Nashville Scene 5-19-22

MAY 19–25, 2022 I VOLUME 41 I NUMBER 16 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE

CITY LIMITS: NO JAIL TIME FOR CONVICTED NURSE RADONDA VAUGHT PAGE 8

CULTURE: ELIZABETH PARK ART INSTALLATION HONORS BLACK WOMEN OF NORTH NASHVILLE PAGE 43

PHILLIP-MICHAEL SCALES

r e m Sum Guide

ing, Waterfront din l and festiva e c n a s is a n e r a lus more p — e u c e b r a b coveted uff to do t s e im t r e m m great su do it and where to

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Shaping the next generation of creative minds.

ART & DESIGN SUMMER COURSES FOR TEENS JUNE 6-26

CONTENTS

MAY 19, 2022

7

41

Walk a Mile: Watkins Park ........................7

Hot or Not?

CITY LIMITS

In the 28th installment of his column, J.R. Lind explores the historic neighborhood containing Edmondson Park, Marathon Motor Works and Nashville’s first public park

BY J.R. LIND

Metropolitik: The Cost of an Amazon Housing Loan .............................................8 Tech giant becomes MDHA financier, establishing a new public-private relationship with the city

BY ELI MOTYCKA

No Jail Time for Convicted Nurse RaDonda Vaught .........................................................8

Nurses protested what they see as criminalized mistakes

FOOD AND DRINK Sampling some Nashville hot (not) chicken

BY CHRIS CHAMBERLAIN

43

CULTURE

In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens

An art installation in Elizabeth Park honors Black women of North Nashville

BY LENA MAZEL

45

Stories More Like Memories

The Crocodile Bride is a gripping family saga about the power of storytelling

This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

BY TINA CHAMBERS AND CHAPTER 16

12

47

Summer Guide ........................................ 12

Sister Act ................................................. 47

COVER STORY

From food and drink events to music fests and more, here’s some of the most enticing stuff going on in Nashville this summer

BY SCENE STAFF

On the Hunt for Monroe County Barbecue ................................................. 15

MUSIC

The Tennessee Renaissance Festival in Arrington lets you be your authentic self

BY KELSEY BEYELER

Waterfront Dining ................................... 25 Here’s where to partake in summer’s sublime pleasure

BY MARGARET LITTMAN

Phillip-Michael Scales Photo by Daniel Meigs

Work in Progress..................................... 49 Sofia Goodman pushes jazz forward, musically and culturally

The Scene’s live-review column checks out Olivia Rodrigo at the Grand Ole Opry House and Orville Peck at the Ryman

Necessary Medieval ................................ 21

Watch Author Mary Laura Philpott in Ladyland Podcast’s Video

BY BRITTNEY McKENNA

BY J.R. LIND

BY ERICA CICCARONE

East Nashville Piggly Wiggly Lands Restaurant Heavyweights

Revamped and revitalized, stellar bluegrass group Sister Sadie looks ahead

BY SEAN L. MALONEY

No matter what your plans are this summer, there’s a book by a local author for you

Nashvillians Gather Downtown for Bans Off Our Bodies Protest

ON THE COVER:

Tracking down this rare and special form of ’cue makes for an ideal summer day trip

Summer Reading List ............................. 17

Kendrick Lamar’s The Big Steppers Tour Heads to Music City

BOOKS

BY HANNAH HERNER

Pith in the Wind ...................................... 11

THIS WEEK ON THE WEB:

The Spin ................................................... 51

BY STEVEN HALE AND CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

53 FILM

Men We Reaped ...................................... 53 The insidious Men manifests the terror of being a woman

BY SADAF AHSAN

Exit the Void ............................................. 53

33

A ritual of unimaginable sadness, Vortex is also a monument to a life lived on its own terms

Lilly Hiatt, Ballet Extravaganza, Tig Notaro: Hello Again, The Wailers, Magnificent Obsession, Walk Bike Nashville’s Tour de Nash, Allison Russell, Beach Bunny, The War on Drugs and more

Racial comedy-slash-thriller Emergency is both obvious and necessary

BY JASON SHAWHAN

CRITICS’ PICKS

Don’t Panic! ............................................. 55

BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY

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Very little good can come from a Roe v. Wade reversal by our highest court, following the recent leak of the U.S. Supreme Court’s draft opinion likely overturning the landmark case.

However, there is a possible upside to this dangerous legal opinion — it could very well energize the Democratic base for generations.

A recent CBS News poll indicates that the potential reversal has motivated Democrats to vote considerably more than it has Republicans. “Right now, Democrats (most of whom favor keeping Roe) are more than twice as likely as Republicans (most of whom want Roe overturned) to say reversing that decision makes them more likely to vote this year,” reads the CBS News article. “Three in four Republicans say it won’t affect their likelihood of voting.”

Bloomberg reports on similar findings per a recent Morning Consult/Politico poll: “Abortion-rights supporters are more galvanized than opponents by the prospect of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.”

So polling suggests that Republicans see little to no effect upon their voting plans, yet Democrats see it as an impetus to head to the voting booth. While most would have expected the GOP to be crowing over their supposed victory, it has been somewhat surprising to see little far-right horn-tooting, relatively speaking. As The Guardian has recently commented, “Rather than celebrating the news of Roe’s likely demise, Republican leaders have mostly tried to focus on the leak itself, saying it represents a break in court decorum and blaming the incident on Democrats.”

It may very well be that Republicans are quietly realizing that overturning Roe v. Wade will become the third rail of partisan politics, no matter how you come down on the issue. One could argue that this is quickly becoming the case in Georgia. Trump-endorsed and trailing Republican gubernatorial candidate

David Perdue is running a primary challenge against incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp, who famously refused to bow to Trump’s demand to ignore Georgia’s certified votes in the 2020 presidential election. Perdue is working hard to corner Kemp and use the leaked draft opinion as a wedge between GOP voters, but polls are showing that the more moderate Kemp is continuing to hold his lead.

The leak is clearly impacting races, and most political experts are forecasting that this will also have significant repercussions for the November midterm elections — and even the 2024 elections.

Media outlets including The Washington Post are saying this news “might upend the midterms.” As the U.S. News and World Report has reported, a Roe reversal has the potential to “shake the political foundations” of our country.

Our country will suffer from this newest wedge driven between neighbors, family members and communities.

And yes, trust in yet another federal institution is now at risk of breaking. The biggest problem here is, of course, that a very personal issue of health, freedom and faith has now again been thrust to the public forefront. The best outcome is that voters will be energized to come out to vote and take a stand in the face of this limit to personal freedom.

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 Managing Editor Alejandro Ramirez Senior Editor Dana Kopp Franklin Arts Editor Laura Hutson Hunter Culture Editor Erica Ciccarone Music and Listings Editor Stephen Trageser Contributing Editor Jack Silverman Staff Writers Kelsey Beyeler, Stephen Elliott, Hannah Herner, J.R. Lind, Eli Motycka, William Williams, KateLynn White Contributing Writers Sadaf Ahsan, Radley Balko, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Lance Conzett, Steve Erickson, Nancy Floyd, Randy Fox, Adam Gold, Kashif Andrew Graham, Seth Graves, Kim Green, Steven Hale, Steve Haruch, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, Christine Kreyling, Katy Lindenmuth, Craig D. Lindsey, Brittney McKenna, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Daryl Sanders, Megan Seling, Jason Shawhan, Michael Sicinski, Nadine Smith, Ashley Spurgeon, Amy Stumpfl, Kay West, Abby White, Andrea Williams, Ron Wynn, Charlie Zaillian Art Director Elizabeth Jones Photographers Eric England, Matt Masters, Daniel Meigs Graphic Designers Mary Louise Meadors, Tracey Starck Production Coordinator Christie Passarello Festival Director Olivia Britton Marketing and Promotions Manager Robin Fomusa Publisher Mike Smith Senior Advertising Solutions Managers Sue Falls, Michael Jezewski, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Jennifer Trsinar, Keith Wright Advertising Solutions Managers Richard Jacques, Deborah Laufer, Niki Tyree Sales Operations Manager Chelon Hill Hasty Advertising Solutions Associates Jada Goggins, Audry Houle, Alissa Wetzel 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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NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 - MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

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CITY LIMITS

WATKINS PARK

Walk a

Mile

In the 28th installment of his column, J.R. Lind explores the historic neighborhood containing Edmondson Park, Marathon Motor Works and Nashville’s first public park

BY J.R. LIND | PHOTOS BY ERIC ENGLAND THE ROUTE: From William 12th

with J.R. Lind

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Once a month, reporter and resident historian J.R. Lind will pick an area in the city to examine while accompanied by a photographer. With his column Walk a Mile, he’ll walk a one-mile stretch of that area, exploring the neighborhood’s history and character, its developments, its current homes and businesses, and what makes it a unique part of Nashville. If you have a suggestion for a future Walk a Mile, email editor@nashvillescene.com.

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Edmondson Park, head north on Henry Hale Boulevard then turn right on Jo Johnston Avenue, turn left at 16th Avenue and follow the park trail inside Watkins Park parallel to the street.

Turn right on Clinton, then right on 12th Avenue and right again on Jo Johnston, turning back into Hale Homes with a left on 14th Avenue and then turn right on Capitol Point back to the start.

CRANES: 2

ABANDONED SCOOTERS:

23 (24, if including the child’s scooter spotted on a sidewalk)

rounding street grid. They have pleasant shade and little grass medians. At the end of the sidewalk connecting the park to Henry Hale Boulevard sits a broken-down Cinderella carriage, its team of horses having turned back into mice, perhaps. Henry Hale Boulevard climbs steadily northwest, lined

and divided with more shade trees and wonderful sidewalks. It’s a strikingly hot May morning and the dandelions have already turned fuzzy, the occasional breeze spreading their seeds. Look south and there’s a great view of “the second downtown” on West End. Look east and it’s a postcard view of the Capitol.

At Jo Johnston Avenue — the thoroughfare through this historically Black neighborhood was named, rather crassly, for the Confederate general who led the Army of Tennessee — students head to class at Martin Luther King Jr. Magnet in the former Pearl High School building. The school fronts Watkins Park itself, which holds several interesting distinctions. Its community center is home to the city’s smallest public library. The park is home to the city’s first

pump track.

Perhaps most importantly, it was the city’s first public park. Brickmaker Samuel Watkins gave the land, known as Watkins Grove, to the city in the 1870s, and Nashville opened it as a park in 1901. In 1906, the Centennial Club built Nashville’s first playground here. In 1936, Nashville segregated its parks, and Watkins Park was a park for Black Nashvillians until desegregation in the 1960s. It also has what may be the tallest magnolia trees in the city, the trunks soaring to the sky, the waxy leaves pendulant from the shade-giving branches.

There’s no sidewalk along 16th Avenue, so walkers are forced to take the trail inside the park’s walls as they head north. Trains churn by on the edge of the park, intimating the heavy industrial past of the area, made

W

illiam Edmondson Park is one of those happy little accidents of urban planning.

In 1976, Charlotte Avenue was set to be widened, so Metro Public Works cleared the area between the right-of-way and the J. Henry Hale Homes in anticipation. As it turns out, the road didn’t need as much space as anticipated, leaving a little strip of land too narrow for development, so the city turned it into a mini-park and named it for Edmondson, the outsider artist who became the first Black artist with a solo show at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. It’s a pleasant little space with a sculpture in the style of Edmondson and a monument dedicated to his memory, sculpted by Gregory Ridley from limestone salvaged from the old Commerce Union Building demolished in 1975. The monument — which includes a dove, one of Edmondson’s favorite subjects — is surrounded by columns from the old Tennessee State Capitol, similar to those found at Bicentennial Mall State Park and elsewhere.

The sidewalks between the houses at the Hale Homes more or less follow the sur-

nashvillescene.com | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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CITY LIMITS clearer by the massive Marathon Motor Works campus on Clinton Street to the east.

The company began as Southern Engine and Boiler Works in Jackson, Tenn., and began manufacturing automobiles in 1907. In 1910, capitalizing on the resurgence of interest in ancient Greek culture after the 1904 Olympics, it changed its name to Marathon Motor Works and moved to this facility in Nashville (coincidentally, the Athens of the South, of course). It was a relatively shortlived undertaking. In 1914, they stopped making cars. Only nine are thought to exist, and five of them are inside the building.

Occasionally, someone will offer as trivia that the Brass Era cars visible on the reverse of the $10 bill are Marathons, the artist subtly honoring Andrew Jackson, who was president when the pictured Treasury Building was constructed. That is, sadly, un-

METROPOLITIK

THE COST OF AN AMAZON HOUSING LOAN Tech giant becomes MDHA financier, establishing a new public-private relationship with the city

BY ELI MOTYCKA

T

he Metro Development and Housing Agency’s latest financing plan relies on a $7.1 million loan from Amazon. The government agency, which oversees Nashville’s government-subsidized housing units, has struggled to move forward on Envision Cayce, its flagship redevelopment program, since the Briley administration.

In January 2021, the company announced it would earmark $2 billion for housing-related projects in Seattle, the District of Columbia and Nashville, the three cities with Amazon corporate campuses.

Desperate for financing and capital, MDHA turned to the newly created Amazon Housing Equity Fund one month later.

Around that time, MDHA had hit an impasse in a years-long effort to overhaul its public housing footprint. Jim Harbison had just stepped down after leading the agency through four mayors, from 2013 to 2020. His work focused mostly on converting MDHA housing from federally owned to city-owned properties to prepare for Envision. The plan aimed to deconcentrate poverty and bring 7,500 new units online, most of them workforce and market-rate, flipping Nashville’s public housing into mixed-income communities. Workforce housing refers to households making between 60 percent and 120 percent of area median income, recently estimated around $62,515 in Nashville.

