision. There are numerous parks and historic sites that have benefited from the trusts’ work. Hiking trails and land alongside the Natchez Trace Parkway are part of the bailiwick. The Park at Harlinsdale Farm in Franklin, which hosts the Pilgrimage Festival, is protected by the Land Trust’s work.

In March, TennGreen scored a massive coup for conservation and, at the same time, opened a new avenue in the land-trust game.

Philanthropist George Lindemann, who in 2017 donated more than 1,000 acres to the

“WE’RE LOOKING INTO A VARIETY OF BENEFICIAL PLANTS FOR MEDICINAL AND CONSERVATION PURPOSES.” —CAROLYN REHM

state to establish the Soak Creek section of the Cumberland Trail in Rhea and Bledsoe counties, donated Soak Creek Farm — a tract of nearly 2,000 acres — to TennGreen.

Crisscrossed with more than 16 miles of streams, the tract is a mosaic habitat, including forested streams, grassland and open space and upland wooded areas. The trust and Lindemann announced that the long-term goal is to bar the area from development, except for a research station, partnering with colleges and universities for management.

Part of the work at the research station will be devoted to identifying medicinal plants in the area, providing another benefit

to the public. The acquisition being so new, TennGreen isn’t even aware of what might be out there.

“We’re looking into a variety of beneficial plants for medicinal and conservation purposes,” says Carolyn Rehm, the group’s communications manager. “We’re still working through plans for what those specific species and management activities might be, while we learn more about what is present and suitable habitat on the property.”

Either way, it’s 2,000 more acres of largely untouched wilderness that can just be, all within a short drive of an ever-changing city.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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4/19/21 6:16 PM

CRITICS’ PICKS O F

T H I N G S

T O

TUNE IN TO AN AUTHOR EVENT WITH KENDRA DECOLO AND CIONA ROUSE

NASHVILLE BALLET’S V I R T U A L FA M I LY D AY APRIL 23-25

via nashvilleballet.com

[ACT NATURALLY]

CELEBRATE NASHVILLE EARTH DAY

Ah, the return of free festivals. Is it a sign that nature is healing? At Nashville Earth Day, there will be plenty of fun ways to help give back [ON POINTE] to Mother Earth. The festival, slated for CHECK OUT NASHVILLE BALLET’S Saturday at Centennial Park, will include VIRTUAL FAMILY DAY a market and exhibition space where local Nashville Ballet is taking its popular businesses and farmers will sell goods, Family Day online this year, with a virtual food, snow cones and more, while local program that is sure to keep little ones agencies, nonprofits and others will be set engaged, entertained and moving. The up with educational materials. There will event offers more than four hours of be acoustic performances from virtual on-demand content, which the Global Education Center children can enjoy throughout EDITOR’S NOTE: drummers and dancers, banjo/ the weekend. The lineup AS A RESPONSE TO THE fiddle duo Frank Evans and includes a full performance of ONGOING COVID-19 PANDEMIC, Ben Plotnick, folk-R&B singerNashville Ballet’s Ferdinand WE’VE CHANGED THE FOCUS OF songwriter Kyshona, expert the Bull (performed by the THE CRITICS’ PICKS SECTION TO INCLUDE ACTIVITIES YOU CAN pop singer-songwriter Tristen, artists of NB2), as well as PARTAKE IN WHILE YOU’RE virtuosic guzheng player a fun read-along of Munro AT HOME. Wu Fei and folk duo Smooth Leaf’s charming tale led by Hound Smith. The Nashville Tree special guests from Parnassus Foundation will give away 500 free Books. There’s also a storytime trees at the event, and attendees can also (plus a fanciful movement activity) built help Turnip Green Creative Reuse make around Shakespeare’s A Midsummer a collaborative piece of art with recycled Night’s Dream. Families can choose from DANCE

ERICA CICCARONE

materials. Naturally, the whole event is centered on celebrating the Earth and spurring environmental change. Go be part of the healing. Check nashvilleearthday. org for COVID-19 safety protocols before heading over to Centennial Park. 11 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday, April 24, in Centennial Park AMANDA HAGGARD [CHECK ’EM OUT!]

CELEBRATE INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE DAY

Our independent bookstores have handled the past year-and-change of uncertainty like champs. By the end of March 2020, Green Hills oasis Parnassus Books and East Side sanctuary The Bookshop had both closed their doors and pivoted to online ordering. The Bookshop’s curated bundles became indispensable

for readers searching for new, inventive material to occupy their brains, and Parnassus continued to showcase local-andbeyond authors via well-run virtual events.

And as always, booksellers at both locations were available for recommendations through social media, phone calls and emails, so we did not lack for that personal experience when shopping for books. When shops opened by appointment and at very limited capacity late last year, I was ready to head over and abide by COVID guidelines.

Having The Bookshop all to myself for 45 minutes lifted my spirits for weeks. Our indie shops have survived, no doubt at some expense given the circumstances, making the 2021 Independent Bookstore Day even more of a reason to celebrate than ever.

Parnassus and The Bookshop will both be open on Saturday, April 24, for browsing and buying. Parnassus allows 10 customers in the store at a time, and The Bookshop is open by appointment only. Find the COVID guidelines on the shops’ websites — parnassusbooks.net and herbookshop.com.

Be on the lookout for specials and merch at both locations. On Saturday, head to the stores or buy online, and let your bedside stack of to-read books pile high! All day Saturday, April 24, at Parnassus Books, 3900 Hillsboro Pike, and The Bookshop, 1043 W. Eastland Ave. ERICA CICCARONE [LIFTING UP YOUNG VOICES]

WATCH NASHVILLE REP’S YOUNG VOICES MONOLOGUE COMPETITION

It’s always gratifying to see local theater artists giving back to the community.

And with its Young Voices Monologue Competition, Nashville Repertory Theatre has recruited some of the area’s very best to mentor young students. First announced in February, the new program was designed to celebrate the works of important playwrights while providing valuable theater training to aspiring performers ages 12 through 18. Over the past several weeks, students from 22 schools have taken part in a series of workshops, receiving one-on-one instruction as they prepare a monologue from playwright Idris Goodwin’s selected works. The program is headed by Nashville actor, director and teaching artist Jon Royal, and its mentors include Kenny Dozier, Alicia Haymer, Rashad Rayford, Stella Reed and Tamiko Robinson Steele. On Sunday, the finalists will present their monologues in the live final Young Voices competition for a chance to win cash awards. The Young Voices Monologue Competition streams live via Nashville Rep’s YouTube and Facebook pages. To learn more, visit nashvillerep.org/youngvoices. 7 p.m.

Sunday, April 25, via Nashville Rep AMY STUMPFL

FILM

a host of other crafts, games and dance activities, including a virtual scavenger hunt. And because each segment has been prerecorded, kids can revisit the programs multiple times — and at their own pace.

The event is ideal for ages 4 through 8, and tickets start at $20. For complete details, visit nashvilleballet.com. April 23-25 via the Nashville Ballet AMY STUMPFL

BOOKS

The poems of Nashville’s own Kendra DeColo are more than evocative — they’re immodest, unmoored, slick with sex. DeColo has been published widely in literary magazines and journals — as well as in our humble pages — and is the author of poetry collections My Dinner With Ron Jeremy and Thieves in the Afterlife. About the former, Scene contributor Steve Haruch wrote this in 2016: “Amid references to pornography and masturbation and pubic-hair trimming … DeColo manages to coax beauty and meaning from the absurd aching morass of human existence.” A visual artist once bristled when I asked her if having children impacted her work (“Would you ask that to a man?” she queried), but DeColo doesn’t shy away from connecting the two.

I’m Not Trying to Hide My Hungers From the World — available April 20, from BOA Editions — casts motherhood as heroic and brutal, joyful and defiant. DeColo will read from the collection and discuss it online with longtime collaborator Ciona Rouse. Not only is Rouse a formidable poet in her own right, but she is also a champion of the work of others, and her monthly series at Barnes and Noble, Lyrical Brew, was the place to hear Nashvile’s upand-coming poets in pre-pandemic times.

Parnassus is archiving all of its virtual author events on the shop’s Facebook page, so if you’ve got plans on Friday, you can still catch up with two of Nashville’s greats.

6 p.m. Friday, April 23, via Parnassus Books

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[YOU LIKE ME!]

ATTEND THE BELCOURT’S VIRTUAL RED CARPET EVENING

Since it first started a little more than

nashvillescene.com | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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CRITICS’ PICKS

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[THE F-WORD]

TUNE IN TO CONVERGENCE: FATPHOBIA IN CASTING AND BEHIND THE SCENES

The phrase “body-positive” has been co-opted by corporations and brands to such an extent that it has practically lost its meaning as a social movement. While it may be empowering to an individual, it has done nothing to stem the tide of anti-fat bias in our culture. Aubrey Gordon’s outstanding new book, What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Fat, is a clarion call for what she calls fat justice. “Acceptance is a step

ART

[BROWN BLOOD]

SEE THE PIKES PROJECT POETRY BILLBOARD IN SOUTH NASHVILLE

Frequent Scene contributor and area Renaissance man Joe Nolan has created another poetry billboard for his Pikes

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

ATTEND LIVING ROOM FILM CLUB FOR A DISCUSSION OF SHIVA BABY

Rose, which just wrapped its inaugural season at the end of March, features the host in conversation with a variety of other women in the music world. (Read more about Songbird in the latest installment of our Pod Goals series on p. 24.) Some of Rose’s guests are friends, but some she’s talking with for the first time when the mics get turned on. The common thread is that they are inspiring to Rose, a perceptive and nuanced artist who chose to steer her rising career away from mainstream country a few years back so she could focus on making the kind of music she wants to make.