Former Mayor David Briley promised to fund Envision with Under One Roof, a $35 million annual commitment that MDHA could leverage into a few billion over 10 years. Public-facing info was thin on numbers and dropped like a campaign press release. The eye-popping bottom line rolled together MDHA’s $35 million over 10 years, $15 million in Barnes Fund dollars, and $250 million in money that hadn’t been secured yet (called a “challenge to the private sector”). John Cooper ran against the plan in the summer of 2019, spinning it as an MDHA bailout.

After winning the mayoral election, Cooper left Un-

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true. The Bureau of Engraving and Printing instructed the artist that the cars not be of any particular manufacturer, so as the government could not be seen to be endorsing one company over another. Instead, the cars are an amalgam of various models available when the bill was designed … in 1928, 14 years after Marathon’s demise.

Marathon is, however, a stunning example of adaptive reuse. The sturdy brick structure has been steadily renovated since 1988 and yet maintains the early-20th-century look throughout.

It includes an eponymous music venue (Marathon Music Works), the local outpost of Antique Archaeology, two distilleries and a host of other businesses. In an era when many developers have found it easier to simply push down an old structure or renovate to the point where the original is unrec-

ognizable, Marathon stands out.

The property is dotted with little automotive Easter eggs: old Dunlop tires signifying the former tire warehouse that was here between the Marathon days and the redevelopment; various old-school gas station knickknacks sourced from Antique Archaeology and the like. One gravel parking lot surrounds a chimney with no explanation.

The campus ends at 12th Avenue, which hugs the interstate loop. At 12th and Jo Johnston, behind intimidating loops of barbed wire and a high fence, is an absolutely stunning collection of Cadillacs.

But unless you are an enthusiastic fan of, say, Harold & Maude, these Caddies are not for you. This the home of Ambulance & Coach Sales and the surfeit of Cadillacs are specially designed to carry passengers to their final destination. It’s an absolute

der One Roof to rot on the vine. The agency functions independently of Metro’s operating budget but has a mayor-controlled board. Cooper appointed former Mayor Bill Purcell to chair the board, Harbison left, and after an interim stint from Saul Solomon, Purcell brought in Troy White to head the agency last summer.

Groundbreaking progress on Envision Nashville has been mostly confined to Envision Cayce, where six mixed-income developments have broken ground in five years. Envision Edgehill and Envision Napier and Sudekum were launched six years ago and remain in the planning phase.

MDHA funds Envision project by project. For Cherry Oak Apartments, MDHA combined low-income tax credits with its own capital, market-rate borrowing from the Bank of Tennessee, and the below-market loan from Amazon.

Cooper’s administration sent Cayce $15 million in American Rescue Plan money last year, a onetime infusion from the federal government to update neighborhood infrastructure. Rather than directly fund MDHA, Cooper’s housing strategy has focused on market incentives. Last week, he announced incentives for private developers aimed at producing more units for Nashvillians making between $31,000 and $43,000 a year. Cooper’s Affordable Housing Task Force reported last summer that Nashville is short 14,000 units for households making less than $20,000 a year. An effective affordable housing response depends on closing that gap, and MDHA is one of the only developers building those units. Even so, the entire Envision plan would bring only a few hundred such units online. Cherry Oak will add eight.

Matt Wiltshire, MDHA chief strategy and intergovernmental affairs officer, met with Amazon in February 2021 to coordinate Nashville’s slice of Amazon’s $2 billion commitment. (Wiltshire lobbied to bring Amazon to Nashville while working in Mayor Megan Barry’s office of economic development.) After pitching Amazon, MDHA kicked the deal to the mayor’s office for approval a week later, where it stayed until Amazon opened an official application process six months after that. Amazon approved the Cherry Oak deal after another nine months.

According to Dr. Troy White, current MDHA executive director, Amazon’s lending will help MDHA accomplish its goals.

“MDHA is committed to preserving and expanding affordable housing in Nashville, and partnerships with nonprofit and for-profit entities, like Amazon, are crucial to moving the needle and bringing more affordable opportunities to Nashvillians in need,” White said in a statement to the Scene.

Amazon’s loan is attractive: $7.1 million at 2.5 percent interest and interest-only payments, terms favorable to the borrower. But it’s a stretch to call its

lending selfless. Amazon is making money on the loan, though perhaps not as much as it could make elsewhere. It will own MDHA debt and can advertise its community relations. Affordability crises seem to follow the tech sector, and a housing-focused partnership with Nashville makes a lot of sense. Amazon’s $2 billion announcement came as it deployed a new corporate presence in Arlington, Va., and a 5,000-person logistics command center at Nashville Yards. Queens, N.Y., the other chosen land for Amazon’s HQ2, embarrassed city and state economic development offices by uninviting the tech giant four months after Amazon announced its intentions to set up shop in the rapidly gentrifying borough.

While $7.1 million is a sizable chunk of financing for MDHA, the seven-digits figure is pocket change for Amazon, which raked in $33.6 billion last year in profit and operated with $445 billion in expenses — about 10 times the budget of the state of Tennessee.

Amazon is one of five corporations valued at more than a trillion dollars. It avoided $5.2 billion in federal income taxes in 2021 and spent millions to suppress unionization efforts at distribution centers, where its workers face production quotas.

Critics have focused on the real costs cities pay for Amazon, beyond the billions in outright incentives and tax breaks. Seattle, Amazon’s home base, has one of the most expensive housing markets in the country.

The 18th-most-populous metro area in America, Seattle has one of the largest populations of unhoused people in the country for a city its size. Each tech hub has some version of two cities — one rich and one poor — living side by side.

Amazon’s six-figure workforce is a big log on a blazing fire. A quick influx of tech salaries distorts local housing markets, sending prices into the stratosphere. In a companywide memo on April 28, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky allowed employees to work fully remote and explicitly named Nashville as an alternative to San Francisco. The city functions like shorthand among the tech industry for “higher quality of life at a lower cost, but with familiar amenities and accessible cultural experiences,” a bargain compared to tier-one tech hubs like the Bay Area and New York.

Amazon’s shift to benevolent commercial lender is a savvy public relations move against this backdrop.

The company is no stranger to pivots — it started out as an online bookseller and now owns a third of the internet — and is already involved in politics at the local and state levels. A public commitment to affordable housing might help its reputation withstand blowback.

MDHA’s business model relies on pieces, and this was a good one, far preferable to the alternatives. The loan is the latest link in Nashville’s evolving public-private relationship with one of the world’s corporate giants.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

jigsaw puzzle of hearses, and it’s across the street from Farm in the City, a massive community garden opened by the Metro Development and Housing Agency in 2010, sitting on land that was the state quarry from whence the limestone used to build the Capitol came. Just a little life-and-death dichotomy in an otherwise vacant stretch of Jo Johnston.

Landscaping is underway back inside Hale Homes, notable as the buzz and whir of the trimmers is really the only sound breaking through despite the proximity of the interstate. Chalk on the sidewalk directs visitors to Trae Trae’s birthday party, while Nashville heads to work on Charlotte. But inside the confines of the Hale Homes, it’s almost weekend-quiet, an easy place to drift away.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NO JAIL TIME FOR CONVICTED NURSE RADONDA VAUGHT

Nurses protested what they see as criminalized mistakes

BY HANNAH HERNER

F

ormer Vanderbilt University Medical Center nurse RaDonda Vaught will not serve jail time after making a medication error that resulted in the death of a patient.

She was sentenced to three years probation last week for impaired adult abuse and criminally negligent homicide, both felonies that could have resulted in a three-year jail sentence.

Vaught was a “nurse’s nurse,” said Elizabeth Kessinger, a Vanderbilt nurse who helped train Vaught and was called as a witness in the sentencing hearing. Vaught was the type of nurse someone in the profession would choose to take care of them. Hundreds of nurses gathered at Public Square Park last week in support of Vaught.

The sentencing fell one day after the end of National Nurses Week. Many of the nurses in attendance came from outside of Nashville, some on their way back home from the national nurse’s march in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

Vaught, using an electronic medicine cabinet, overrode a function to mistakenly give patient Charlene Murphey a powerful sedative rather than an anti-anxiety medication, resulting in her death in December 2017. The case garnered national attention, and nurses with large social media followings — including personalities like Nurse Erica, Nurse Jessica, Taccara D. and Tina from the Good Nurse Bad Nurse podcast — spoke at Public Square Park ahead of the proceedings.

Gov. Bill Lee confirmed that he would not grant clemency for Vaught, though an online petition calling for clemency garnered more than 200,000 signatures.

In the sentencing hearing, the prosecution brought up a perjury charge, in which she is accused of lying on a form for buying a gun, and played an emotionally charged media interview, saying that her attitude should be taken into account. The defense entered 40 character >> P. 11

NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

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ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL • JAMES MCMURTRY • THE JERRY DOUGLAS BAND JOHN FULLBRIGHT • JOSHUA RAY WALKER • KELLY WILLIS • MIKO MARKS MOLLY TUTTLE & GOLDEN HIGHWAY • PO' RAMBLIN' BOYS • SHEMEKIA COPELAND TOWN MOUNTAIN • WATKINS FAMILY HOUR • WILLIAM PRINCE • WILLIE WATSON

AARON RAITIERE • AMY SPEACE • ANDY MCKEE • BETTE SMITH • BLACK OPRY REVUE BOWEN YOUNG • BRENNEN LEIGH • BRIT TAYLOR • BRUCE MOLSKY • BUFFALO NICHOLS CAROLINE SPENCE • CHARLES WESLEY GODWIN • DEAD HORSES • THE DESLONDES JESSE DANIEL • JESSICA WILLIS FISHER • JIM LAUDERDALE • JOE PURDY MICHAELA ANNE • RISSI PALMER • RIVER WHYLESS • ROB ICKES AND TREY HENSLEY SISTER SADIE • SUNNY SWEENEY • SUNNY WAR • TALL HEIGHTS • TIM BAKER

THE ABRAMS • THE ACCIDENTALS • ALI MCGUIRK • ALISA AMADOR • ALLISON DE GROOT & TATIANA HARGREAVES THE BALLROOM THIEVES • BELLA WHITE • BLUE DOGS • THE BONES OF J.R. JONES • CHRISTIE LENÉE CORY BRANAN • DAN RODRIGUEZ • DIGGING ROOTS • DRAYTON FARLEY • EMILY KINNEY • GABY MORENO THE HEAVY HEAVY • HENRY WAGONS • JAKE BLOUNT • JAMIE LIN WILSON • JD CLAYTON JEDD HUGHES • JONNY MORGAN • KAIA KATER • KAITLIN BUTTS • KAYLA RAY • KIELY CONNELL LANEY LOU AND THE BIRD DOGS • LINDSAY LOU • LUKE SCHNEIDER & FRIENDS: A PEDAL STEEL SHOWCASE LULLANAS • MELISSA CARPER • MIKE COMPTON • MY POLITIC • MYRON ELKINS • NAT MYERS NATHAN GRAHAM • OSHIMA BROTHERS • THE PINE HEARTS • RACHEL BROOKE • RAINBOW GIRLS RASCAL MARTINEZ • THE SWEET LILLIES • TAMMY ROGERS & THOMM JUTZ • THEO LAWRENCE TRAY WELLINGTON BAND • TROUBADOUR BLUE • THE WILDER BLUE

+ 125 MORE TO BE ANNOUNCED!

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NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 - MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

CITY LIMITS

TI M B E R HAWK HALL

SUPPORTERS REACT TO VAUGHT’S SENTENCING

PHOTO: MATT MASTERS

B uilt Fo r M u s ic.

A s tate - of-the - ar t m u s ic venue op enin g in J anuar y 2023 in the he ar t of M adison , TN . letters and heard from Vaught’s neighbor and fellow nurse, childhood friend and a former co-worker.

“When Charlene Murphey died, a part of me died with her,” Vaught said on the stand.

Murphey’s son and two daughters-in-law testified that they would not ask for jail time for Vaught. Murphey’s husband, however, said he would have liked to see her receive jail time.

Russell Dcunha, a travel nurse who attended nursing school at Western Kentucky University at the same time as Vaught, said understaffing played a part.

“It could happen to anybody, like it could happen to any one of us,” Dcunha said. “To happen to someone like her is unfortunate, because she is a genuine person. It could happen to me when I walk into work tomorrow, with our patient load. We work like 12, 13 [hours]. I’ve been there from 7 p.m. to 10 in the morning and not have a lunch break and maybe go

pee once or twice.”

Attendees called for “just culture,” the ideology that errors are part of larger systemic issues in a workplace, and implementation of a staffing ratio in hospitals. Vaught was pulled from another unit to administer the medicine and she had a nurse shadowing her the day of the error.

Dana Vernon, chief nursing officer at Ascension Saint Thomas Behavioral Health Hospital, said she hopes the trial won’t affect the nurses who report to her or prevent people from entering the profession.

“I’m just afraid that nurses won’t come forward when they do make a mistake, to help us find solutions on how to fix the problem,” Vernon said. “If it’s a medication dispensing issue, we need to be able to fix the problem with being able to put controls in so that nurses aren’t ever put in this position.”

w w w.tim b erh awk h all .co m

JULY 28-30, 2022

SCAN FOR MORE INFO!

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM MUSIC CITY

THIS WEEK ON OUR NEWS AND POLITICS BLOG:

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and Meharry Medical College determined that Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine is safe and effective for children ages 6 to 11. More than 99 percent of the 4,000 children who participated in the study developed antibodies. They were given two doses of the vaccine, each about half of the dosage given to adults.

In addition, the trial found vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 was at 88 percent (meaning people who had the vaccine had an 88 percent lower risk of contracting COVID-19 than the placebo group) beginning as early as two weeks after the first dose of vaccine.

Those are similar results to those seen in adults. …

Metro’s Homelessness Planning Council found a slight decrease in people experiencing homelessness during its point-in-time count. In 2022, 1,916 people were experiencing homelessness, down from 2,016 in 2020, the last year such a count was performed.

The HPC is also grappling with the local effects of the state’s so-called “anti-camping law,” which goes into effect July 1. The bill gained national attention when Frank Niceley (R-Strawberry Plains) referred to Hitler’s rumored period of homelessness while voicing his support of the legislation — which would extend a law that makes camping on state property a felony to other forms of public property. It would also make camping near or under state highway property a misdemeanor charge. (The charge would be preceded by warnings from law enforcement.) Gov. Bill Lee did not sign the bill — though it will still go into effect. … With a budget meeting prior and a robust discussion following public comment, the Metro school board ultimately

decided to defer approving the so-called Summary of Changes to Fiscal Year 2022-2023 Operating Budget. The discussion around the budget was at times intense, with raised voices, gavel-banging and even some tears of frustration. The largest topic of discussion was pay increases for support staff, a move that MNPS employees and their unions have been pushing for. Highlights from the proposed summary include a 4 percent cost-of-living adjustment for all staff, along with certified step increases and paid family leave.

Some support staff positions would also see raises.

Bus drivers were benchmarked to receive a $6.20 raise that would put starting wages at $22.25 per hour, while nutrition service workers were set for a $2-per-hour salary increase, and paraprofessionals’ starting pay was proposed to jump by $2.52. … Contributor Betsy Phillips says The Tennessean and editor David Plazas are performing a disservice by allowing Laurie CardozaMoore to spout lies about, among other things, Nashville Public Library director Kent Oliver. In an op-ed for the daily, Cardoza-Moore — best known for, among other things, opposing the construction of a mosque in Murfreesboro — suggests that the library’s “Read Banned Books” campaign means Oliver supports children reading pornography. Cardoza-Moore herself leads a nonprofit that Phillips finds has a suspicious spending history, with the bulk of its funds going to Cardoza-Moore herself and her family. Writes Phillips: “By platforming this grifter and treating her outlandish, untrue statements as opinions worthy of consideration, you are signaling that she is a contributing member of society with worthwhile goals and opinions, and not someone who leeches off of dumbasses. You then make it easier for her to target more dumbasses to part from their money, because you’ve given her legitimacy.”

NASHVILLESCENE.COM/PITHINTHEWIND PITH@NASHVILLESCENE.COM • @PITHINTHEWIND

F U N F O R T H E W H O L E F A M I LY MUSIC - CAMPING - SPEAKERS - COMEDIANS KIDZONE - ACTIVITIES - AND MORE! Lifest Oshkosh, one of the largest Christian music festivals in the nation, is bringing its event to Music City! For over two decades, Lifest, also known as “A Party with a Purpose,” has become a destination event for thousands of families across the US and surrounding countries. Proceeds from the festival go to support Dignity Revolution, a K-12 evidence-based program that addresses social and emotional learning through current youth issues related to mental health, bullying, self-harm, and suicide.

Lifest Music City is a family-friendly music festival that will be held July 28-30, 2022, at Hideaway Farm in Bon Aqua, TN.

SAVE $5 ON ADULT ONE DAY TICKETS WITH CODE: SCENE ADULT (AGES 16 AND OLDER). EXPIRES 7/27/2022. SERVICE FEES APPLY.

LIFEST.COM

nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 - MAY 25, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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Summer Guide

From food and drink events to music fests and more, here’s some of the most enticing stuff going on in Nashville this summer presented by

Food and Drink May 21: ARCADE BEER FESTIVAL Hosted by Game Terminal, this event will feature plenty to keep beer drinkers and gamers satisfied. The barcade offers 94 pinball machines and 136 free arcade games, and more than 20 breweries will show up for the event. Sessions at noon and 4 p.m. at the Game Terminal

May 21: TENNESSEE WHISKEY TRAIL EXPERIENCE

General admission tickets will let guests sample from 30 different distilleries, and the event also features ticketed mixology classes and tastings of rare whiskeys. There will also be live music and a cigar lounge. 1 p.m. at Nissan Stadium

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June 3: BREW AT THE ZOO

The Nashville Zoo’s beer-centric afterhours event returns, letting you sample beers from more than 80 different craft breweries while strolling the grounds to check out some animals. This year, the zoo’s brand-new light show Night Visions is also part of the fun, adding some vivid color and music to the evening outing. 7:30 p.m. at the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere

June 4: NASHVILLE MAC AND

CHEESE FESTIVAL

Celebrate the top-tier comfort food by sampling more than 30 different mac-andcheese dishes from chefs and vendors. 11:30 a.m. at First Horizon Park

July 2: WATERMELON FESTIVAL There’s nothing like a cool watermelon on a hot summer day. At Lucky Ladd Farms’ Watermelon Festival, you can not only enjoy a refreshing slice of the oversized fruit but even compete in an eating contest and a watermelon crawl. You can also pass the time with water slides, a “bubble blast pool” and more. 10 a.m. at Lucky Ladd Farms

:

July 4 MUSIC CITY HOT CHICKEN FESTIVAL For years, fans of Nashville’s famed fiery fowl have gathered on Independence Day to celebrate the dish with hot chicken vendors from around the city, including Prince’s, Hattie B’s and Bolton’s. A fire-truck parade signals the start of the festivities, and entertainment includes live music and an amateur hot chicken cooking competition.

11 a.m. at East Park

July 4: SIP TN WINE FESTIVAL This festival will feature more than 100 wines made in Tennessee. Participants can taste from various wineries and purchase some bottles to bring back home — and VIP tickets give you access to special-edition wines. 1 p.m. at Amqui Station, Madison

July 23: MUSIC CITY BREWER’S FEST

Enjoy samples from more than 40 breweries, including local, national and international brands. A portion of ticket sales benefits Nashville Humane Association. 5 p.m. at Music City Walk of Fame Park

July 29: RED, WHITE AND ZOO Sip wine from around the world as you explore the Nashville Zoo’s grounds after hours. Patrons of the event will also enjoy live music, bites from local restaurants, and craft beer and spirits. 6:30 p.m. at the Nashville Zoo at Grassmere

July 9: MUSIC CITY JERK FESTIVAL Celebrate Jamaican and Caribbean cuisine at Music City Walk of Fame Park with this annual event. Attendees can enjoy picnicstyle seating while sampling fare from vendors. 12:30 p.m. at Music City Walk of Fame Park

NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

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TOUR DE NASH

June 25-26: NASHVILLE PRIDE

June 10-11: PORTER FLEA

Our city’s annual Pride celebration is two full days of music, family-friendly activities and community art, with more than 200 vendors and, of course, a parade. The three stages will feature musical acts including Walk the Moon, Tanya Tucker, Dave Audé, Michaela Jaé, Bully, Jaime Wyatt, Vincint, Siena Liggins and more. Pride Parade 10 a.m. Saturday at Broadway and Eighth Avenue North. Festival 11 a.m.-9 p.m.

Saturday and 11 a.m.-7 p.m. Sunday at Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park

Among the city’s best markets, Porter Flea features vendors from near and far selling small-batch art prints, clothing and accessories, ceramics, jewelry and much more. Expect food trucks on site. 6-9 p.m.

Friday and 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday at The Fairgrounds Nashville

Aug. 12-13: TOMATO ART FESTIVAL

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

A perennial winner of Best Festival in the Scene’s Best of Nashville Readers’ Poll, this East Nashville staple offers a parade, an art show, hordes of vendors selling food, art and curiosities, tons of contests and much more. It’s the kind of festival with a bounty of activities for kids, but also lots of fun for grown-ups, like a bloody mary competition and a solid music lineup. Five Points in East Nashville

Nashville Farmers’ Market’s annual, supersweet Peach Jam features chef demos, live music, food trucks, peach cocktails and plenty of peaches. 9 a.m.-4 p.m. at the Nashville Farmers’ Market

July 16: TOMAT-O-RAMA At the peak of nightshade season, you can indulge in summer’s favorite fruit all day long. The festivities typically include tomato tastings, chef demos, recipe contests, live music and lots of bloody marys. 8 a.m.-4 p.m. at the Nashville Farmers’ Market

June 18: THE GREAT TRINITY BAZAAR

Markets May 20-21: THE VINTAGE & VINYL

MARKET

Festivals and Fairs

June 11: PEACH JAM

This event will feature vintage apparel, vinyl records, memorabilia and collectibles.

There will also be food trucks, beer, hard seltzers, cocktails and live music. 6-10 p.m.

Friday and 11 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday at The Marketplace

Be Good Market, Grimey’s, Anaconda Vintage and Living Waters join forces for this market, which will also feature vendors Lost Cause Studio, Forestdale Incense, Meg Pie, Black Cloud Metal and more. 10 a.m.-6 p.m. at Grimey’s New and Preloved Music

May 21: TOUR DE NASH

Nashville’s largest urban bike ride offers different routes for different levels of experience, including nine-, 25- and 45mile rides. And for the first time, there’s also a two-mile kids’ route along Shelby Bottoms Greenway. For starting times and locations visit walkbikenashville.org/ tourdenash

May 22: MUSIC CITY MUTT STRUTT

Pups and people alike can benefit Nashville Humane Association by taking part in a 5K or one-mile fun run, walk or strut. There are also some fun awards for those who finish first, finish last or finish in style. (Costumes are indeed encouraged for furry and notso-furry participants.) 7 a.m. at Shelby Bottoms Greenway

Create your own lantern, write a message to yourself or a loved one and set it to float away on the water. Gates at 5:30 p.m., launch at 8:30 p.m. at The Parthenon in Centennial Park

NASHVILLE PRIDE

Summer guide

presented by nashvillescene.com | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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PHOTO: STEVE CROSS

May 28: WATER LANTERN FESTIVAL

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Tutto Eccetto il Lavandino (everything but the kitchen sink) C H O R E O G R A P H Y BY

Val Caniparoli MUSIC BY

Antonio Vivaldi

June 4–5

See YOUR Nashville Ballet perform at the brand-new Fisher Center for the Performing Arts

2,192 Days C H O R E O G R A P H Y BY

Nick Mullikin

ON SA L E !

N OW

MUSIC BY

Sergei Rachmaninov Plus a sneak peek of a brand-new work by Matthew Neenan

PHOTO COURTESY OF BELMONT UNIVERSITY

P U RC H A S E T I C K E TS AT

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NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 - MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

NashvilleBallet.com

Aug. 26: HONKY TONK NIGHT MARKET

In addition to vendors and food, this market will feature live performances from local country and Western artists and a special line-dancing lesson. 6-9 p.m. at the Nashville Farmers’ Market

Arts and Culture May 26: BOOKS, BARS & GUITARS

PHOTO: OLIVIA LIND

The latest iteration of The Porch Writers’ Collective’s evening of song and literature will feature musicians Natalie Prass and Daniel Nunnelee, and celebrate the winners of the Porch Prize 2022, Sophia Huneycutt, Christian Collier and Jardana Peacock. 6:30 p.m. at Analog at the Hutton Hotel

June 1 & 4: STATEHOOD

DAY AND MUSEUM BIRTHDAY COMMEMORATION

A double birthday party will commence at the Tennessee State Museum to celebrate the museum’s 85th birthday and the state’s 226th anniversary of statehood. The event will include tours of Bicentennial Mall State Park, a keynote address from museum director Ashley Howell, story time, cupcakes and more. 9 a.m. Wednesday and 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the Tennessee State Museum

June 3-Sept. 4: LIGHT, SPACE, SURFACE: WORKS FROM THE LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART Artists from the Light and Space group create some of the most wonderful, immersive artworks you’ll see. The Los Angeles County Museum of Arts hosts many of these on its expansive grounds. This summer, you don’t have to travel west to see the work of James Turrell, Robert Irwin, Doug Wheeler and many more — the Frist Art Museum will mount an exhibition of works from LACMA that should be the highlight of the season. These artists are “united by an interest in manipulating the medium of light, projected or reflected, to alter the perception of form, architectural space, and surface qualities.” Nashville is fortunate to have a permanent piece

by James Turrell — “Blue Pesher” — at Cheekwood, and the Frist will team up with the gardens for a two-part tour on Aug. 4. Exhibition on view through Sept.

4 at the Frist Art Museum

>>CONTINUED ON PAGE 19

On the Hunt for Monroe County Barbecue Tracking down this rare and special form of ’cue makes for an ideal summer day trip

BY J.R. LIND FROM NASHVILLE: Take I-65 North to Vietnam Veterans Parkway (SR-386).

Continue until it becomes Long Hollow Pike, and then turn left to go north on U.S. Highway 31E. At Westmoreland, turn right to go east on State Route 52 and continue to Celina. At the courthouse, make a left on Lake Avenue.

Dale Hollow 1 Stop is a mile ahead on the right.

W

ith the surfeit of barbecue restaurants in Nashville, surely by now we’ve all tried every variant there is to be had: Carolina wholehog with either vinegar- or mustard-based sauce, Memphis dry rub, Kansas City burnt ends, Alabama white sauce, Texas brisket.