Salute the Songbird is the kind of series that gives you a seat at the table, in a manner of speaking, for fascinating conversations about making music and navigating the white-male-dominated music business. On Wednesday, April 28, you’ll have a chance to actually be in the room for a live episode taping, in a format loosely modeled on a writers’ round. Rose will be joined by a slew of outstanding songsmiths, including Elizabeth Cook as well as previous podcast guests Jillette Johnson, Kalie Shorr, Nicole Atkins and Nicki Bluhm. In addition to their discussion, there will be a performance segment — among much more, expect to hear some songs from Rose’s forthcoming LP Have a Seat, set to be released Aug. 20.

Tickets for a limited audience to see the show in person start at $30, but you can watch a livestream via Mandolin for $15. 8 p.m. Wednesday, April 28, at City Winery, 609 Lafayette St. STEPHEN TRAGESER

Project series, and he’s enlisted help from the Essential Construction Worker Poets of Workers’ Dignity. His goal — to put poetry “in front of a mass audience by subverting a medium of retail advertising and transforming it into a transmitter of verse” — is well-served here, and arrives in time to celebrate National Poetry Month.

The Spanish-language poem translates to: “Dark rain on our night boots / our brown blood covers the earth in the heat of the day / We cross the borders of the world to give you everything / Long live the dignity of the migrant.” See it next to Walgreens at the intersection of Nolensville Pike and Thompson Lane. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

[AT THE TABLE]

SEE SALUTE THE SONGBIRDS FEAT. MAGGIE ROSE AND MORE, IN PERSON OR ONLINE

Rock ’n’ soul singer Maggie Rose’s podcast Salute the Songbird With Maggie

TV

show your support for Nashville’s nonprofit cinema center. Find more details and a ticket link at belcourt.org/virtualredcarpet.

With its 10 nominations, will David Fincher’s ode to cinema’s Golden Age, Mank, bring home the most trophies on the big night?

Could a dark horse like Sound of Metal land Best Picture? Will a studio other than Pixar win Best Animated Feature for once?

Did people actually like The Trial of the Chicago 7? These questions and more will be answered on Sunday. Tune in. 6 p.m. Sunday, April 25, via the Belcourt D. PATRICK RODGERS THEATER

two decades ago, the Belcourt Theatre’s annual Oscar-viewing party, A Red Carpet Evening, has evolved from a parkinglot soiree featuring hot dogs (nothing wrong with that!) to an elegant indoor gala featuring a silent auction and fancy food and drink (nothing wrong with that either!). Even with the delightful news that the longtime Hillsboro Village arthouse is returning to limited-capacity in-person screenings this week, the Belcourt will nevertheless keep this year’s Oscar party virtual due to COVID-19 concerns.

Attendees can expect a preshow featuring a cocktail tutorial, a group chat, movie trivia curated in part by your old pals at the Scene and much more. There will also be a silent auction, and the group chat will continue throughout the Academy Awards telecast (beginning at 7 p.m. Central time on ABC) so that film fans can celebrate — or commiserate over — the big wins. While ticketholders will also receive a curated box of take-home goodies to enjoy during the ceremony, those had to be reserved by April 19. Even if you missed the boat on the box, tickets for the festivities remain, and purchasing one of those is a great way to

[SITTING SHIVA]

One year ago, the Scene and the Belcourt kicked off an online discussion series that invites folks to join in via Zoom and discuss new and repertory films. The theater is opening at limited capacity on Friday, April 23, but Living Room Film Club has been so much fun that we’re going to keep on keepin’ on. Our latest installment is about Canadian writer-director Emma Seligman’s debut feature Shiva Baby, which you can rent to stream via the Belcourt’s virtual theater. After an appointment with her sugar daddy, Danielle (Rachel Sennott) heads to an anxiety-laden family affair: a shiva for an old family friend she doesn’t even remember. Tensions are already high as relatives and friends badger her about her post-grad plans, and she formulates all sorts of narratives about who she is and where she’s going. The truth is, she doesn’t know. To make matters worse, Danielle’s ex-girlfriend is there, and the sugar daddy himself shows up — along with his wife and child. The Scene’s Craig D. Lindsey writes that Seligman “takes an already awkward gathering and throws some juicy, salacious monkey wrenches into the mix.”

Our discussion will feature Vanderbilt University professor Rebecca Epstein-Levi.

An ethicist who focuses on sex, gender and Jewish studies, Epstein-Levi is sure to illuminate the film. She’ll be joined by Scene contributor Margaret Littman. Register at belcourt.org. 8 p.m. Tuesday, April 27, via the Belcourt ERICA CICCARONE PODCAST

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

FILM

forward,” Gordon writes, “but it’s a far cry from centering fat people’s humanity in our cruel and ceaseless conversations about fat bodies.” While other anti-discrimination movements gain traction, fat people are left behind as a group. (If you’re wondering why I’m using the word “fat” instead of “curvy” or “plus-size,” it’s because, as Gordon argues, those euphemisms “just serve as a reminder of how terrified so many thin people are to see our bodies, name them, have them.”) Theatrical arts often aim to center our humanity, yet fat actors are ineligible for many roles simply because of the size of their bodies. Verge Theater Company’s online conVERGEnce series is a space for actors and directors to discuss how real-world social problems play out onstage and in the boardrooms of arts institutions, and the next talk tackles this issue. “Fatphobia in Casting and Behind the Scenes” will address “fatphobia, its roots in white supremacy and anti-Black racism, size discrimination in theater, and the challenges that face artists living in larger bodies.” The conVERGEnce producer Tessa Bryant will be joined by costume designer Lori Gann-Smith and actor, musician and writer Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva. Visit facebook.com/vergetheaterco for details.

7 p.m. Monday, April 26, via Verge Theater Company ERICA CICCARONE

[DR. HADASSAH OLAYINKA ALI-YOUNGMAN, PRE-PH.D.]

WATCH A BLACK LADY SKETCH SHOW ON HBO

It’s becoming an amazing year for Black women in comedy, particularly in late-

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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4/19/21 11:53 AM

— Miranda Lambert From a 2020 interview at the Museum

Sixteen years into a chart-topping country music career, Miranda Lambert continues to notch accomplishments and realize dreams. In 2020, “Bluebird” became her biggest radio hit in eight years. Her album Wildcard—launched atop the country albums chart in late 2019—held on to the Top Ten well into the new year. In September, she took home a thirty-fifth ACM award, and with it, extended her stay as the most-awarded artist in ACM history.

Explore more of Lambert’s latest accomplishments (along with those of some of her country-music contemporaries and forebears) in the Museum’s exhibition American Currents: State of the Music, open now.

DOWNTOWN NASHVILLE Visit CountryMusicHallofFame.org to buy tickets. photo:

Jim Wright

nashvillescene.com | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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A BLACK LADY SKETCH SHOW night TV. The Amber Ruffin Show has been doing so well on NBC’s streaming service Peacock that the network has given the Late Night With Seth Meyers writer a Friday night slot. Over at Comedy Central on Friday nights, Doing the Most With Phoebe Robinson has the 2 Dope Queens alumna trying out activities with celebrity pals. And photogenic Instagram provocateur Ziwe Fumudoh has her own variety show — aptly titled Ziwe — coming in May on Showtime.

But let’s not forget the skit-crazy sistas of the Issa Rae-produced A Black Lady Sketch Show, which starts its second season Friday night — of course — at 10 p.m. on HBO. Series creators Robin Thede, Ashley Nicole Black and Gabrielle Dennis return (Season 1 regular Quinta Brunson has moved on to create a sitcom pilot for ABC), and new faces Laci Mosley and Skye Townsend join in to serve up for-us-by-us sketch comedy that’s dark, savage and esoterically on-point.

Let’s just say if you know all about Luster’s Pink Oil Moisturizer Hair Lotion, this show is made for you. CRAIG D. LINDSEY [PASSING DREAMS]

LISTEN TO NEW AMERICANA AND COUNTRY RELEASES

Some observers make hay out of what they perceive as the split between Americana and country music. As a critical stance, this take on the varied strains of Nashville music makes little sense to me, since I believe country and Americana overlap. A brace of current releases illustrates how Nashville’s music culture can nurture artists who combine rock, country and pop. A veteran of Music City’s rock scene, Indiana-bred singer, guitarist and songwriter Tim Carroll layered the instruments on his new full-length Slippery Slope with help from engineer Dave Coleman. Carroll’s version of rock ’n’ roll references New Wave, and Slippery Slope registers as a modern blues album that gives Carroll room to play some tough electric guitar. If Carroll’s music skirts commerciality, Ronnie Milsap’s A Better Word for Love mixes rock guitars with Milsap’s legendarily mellow voice. The album features a previously unrecorded song by rockabilly singer Carl Perkins, “Big Bertha,” and Milsap sounds as pop-friendly as always. A Better Word sports a lineup of guest stars that includes Vince Gill, while Loretta Lynn’s Still Woman Enough brings in Americana-country-whatever icons like Margo Price and Tanya Tucker to sing

alongside the 89-year-old Lynn. Still Woman Enough is a worthy addition to Lynn’s body of work. Recorded in Nashville in a nuanced pop-country mode, Hope Dunbar’s Sweetheartland reveals the Nebraska native as a master of narrative. Like, say, Brandy Clark and Lori McKenna, Dunbar writes about the stresses of life’s daily grind. She’s a superb tunesmith — check out “Dust,” in which Dunbar illuminates a “dead-end life.” California-born singer-songwriter Will Beeley grew up in Texas, and he cut his great 1979 outlaw-country album Passing Dream in Jackson, Miss. Beeley spent time in Nashville in the 1970s and ’80s, but he never cracked the system. That doesn’t matter — he’s a first-rate songster whose work bears comparison to Guy Clark’s. Beeley’s 1970 Sessions collects acoustic tracks he cut in San Antonio, Texas, a half-century ago, and songs like “A Highway’s Not a Home” deserve their place in the Americanacountry canon. EDD HURT TV

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WATCH Q: INTO THE STORM ON HBO

If you can stomach the obnoxious and often dangerous combination of confidence and absurdity that QAnon believers showcase, HBO’s new docuseries Q: Into the Storm is fascinating. The six-part deep dive on the right-wing conspiracy theory and its believers follows director Cullen Hoback as he travels around the globe on a quest to uncover Q’s secrets. The characters are multifaceted and never completely trustworthy, but Hoback trails them voraciously, gaining unprecedented access to the movement’s key players — including Jim and Ron Watkins, the father-son team behind 8chan, the website where Q originated, and Fredrick Brennan, who was the platform’s original creator.