Heck, the true completist can even get a tri-tip sirloin from the grocery store or the butcher and have a go at California’s Santa Maria-style. (That last one is worth it and perfect for a camping trip, by the way.)

But to truly fill out the barbecue bingo card, head northeast about 100 miles on the backroads of the Upper Cumberland, through Red Boiling Springs (home of some truly opulent Victorian hotels and an ignominious high school football record), Hermitage Springs (before 2007, home of one of the last K-12 public schools in Tennessee) and Moss (home of Dumas Walker, made famous by the Kentucky Headhunters, and a shocking number of sawmills).

State Route 52 dives off the ridge at Moss, heading precipitously into the valley where the Obey River joins the Cumberland in Celina, the seat of Clay County. At the edge of downtown, such as it is, is Dale Hollow 1 Stop Barbecue, where the meat is “finer than frog’s hair split four ways,” according to the T-shirts of the men in the kitchen.

All the usual suspects are there — smoked pulled pork as a plate or a sandwich, chicken, a baked potato positively engorged with meat and cheese.

But at the top of the laminated menu: “shoulder.”

And that’s what you’ve come for: Monroe County barbecue, named for the Kentucky county just across the state line and available only in this little pocket of the world.

Summer guide

The style has received a little bit of outside attention after a 2018 story in The New York Times. But on Mother’s Day 2022, the parking lot features mostly license plates from Clay and neighboring counties (and one Prius from Nashville) as the after-church crowd fills the place. Rather than slow-smoking a whole shoulder (or a Boston butt, named not for its location on the hog, but for the fact that the cut was formerly shipped in barrels), as is typical around here, they slice the shoulder super-thin and grill it over hickory.

To a purist — and let’s face it, plenty of us have corrected friends from the North who say they are having “a barbecue” when all they are doing is grilling — this may not meet the technical definition of barbecue. It’s a quick, high-heat method. The glowing hickory does, however, impart some smoky flavor.

But the secret, as they say, is in the sauce.

It’s a mixture of lard, butter, vinegar and enough cayenne and black pepper to make Paul Prudhomme sneeze. It’s slathered on while the shoulder steaks are on the grill, and when they are done cooking, they get a second soak before they slide on your plate next to two sides. (Order the potato twisties and thank me later.)

The result is tender slices of pork cooked to a hellhouse reddish-orangeybrown, the lard and butter parts of the sauce staining the plate, the black pepper and cayenne searing the tongue and the vinegar puckering the lips.

The provenance of this particular style? That’s as much of a mystery as why it’s never escaped the isolated Pennyrile and Upper Cumberland, where it’s king. According to the Times, a proprietor in Tompkinsville, Ky., learned of the sauce from her grandfather, who said it came out of a camp of enslaved people near Cave City. And that seems reasonable enough, as the ingredients are fairly inexpensive and easy to acquire.

The question of why pork steaks was thornier. One theory is that because they are quick-cooking and cheap, tobacco farmers served them to their farmhands. (There’s a similar theory as to how the aforementioned Santa Maria style came about.)

But as the Times notes, because the steaks are traditionally cut so thinly, it’s virtually impossible that the style predates the advent of the industrial freezer and the commercial meat slicer. It’s all but impossible to cut a pork shoulder into half-inch slices with a butcher knife, and it’s even harder if the meat isn’t frozen.

However it came about, it should end up in your mouth.

The drive is a perfect summer day trip, and Celina is hard against Dale Hollow Lake, one of the Tennessee Valley Authority’s most aesthetically pleasing projects, in part because it has a largely rock bottom and thus always looks clean and shimmering, unlike some Middle Tennessee mud-bottomed lakes that will remain nameless.

Pile in the Prius and head to the Pennyrile and the Plateau to put paid to the notion that Memphis has Tennessee’s only vernacular barbecue style. ✷

presented by nashvillescene.com | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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coming soon

LESLIE ODOM,JR.

BERNADETTE PETERS June 22

WITH THE NASHVILLE SYMPHONY

THE MUSIC OF QUEEN

Enrico Lopez-Yañez, Conductor SERIES PARTNER

June 26 at Ascend Amphitheater

THE DRIFTERS, THE CORNELL GUNTER COASTERS, AND THE PLATTERS

May 26 to 28

June 27*

CLASSICAL SERIES FINALE BEN FOLDS

June 30 to July 2

BEETHOVEN'S NINTH

GUSTER July 6

Giancarlo Guerrero, conductor Presented without the Nashville Symphony.

SERIES PARTNER

May 29

SERIES PARTNER

TOY STORY IN CONCERT

June 2 to 5

July 8 to 10

SING-A-LONG-A SOUND OF MUSIC July 17*

THE RIGHTEOUS BROTHERS

ABBA

ABBA

July 29*

THE CONCERT

with the Nashville Symphony

THE CONCERT

GRAND FUNK RAILROAD

Enrico Lopez-Yañez, conductor

Presented without the Nashville Symphony.

August 5*

© Universal City Studios LLC and Amblin Entertainment, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

June 8

June 17 to 19

*Presented without the Nashville Symphony.

EXPLORE OUR CONCERT CALENDAR AND BUY TICKETS

NashvilleSymphony.org/Tickets | 615.687.6400

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NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 - MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

WITH SUPPORT FROM

Summer Reading List No matter what your plans are this summer, there’s a book by a local author for you

BY ERICA CICCARONE

S

ummer is the perfect season for reading. The weather gives us ample excuse to lounge around, and the change of pace during excursions activates our imaginations. Plus, the local literary scene is booming. Here we offer recommendations by Nashville authors for a variety of summer plans and moods. (You might recognize some names from these pages — we’ve marked those mighty talented folks with asterisks.)

Whether you’re sinking your toes into sand, scrunching yourself into a backseat on a road trip, or seeking thrills, escape or inspiration, there’s a book by a local author for you.

I’ll Mostly Be at Music Festivals …

Here’s what to read in between.

Take Me out of This World!

Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be

By Marissa R. Moss*

When escapism is in order.

The Memory Index

By Julian R. Vaca, out Aug. 9

The Advice King Anthology

By Chris Crofton*

Jesus Crawdad Death

By Betsy Phillips*

The Tacky South Edited by Katharine Burnett and Monica Carol Miller

I’m Going to the Beach!

Be sure to wear sunscreen. You won’t put these down.

Nobody’s Magic

By Destiny O. Birdsong* Walking Gentry Home: A Memoir of My Foremothers in Verse

By Alora Young, out Aug. 2

I Seek Thrills!

Suspense awaits.

Until I Find You

By Rea Frey

Plunge Me Into the Heavy Get all up in your feelings.

When the Corn Is Waist High

By Jeremy Scott

I’m Staycationing

Local lore about Music City.

I Dream He Talks to Me

By Allison Moorer

Her Dark Lies J.T. Ellison

What We Wish Were True: Reflections on Nurturing Life and Facing Death

By Tallu Schuyler Quinn

Greeting From New Nashville: How a Sleepy Southern Town Became “It” City Edited by Steve Haruch*

I’m Hitting the Road!

Feel free to stop along the way.

Abandoned Tennessee Treasures

By Jay Farrell Moon: Nashville to New Orleans Road Trip: Hit the Road for the Best Southern Food and Music Along the Natchez Trace

By Margaret Littman* Graceland, at Last: Notes on Hope and Heartache from the American South

By Margaret Renkl*

To Care for the Sick and Bury the Dead: African American Lodges and Cemeteries in Tennessee

By Leigh Ann Gardner Mastodons to Mississippians: Adventures in Nashville’s Deep Past

By Aaron Deter-Wolf and Tanya M. Peres We Should Soon Become Respectable: Nashville’s Own Timothy Demonbreun

By Elizabeth Elkins

I Crave Inspiration!

Assemble supplies for your mood board.

I’m a Young Reader

Bomb Shelter: Love, Time, and Other Explosives

By Mary Laura Philpott

In the Wild Light

By Jeff Zentner

Bending the Arc: My Journey From Prison to Politics

By Keeda Haynes The People’s Plaza: Sixty-Two Days of Nonviolent Resistance

By Justin Jones, out Aug. 15

Summer guide

Good for you!

We Are Family

By LeBron James and Andrea Williams* I Was Their American Dream

By Malaka Gharib* The Places We Sleep

By Caroline Brooks DuBois

presented by nashvillescene.com | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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THEBECANNI.COM The Becanni’s spacious luxury residences sit immediately adjacent to Charlotte Park in West Nashville – just a few blocks from Rock Harbor Marina and the peaceful waters of the Cumberland River. Final Phase – Presale Now! Delivering this summer/fall.

CITYBLUFFS.COM CityBluffs is a mixed-use development located just across the Cumberland River offering quick access to North & East Nashville, The Nations and Mid-town Nashville.

Phase 2 features 3 bedroom townhomes with garages and rooftop amenities offering panoramic views. Expected to begin delivering in Feb 2023.

Pictured above: Mark Deutschmann, Newell Anderson, Danielle Helling, Crystal Atkinson, Caroline Dean, Callie Hughes, Deborah Vahle, Anna Dorris, Devin Mueller, Giovanna Burchell, Maggie K. Hall, Latina Davis, Shelbi Aimonetti

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NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 - MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

June 4-5: NASHVILLE BALLET AT

BELMONT

The ballet will conclude its season at Belmont University’s new world-class venue. The diverse repertoire will feature new choreography by Matthew Neenan and the ballet’s associate artistic director Nick Mullikin. 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at The Fisher Center for the Performing Arts at Belmont University

June 4: HELLO MY NAME IS EUGENE Atlanta-based artist EuGene V Byrd III illustrates aspects of the Black experience that are often overlooked. Using a bold palette to evoke rich experiences, Byrd sets a tone of celebration and pride. 6 p.m. at NKA Gallery

June 6: FOUJITA’S CATS While some of us consider ourselves Enthusiastic Feline Advocates, the reputation of cats is … mixed. One artist dedicated his work to capturing the essence of these divisive creatures. JapaneseFrench artist Tsuguharu Foujita was a Paris bohemian in the early 20th century, and his paintings and lithographs depicting cats — as well as women and children, if that’s more your thing — will be the subject of this exhibition. Through Sept. 18 at Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery

June 9: AUTHOR EVENT: MARISSA R.

MOSS

Kicking off Tennessee State Museum’s TN Writers | TN Stories series, author (and Scene contributor) Marissa R. Moss will discuss her recently published book Her Country: How the Women of Country Music Became the Success They Were Never Supposed to Be. Moss will appear with WNXP editorial director and NPR music reporter Jewly Hight. 6 p.m. at the Tennessee State Museum

June 11: JUNETEENTH AT TENNESSEE STATE MUSEUM

Tennessee State Museum’s daylong Juneteenth festival will be held a week before other festivities in the city, giving you a chance to stretch the celebration.

The day will feature music, dance, poetry, art, crafts and historic games for the whole family to enjoy. Continuing the museum’s TN Writers | TN Stories series, Leigh Ann Gardner will discuss her book To Care for the Sick and Bury the Dead: African American Lodges and Cemeteries in Tennessee. Additional programming includes a screening and discussion about the Fort Negley Descendants Project, and the chance for visitors to interact with United States Colored Troops reenactors. 10 a.m.-3 p.m. at the Tennessee State Museum

June 11: OPERA ON THE MOUNTAIN

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Nashville Opera’s annual night under the stars will feature performances from soprano Sangeetha Ekambaram, mezzosoprano Clementina Moreira and tenor Gregory Sliskovich. It will also serve as the 2022-23 season launch party. 6 p.m. at Vanderbilt Dyer Observatory

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June 13 : AUTHOR EVENT: DAVID

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SEDARIS

An author who needs no introduction, Sedaris has been pumping out funny, moving personal essays for decades. His latest, A Carnival of Snackery, collects entries in his journal, in which he looks outward at the unexpected people and scenes he encounters. 6:30 p.m. at Parnassus Books

June 14 : AUTHOR EVENT:

THIS WEEK THU MTSU RALPH MURPHY BENEFIT FEAT. 6:30 5/19 CARLENE CARTER, PAT ALGER, TONY ARATA, MARY GAUTHIER, ROGER COOK, JIM ‘MOOSE: BROWN, KATHY BAILEY & MICHAEL BONAGURA & MORE! FRI

5/20

GERALDINE BROOKS

In her upcoming novel Horse, AustralianAmerican novelist and journalist Geraldine Brooks riffs on the true story of the recordbreaking 19th-century thoroughbred Lexington and the people who cared for him and, after his death, became obsessed with him. 6:30 p.m. at Parnassus Books

June 16-26: THAT WOMAN — THE

SAT

5/21

THE EAGLEMANIACS:

8:00

THE MUSIC OF DON HENLEY & THE EAGLES 12:30

SHAWN CAMP, JEFF TROTT, RAY STEPHENSON & DAN ALLEY AVI KAPLAN WITH ANDREA VON KAMPEN SOLD OUT!

MONOLOGUE SHOW AND THAT WOMAN — THE DANCE SHOW In this debut production of Tennessee Playwrights Studio, actors imagine the women in the orbit of JFK during his life and presidency. Featuring Molly Breen, Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva, Mary McCallum and many more, The Monologue Show gives voice to women often overshadowed by Kennedy. In addition, the project has also been adapted as The Dance Show, featuring original choreography from 10 artists — including Jodie Mowrey, Brittany Stewart and Emma Williams. The Darkhorse Theater and The East Room; visit tnplaywrights.org for showtimes

June 18: BLACK ON BUCHANAN — NASHVILLE BLACK MARKET JUNETEENTH EVENT

To get the full story of the Nashville Black Market, you should check out our own KateLynn White’s recent article on the collective. Not only can you catch the NBM at the Nashville Farmers’ Market on the first Friday of every month, but it also moves around town and pops up at different festivals, like the upcoming Black on Buchanan Juneteenth Celebration.