The series views Q as a serious subject, featuring interviews with Q-Tubers and debunkers alike. In a behind-the-scenes featurette, Hoback likens his approach to Q as demystifying a magic trick — instead of showing the magic trick itself, he shows how the magic trick works, and how the “man behind the curtain” is an absurd crew of weirdo shit-posters. If you understand the machinations behind the illusion, Hoback hopes, the trick might not ever work again.

LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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SCENERY Arts and Culture News From the Nashville Scene

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Subscribe to Scenery, our weekly newsletter that covers visual art, theater, comedy, books, film and more.

Subscribe at nashvillescene.com/subscribe nashvillescene.com | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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FOOD AND DRINK

QUARANTRIPPING: 48 HOURS IN PADUCAH A quick trip to a quaint Kentucky town yields beer, burgers, bourbon and barbecue

BY ASHLEY BRANTLEY

W

hy Paducah?

I got that question every time I told people we were going there. To a point, I get it. If you’re a person who doesn’t routinely visit Huntsville, Ala., or Byrdstown, Tenn., it feels random. But I assure you: Small towns make for ideal weekend getaways, in part because of their constraints.

Drive instead of fly. Visit one museum instead of three. Walk everywhere. Decide between this brewery or that one, because there are only two. Having to make fewer choices — if the choices are good — takes the stress out of a vacation. Plus, you get to double back to places you like and pretend to be a local.

So it goes in Paducah, Ky. Roughly 140 miles northwest of Nashville, it’s a two- to three-hour drive, depending on how bad I-24 traffic is. See our recommended itinerary below. Departure time is 3 p.m. because if you’re still working until 5 on Friday, you’re COVID-ing wrong.

FRIDAY

5:15 P.M.: GET THERE, GET A BEER

Remember those two breweries? Dry Ground Brewing Company is the first, and it’s

not downtown, so go before you park. DGB was Paducah’s first craft brewery, and their funky, spacious taproom is in an old CocaCola bottling plant built in 1939. Try Leonard the Beer (a zippy, lemon-peel pale) or Uncle Luther, an English red “extra special bitter,” which just means it’s hoppy but balanced.

6:15 P.M.: CHECK IN A crucial part of small-town tripping is finding a walkable spot in the heart of town.

Skip the chains and book a boutique room at the 1857 Hotel, which is decked out with exposed brick, industrial design, a bar and a live-music venue (COVID-pending, yada

PADUCAH NASHVILLE

yada). If you need a few rooms, grab a condo at the 1857 Guest House, a building that was actually built in — you guessed it — 1857.

It’s smack in the middle of Market House Square, which is as central as you can get.

For something off the beaten path, try the Belle Louise Historic Guest House. It’s exactly what it sounds like: a big ol’ mansion built in 1879 that’s been spun into an absurdly spacious B&B. Think bewickered porches, Corinthian columns, crystal chandeliers — the whole nine. The decor’s dated, but that’s the friggin’ point, and it’s comfortable. Tip: Verify your room has an en suite bathroom.

It’s the only sane way to B&B.

edly old-school paintings of Paducah history, from Native Americans and steamboats to labor unions and quilts. (We’ll get there.)

It’s well-lit, even at night, so it’s essentially a museum you can visit anytime. It is not, however, an Instagram-inspired, I-needwings-because-I’m-as-precious-as-an-angel mural, so prepare yourself.

6:30 P.M.: WALK THE WALL

7 P.M.: GET A BROWN DRINK

The first thing you’ll notice about Paducah’s riverfront is that you can’t see the actual river from most of downtown — because of a big-ass wall. I’m a native Memphian, and so my first question was, “What idiotic tourism board let’s someone put a wall in front of a river — or rather, two rivers?” (The Ohio River and Tennessee River converge in downtown Paducah.) This just in: I am the idiot because it is, of course, a floodwall, and a historic one no less.

The Ohio River flood of 1937 was the worst natural disaster in Paducah history.

Eighteen inches of rain and sleet fell in 16 days, and the river rose 60 feet. That’s the length of a bowling alley — but vertical.

More than 27,000 Paducahans had to flee, so a floodwall was a no-brainer. By 1996, the city was sick of staring at the big brown wall, so they commissioned the Paducah Floodwall Murals. Today, it has 50-plus decid-

Ninety-five percent of the world’s bourbon is produced in Kentucky, and Barrel & Bond would appear to house most of it. Try one of the 1,500-plus they stock in a flight or cocktail, starting with a classic Old GrandDad. The high-rye, lightly cinnamon-y bourbon is distilled at Jim Beam, but it’s better, and it’s been name-checked by everyone and everything from M*A*S*H and Veronica Mars to Steinbeck and Skynyrd.

SARA BRADLEY AT FREIGHT HOUSE

7:45 P.M.: TASTE OF TOP CHEF Freight House is the move for dinner. Chefowner Sara Bradley was the runner-up on Season 16 of Top Chef, and you’ll see her running the line and chatting with regulars in this homey-yet-upscale neighborhood joint. Make a reservation, and start with soup. We had warm English pea with ricotta, preserved lemon and lavender croutons. It was spectacular — bright but luxurious, bursting with a few fresh, plump peas.

The crudité with beer cheese is sharp and spicy, the pepperoni dip is a rarified version of that thing your mom makes, and the deviled eggs — ours were everything-bagel with crunchy rye bits — are classed-up, expert comfort food. The shrimp-and-grits (pork, ’shrooms, NOLA BBQ sauce, pimento-cheese grits) were good, but for me, the small plates outshone the mains — and that’s actually better if you swing by the spot more than once. (We did.)

9 P.M.: CAP YOUR NIGHT

DRY GROUND BREWING COMPANY

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If you’re a Nashville Chad looking to get rowdy, hit The Johnson Bar. It’s chicly appointed but was blaring live music that sounded like something one of the Lines — either Florida or Georgia — will burn in hell for spawning, so we headed to The FoxBriar Cocktail Bar. The mezcal margarita at this speakeasy-ish spot is stellar, as are the flights. In addition to the usual whiskey

and/or tequila, try rum, amaro and brandy, the latter of which is a knockout nightcap.

SATURDAY

8 A.M.: BUZZED AND BAKED

Jump-start your day with Etcetera Coffeehouse’s Rocket Fuel, an extra-strong-brewed iced coffee that’s smooth and addictive. Pair it with a pastry from Kirchhoff’s Bakery & Deli, which was opened in 1873 by Prussian immigrant Franz Kirchhoff. Franz lived above the bakery and would roll an iron cart down to the river to sell his wares to steamboat workers. In 1957, the bakery shuttered for 40 years — until the fifth generation of Kirchhoffs brought it back, reopening in 1997. Today it’s full of folks grabbing challah, vollkornbrot (German rye bread), muffalettas, French onion soup or baconand-chive potato salad. The day we were there, they also had a three-piece band with a washtub bass, a stringed instrument that uses a tub as a resonator. Its alternate name: a “gutbucket,” which obviously rules.

10 A.M.: TOUR TIME You don’t go to Paducah without visiting the National Quilt Museum. It was started 30 years ago by a non-quilting couple (Bill and Meredith Schroeder) who loved quilting that much. By 2008, Congress had named it the national museum, so you go, Schroeders!

The small space is packed with 600 contemporary quilts, which means they were made after 1980 and which also means they’re way more fun to peruse than Grandma’s patchwork. Think fighter jets, Chinese dragons and Greek gods. The museum also displays kids’ quilts — snails, spaceships, sloths! — which honestly stole the show for me. Was my husband the only non-retireeage man there? Yep. But it was an interesting 20 minutes! (We don’t dawdle over art.)

Another option is the River Discovery Center.

It’s the size of a postage stamp and run by a lovely lady who seems like she came with the building. It has the small-town museum quirk that makes it as informative as it is slightly comical — ring a big bell, play a clown organ, visit “Otterville”! The low-tech simulator where you can “captain” a Coast Guard vessel — aka crash into stuff at decent speeds — was worth the $8 admission.

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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NOON: DOE IT RIGHT As any Ole Miss Rebel Black Bear Landshark will tell you, Doe’s Eat Place is an institution in Oxford, Miss., and in 13 other locations in the Delta. This one’s the closest to Nashville. Doe’s all-beef tamales — tender, savory, spiced little packages, tied up with string — have been made the same way since 1941. Order a dozen, and add chili. Always add chili.

1:30 P.M.: POUND THE PAVEMENT (FOR PORK) Walk or bike the Greenway Trail. The 5-mile route links downtown to Bob Noble Park, which has a lake, playgrounds and a skate park. If you don’t have a 10-mile round trip in you, Uber there and walk back. While you’re there, duck into Starnes Barbecue, where you’ll enjoy a smoked bologna sandwich in mint-green cinder-block surroundings, just as Paducahans have since 1955.

They’re not open Sundays, so get while the gettin’s good.

4:30 P.M.: TREASURE HUNT Back in the city, hit Antique Galleria on Jefferson Street. It’s crammed full of trash ’n’ treasure — old records, vintage Playboys, scary dolls, dainty dishes. It was well worth triggering my claustrophobia to score a T-shirt that reads, “Paducah, City of Quilts: Halfway between Possum Trot & Monkey’s Eyebrow.”

And yes, it is geographically sound.

5:30 P.M.: MONKEY BUSINESS Play cornhole in the huge outdoor area at Broussard’s Cajun Cuisine, an outpost of a Missouri-based restaurant “serving authentic bayou fare with a Louisiana vibe.” The étouffée was pretty good, and the staff was accommodating as hell. To wit: The day we were there, they happily seated a couple with a capuchin monkey, no questions asked. I, on the other hand, had many questions, including where the hell they got the thing. Answer: Trezevant,

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6:30 P.M.: BUS STOP BEER

7:30 P.M.: REFINED OR RELAXED For finer dining, try Cynthia’s Ristorante.

The cozy nook is decorated with local goods, and they make all their breads, pastas and desserts in house. Or keep things casual at The Bully Gorilla Bar. Grab a high-top table at the bar (a phrase that only makes sense during COVID) and befriend the bartender who goes by, simply, “Cheese.” Now, if a person introduces herself as “Cheese” and says her specialty is burgers, you order them. Cheese’s were impeccable — salty, juicy, griddled just until crisp and made using local beef from Hughes Meat Market. It’s a burger that could hold its own against Nashville’s Bare Bones, and that’s no small feat.

SUNDAY

Paducah is sleepy on Sundays, but so are you. Snooze a while and then swing by Over/Under sports bar for a shockingly great bloody mary. Then walk a block to Knoth’s Bar-B-Que for beef brisket — pit-smoked since 1965! — or get the burger, add pork, with hot barbecue sauce. Did I need another burger? Hell no. But the staff recommended this off-menu item, and it sounded nuts, so I had to try it. It was weirdly perfect — superthin patty, smoky pork, spicy sauce. Not as good as Cheese’s, but a solid runner-up, and a surprisingly great road-trip snack to boot.

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nashvillescene.com | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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MAGGIE ROSE HOLDS SPACE FOR WOMEN IN THE MUSIC INDUSTRY TO TELL THEIR STORIES In the latest installment of our series on local podcasts, we talk to the host of Salute the Songbird

BY MEGAN SELING

M

aggie Rose has spent the better part of the past decade playing music professionally, her days filled with writing, recording, touring and collaborating. She released her debut album Cut to Impress in 2013. Packed with genre-defying songs Rose had co-written with highly respected songwriters including Shelly Fairchild, Brandy Clark and Cam, it received critical acclaim and earned a spot on the Billboard charts.

Since then, Rose has toured with Sheryl Crow, sung with Outkast’s Big Boi and been dubbed a “Country It Girl” by Vogue magazine. And she even gave dinosaur — er, I mean radio consultant — Keith Hill a jab in the ribs by founding Tomato Tuesdays in response to Hill’s comments about women in country music. (He called female country musicians the “tomatoes” of the genre, and male performers like Luke Bryan and Keith Urban the more substantial “lettuce.”)

Rose’s career has been something of a creative whirlwind. But when COVID-19 shattered the music industry, her routine and livelihood were shattered too. To cope with that sudden isolation, Rose teamed up with Osiris Media to create Salute the Songbird, a podcast that continues Rose’s efforts to celebrate and elevate women’s voices.

“I think, not to sound totally dramatic, but it definitely rescued me during a time that was really tough,” Rose tells the Scene. “I’m

used to going through the course of my day — this personality and this meeting in the morning, then I go to a session with a bunch of exciting creative people with a bunch of personalities [and] we write a song — and all of that disappears. In addition to touring, which is a physical, emotional outpouring, and that’s just shut off!”

In Season 1 of Salute the Songbird, which wrapped up March 30, Rose has in-depth conversations with women holding space in all facets of the music industry. In one episode, she talks with CMT’s senior vice president of music strategy Leslie Fram about how the country music industry is changing.

In another, she discusses self-acceptance with singer and This Is Us star Chrissy Metz. There have been chats with Nashville’s own Ruby Amanfu, Martina McBride and Mickey Guyton, as well as veterans Nancy Wilson of Heart and Kathy Valentine of The Go-Go’s. “[In 2020] I missed the opportunity to meet amazing artists, and typically I would probably have run into a lot of my guests from Season 1 backstage at a show or even in the audience,” says Rose. “I know how isolating this time has been, and I thought it was an important time to amplify voices of women I really admire, [who] I want more people to know about, and also celebrate established artists who inspired me to get into the game and persevere and stay in it, especially when it’s even more challenging than it normally is because of the times that we’re in. It’s a way

to feel connected and also to listen.”

Rose’s conversations come off less like interviews and more like invitations for her guests to tell their stories. As any good interviewer should, Rose does her homework, but she also allows her guests to open up by offering a comfortable, empathetic space — one that’s informed by Rose’s significant experience in the industry.

Her discussion with singer-songwriter Jillette Johnson is especially poignant, as Johnson speaks openly about the predatory men she was introduced to as a teenager in the music industry. “They all ended up being some damn crooks, let me tell you!” she says.

“She’s a friend of mine, and it was cool to feel like after that interview I knew more about her than I had known up until that point,” says Rose. “She really got to download her whole story and share it with me in a way that I had never heard.”

On April 28 at City Winery, Rose and some of her previous Salute the Songbird guests will come together for the first time for an in-the-round style performance called Salute the Songbirds and featuring Johnson, Elizabeth Cook, Kalie Shorr, Nicole Atkins and Nicki Bluhm. There will also be some special surprise guests.

“There will be some guests who will be there in spirit, but also virtually, who I think you — in particular — will be really excited about,” Rose teases. (Earlier in our interview I gushed over both Kathy Valentine and Nancy Wilson. I was born in the Pacific Northwest in 1980. Heart is in my blood.)

“This audience will have heard so much about each of these women’s individual journeys, to do a deeper dive into their music will be cool. And what a cool opportunity for me to actually have some of these women meet each other because of this show. It’s not just about showing the audience who they are, but it’s about connecting women that I love in the industry with one another too.

“And just getting a show together after this year feels like a triumph,” Rose adds with a laugh. “That we can even plan something at City Winery, and gather safely, in a way it feels symbolic of what we’ve all collectively gone through together.”

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MAGGIE ROSE

SALUTE THE SONGBIRD IS AVAILABLE ON APPLE PODCASTS, SPOTIFY OR WHEREVER YOUR FAVORITE PODCASTS ARE FOUND SALUTE THE SONGBIRDS 8 P.M. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 28, AT CITY WINERY AND VIA LIVESTREAM

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AUTHOR VINCENT KELLY APPROACHES DIVERSITY FROM A CHILD’S MINDSET

The Nashvillian’s children’s book All People Are Beautiful fosters respect for differences

BY ASHLEY CURRIE For the Soul is a collaboration between the Nashville Scene and local culture website Urbaanite that uncovers local gems in Nashville.

V

incent Kelly is a husband, a father of two, an HR professional and a children’s author. His first book, The Awesome Things I Love, won the 2020 Pinnacle Book Achievement Award, ALL PEOPLE ARE BEAUTIFUL and publisher Greater You Books just reBY VINCENT KELLY, ILLUSTRATED BY CHA CONSUL leased his second, All GREATER YOU BOOKS People Are Beautiful.

32 PAGES, $24 The book focuses on LEARN MORE AT diversity, and Kelly VINCENTMKELLY.COM hopes its life lessons will resonate with both youth and adults.

What inspired you to become a children’s author? I kind of stumbled into it. By day, I work as an HR regional manager, and by night, I’m an author. I’m also a husband and a father of two sons, and my life is so eventful and interesting because of them. They tend to inspire me a lot.

I was at home in December 2018 and just finished dinner. The boys were running around like they usually do, and something just hit me. I looked at my wife and said, “I want to write a children’s book.” My wife, knowing I’m creative and dream big, turned down the TV and asked me what the book would be about. I started walking her through my thoughts, and she actually started to get really excited about the idea. I stayed awake that night and finished the entire book in an hour-and-a-half.

It was called The Awesome Things I Love. I woke up the next morning and went to work. I let a coworker read it, and they said, “Vince, I think you’ve got something here.” I would later find an illustrator, connect with a traditional publisher, and the rest is history.

In the midst of the pandemic, I was inspired to write my second book. So much happened last

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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VINCENT KELLY

year in terms of diversity. We elected the first African American and Asian American woman to the second-highest seat in the country. It was a huge win, but then we also saw tons of racial injustice that sparked a response from the entire globe. Everybody came together, and I thought it was beautiful. Out of that moment, I just stayed with the idea that all people are beautiful no matter what they look like. That was the birth of the second book.

Do you feel people are becoming more or less comfortable discussing this topic? I’m an HR person, so I’m always thinking in terms of strategy. I designed the book to be fun and interactive and wrote the book for parents but also for educators. I think we could benefit from approaching diversity from a child’s mindset. It’s a big conversation where we can all learn something in the process.

The book shows that diversity is more than just the color of our skin. It’s about our cultures, our languages, our hobbies. It boils down to the awareness of our differences, the acceptance of those differences, and the respect for those differences. Those differences help the world become a great place to live and to love, and I think that’s how we do really great things. The diversity conversation is one that you can’t talk about too much, but you also can’t talk about it too soon. I think it’s powerful, it’s useful, and it’s needed, especially for right now. I think people have a natural apprehension [about] difficult conversations. I think we have to be open enough to have the conversation, even if it’s clumsy.

How can parents and caregivers introduce your book into their homes? The illustrations [by Cha Consul] are done in a way to grab the child’s attention. They incorporate things that kids love already and make the child stop and pay attention. It has fun and bright colors and plenty of life lessons, so it draws their attention that way. However, I also cre-

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ated an interactive resource that is full of activities to complement the book, while also helping to land the conversation even more. There’s a sing-along, a readaloud of the book, crossword puzzles and about 10 different activities altogether. For the classroom, I also developed what I call a diversity cube. It’s a cube, and on each of its sides, it has different diversity cues like age, culture, hobbies, language. You can do it one on one or with the whole group to really land that conversation.

What life lessons can children and adults walk away with after reading your book? I think one of the biggest lessons is respect. In November, we celebrate World Kindness Day. Even though there’s a designated day for kindness, kindness is something that we should show every single day. I think the acknowledgment, acceptance and respect for diversity shows that diversity is a reality. There’s nowhere you can go where diversity doesn’t exist.