The NBM will also be at the Fort Negley Juneteenth celebration the next day. 2-6 p.m. on Buchanan Street

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COMING SOON 5-28 THE LONG PLAYERS PERFORMING TOM PETTY’S “WILDFLOWERS” 5-29 THEM DIRTY ROSES + TANNER USREY 5-30 THE TIME JUMPERS 5-31 JOSH MELTON 6-1 JACE EVERETT WITH EMILY WEST 6-2 MIKE & THE MOONPIES + TOWN MOUNTAIN 6-3 THE PIANO MEN: THE MUSIC OF ELTON JOHN & BILLY JOEL 6-4 BACKSTAGE NASHVILLE 6-4 DAVE JENKINS AND JAIME KYLE 6-5 BLUEBIRD ON 3RD CELEBRATES 40TH ANNIVERSARY OF SOLD OUT! THE BLUEBIRD CAFE 6-8 COUNTRY FOR A CAUSE

6-9 6-11 6-14 6-16 6-17 6-18 6-23 6-24 6-25 6-26 6-30 7-1 7-8 7-9

ADAM SHOENFELD WITH SEAN MCCONNELL, MARK MACKAY & JONELL MOSSER FAB BEATLES REVUE + THE CONSOULERS A NIGHT OF CLASSIC MUSIC WITH GALE MAYES SARAH DARLING ALLY VENABLE RESURRECTION: A JOURNEY TRIBUTE RUTHIE COLLINS 12 AGAINST NATURE GUILTY PLEASURES STEPHEN WILSON JR DEAD LETTER OFFICE JEFFREY STEELE BAND NICK SHOULDERS SMOKING SECTION

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PRIVATE EVENTS

Summer guide

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Festival in Arrington lets you be your authentic self

BY KELSEY BEYELER

on a bus to see nearby Castle Gywnn.

Another ren-fest classic is the turkey leg — not for the faint of heart. The Scene ordered one, and though it tasted delicious covered in a cranberry barbecue sauce, it was a massive undertaking. One turkey leg could feed at least two people. There are plenty of other options, an array of arteryclogging festival foods.

The stars of the daring knife-centric comedy show Oops! Knife Throwing (yes, really), Paolo Garbanzo and Giacomo the Jester have been performing together for almost 20 years. When speaking with the Scene, they don’t exactly drop the act. “It’s always a very odd balance,” says Giacomo of breaking character.

“What’s a character?” asks Garbanzo.

But they aren’t just weekend performers; they’ve built careers around renaissancerelated activities. Giacomo also performs in a Celtic band called Empty Hats, which you can catch at the festival, and he and Garbanzo guide trips to Europe, introducing clients to medieval and renaissance festivals.

A few things to note before you go: Bring

PHOTOS: ERIC ENGLAND

’T

was cloudy on the opening day of the 36th annual Tennessee Renaissance Festival, but that didn’t stop a sizable crowd from attending the event in Arrington, Tenn., about 45 minutes south of Nashville.

The cool weather proved ideal for those decked out in heavy layers of their ren-fest finest. Capes were draped over shoulders, walking staffs tapped along the ground, corsets were laced tightly, and bustles shimmied back and forth behind meandering maidens. Kings, queens, knights, pirates, fairies, trolls, peasants, mythical creatures and even ordinarily dressed folks wandered among throngs of performers, merchants and food stands. Some carried weapons, like executioner’s axes or longswords. (Weapons, however, must be covered and “peacetied,” as it’s called — check the website for other requirements.) Overheard conversations included a knight talking about the importance of flexibility in armor, a son asking his father how crossbows work and one man commenting on the size of another’s staff.

Historical accuracy isn’t a requirement at this ren fest, which takes place every weekend in May. While some folks attempt to adhere to Renaissance-era garb, a lot of them lean toward a fantastical aesthetic — what can sometimes be called “goblincore,” with elf ears, fairy wings, toadstool mushroom caps and more.

Tennessee Renaissance Festival performers — from magicians and jugglers to period musicians — don’t always stick to historical accuracy either, but weaving modern jokes into their old-timey setting makes performances accessible and entertaining. One act on the weekend the Scene visited, for example, incorporated a joke about Zoom, and various musicians included covers of Led Zeppelin and The Proclaimers in their sets. Sometimes, you can track down the best shows just by following the sound of cheers and applause. Most acts perform multiple times throughout the day.

Don’t miss the three daily Royal Jousts if you can help it. Knights on horseback compete in a series of smaller games before the actual jousting begins. The knights are great, clad in head-to-toe armor, but the horses are the true stars of the show. On Day 1, a gorgeous, stocky white steed showcased a flair for showmanship by rearing up before galloping down the sandy central path of the arena. Elsewhere on the grounds, “unicorn” rides are available, along with carnival games like ax throwing and high striker. You can also watch a knighting ceremony or hop

cash to avoid the $6 service charge at the entrance. Food vendors, games and rides require cash, and once you’re in the fest, there aren’t any ATMs. Some of the booths selling art, goblets, swords and so on will accept credit cards. Bring a little extra cash to tip the performers and food vendors too.

No booze is allowed this go-round, since the family who owned the property sold it to Williamson County earlier this year.

(County-sponsored events are not permitted to sell alcohol.)

The jousting is great, the food delicious, the acts entertaining — but the best part

Summer guide

of the Tennessee Renaissance Festival is the space it opens for people to be their authentic selves. It’s not every day folks can openly celebrate interests like pirate cosplay and fairy-speak, but here it’s welcomed and celebrated.

“I heard the greatest quote at [another fest],” says Giacomo. “This guy said, ‘The renaissance festival is where you come when you want to take your mask off. Even if you’re wearing a mask, you’re taking your mask off.’

And I thought that was a really perfect description of a patron’s experience here.” ✷

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July 1-Oct. 9: KNIGHTS IN ARMOR

Nashville’s official event marking the newly minted national (and Metro) holiday celebrating the emancipation of enslaved people will be held at a site steeped in Black history. The event will feature food trucks, reenactors from the 13th Regiment of the United States Colored Troops Living History Association, activities and fireworks. 6 p.m. at Fort Negley Park

Knights in Armor will feature more than 100 rare objects — including full suits of armor, mounted equestrian figures, helmets, swords and other weaponry — to tell the story of the knights of the Middle Ages and Renaissance through to the medieval revival of the 19th century. On Aug. 6, you can join the Frist at Fort Houston for a metalworking demonstration and try your hand at the craft. Exhibition on view through Oct. 9 at the Frist Art Museum

June 24: THE ODYSSEY: A RETELLING It’s become delightfully common to see feminist retellings of ancient myths — think Madeline Miller’s Circe and Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad, both of which center women who appear in Homer’s Odyssey. The original text provides unlimited possible offshoots to play with.

Nashville’s own Lisa Bachman Jones will “examine the social and historical context of the Odyssey through aesthetic reinterpretation in mixed media that includes utilizing everyday objects (e.g. single-use plastic bags, etc.) to forge a connection between the poem and a modern audience.” Through Jan. 8 at The Parthenon

June 25: CHROMA: THE EXPLORATION OF COLOR FIELD PAINTING This exhibition of artwork explores the Color Field Painters, a group of artists working in the 1950s and 1960s who embraced saturated hues and geometric shapes. Exhibition on view through Sept. 18 at Cheekwood Estate and Gardens

June 25-July 17: THE SPONGEBOB

MUSICAL

Featuring the music of David Bowie, Cindy Lauper, John Legend and more, The SpongeBob Musical follows the adventures of Bikini Bottom’s favorite porous rectangle. At Nashville Children’s Theatre; visit nashvillechildrenstheatre.org for showtimes

PHOTO: TIFFANY BESSIRE | BESSIRE PHOTOGRAPHY

June 19: JUNETEENTH615 AT FORT

NEGLEY

KINDLING ARTS FESTIVAL

July 4: LET FREEDOM SING! It doesn’t get more Nashville than the city’s annual riverfront throwdown on lower Lower Broadway, tag-teamed this year by Gramps Morgan, Cassadee Pope and Levi Hummon. No offense to the B-listers — Hummon has built a substantial TikTok following — but the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp has promised a “major headliner” will be announced soon.

Organizers advertise the biggest fireworks show in Nashville history and a Family Fun Zone. Come for the bro-country heartthrob, stay for the American pyrotechnics. Or the other way around. Presented by Dr Pepper.

5 p.m. at Riverfront Park

July 4: RED, WHITE & BOOM Featuring a lovely view of the downtown fireworks display, the Adventure Science Center’s annual Fourth of July event will also include live science demonstrations. Expect games, activities, after-hours admission to the science center, food trucks, themed laser shows and more. The ASC promises a sellout, so get your tickets sooner than later. 6:30 p.m. at Adventure Science Center

July 9 : AUTHOR EVENT: RACHEL

The Porch Writers’ Collective is trying something new with this three-day program to celebrate poetry. It will include a conversation with award-winning poet Anna B. Sutton and a workshop with Ananda Lima. Both will participate in a reading. If you’d like to test out your lines in front of a supportive crowd, check out an open mic in the backyard of The Porch’s cute Berry Hill space. Friday-Sunday at The Porch Writers’ Collective

year. It’s a labor of love for artistic director Daniel Jones and the dozens of talented creators who pitch in with dance, theater, aerial arts and more. This year’s program will include a “campy, queer movementtheatre piece,” more than a dozen new dance works by choreographers including Becca Hoback and Asia Pyron, a new play

by Nate Eppler and Jonathan Alexandratos and more. OZ Arts, The Darkhorse Theater, Nashville School for the Aerial Arts, Ozari Events and The Barbershop Theater; schedule forthcoming at kindlingarts.com

July 26-Aug. 7: HAMILTON

Aug. 9-14: HARPER LEE’S TO KILL A

July 15-17: HOT POET SUMMER

Lin-Manuel Miranda’s spin on this founding father is back at TPAC. While the heat has worn off of the hip-hop musical a bit, it’s still a great time, with irresistible songs and innovative staging. TPAC’s Andrew Jackson Hall; visit tpac.org for showtimes

LOUISE MARTIN

July 28-31: KINDLING ARTS

Continuing Tennessee State Museum’s TN Writers | TN Stories series, Rachel Louise Martin will discuss Hot, Hot Chicken, her book that shows how the story of Nashville hot chicken is the story of America itself. 10 a.m. at the Tennessee State Museum

We named Kindling Arts Festival our favorite summer arts fest in last year’s Best of Nashville for good reason: It consistently shows us some of the most innovative and, dare we say, radical performances of the

FESTIVAL

Summer guide

MOCKINGBIRD

Aaron Sorkin’s quest for an EGOT comes through Nashville. Sorkin’s stage adaptation of the quintessential American novel has finally begun to catch mainstream scrutiny for its central theme: a young white person realizing that racism exists. See whether this classic-of-classics passes the test of time at TPAC in August. TPAC’s Andrew Jackson Hall; visit tpac.org for showtimes

>>CONTINUED ON PAGE 27

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SHIPWRECK COVE

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CHEROKEE RESTAURANT

FINS

Waterfront Dining Here’s where to partake in summer’s sublime pleasure

BY MARGARET LITTMAN

I

love summer.

My head hums “Summertime, Summertime,” by The Jamies on repeat, with some “Hot Fun in the Summer”

by Sly and the Family Stone thrown in.

I love food cooked on the grill, eating a popsicle before it melts and picking my produce from my backyard. I’m also a Pisces, so to me summer means water. Often you’ll find me with a paddleboard on my roof rack.

My neighbor never saw me run as fast as he did on the 95-degree day he invited me to jump in his pool.

Combine my loves: food + water + summer = waterfront dining. For 2022 I am pursuing “the Summer of Margaret” (read in the voice of George Costanza). I’ll be looking for the best places to eat and drink while basking in the glow of sunshine reflected off the water (while wearing maximum SPF, of course). I’ll be including both natural bodies

of water and man-made pools. My self-imposed rules: These have to be places where you can get on or in the water, not just look at it. (At some pools you need to be a hotel guest; others you don’t.) And it needs to be within an hour’s drive of Nashville, because you want to spend your time outside, not in the car.

A few hot tips: Several area pools have day passes listed on ResortPass, which can be a way to take a dip if you don’t have regular pool access. Swimply, the Airbnb for swimming pools, has some options, too.

For my inaugural waterfront dining exploration, I have four suggestions — two on natural bodies of water and two man-made.

Over the course of the summer I’ll be profiling others. Read, grab your towel and jump in. The water’s fine.

Fins, Margaritaville Hotel 425 Rep. John Lewis Way S., fourth floor

Perhaps no one has embraced the summertime aesthetic like Jimmy Buffett. His margarita-branded hotel south of downtown has a surfboard-themed restaurant and bar called Fins. Its fourth-floor location and beachy decor give you access to the outdoors, and food and drink that will make you feel like you are in a coastal ZIP code.

You can even bring your dog. (Mine was introduced to the concept of puppuccino here on a recent staycation.) Anyone is welcome to eat, drink and listen to live music on the deck from a lounge chair or the open-air restaurant. Actual swimming is reserved for hotel guests.

SoundWaves at Gaylord Opryland 2800 Opryland Drive The mammoth indoor-outdoor water park at Gaylord Opryland includes everything you could want for chlorinated fun: lazy rivers, speedy water flumes, wave pools, cabanas, kid-friendly areas and an adults-only pool.