For more local culture stories, visit urbaanite.com.

Our Summer Guide Issue May 20 For information on advertising to the Scene’s audience of more than 400,000 people, email Mike Smith at msmsith@nashvillescene.com

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nashvillescene.com | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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BOOKS

THE FULL STORY

With Broken Horses, Brandi Carlile pens a frank, vulnerable memoir

BY JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT

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mericana artist Brandi Carlile’s slow-burning ballad “The Story” begins: “All of these lines across my face / tell you the story of who I am / So many stories of where I’ve been / and how I got to where I am.” Carlile’s new memoir Broken Horses is a candid, full rendering of those stories — tales of music, faith and growing up that tell us who she is and even a bit about ourselves.

The first chapters recall Carlile’s childhood in the luscious, wild country of Western Washington. With a family of hippies and musical misfits nursing her talents, 9-year-old Carlile debuts at the Northwest Grand Ole Opry. The applause from the audience is, she writes, “the nail in the coffin of any other path I might have gone down.”

After years gigging around Seattle, an opening slot for Dave Matthews puts her in touch with producer extraordinaire Rick Rubin.

It’s off to the races from there, as we follow Carlile through the next 15 years of her ascent to Grammywinning fame.

Decidedly vulnerable and diaristic, Broken Horses is at its best when Carlile disarms us with earnestness.

In one memory, while recording her sophomore album in her “adopted home of Nashville,” Carlile bottoms out emotionally. Depressed and dependent on Xanax and steroids, she’s “rudderless.” “When I’m in the grips of my ego I fill my life with restrictions followed by secrets and emotional bingeing.” Incisive moments like this light up the page, excusing Carlile’s occasionally distracted, meandering prose.

Carlile penned this book as she approaches her 40th birthday in June. Forty is relatively young to write a memoir, but Broken Horses proves that a more youthful perspective can be a strength. Here, the memories feel fresh.

Growing up, Carlile is the only openly gay person in her town. Her family embraces her as the Lilith Fair-attending, Indigo Girlloving lesbian she is, but others’ judgment creates feelings of “panic and exclusion.”

She is “drawn to church when [she] came out of the closet as both a comfort and out of fear. Church made sense of things.” After attending Christian summer camp, she feels supported by that community — until her baptism. Before the ceremony, the pastor asks Carlile if she “practices homosexuality,” saying, “if you can’t repent, I can’t baptize you.”

She’s turned away. Shame and a low sense of

self-worth reverberate within her. Looking elsewhere for community, she decides to “find salvation where the rest of the misfits and the rejects find it. Through twisted, joyful, sexual, weird, and wonderful music.”

So when Carlile wanders into a church in Nashville during her rock-bottom moment and starts praying, it’s a shock for the reader. But as we move through the memoir, it becomes apparent that Carlile’s adult “come-to-Jesus” moment serves as the initial step in a long reckoning with the untruths that her religious trauma misled her into believing about herself and her identity as a queer woman. She processes the trauma caused by the rigidity of Christian tradition through the lens of her rejuvenated faith: a Christian spirituality concerned with compassion and inclusivity.

Carlile cites Brennan Manning, author of Ragamuffin Gospel, whom she describes as a “disgraced divorced, alcoholic Jesuit,” as a force in her reeducation: “He taught me a new way to say the phrase ‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.’…

He replaces ‘I shall not want’ with the Greek understanding: ‘I lack nothing.’ … This subtle difference is night and day to a self-punishing person.”

Her “botched baptism” still clouds her thoughts, but she astutely remarks, “Maybe baptism, like ‘coming out,’ isn’t a moment after all,” subverting the notion that culturally imposed rituals have to be bombastic or transformational for those who go through them.

While faith isn’t the central theme of Broken Horses, reconnecting with spirituality is a consequential step in Carlile finding her joy. She begins to esteem herself in her creativity: “I knew I was going to be okay because the songs were very good, and for the first time in a long time, I believed that I was very good.”

In a delightful twist, Joni Mitchell acts as the final chapters’ guest of honor. The two become friends at the 2019 Grammys, and Mitchell invites Carlile to organize jams at her home. Guests like Elton John and Herbie Hancock make appearances during these nights that seem straight from lore.

Like most post-Laurel Canyon songwriters, Mitchell’s influence runs deep in Carlile’s work. Carlile writes, “[Mitchell] has often alluded to the idea that she has left the beginnings of concepts and art out in the ether for people to find and finish. She has famously stated something like: ‘If you find me in my work, I haven’t done my job. If you find yourself, then I’m an artist.’ ” This philosophy imbues Broken Horses, as Carlile plants seeds of contemplation for the reader to consider themes of reckoning and love in their own stories, crafting a memoir with deft moments of vulnerability.

For more local book coverage, please visit Chapter16.org, an online publication of Humanities Tennessee.

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NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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I N PA R T N E R S H I P W I T H

MUSIC

STATE OF THE WORLD On Small Infinity, Houston Kendrick takes stock of what’s deep inside

BY LANCE CONZETT

A

t its best, pop music reflects the culture that it’s created in.

Marvin Gaye’s “What’s Going On” was a direct response to police violence against antiwar activists. Janet Jackson was partially inSMALL INFINITY WILL BE spired by the 24/7 IV SELF-RELEASED FRIDAY, drip of news about APRIL 23 racism and poverty when she wrote Rhythm Nation 1814. Even the Spice Girls’ girl-power anthems reflected a facet of ’90s feminism.

But what does pop music sound like when culture is put on pause? On his debut fulllength album Small Infinity, 25-year-old Nashville singer and rapper Houston Kendrick grapples with the kind of introspection that comes with spending a year in isolation.

“The process of making the album in the beginning of the world just going crazy, made everything just feel a little bit more dire and … I felt like I had to go extra hard,” Kendrick tells the Scene. “I’ve always felt that our responsibility as artists is to be a mirror to society. And not necessarily just show people who they are, what they look like, but be a mirror in that you can reflect back what your interpretation is, and possibly teach somebody a lesson.”

Small Infinity is a window into the world through Kendrick’s eyes. On “Good Evening, Tennessee,” Kendrick asks the listener to enter his life, singing: “Good evening, Tennessee / Tuned into my TV / I’m a new kind of royalty / I’m a beautiful travesty.” That tension, between the highs and lows of unabashedly being your authentic self, pushes and pulls throughout the record. “Ugly Vybes,” an anthem for introverts everywhere, bounces Kendrick between self-assured cool and anxious self-medication. “Look at Us” takes the good with the bad, lifting up “the beauty and the mess that we choose.”

Kendrick’s character-driven songwriting presents flawed, complex voices that feel eminently relatable. These characters take

THE FLAME STAYS BRIGHT Steve Cropper’s passion for music is as strong as ever

BY RON WYNN

T

here have been so many extraordinary moments in the amazing career of guitarist, songwriter and producer Steve Cropper that it would seem he’s done almost everything possible within the world FIRE IT UP OUT FRIDAY, of popular music. But APRIL 23, VIA MASCOT Cropper, perhaps best LABEL GROUP/PROVOGUE known as a member of the prolific and influential Stax house band Booker T. & the M.G.’s, insists his new LP Fire It Up is something truly different for him. The 13-song release, out Friday, was co-produced by Jon Tiven, one of Music City’s

you into their own small infinities, a phrase that Kendrick defines as the “vast expanse that exists within everybody of experiences, knowledge and emotions,” all filtered through Kendrick’s own prism.

“Every single song doesn’t necessarily have to be about, ‘I’m in isolation, I’m sad, the world’s falling apart,’ and what’s going on,” Kendrick says. “Because even when we’re going through those things, those are not the only emotions that we feel. That’s not the only thing that we experience.”

The expanse also comes through in Kendrick’s playful sense of genre, which shifts effortlessly throughout the 11 tracks on the album, from lo-fi R&B (“Love Games”) to Americana-tinged soul (“American Spirit Blues”). Kendrick’s voice cuts through each of these songs, his consistent croon contrasting with an ever-changing environment around it.

With Small Infinity, Kendrick sets the bar for pandemic albums. He does it not by leaning into the angst of a life put on hold, but by digging into the rich details of emotion teeming under that malaise.

Removed from the events of 2020, Small Infinity also succeeds as a compelling evolution of Kendrick’s artistic vision. He’s come a long way since “Mine,” a 2014 single that saw a high school Kendrick pining for a girl in his class with Boyz II Men balladeering.

Compare that with “The Suburbs,” a song that directly comments on Kendrick’s experience wrestling with his sexuality and, ultimately, freeing himself from the constraints of his suburban home in Birmingham, Ala. Others have found Belmont University, where Kendrick studied commercial voice before leaving to pursue music full time, equally confining.

“There’s lots of contrasts between where someone starts to where they currently are and then to eventually where they finish — and I have a really great deep appreciation for all the steps that it’s taken to get to this moment,” he says. “And even though I’m not

finest soul and rock session men, and Cropper says much of the inspiration for what ultimately resulted dates back many years.

“This is really, in my view, my first real solo album since 1969,” Cropper tells the Scene. “There’s a lot of grooves that have been around for a long time. Some of them came out of past things I’d worked on with Felix [Cavaliere, of The Rascals]. But when the pandemic and lockdown happened, that changed a lot of things. Jon and I have been meeting for many years, almost every week writing songs. For this one, we reworked some old things, and the more that we played some things off each other, the more we felt like we really had some good material here. Jon and I have worked together for many years, and

pretending to be some straight kid who’s going out for some girl in high school anymore, I’m just like, ‘You know what? If I had to do that to learn how to be authentic and learn how to be exactly who I am, I mean, then damn it, I had to do that.’ ” Ultimately, that’s what Small Infinities is about and what makes it successful — deftly articulating the winding path toward self-

actualization and the imperfections that make people unique. The record culminates with the title track. It builds and builds upward until the music drops out, leaving the listener with Kendrick’s raw vocal refrain, singing, “I got me, I got me, I got me.” Because when everything goes to hell, the one thing you can count on is yourself.

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he really has a great ear for what works well in my music.”

Fire It Up is a prominent showcase for the archetypal rhythmic guitar riffs and licks that have been a Cropper signature for more than six decades. It also reveals an idiomatic versatility Cropper feels he hasn’t always been credited with, despite the array of diversified talent that has featured his playing. The title tune accents a fiery, hard-edged vocal from punk and power-pop singer Roger C. Reale, underscored by the usual dynamic Cropper approach. It’s a strong mix of impressive technique augmented with lots of soul and authority, high notes delivered with dashing ease.

“One Good Turn” offers a more understated but no less delightful Cropper style, while “Bush Hog,” the lone instrumental, has the funky melodic bent and crisp undercutting rhythms of vintage M.G.’s cuts. Reale soars

nashvillescene.com | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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MUSIC again on “The Go-Getter Is Gone,” while the album’s first single “Far Away” celebrates removing oneself from too much clatter and confusion to find sanctuary and a fresh start.

It seems that’s an approach Cropper takes to heart, as his enthusiasm for this new project and music in general is extremely high.

“I’m not one of these people who doesn’t listen to new music,” he says. “In addition to constantly writing new songs, I’m always keeping my ears and eyes open to what’s happening. You can’t stay fresh unless you do. I think the worst thing that happens sometimes, and the way you get yourself in a rut, is if you don’t pay attention to what’s going on. At the same time, you always can bring in things from the past, but you have to find ways of making them work in a contemporary vein.”

Cropper’s remarkable musical journey dates back to the late ’50s, when he and fellow teen musician Charlie Freeman formed a band called The Royal Spades. By 1961 they had renamed themselves The Mar-Keys, and their spicy instrumental “Last Night” became a pop and R&B smash. The Cropper guitar sound was crafted early in his playing days.

It’s a seamless merging of blues, jazz, R&B and country elements gleaned from ardent listening to guitarists ranging from Tal Farlow to Chuck Berry, Chet Atkins and The “5” Royales’ Lowman Pauling.

After departing The Mar-Keys, Cropper would join keyboardist Booker T. Jones, drummer Al Jackson Jr. and bassist Lewie Steinberg (who was soon replaced by Donald “Duck” Dunn) in the seminal Booker T. & the M.G.’s. Besides being part of the ensemble that made the Stax sound a worldwide sensation, Cropper would enjoy equal prominence as an A&R man and songwriter, co-penning epic and evergreen hits like “In the Midnight Hour,” “Knock on Wood,” and “Sittin’ on the Dock of the Bay,” while his prickly licks became rhythm staples on such songs as “Soul Man” by Sam & Dave.

Though the Stax run alone was enough to ensure musical immortality, Cropper’s post-M.G.’s and post-Stax career has been equally prolific. As a producer and player, he’s done sessions with Paul Simon, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and Buddy Guy, among heaps of others. He produced Mavis Staples’ 1969 solo debut, John Prine’s 1975 album Common Sense and a trio of contemporary bluesman Joe Louis Walker’s LPs, among many more.

For those who either missed or aren’t familiar with the Stax years, you might instead know Cropper from either Levon Helm’s RCO All-Stars or The Blues Brothers’ albums and films. But he’s also found time for his own albums, running the gamut from 1969’s With a Little Help From My Friends to The Interview — Play It Steve!, a collection of spoken stories about his career on his own label. He’s also released LPs with the aforementioned Felix Cavaliere in 2008 and 2010, and 2011’s glorious Dedicated: A Salute to The 5 Royales, produced by Tiven.

A Nashville resident for more than three decades and a 2010 inductee into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Steve Cropper is who you think of when you say “living legend.” But he continues to adhere to a simple philosophy in regard to making music.

“I always think about the story. That’s what the best musicians do. They build off and enhance the story, through what they do with the melody and the groove.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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DOCUMENTARY FILM STREAMS THURSDAY, APRIL 22, VIA TODDSNIDER.NET; FIRST AGNOSTIC CHURCH OF HOPE AND WONDER OUT APRIL 23, VIA AIMLESS RECORDS/ THIRTY TIGERS

ON THE 1

Todd Snider brings the funk on First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder

BY DARYL SANDERS

“I

f folk don’t want no funk, it shouldn’t start none,” Todd Snider proclaims with a laugh. It’s funny, of course, because no one in the folk world is trying to start any funk. Well, that is, no one other than Snider on his new album First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder, which will be released Friday.

For the past six months, I’ve been working on a book with Snider, and as a result, I had a front-row seat for the making of the record. I even accidentally got a co-writing credit on one of the songs when he used something I said in passing. It’s an album that is more than the realization of Snider’s funk dreams. It’s the culmination of a musical journey the artist has been on for more than a decade of his nearly 35-year career.

The seeds for First Agnostic Church of Hope and Wonder were planted on the song “Is This Thing Working?” from Snider’s 2008 Peace Queer EP. “That was a small blueprint of where I was trying to go,” he says. “It’s just one chord. It never goes anywhere, just sits there and tells the story. I started to see that the one-chord song was a funk thing.” Snider was soon envisioning a funk thing of his own and has been pursuing it off and on ever since.

Snider’s time in the jam-band supergroup Hard Working Americans helped him see he was funkier than he knew, and when that

group disbanded, his thoughts returned to the funky sounds he was hearing in his head.

Over the next three years, he listened to a lot of P-Funk and a lot of reggae, learned to play bass, and met with some well-known producers. None of them could hear what he was hearing, but Snider was undeterred.

“There’s a muse, a sonic muse that you chase,” he says. “I didn’t stop listening to the muse once it became hard to grasp. It gets way ahead of you sometimes, and you gotta just keep following it. And it’s easy to stop following it, because you don’t have to follow it to make money.”

By the time the pandemic hit, Snider had decided if he wanted to get the sound he was hearing in his head, he would have to do it himself. In the fall, with the help of his road manager Brian Kincaid and engineer Colin Cargile, he transformed The Purple Building, his East Nashville headquarters, into a studio. Engineer Joe Bisirri came on board once they began tracking the album.

Snider played most of the instruments on First Agnostic Church’s 10 tracks, including electric bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, banjo and piano, and he also sang all the backing vocals. Multi-instrumentalist Robbie Crowell handled drums and percussion, and his ability to grok what Snider wanted was a key to the artistic success of the record.

“Now that I’ve finally figured out what I want, I see why as a folk singer it would be so hard to tell a drummer to be funky,” Snider says. “They’re thinking, ‘OK, you mean like “Up on Cripple Creek”?’ ‘No, like “Sex Machine.” ’ ‘And you’re going to play acoustic?’ ” The album was mixed by award-winning producer-engineer Tchad Blake, who also added a few sonic and musical embellishments. “I was like a kid at Christmas,” Snider says. “I would send him a track and

say, ‘This may not be done, but it’s as far as I can take it,’ and then I couldn’t wait to hear what he did with it.”

The album loosely tells the story of a wayward minister who discovers the meaning of life and starts a church — then bilks his congregation out of a lot of money and gets away with it. In the process, he learns that God has a wicked sense of humor. The album opens with “Turn Me Loose (I’ll Never Be the Same),” a quasi-tribute to longtime friend and inspiration Jerry Jeff Walker, who died while Snider was working on the album. It also includes elegies to two other lost friends, longtime mentor John Prine and Yonder Mountain String Band cofounder Jeff Austin.

Snider also offers some biting social commentary on the long, long fight for social justice in “The Battle Hymn of the Album.”

He sings, “They say ‘Get down on the ground’ / ‘Get down on the ground’ / ‘Stop resisting, stop resisting,’ ” as the loping, gritty riff at the song’s foundation comes around again. He also addresses the wastefulness that led to the ocean-borne mountain of garbage he sings about in “That Great Pacific Garbage Patch”: “Throw your hands in the air / And wave them like you just don’t care / Because you don’t.”

Snider has a deep and broad catalog full of rich and thought-provoking songs. But he’s especially proud of First Agnostic Church, his 14th studio album of new material.

“I feel like I’ve always been trying to chase this sound, even though that’s not what I’m known for. I felt like sonically I sort of found my own spot in and among all the other people that do what I do, but I never felt like I had found a sound of my own. And with this record, I finally do.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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MUSIC

SCREENGAZING

Alt-rockers Tape Deck Mountain ponder tech addiction’s perils on True Deceiver

BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

T

ape Deck Mountain formed in San Diego in 2008, when the BlackBerry was the phone of choice and scrappy punk-pop duos like No Age and Wavves were all the rage. The mantra then, remembers TRUE DECEIVER WILL BE singer-songwriterSELF-RELEASED FRIDAY, guitarist Travis APRIL 23 Trevisan with a laugh: “Who needs a bassist when you’ve got a Line 6 Delay Modeler?”

That was the blueprint Trevisan followed on Ghost, Tape Deck Mountain’s ’09 debut with original drummer Paul Remund. “I was just writing lyrics in a journal, waiting around for the guy from [San Diego club] The Casbah to leave a message on the answering machine at my parents’ house telling me he got my demo,” he tells me.

He’s taking a break from doing yard work at his place in South Inglewood — that’s East Nashville, not Los Angeles — on a recent Sunday afternoon.

These days, Tape Deck Mountain is a robust four-piece gearing up to release its fourth LP, True Deceiver. From the project’s nascency to now, its sonic touchstones — Smashing Pumpkins, L.A. alt-rock combo Autolux and Northwest indie torchbearer Phil Elverum of The Microphones and Mount Eerie — have stayed consistent. But its route has been circuitous, spanning four cities (Trevisan has also lived in Austin, Texas, and New York) and many more bandmates.