It’s an all-day-and-night blast, no matter the weather. The only way to go to SoundWaves is to buy an add-on ticket to a room stay at Opryland. Fortunately, Davidson County residents get up to a 40 percent discount, while other Tennessee residents lock in up to 25 percent off. If you don’t have the cash for a staycation, just down Briley Parkway is Wave Country (2320 Two Rivers Parkway), Metro Nashville’s public wave pool and waterpark.

Summer guide

Shipwreck Cove at Elm Hill Marina 3361 Bell Road Perhaps the best-known lakefront eatery on J. Percy Priest Lake, Shipwreck Cove is the party spot at Elm Hill Marina. With nearly 360-degree water views, you can head here for bushwackers, burgers, fish tacos and all the fried food your summer tastebuds crave after renting a pontoon boat from the marina or heading out with your friends who are members at Nashville Boat Club. Shipwreck Cove is just minutes north of Hamilton Creek Recreation Area. Shipwreck Cove occasionally hosts live music.

Cherokee Restaurant

450 Cherokee Dock Road, Lebanon Since 1958, Cherokee has been serving steaks and seafood to boaters on Old Hickory Lake, and this lakeside eatery reminds me more than anywhere else of summers on the Great Lakes. It has had some upgrades in recent years, with a 90-foot-long bar.

(When I first started going here people did BYOB in coolers.) Boaters make their way to the marina for a bite before setting out on a sunset cruise. Two patios allow you to take in the views while you feast, and they host occasional live music performances. ✷

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PHILLIP-MICHAEL SCALES / MUSICIANS CORNER

Aug. 13: AUTHOR EVENT: LEAROTHA WILLIAMS AND AMIE THURBER Continuing Tennessee State Museum’s TN Writers | TN Stories series, the museum will host Learotha Williams and Amie Thurber, editors of I’ll Take You There: Exploring Nashville’s Social Justice Sites. Co-authored by more than 100 writers, including academics, community members and students, I’ll Take You There foregrounds the struggles and achievements of people’s movements toward social justice. 10 a.m. at the Tennessee State Museum

Aug. 18-Sept. 18: SUMMER

SHAKESPEARE: CYMBELINE AND GEM OF THE OCEAN

Nashville Shakespeare Festival pioneered a new program last year, producing one play by the Bard and one by August Wilson in collaboration with Kennie Playhouse Theater. The result was fantastic, showing that Shakes is committed to broadening its stage for Black artists. This year, you can catch Shakespeare’s Cymbeline and Wilson’s Gem of the Ocean. OneCity and Academy Park at Williamson County Performing Arts Center; visit nashvilleshakes.org for showtimes

Music Ongoing Through June 25: MUSICIANS CORNER

The much-loved and wide-ranging free fest returns in full force. The lineup runs the gamut from soulful songsmith PhillipMichael Scales (playing May 21) to rockers Twen (playing June 17) to electronic popster Daena (June 4) to the Nashville Symphony (June 9). Friday evening shows begin at 5 p.m., while Saturday shows start at noon in Centennial Park; see

musicianscornernashville.com for complete details

May 20-21, June 17, July 15, Aug. 12: FULL MOON PICKIN’ PARTY Friends of Warner Parks brings back its annual series of live bluegrass in the great outdoors, complete with pickin’ circles that you can join; bring your own banjo (or mandolin, or guitar, or fiddle). Not all lineups have been announced yet, but opening weekend includes Trevor Clark Trio on May 20 and Colin O’Brien on May 21. 5:30 p.m. at Percy Warner Park

May 21, June 11, July 16, Aug. 27: CORNELIA FORT PICKIN’ PARTY

Speaking of pickin’ parties, the long-running monthly benefit for Cornelia Fort Park is back on the East Side, too. Timbo kicks off the series on May 21, with Chelsea Lovitt on June 11, Blue Cactus on July 16 and Brazilbilly on Aug. 27, among other guests.

5:30 p.m. at Cornelia Fort Park

May 21: MAY MUSIC FEST This free one-day event presented by Metro Parks features the impossible-not-todance-to sounds of Brassville — Nashville’s own twist on the New Orleans brass band tradition — plus The Imperial Blues Hour and Latin American traditional-music ensemble Café Cola’o. 1 p.m. in Hadley Park

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THURSDAY, MAY 26TH 5PM- 8PM 1603 Hayes St. Nashville

May 28: NASHVILLE HELPING NASHVILLE Lucinda Williams, Aaron Lee Tasjan and Nicki Bluhm are among the bevy of special guests joining in a tribute to Neil Young.

Proceeds benefit indie-venue trade group Music Venue Alliance Nashville. 2 p.m. in East Park

Summer guide

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NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 - MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

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BONNAROO

June 5: BIG K.R.I.T. Following Full Court Press, a collaborative LP with Wiz Khalifa, Smoke DZA and producer Greg Gillis (aka Girl Talk), the outstanding Mississippi-born MC known around the world as Big K.R.I.T. makes his return to Music City. His Digital Roses Tour features a stack of guests including ELHAE and PRICE. 8 p.m. at Brooklyn Bowl

June 7: NASHVILLE SYMPHONY’S FREE COMMUNITY CONCERTS

The Nashville Symphony will head to South Nashville on its first summer field trip from the Schermerhorn. The free, family-friendly outdoor Community Concerts series begins in South Nashville, where the Antioch High School Wind Ensemble opens a program with something for everyone. Pieces range from Antonín Dvorák’s 19th-century Slavonic Dances to John Williams’ film compositions. 6 p.m. at Antioch Southeast Greenspace

Movies in the Park Now in its 28th year, the Scene-sponsored Movies in the Park series is a family-friendly summertime event that always lands in our Best of Nashville Readers’ Poll results for Best Free Fun. This year’s Movies in the Park, Presented by Amazon, will take place at Elmington Park and feature vendors, giveaways and games. Movies begin at sundown — usually around 8 p.m. — and here are this year’s films:

June 2: GHOSTBUSTERS: AFTERLIFE Directed and co-written by Jason Reitman — son of Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II director Ivan Reitman — this 2021 supernatural comedy picks up where the franchise left off, getting by on nostalgia, good vibes and a big dose of Paul Rudd’s charm.

June 16-19: BONNAROO

June 9: THE PRINCESS DIARIES

After Hurricane Ida put the kibosh on Bonnaroo making its glorious return in 2021, the four-day fest brings J. Cole, Stevie Nicks, Tool and many, many more for its inperson comeback. All day at The Bonnaroo Farm

This 2001 coming-of-age comedy directed by Garry Marshall was a breakthrough for star Anne Hathaway, and features Julie Andrews in a role she was born to play — a queen.

June 26: ROBIN AUGUST ALBUM RELEASE

A WiLD DiSPLAY OF LiGHT & SOUND

APRiL 15 - JULY 17

After sunset, alongstroll the along the Zoo's pathways Afterstroll sunset, Zoo’s pathways A 24th WiLD DiSPLAY OF LiGHT & SOUND through a captivating show of stunning projections.

Last summer’s installment in the Marvel through a captivating show Cinematic Universe includes plenty of great action Lights will dance up and down trees, shimmer on sequences and something no other MCU film to of stunning projections. water, and illuminate the Zoo's scenery in a date has — the delightful Florence Pugh.

Lorem ipsum Lights will dance up and of color. down trees, shimmer kaleidoscope on June 23: ENCANTO water, and illuminate the This year’s Best Animated Feature Oscar winner is Zoo’s scenery in a the 60th film produced by Walt Disney Animation kaleidoscope of color.

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June 16: BLACK WIDOW

APRiL 15 - JULY 17

An alumna of Queens of Noise, a truly outstanding rock band of high school-age women that disbanded last year, Robin August is ready to unleash her solo debut Avocado Head. Special bonus: Queens of Noise are reuniting for the occasion. 5 p.m. at Eastside Bowl

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Summer guide

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nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 - MAY 25, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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FOURTH OF JULY CELEBRATION

Bring a lawn chair and join us at Adventure Science Center for live science demonstrations, games, and the best view of Nashville's fireworks in town!

Reserve your spot now at AdventureSci.org 30

NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 - MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

THE BBQ and B E E R y ou LOV E i s B AC K

CIGARS FROM A. Fuente Ashton CIGARS FROM A.CAO Fuente Cohiba Ashton CAO Davidoff Cohiba Montecristo Davidoff Padron Montecristo Padron Tatuaje Tatuaje Zino Zino & &Many Many More More WILSON COUNTY FAIR

June 23-July 28: BLUEGRASS NIGHTS AT THE RYMAN

The Mother Church hosts a shedload of ’grass legends in its annual series. The Del McCoury Band kicks it off on June 23, while Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder wrap it up on July 28. 7:30 p.m. Thursdays at the Ryman

July 11: DRY CLEANING The U.K. post-punks finally get to make their Nashville debut in the wake of their well-received debut LP, 2021’s New Long Leg. 8 p.m. at The Basement East

July 23: THE WILD HEARTS TOUR Three of the most powerful songwriters and rock bandleaders working today — Sharon Van Etten, Julien Baker and Angel Olsen — are bringing their triple bill to Music City.

7:30 p.m. at the Ryman

July 31: KENDRICK LAMAR Within the space of a few hours, Grammyand Pulitzer-winning rapper Kendrick Lamar released Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers — his first full-length since 2017’s DAMN. — and announced a new international tour. 7:30 p.m. at Bridgestone Arena

Aug. 12: RED HOT CHILI PEPPERS With guitarist John Frusciante back in the fold after a decade away and a new album called Unlimited Love under their belt, the Peps are off on a stadium tour that brings them — plus Thundercat and The Strokes — to Music City. 6:30 p.m. at Nissan Stadium

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July 11-16: DEKALB COUNTY FAIR DeKalb County Fairgrounds, Alexandria.

Info at dekalbcountyfairtn.com.

Williamson County AG Expo Park, Franklin. Info at williamsoncountyfair.org.

Aug. 18-27: TENNESSEE STATE FAIR / WILSON COUNTY FAIR James E. Ward Agricultural Center, Lebanon. Info at wilsoncountyfair.net.

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

Summer guide

NASHVILLE'S LARGEST ROOFTOP

May 27

May 25

7 BRIDGES

LEONID & FRIENDS

EAGLES TRIBUTE

June 3

June 9

DEE JAY SILVER

JOSH TURNER

MAY 20 Friday Afternoon Live with Lightning 100

JUN 8

Sawyer Brown

JUN 9

Josh Turner

JUN 14

Molly Hatchet + True Villians

MAY 21 8 Track Band + Fly 2K

JUN 17

Nashville Yacht Club Band

MAY 25 Leonid & Friends

JUN 18

Muscles & Mimosas Fitness Class

MAY 27 Eagles Tribute: 7 Bridges

JUN 25

Pride Parade Viewing Party

Paradise Kitty All Girls Guns N' Roses Tribute

MAY 28 Flux Pavilion

JUL 1

Dave Fleppard

MAY 29 Memorial Weekend Luau

JUL 6

Everclear + Fastball + The Nixons

JUN 3

Dee Jay Silver

AUG 28 Michael Franti & Spearhead

JUN 4

The Nashville Alternators

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nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 - MAY 25, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 - MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

CRITICS’ PICKS W E E K L Y

R O U N D U P

O F

T H I N G S

T O

D O

ELIZABETH COLOUR WHEEL & PRIMITIVE MAN W/MORTIFERUM & MORE

[COME UP TO THE LAB]

BRAVE NEW WORKS LAB

It’s not unusual for OZ Arts to host internationally acclaimed artists. Just this spring, the contemporary arts center brought the marvelous Berlin-based collective Gob Squad and Cuba’s sensational Malpaso Dance to Nashville. But with this weekend’s Brave New Works Lab, OZ reminds us of its commitment to helping develop local innovation and creativity.

BRAVE NEW WORKS LAB

THURSDAY, MAY 19

The Brave New Works Lab transforms the spacious facility into a laboratory of sorts, showcasing four new performance pieces by local artists working in dance, theater, performance art, music and multimedia.

It’s a great lineup — there’s new dance work from choreographer Lenin Fernandez that features dancers Kristen Cararra, Becca Hoback, Emma Morrison and Joi Ware; a multimedia-music hybrid piece from Gardening, Not Architecture, with films by Dycee Wildman and choreography by Joi Ware; an original theatrical performance art creation by Jennifer Whitcomb-Oliva; and a self-choreographed solo dance work from Alexandra Winer. Details are at

ozartsnashville.org. May 19-21 at OZ Arts, 6172 Cockrill Bend Circle AMY STUMPFL [PAYING RESPECT]

LILLY HIATT

As of press time, Thursday night marks your last chance to see a show at the original iteration of Mercy Lounge. The room opened in 2003 and — along with its sister venues that opened later in the same building — quickly became a pillar of Nashville’s club scene. After the business and the new owners of the property couldn’t come to an agreement on a lease, the venue complex is shuttering. The Mercy crew hopes to reopen elsewhere, provided they can find a suitable space, and building owner DZL has said to expect new venues to open on the site sometime this summer.