That revolving door closed when Trevisan landed in Music City in 2015 and connected with drummer Andy Gregg via a Craigslist call for collaborators. Gregg is a native of the musically fertile college town of Lawrence, Kan., home of The Get Up Kids, The Appleseed Cast and Kansas (the band)

among many others. Gregg also did a stint in Seattle during the halcyon ’90s, and he brought a lot to TDM’s table: a patient yet powerful playing style well-suited for Trevisan’s slow-burning songs, a home studio to record and rehearse at — and a bass-playing buddy, Nashvillian Sully Kincaid, to fill out the lineup.

Gregg and Kincaid joined for the third Tape Deck Mountain album, 2018’s Echo Chamber Blues, and their shared love of heavy, complex rock — from Rush and Yes to Soundgarden and Helmet — fortified the band’s sound. The rhythm section also convinced Trevisan to bring on free-agent guitarist Greg Harp, who cut his teeth in Maroon, a touring act out of Monroe, La., from the late ’90s and early 2000s.

The Scene named the newly minted foursome Best Shoegazers in our 2018 Best of Nashville issue, though Trevisan admits he has “a bit of a love-hate relationship” with the shoegaze designation. The new record, which follows two solid years of gigging and jamming for the band, justifies his reluctance to be pigeonholed. Trevisan treasures My Bloody Valentine’s Loveless as much as the next Jazzmaster player; you could say Harp is that next player, since he also uses one of these guitars, so closely identified with shoegaze, in the band. While True Deceiver’s wall of sound is formidable, more careful listening reveals a melting pot of influences, from prog and psych-pop to post-hardcore and alternative metal. Its eight songs are cohesive yet freestanding — dreamy (“Ceremony”) and eerie (“Apocrypha”), mathy (“Pyramid”) and grungy (“Hush”).

Trevisan’s main grievance with the shoegaze tag is its purveyors’ tendencies toward lyrical obfuscation. “They’re either singing

THE SPIN MINER FOR A HEART OF GOLD

BY EDD HURT

N

ashville is the capital of country music, and it’s also a musical environment that makes it easy for Americana artists to excavate bits and pieces of country’s history. Sunday night, in a performance filmed at Nashville’s American Legion Post 82 — itself the site of an active retro-country scene that was hitting its stride before the pandemic changed everything — Americana-country-folk singer-songwriter Sierra Ferrell dug through the history of country music. She made her discoveries sound freshly minted.

Ferrell’s 75-minute set was the first installment of a three-night, three-venue run of filmed shows called Pick Your Poison that she designed to show off the different sides of her post-country sensibility. She continues the series May 2 at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lounge with a night of calypso songs, and the run

PLEDGE A-LEGIONS: SIERRA FERRELL

ends May 16 at The Basement, where she’ll play jazz tunes. Sunday’s set featured Ferrell sliding through some old-time country songs she’s pulled from the history books, along with a couple of her originals.

Ferrell makes a convincing honky-tonker, but her latest music — slated for an album due to be released on a date TBA this year — comes out of the great folkie tradition.

Ferrell, who grew up in Charleston, W. Va., and relocated to Nashville seven years ago, has a shot at being the latest Americana retro-country star. She

about clouds, or you can’t understand what they’re saying,” he says. He cites the late John Prine and Father John Misty’s Josh Tillman (the 2012 album Fear Fun, specifically) as wordsmiths who speak to him.

“They’re funny and satirical, but smart.”

Questioning whether a life lived in a state of technological overload is really a life is an overarching theme of the new record.

“You should go to bed,” suggests Trevisan on “Screen Savior,” a PSA to night owls engaging in pointless comment-thread warfare.

“Are you staring at your phone, pretending you’re not alone?” he asks on “Nomo” — short for “nomophobia,” a 2019 addition to the Oxford English Dictionary defined as “anxiety about not having access to a mobile phone or mobile phone service.” Trevisan then deadpans: “Your username is ‘Sad Trombone.’ ” Digital dependence takes its toll mentally

but also physically, as the 40-year-old musician can attest. “About a month ago I started having back problems from sitting at my computer all afternoon at work,” he says. “I feel like I’m always fighting against technology and myself. I hate it and I love it at the same time.”

As he’s continued to write songs, Trevisan has had to come to terms with the understanding that the internet lives forever. It’s made him feel a bit more self-conscious.

“That isn’t necessarily a bad thing. I try to add wit to the lyrics but not in a way that’s preachy or overly specific — I think if you tell people what to think they’re going to react against it, so I don’t want to do that.

Although I do get some joy from conservative family members nodding along to some song or lyric that might subversively contradict their beliefs.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

signed with Rounder Records in 2019, and she is readying a new album with help from producers Gary Paczosa and Stu Hibberd.

Paczosa, who has worked with luminaries like Alison Krauss and Dolly Parton, began catching Ferrell’s shows at American Legion Post 82 a few years ago, and he helped facilitate her Rounder deal.

On Sunday night, Ferrell applied her fluid, slightly cracked voice to a series of well-chosen songs, ably backed by bassist Audrey MacAlpine and fiddler Nate Leath. The music seemed gentle, but it was swinging, with Ferrell’s acoustic guitar setting the tone. Ferrell has some jazz in her approach, which means she has an easy way with phrasing. Among the standouts was “Before I Met You,” a song first recorded in 1953 by Joe “Cannonball” Lewis and revived by Charley Pride in 1966.

It worked perfectly — the resignation Ferrell’s voice carries never strayed into self-pity.

Similarly, Ferrell & Co. shone on Tom Paxton’s

“The Last Thing on My Mind,” a slice of ’60s folk-pop famously covered by Porter Wagoner and Dolly Parton in 1967. The trio was joined by Nashville-born neocountry singer Timbo, who proved himself a credible Porter to Ferrell’s Dolly. Ferrell also sang her own “Rosemary,” a song from her excellent 2019 album Washington by the Sea. It was a seamless fit with the covers, since it sounds like it could have been written in 1957 or 1967. That was the strength of Ferrell’s overview of honky-tonk, as she and her band performed in front of a single mic, deep in the heart of Inglewood.

I could quibble — Ferrell does tend to veer off onto the well-traveled road of pure retro, and she sometimes coasts on her mannerisms. Still, she mostly avoids playing it cute. For Ferrell, plugging into the storied honky-tonk past has given her an ear for great songs. Nashville is a funny place for anyone trying to advance country music, and maybe that’s not what she’s aiming for. It will be interesting to see if she develops her songwriting in a way that will add to the country lexicon. Meanwhile, enjoy her as a smart folkie who makes living the honky-tonk life sound like something you should consider doing.

EMAIL THESPIN@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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FILM

PRIMAL STREAM 51 Canadian horror, killer kaiju and a seafaring Anne Murray, now available to stream

BY JASON SHAWHAN

allegiance to pulsing Lisa Frank colors, making Godzilla vs. Kong the most colorful bigCGI-explosion movie in ages. Kong is the individual pressed to step up to save his own situation. Godzilla battles implements of destruction because it is why he exists (both in terms of that’s what he does but also because that’s what created him). It’s a dialectical battle on the continuum of purpose, and it’s the best film in the MonsterVerse since Gareth Edwards’ sublime 2014 Godzilla, which is one of the most consistently visually stunning films of the 21st century.

CRISIS VIA VIDEO ON DEMAND

GODZILLA VS. KONG

D

o you recall when your home city stopped being a place that is, and became a place that was? This isn’t a selling-off-Nashville’s-soul lament, though that feeling is very much part of it. It’s just a feeling that comes with the passage of time. In its more benevolent incarnation, it’s nostalgia. In its more curdled and toxic expression, it’s something reactionary. And it’s one of the reasons why film and media are so valuable — they allow us a fixed point with which to engage our memory and experience. (It’s also why Forrest Gump is insidious, for unmaking that certainty for entertainment purposes.) Find where you are, and where you were. And the difference between them, some would say, “That’s progress.” I say, for better or worse, “it’s a living.”

As always, below are some recommendations of what to stream. Look back at past issues of the Scene for more.

GODZILLA VS. KONG IN THEATERS AND ON HBO MAX THROUGH APRIL 29 Considering how bogged-down films of this sort (and by that I mean summer action tentpoles) can get in exposition and

HEART FELT

Street Gang is an affable ode to the luminous legacy of Sesame Street

BY CORY WOODROOF

T

here are enough warm feelings and happy memories in Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street to keep Count von Count occupied for days tallying them all up.

A sort of spiritual companion to 2018’s STREET GANG: HOW WE GOT Mr. Rogers documenTO SESAME STREET tary Won’t You Be My PG, 107 MINUTES OPENING FRIDAY, APRIL 23, Neighbor?, Street Gang AT THE BELCOURT surveys the early days of television’s greatest achievement in terms of children’s educational programming. It follows the classic show-biz-doc format, just unflinching enough to not seem like PR schlock, but still somewhat selective with its timeline.

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backstory, Godzilla vs. Kong moves like a Russ Meyer movie. It feels like there was someone off camera with a sign reminding the cast to wrap it up in 90 seconds before the next edit. It’s not how every film — or even most — should be made, but here it works. People speak of Godzilla openly and pragmatically in this film, and it’s never not a delight. Also, it’s all about Hollow Earth theory, and Bryan Tyree Henry plays a conspiracy-theorist podcaster (who has not done a very good job of covering his tracks) bent on sharing the truth about why Godzilla stomps things. We know Godzilla as the living embodiment of human determination toward self-destruction, and despite having always acted on behalf of the greater good, humanity turns on Godzilla like the ex-con gardener in the first act of a Tyler Perry play. But there are other forces at play, including King Kong, souring on his life of amiable leisure in a virtual-reality dome, and Apex Cybernetics, a company that is up to something. Anyway, ape and lizard fight, and it’s imaginative and kinetic. A sea-set skirmish is remarkably visually inventive, getting Titanic with the geometries of aircraft carriers, and director Adam Wingard (The Guest, You’re Next, Blair Witch) retains

That’s a shame too, because it’s possible to balance the immense good Sesame Street has done with a frank discussion about the show’s eventual descent into something more commercial — the kind of thing it was conceived as an alternative to.

Acknowledging that evolution does not besmirch the beautiful legacy Jim Henson left behind. It’s OK to say that Tickle Me Elmo was a pretty far cry from the show that preceded it.

Doing what it can with the series’ guarded image, Street Gang condenses the seminal PBS program into what made it tick and why it existed. Despite the lack of focus on the show’s eventual corporate nature, the doc soars when it shows Sesame Street’s rise as intellectual counterprogramming to the morass of Saturday-morning cartoons. By trying to ground the series in cultural and economic accessibility, Sesame Street arrived as a vital piece of media following the civil rights movement. The show’s creators knew public schools were failing people of color and people in economic distress. Public television served as a means to educate the children of those families, to show them their own world on screen — and to throw in singing monsters while they were at it.

You know the format by now: Three parallel stories (in this case dealing with the opioid crisis) play out, with their assorted tendrils growing together during the film’s runtime until, by the third act, you’ve got a unified narrative. It’s practically its own subgenre at this point, and in the hands of Crisis writerdirector Eugene Jarecki (Arbitrage, Capturing the Friedmans), it’s an interesting take on the subject. There’s no temporal distance to the material, because we are still in the midst of the Age of Opioids. There isn’t the immediate subjective grind of addiction; instead, we have a former addict dealing with her own loss, an undercover DEA agent whose sister is deep in the grip of pain pills, and the research scientist who has uncovered some serious problems with a new, supposed miracle of a nonaddictive painkiller. None of these stories addresses how fucked-up the world is and why opiates are so very, very popular with everyone (from addicts experiencing homelessness all the way up to the late Rush Limbaugh), or how people like Tennessee’s own Marsha Blackburn have aided in the drug industry’s exploitation of the public for their own gain. But the sad truth is, there are so many different stories about the painkiller crisis; Jarecki could have had dozens of stories to interweave here. Crisis is a decent start to untangling the sea of knots we’re drowning in.

HALLOWEEN PARTY ON AMAZON PRIME VIDEO Messy in a way that most horror either eschews or completely wallows in, Canadian slasher Halloween Party feels at first like a J-

The late Jon Stone doesn’t often get the same love as Henson deservedly does — in fact, you might be asking who he was. One of Street Gang’s best qualities is the light it shines not just on the Muppets, but on the creative minds who brought them to life.

We know Henson and Frank Oz, but Stone — a writer, director and producer on the show — was one of Sesame Street’s true guiding lights. He finally gets his due here, as do other talented folks like co-creator Joan Ganz Cooney and musician Joe Raposo, the

horror wannabe, mainly due to the phantom computer/smartphone virus that pops up and asks the victim what their greatest fear is. If you answer honestly, you’re safe. But if you let its timer run out, a low-res witch chastises you on your screen. And then within a few hours your greatest fear (and this film really does the work at finding creative greatest fears for its cast) appears and kills you brutally. Naturally, the college kids are concerned about what’s happening to their friends, so they start investigating, and that’s when things get really intense/upsetting/Canadian. Despite being able to see the narrative beats coming a reel or two away, there’s something about this film that compels the viewer to stick with it, and it does some very provocative things with its reveals. Inspired casting helps, as well as the utter truth of jaded folk putting their lives at risk for the dumbest possible reasons. But Halloween Party does what enduring horror does — it shocks you and then infiltrates your subconscious. So well-done on that front. (Note: The trailer gives a bit too much away.)

ANNE MURRAY’S CARIBBEAN CRUISE ON YOUTUBE A surprising treat from one of the most reliable and poignant voices in country-pop crossover, this 1983 Canadian TV special finds Anne Murray and a fascinating assortment of folk (José Luis Rodríguez, Richard Simmons, an indifferent Eddie Rabbitt) on a ship to the West Indies and serving up lots of songs about it. Never officially released in the U.S. (but brought to my attention via the global treasure Linoleum Knife podcast), Anne Murray’s Caribbean Cruise is enjoyable, with showbiz sparkle and heartfelt moments meshing expertly with whatever you’d call Richard Simmons singing calypso. As always, Murray is magnetic, finding the emotional heart of songs like a therapist and setting them free. Anne Murray’s Caribbean Cruise simply is — songs of the sea, the vicissitudes of romance and the weirdness (exponentially so from here in the pandemic) of cramming a bunch of people in a boat with booze and buffets. Pairs nicely with your boat drink of choice.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

latter of whom is responsible for most of the show’s earworm melodies.

At its best, Street Gang shows proper appreciation to folks behind the felt. After all, who wouldn’t want to roll out the red carpet for those who brought Sesame Street to life and positively affected the lives of so many children. It’s not as comprehensive as it could’ve been, but it’ll get your heart swelling like Oscar the Grouch with a fresh batch of trash.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

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1/4/2021. 1/4/2021.

Columbia 1006 Carmack Blvd Columbia, TN 931-398-3350

nashvillescene.com | APRIL 22 – APRIL 28, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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4/19/21 3:15 PM

Rental Scene

Welcome to 2100 Acklen Flats

Your Neighborhood Local attractions: · Vanderbilt University and Hospital · Belmont University · Hillsboro Village · Music Row

Neighborhood dining and drinks: · Double Dogs Restaurant · Hopdoddy Burger Bar · Ruby Sunshine · Biscuit Love · Belcourt Taps · McDougal’s Chicken Fingers and Wings

FEATURED APARTMENT LIVING

· Nicoletto’s Italian Kitchen · Fido · Pancake Pantry

Favorite local neighborhood bar: · Double Dogs Restaurant

Enjoy the outdoors: · St. Bernard Park · Fannie Mae Dees Park · Centennial Park · Centennial Dog Park

Best local family outing: · Adventure Science Center

Best places nearby to see a show: · Belcourt Theatre · The Station Inn · The Basement · Ryman Auditorium

Your new home amenities: · Green Pet Area · Controlled access parking garage · Outside lounge area with gas grill and TV · Washer and Dryer in each apartment

Call the Rental Scene property you’re interested in and mention this ad to find out about a special promotion for Scene Readers

2104 Acklen Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212 | www.2100acklenflats.com | 615.291.0606

To advertise your property available for lease, contact Keith Wright at 615-557-4788 or kwright@fwpublishing.com

Cumberland Retreat 411 Annex Ave Nashville, TN 37209 1 Bed / 1 Bath 675 sq ft $959

2 Bed /1 Bath 1008 sq ft $1259 2 floor plans

cumberlandretreatapartments.com | 615.356.0257 Dupont Avenue Apartments 601 N. Dupont Avenue Madison, TN 37115

1 bed / 1 bath 650 sq ft $872 to $1184 3 floor plans

dupontavenue.com | 615.285.5687

Gazebo Apartments 141 Neese Drive Nashville TN 37211 1 Bed / 1 Bath 756 sq ft $1,119 +

2 Bed / 1.5 Bath - 2 Bath 1,047 – 1,098 sq ft $1,299 +

3 Bed / 2 Bath 1201 sq ft $1,399 +

5 floor plans

gazeboapts.com | 615.551.3832 34

NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 - APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com

East End Village Townhomes 307 E Village Lane Nashville, TN 37216

1700-1820 sq ft plus 400 sq ft attached garage $1950-$2400 4 floor plans

eastendvillageapartmentsnashville.com | 629.205.9131 Fairfax Flats 206 Fairfax Ave Nashville, TN 37212

1 bed / 1 bath $1200 to $1375 634 sq ft

Rental Scene

3 bed 3.5 bath

1 floor plan

fairfaxflats.com | 629.702.2840

2100 Acklen Flats 2104 Acklen Avenue, Nashville, TN 37212 Studio / 1 Bath 517 sq ft $1600 - $1625

1 Bed / 1 Bath 700 sq ft $1825 - $1975 12 floor plans

2100acklenflats.com | 615.499.5979

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LONG DISTANCE MOVING:

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Voted Best Attorney in Nashville Call 615-425-2500 for FREE Consultation

www.rockylawfirm.com EMPLOYMENT

Application Engineer needed for HCA Management Services, Nashville, TN. Job duties include: Engage in analysis, design, development of JAVA/J2EE based applications. Utilize Spring, JUNIT, Tomcat Server, and Java Script.

Work with SQL Server, Teradata and Oracle databases. Work in Agile environment using TDD methodology. The employee may work remotely from home within commuting distance of Nashville, TN up to 3 days per week. Must have a BS degree in computer science or engineering and 5 yrs. of overall progressive IT exp. in the skill sets listed in the job description. Will also accept a MS degree in computer science or engineering and 3 yrs. of IT exp in the skills listed above. Send resumes to: elaine.healy@hcahealthcare.com

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BATHROOM RENOVATIONS. EASY, ONE DAY updates!

We specialize in safe bathing. Beautiful new walk-in showers with no slip flooring. Also, grab bars and seated showers available.

Call for a free inhome consultation: 844-242-1100.

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Marketplace

Rocky McElhaney Law Firm

Application Engineer needed for HCA Management Services, Nashville, TN. Job duties include: Engage in analysis, design, development of JAVA/J2EE based applications. Utilize Spring, JUNIT, Tomcat Server, and Java Script.

Work with SQL Server, Teradata and Oracle databases. Work in Agile environment using TDD methodology. The employee may work remotely from home within commuting distance of Nashville, TN up to 3 days per week. Must have a BS degree in computer science or engineering and 5 yrs. of overall progressive IT exp. in the skill sets listed in the job description. Will also accept a MS degree in computer science or engineering and 3 yrs. of IT exp in the skills listed above. Send resumes to: elaine.healy@hcahealthcare.com

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(Hours: Mon-Fri 7am-5pm PST)

(AAN CAN) (AAN-CAN) nashvillescene.com | APRIL 22 - APRIL 28, 2021 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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Whatever you call it, find yours in the Rental Scene.

Nashville Scene’s Marketplace on pages 34 - 35.

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NASHVILLE SCENE | APRIL 22 - APRIL 28, 2021 | nashvillescene.com