Truly phenomenal musicians, whose careers have been nurtured by shows at one or more of the rooms, have been paying tribute with farewell-to-Mercy shows throughout the spring. Lilly Hiatt is an appropriate artist to close out the parade of goodbyes with Thursday’s show. In a note to the Scene, she says she believes she made her Mercy debut in 2007, playing a free show with her first band Shake Go Home. Since 2012, she’s released five stellar solo LPs, including 2017’s rollicking breakout Trinity Lane and last year’s contemplative Lately. Her catalog is one among many that make me proud to be from Nashville, and it is the kind of thing that’s incredibly difficult to develop without the support of a network of venues like Mercy Lounge. Here’s hoping we, as a city, continue the tradition. 8 p.m. at Mercy Lounge, 1 Cannery Row STEPHEN TRAGESER

DANCE

Mercy Lounge

[BILLY AND THE BIRD]

BALLET EXTRAVAGANZA

If you somehow missed out on Nashville Ballet’s sellout performance of Carmina Burana at the Schermerhorn in 2019, take heart. The ballet is teaming up with the Nashville Symphony once again this weekend to present its much-anticipated Ballet Extravaganza. Audiences can expect a spectacular evening of music and dance with choreography by Nashville Ballet’s own Paul Vasterling. As with the previous collaboration on Carmina Burana, the Schermerhorn will transform the floor of its concert hall into a modified orchestra pit, with the Nashville Symphony performing live, under the direction of music director Giancarlo Guerrero. The program features Vasterling’s unique take on a pair of iconic works — Igor Stravinsky’s classic musical fairy tale Firebird and Aaron Copland’s Wild West-inspired Billy the Kid. This weekend’s performances offer audiences a rare opportunity to experience Firebird in its entirety, as the piece is generally performed in shorter segments. May 19-22 at the Schermerhorn, 1 Symphony Place AMY STUMPFL

FRIDAY / 5.20 COMEDY

Elizabeth Colour Wheel takes its name from a track off In the Presence of Nothing, Lilys’ 1992 American shoegaze classic.

The moniker is a bit of a fake-out — paintpeeling walls of guitars do play a significant role in the five-piece’s sound, honed at Boston’s Berklee College of Music, but ECW’s stellar 2019 debut Nocebo also draws on post-punk, noise rock and black metal traditions, with frontwoman Lane Shi Otayonii’s operatic, gale-force vocals tying these disparate threads together.

Sharing the bill, Denver trio Primitive Man celebrates its 10th year as a band with a tour behind a new EP, Insurmountable. The four-song release includes a punishingly heavy 11-minute doom-metal original, “Caged Intimacy,” and a cover of the 1993 Smashing Pumpkins ripper “Quiet.”

Openers Mortiferum feature an ex-member (guitarist Chase Slaker) of Bone Sickness, a band of young Olympia, Wash., townies who stormed twee pop’s tranquil capital city with scary-tight, death-metal-meetshardcore-punk high jinks in the early 2010s. Vermont’s Body Void and Maryland’s Jarhead Fertilizer complete the five-band bill. 7:30 p.m. at Drkmttr, 1111 Dickerson Pike CHARLIE ZAILLIAN THEATER

L I L LY H I A T T

[WHEEL TIME]

MUSIC

MUSIC

THURSDAY / 5.19

[NOTARO-OUS T-I-G]

TIG NOTARO: HELLO AGAIN

With her trademark deadpan humor, wry observations and timing that is among the best in the game, Tig Notaro is my personal comedy kween and lesbian role model. Her standup is solid gold, and

nashvillescene.com | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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Drawers Provocative Drawings

Jeremy Biles Annie Brito Hodgin John Brooks Paul Collins Thornton Dial William Downs Fetish

Kevin Guthrie Brady Haston Clarity Haynes Brett Douglas Hunter Perrin R. Ireland Lee Isaacson Kimia Ferdowsi Kline

Julia Martin Rebecca Morgan Elisheba Israel Mrozik Ozu Ryan M. Pfeiffer + Rebecca Walz Katarina Riesing

Lindsey Rome Sal Salandra Louis M. Schmidt Willie Stewart Betty Tompkins XPayne Caleb Yono

1-5 P.M. THURSDAYS, FRIDAYS AND SATURDAYS THROUGH MAY 31 AT OZ ARTS 6172 COCKRILL BEND CIRCLE 34

Curated by Laura Hutson Hunter Presented by the Nashville Scene in Partnership With OZ Arts

NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 - MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

CRITICS’ PICKS

over the past several years, she’s made a name for herself as an actor, writer and director. (Catch her on Star Trek: Discovery and check out her groundbreaking series One Mississippi on Prime and Hulu.) She’s the kind of comic who starts a joke that seems like a mild one-off, but as she keeps it going with pauses and repetition, the bit just gets funnier and funnier. (Search YouTube for “Tig Notaro cat talk” for an example.) Tig is a true original, and her shows are great fun. Catch her this weekend as her ongoing Hello Again tour makes its sole Nashville stop. 7 p.m. at TPAC’s James K. Polk Theater, 505 Deaderick St.

MUSIC

ERICA CICCARONE [SOUL FOOD]

TREVOR NIKRANT & COMPANY W/JON CAMP & KEVIN COLEMAN

You may recognize Trevor Nikrant’s name from Styrofoam Winos, a rock-ish band whose three core members (that’s Nikrant along with Lou Turner and Joe Kenkel) are all great songwriters and make superb solo records. The way Nikrant casually packs layers of reflection on the anxieties of living into songs, like “Put Me in the Movies” from his 2021 LP Tall Ladders, shows a kinship with (but not an imitation of) incisive songsmiths like the late, great David Berman. Nikrant and a rotating cast of guests top the bill for Friday’s show, held at East Side recording studio Sundog, but the concert is also a

[FAMILY MEN]

THE WAILERS

The Wailers’ stellar history as a seminal reggae unit dates back to the 1970s, when brothers Aston “Family Man” Barrett and Carlton Barrett were tapped to form a band and provide instrumental backing for an emerging vocalist named Bob Marley.

They became known as the Wailers. The ensemble of Marley, Peter Tosh and Bunny Wailer — plus the I-Threes vocalists (Marcia Griffiths, Judy Mowatt, Rita Marley) — accompanied by the Wailers remain the greatest band in reggae history. But since Marley’s death in 1981, Family Man Barrett has been the singular force keeping various editions of the Wailers going, particularly after the death of Carlton in 1987. The Wailers’ 2020 LP One World included the superb single “One World, One Prayer” that was co-written and produced by Emilio Estefan, and featured Skip and Cedella Marley as well as Farruko and Shaggy.

The current band, which has Barrett on drums and the explosive Wendel “Junior Jazz” Ferraro on guitar, plus charismatic lead vocalist Mitchell Brunings will offer contemporary and classic reggae selections on Friday night. 8 p.m. at City Winery, 609 Lafayette St. RON WYNN MUSIC

TIG NOTARO: HELLO AGAIN

MUSIC

celebration of Jon Camp, a new release from D.C.-area guitarist Jon Camp via Nashville label Centripetal Force. Camp is a guitarist who makes expressive, often gentle instrumental music — sometimes solo and sometimes with ensembles — that’s got roots in various fingerstyle traditions, but borrows from a wide variety of idioms.

His set will be recorded for a potential future release. Rounding out the bill is solo acoustic guitarist Kevin Coleman, who recently relocated from Virginia to Music City. 8 p.m. at Sundog Recording Studio, 917 E. Trinity Lane STEPHEN TRAGESER

Nashville’s Family-Owned Boutique Music Shop 933B WOODLAND STREET · 629.256.6092 caldwellguitarsnashville.com

[WOMEN IN MUSIC]

HAIM

While their sound has certainly evolved over the years, one element of Haim’s music that has remained consistent since the sibling trio’s 2013 debut is its inherent sunniness. Even on darker tracks — Days Are Gone’s gritty “My Song 5,” for example, or last year’s slinky Women in Music Pt.

THE WAILERS

nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 - MAY 25, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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May in...

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5/28 – saturday

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5/27 – friday

featuring SPECIAL GUESTS

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UPS * *C

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5/26 – thursday

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5/21 – saturday

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JUNE 11

ONECITY PARK | 2-6PM FREE ADMISSION

Bring your canine companions for an afternoon of dog-centric activities and local pet vendors, food trucks, beer, and more. Humans can enjoy beer tastings, sip a cocktail from the bar, play lawn games, and grab a bite to eat from tasty local food trucks. Furry friends will enjoy their own beer tasting by Busch Dog Brew, cheese it up in the pet photo booth, sample treats, and cut loose in our off-leash mini dog park.

PUPSANDPINTS.COM

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NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 - MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

CRITICS’ PICKS disaster — and landed in the U.S. in 1992.

Hütz’s band draws part of its name from that of Ukrainian writer Nikolai Gogol, whose 1842 novel Dead Souls is a comic depiction of a world with debased values.

Gogol Bordello’s work synthesizes Romani musical modes, punk, hints of Brazilian music and, quite simply, anything Hütz deems appropriate for an audacious music that’s like no other. The band’s 2005 album Gypsy Punk: Underworld Strike might be the best place to start, but 2007’s Super Taranta! and 2010’s Transcontinental Hustle — the latter album cut when Hütz was living in Brazil — are superb records.

You could compare them to The Pogues or The Mekons, but Gogol Bordello’s synoptic approach to song form, rhythm and texture amounts to a world-music fusion that sometimes sounds like prog. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine continues, the band is on tour to raise money for the Ukrainian cause — they’re donating a dollar per ticket to help the people of that country. Check out Hütz’s latest song, “Man With the Iron Balls,” which is about Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Along with Hütz, the record features Primus singer Les Claypool, Sean Lennon, Police drummer Stewart Copeland, violinist Sergey Ryabtsev and Nashville guitarist Billy Strings. Amigo the Devil opens. 8 p.m. at Brooklyn Bowl, 925 Third Ave. N. EDD HURT

FILM

Even the most die-hard Douglas Sirk fan has to admit that the filmmaker’s 1954 adaptation of minister-turned-author Lloyd C. Douglas’ 1929 novel Magnificent Obsession (which was already adapted for the screen in a 1935 version starring Irene Dunne and Robert Taylor) is batshit insane.

Rock Hudson gives a star-making turn as an obnoxious millionaire who changes his life around in order to earn the love and forgiveness of the woman (Jane Wyman) he accidentally turns into a blind widow.

(See what I mean?) Sirk definitely cranked up the melodrama to 11 for this highly histrionic love story. Watch as Hudson goes from dickhead playboy to quasistalker, devoting all his time and effort to pleasing Wyman’s way-too-understanding poor soul. Hudson and Wyman made such a passionate, photogenic pair, Sirk cast them again a year later in All That Heaven Allows (aka next weekend’s Sirk selection).

But before you watch that, check out this heartstring-tugger — in freakin’ 35 mm!

May 21-22 at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave. CRAIG D. LINDSEY [LIT CITY]

LIT MAG MINI-FEST AT THE PORCH

One of the great things about The Porch is its enthusiasm for teaching writers how to submit their work. If you’re interested in submitting writing for publication in literary magazines, this is the event for you. The Porch is shining a light on the local lit-mag scene with editors

[LET ME RIDE]

WALK BIKE NASHVILLE’S TOUR DE NASH

Whether you’ve just taken the training wheels off or have been riding your bicycle on Nashville’s streets and greenways for years, Walk Bike Nashville’s Tour de Nash has an option for you. Choose from one of four routes with varying skill levels — a two-mile Kid’s Tour suitable for families, a nine-mile City Tour, a 25-mile Local Tour and a 45-mile Grand Tour. This year, riders can start between 6 and 10 a.m., and there will be multiple starting locations along each route. A Celebration Center will be located at Frankie Pierce Park between 10 a.m. and 1 p.m., where cyclists can hang out post-ride and grab a meal. Several rest stops with tools and mechanical help will be set up throughout. Visit walkbikenashville.com/tourdenash for more details. Various times and places throughout Nashville AMANDA HAGGARD [BEYOND BORDERS]

GOGOL BORDELLO

A native of Boyarka, Ukraine, Eugene Hütz formed Gogol Bordello in New York in 1998. Hütz had left Ukraine in the late ’80s — in the wake of the Chernobyl

[INSIDE CHILD]

ALLISON RUSSELL

Allison Russell is a Nashville transplant, and it’s safe to say the Grammynominated singer-songwriter has also become a hometown hero in recent years, particularly in her East Nashville neighborhood. It’s fitting, then, that Russell will headline The Basement East on Sunday, stopping in as part of her trek in support of 2021’s fantastic Outside Child LP. Russell’s music delightfully defies neat categorization, bringing together various elements of the nebulous roots genre — soul, folk, blues, jazz — in striking fashion, with poetic lyrics to boot. 8 p.m. at The Basement East, 917 Woodland St. BRITTNEY MCKENNA FILM

During the 1960s and ’70s, organ combos were among the most popular attractions on the jazz circuit, and players like Jimmy Smith, Groove Holmes and Jimmy McGriff not only packed clubs and highlighted festivals, they even had occasional crossover hits. That’s seldom the case today, but there remain several powerhouse organists around — and one of the most critically acclaimed is East Coast stylist Pat Bianchi. His newest release offers jazz adaptations and stylings on the work of a genius — Something to Say: The Music of Stevie Wonder. Bianchi also enjoyed a standing three-year gig as opening act for Steely Dan on their various East Coast dates. He’ll head a versatile trio that does everything from standards and blues to originals and funk for what should be a strong set on Friday night. 8 p.m. at Rudy’s Jazz Room, 809 Gleaves St. RON WYNN

WEEKEND CLASSICS: MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION

COMMUNITY

PAT BIANCHI’S ORGAN TRIO

[CLASSIC OBSESSION]

from Belmont Story Review, Zone 3, Waxing and Waning, Little Engines and Novus.

These editors will discuss current trends, submission wish lists, dos and don’ts, and more. Writers and writing enthusiasts should jump at the chance to share space with these editors in a real-life setting.

There will be readings, revelry — and most importantly, snacks! This event is free with a suggested $10 donation. 5-8 p.m. at The Porch, 2811 Dogwood Place KIM BALDWIN

MUSIC

[GREAT BALLS OF FIRE]

SATURDAY / 5.21

LIT

MUSIC

III track “Summer Girl” — some of that California sheen comes across, and makes for glossy pop-rock especially suited to outdoor shows. Don’t miss the sister act — recently featured in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Oscar-nominated Licorice Pizza — when they headline Ascend Amphitheater, which should prove a pretty perfect place to kick back and enjoy the vibes. 7:30 p.m. at Ascend Amphitheater, 310 First Ave. S. BRITTNEY MCKENNA

MUSIC

SUNDAY / 5.22

HAIM

[GOING, BOLDLY]

STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE DIRECTOR’S EDITION

Held by conventional wisdom to be stultifying and pretentious, especially in comparison to its more militaristic sequel, 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture has always been anomalous in the world of massmarket sci-fi. As far as ambition, the only possible point of comparison is 2001: A Space Odyssey. And though Robert Wise’s take on the material that Gene Roddenberry and Gene Coon helped shape for three years on NBC — and that fans kept alive and nurtured for the intervening decade — can’t help but fall short of 2001’s visionary heights, it’s still the only work of science-fiction to aim that high. Visually stunning on a scale even today’s blockbusters would balk at, this new restoration of Wise’s 1999 director’s edition finally takes that work to the realm of high definition. But what makes this essential viewing is a new color grading that somehow feels more true to its own vision; like the

nashvillescene.com | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 - MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

FILM

[NEW ORLEANS, I’LL BE THERE]

MUSIC CITY MONDAYS: TAKE ME TO THE RIVER: NEW ORLEANS

I spent my college years, plus a couple more, in New Orleans. If you’re thinking, “Wow, sounds perfect for a budding alcoholic,” you’re not wrong. Now that I’m 16 years sober from drink, my time there isn’t defined by my partying. It’s defined by the music. Kermit Ruffins, Trombone Shorty, the New Orleans Jazz Vipers, the Dirty Dozen, Rebirth — once that music gets in your bones, it never leaves. Pardon me as I wax poetic, but the specific sounds of New Orleans have the familiar, yet still uncanny, ability to take me back to smoking cigarettes on the cement stoop of the little pink apartment in the Garden District where I lived, to the tiny dance floor of The Spotted Cat where I spent many nights and early mornings, to those streets where you might hear the bass of a tuba and scream of a trumpet two blocks away, and run as fast and you can toward the brass band playing in the middle of the road. I moved to New York weeks before Katrina and watched the floodwaters rise on CNN from my basement apartment in Queens. When they receded, the city was changed. But those sounds, that feeling, remains. The Belcourt will screen a new documentary about the music. Take Me to the River: New Orleans celebrates the history of music in the Big Easy, the legacy, the influences and its impact on the world at large. It features the Neville Brothers, Rebirth, Dr. John, Preservation Hall Jazz Band and many other storied artists, plus a bevy of today’s stars. New Orleans, I’ll be there. 8 p.m. at the Belcourt, 2102 Belcourt Ave. ERICA CICCARONE

GABRIEL KAHANE W/BRITTANY HAAS & PAUL KOWERT

[BUNNY SLOPES]

BEACH BUNNY

The songwriting vehicle of 25-year-old Chicagoan Lili Trifilio, Beach Bunny turns youthful angst and heartbreak into indie pop that’s catchy, honest and clear as a bell. It’s scrappier and punkier, but Trifilio and her four-piece band’s 2020 LP Honeymoon has an irresistible universality akin to Best Coast’s Crazy for You a decade earlier. Asheville, N.C., fuzz-mongers Wednesday and NYC synth-pop purveyor Ky Vöss support. 8 p.m. at Brooklyn Bowl, 925 Third Ave. N. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

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MUSIC

[SOPHISTICATED THRILLS]

Gabriel Kahane’s new album Magnificent Bird is a definitive post-COVID album that’s simultaneously small-scale and advanced.

Kahane is a versatile musician who holds the Creative Chair position in the Oregon Symphony and has worked with the likes of Loudon Wainwright III, and Magnificent Bird sounds like, say, Stephen Sondheim as a pop adept, or maybe a mixture of the styles of Randy Newman and early-20th-century composer Alban Berg. For that matter, I hear echoes of Paul Simon and Harry Nilsson throughout Magnificent Bird, and Kahane is a master of a classical-pop blend that offers plenty of sophisticated thrills. It’s a brilliant album that might peak with “Linda & Stuart,” a tale of a New York couple forced to merrily roll along inside their apartment during the pandemic. If Sondheim’s work strikes you as a bit over-determined in that musical-theater way, and Newman’s jokes can seem clownish, Kahane’s work stands tall as some of the most fully realized pop being made right now — his touch is immaculate, and his music is bracingly modern. Also appearing Tuesday at City Winery are fiddler Brittany Haas and bassist Paul Kowert, who will perform duets.

Haas and Kowert have been collaborating in her band Hawktail, and their music is classical-pop fusion at its richest. 7 p.m. at City Winery, 609 Lafayette St. EDD HURT MUSIC

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director’s edition itself, it does not replace the original theatrical version, but rather merely provides a different perspective on the material that captivates on different levels.

Set five years after the conclusion of the original Trek’s mission, Star Trek: The Motion Picture finds now-Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner, at a midpoint level on the Shatner! Continuum) getting the crew back together after a massive cloud of uncertain origins starts data patterning everything that crosses its path. Being made close enough to Star Wars to get some big studio dollars but not so close as to rip off its narrative structure (that wouldn’t really happen until 2009’s J.J. Abrams version), this is the apotheosis of ’70s sci-fi, and it is glorious. To watch this film again is to see all sorts of possibilities that still remain to be explored, from the mysterious Deltans (subsumed in continuity by their community-college equivalents, the Betazoids) to the origins of the traveling cloud to just how exactly this film initially got a G rating despite containing the most upsetting technology malfunction in cinema up to that point. But more than that, to watch this film in a theater, with that transcendent Jerry Goldsmith score cranked up, is a magical experience. The presence of confessed sexual abuser Stephen Collins is a speed bump that derails the spell being cast, and you should trust your instincts accordingly. But Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a stone classic, best experienced on as large a scale as possible.

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CRITICS’ PICKS

[HELL OF A DRUG]

THE WAR ON DRUGS

The War on Drugs, whose music is an intoxicating amalgam of highway rock and trance-inducing post-shoegaze, knows that when you find a good groove there’s no good reason not to just hang out there for a bit. The band’s latest record, October’s I Don’t Live Here Anymore, is a perfect continuation of what came before, with drum beats that could go on for days, riffing pianos and guitars, and Adam Granduciel’s Dylanesque vocals combining into a haze of the best sort. The past two years have made one want to escape. If you catch The War on Drugs at the Mother Church, all the bad things will be waiting for you outside. But for a couple hours at least, you’ll be gone.

This show is rescheduled from its prior January date, which was canceled due to illness in the band. 7:30 p.m. at the Ryman, 116 Fifth Ave N. STEVEN HALE

nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 - MAY 25, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 - MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

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Sampling some Nashville hot (not) chicken

BY CHRIS CHAMBERLAIN

MARIGOLD GOURMET POPCORN NASHVILLE HOT

NASHVILLE HOT CHICKEN CHIPS

NASHVILLE HOT PEANUT BRITTLE

NASHVILLE HOT SPROUTED ALMONDS

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W

hen it comes to regional flavor specialties, popularity can be a doubleedged sword. The historic Anchor Bar in Buffalo, N.Y., put itself on the culinary map when it popularized spicy chicken wings in the 1960s. In 1956, Steve Henson began serving a new salad dressing he had invented for guests at his restaurant at Hidden Valley Ranch in Santa Barbara, Calif., and a new flavor sensation was born. Before the “Chili’s-fication” of TexMex in the ’80s, you’d have to travel to San Antonio or Houston to enjoy that particular hybrid of regional cuisines. Yes, there really was once a time before easily accessible fajitas.

However, with ubiquity and popularity comes dilution to the point that the dishes associated with these regional flavor creations become less important than the flavor itself. That leads to downright bastardizations in the potato chip aisle of your local supermarket, where “buffalo,” “ranch” and “fajita” have become taste descriptors instead of actual food items.

Nashville hot chicken has entered the chat.

From its birth in Thornton Prince’s home kitchen in the 1930s, our favorite fiery fowl grew at a slow burn, primarily locally in small, independent Black-owned chicken shacks like Prince’s, Bolton’s and Columbo’s. Over the past decade, hot chicken has become more than a regional obsession, hatching scores of piquant poultry-centric restaurants around the world.

When KFC introduced their version of hot chicken in 2016, many local spice-heads declared the shark officially jumped.

The descent into madness has not subsided yet, though, as “Nashville hot” has morphed into a flavor profile that can be purchased in shakers or already added to a wide variety of foodstuffs that are decidedly not chicken. So we here at the Scene decided to convene a panel of writers and editors to taste our way through a variety of Nashville hot (not) chicken products and see if any of them are legit.

After a little bit of internet research and scanning the shelves at local groceries, I discovered plenty of candidates for our panel of pain. Apparently, both Kroger and Lay’s have abandoned their versions of Nashville hot potato chips, because I could only find them at Antiques Roadshow-level collectible prices in specialty online shops. I figured that if you couldn’t purchase them at reasonable prices, they weren’t going to be part of the

test. We also insisted that every candidate had to have a specific local reference in their name. No “flamin’ hot” or “super spicy” bullshit in this test! “Nashville” hot or we taste it not. …

A half-dozen Scenesters gathered somewhat trepidatiously in the office conference room for the tasting, and we started by setting some standards. I asked which was everyone’s favorite local hot chicken joint, and to no surprise, spots like Prince’s and Bolton’s ruled the day.

Then I asked what hot chicken should taste like. Responses included “spicy in a way that builds on itself and challenges your heat tolerance,” and “peppery, cayenne mostly.” Then we all set a base for our palates by enjoying a medium-plus heat level tender courtesy of Pepperfire Hot Chicken.

Our options ranged from savory to sweet, crispy to pillowy, beefy to err … chickeny.

The first two items made up the popcorn bracket of our competition. East Nashville popper Kernels claims that its Gourmet Nashville Hot Popcorn is the original example of spicy popcorn, but the tasting panel found it to be more sweet than spicy. One taster described it as “more like BBQ Lay’s than hot chicken,” but several commented on how cravable it was — including a warning that it would be “dangerous to keep around!”

Next on the docket was Marigold Gourmet Popcorn in the L&L Market complex on Charlotte. Marigold sources its Nashville Hot seasoning from its L&L neighbors at Savory Spice, and the tasters universally decided that while it was interesting and nuanced, it wasn’t Nashville hot. It was more like a curry flavor, with hints of cardamom or cinnamon. Overall, they still preferred it over the version from Kernels.

The next two samples were both unique takes on chips, actually made with chicken.

Flock Chicken Chips are available at Hattie B’s and are manufactured by a company that creates low-carb keto-friendly snacks by wok-frying chicken skins. The Hattie B’s seasoning was definitely familiar, if a bit one-note, but the crunch of the chips is what set them apart.

“Kinda pork-rindy with a very nice crunch,” commented one happy taster.

Another added, “I’d eat a bowl of these without thinking!”

The second chicken chip came from Wilde Chips, a Colorado-based company that uses breast meat from 100 percent all-natural chickens and tapioca flour to create completely grain-free snacks.

Their Nashville Hot Chicken Chips made quite an impression on the panel.

“Better than they have any right to be!” commented one taster. “Super snackable,” added another. A new fan gushed: “Delicious. Eats like a chip but tastes like chicken. The crunch is great, it’s not greasy, it just tastes good!” Though that commenter did add that “it could be spicier.” Indeed, Flock scored almost twice as highly in the judges’ assessment of heat

level, but Wilde’s cravability helped it win the chip crown.

Daily Crunch is a local vegan snack company that specializes in nuts that have been sprouted to improve digestibility and then dehydrated to add some crunch without the use of oil. Their Nashville Hot Sprouted Almonds were definitely a unique snack, and the judges were intrigued. “I’d never heard of sprouted almonds, but I’m not mad,” shared a taster.

While the heat level was deemed among the lowest of everything we sampled, it did build a little bit as we grazed. Most of the judges mentioned something along the lines of “super snackable,” but one disappointed judge declared, “I think I’d rather have regular almonds.”

People’s Choice Nashville Hot Jerky was definitely the priciest item we tasted at $25 for a 1-pound bag that puts it at a perounce price comparable to filet mignon.

The tasters were in universal agreement that it was delicious (“if you like jerky,” one offered as a caveat), but that it was not really that spicy at all. “It lacks the je ne sais quoi that is hot chicken-ness,” added one panelist using some delightfully fractured syntax.

Then it was time for dessert with two sweet offerings. First up was Nashville Hot Peanut Brittle from Brittle Brothers in Goodlettsville. The product name may be a bit of a misnomer, since no one judged the heat level to be more than a 2 on a 1-to-10 scale, but the judges still loved it.

Taste and cravability scores were high across the board, and the brittle elicited comments like, “Great brittle! Not hotchicken-influenced at all, but still good.”

The final offering garnered a similar response to the brittle. Party Fowl has teamed up with Status Dough to create a hot chicken doughnut sold at both the restaurant and the bakery. An objectively delicious and pillowy doughnut, it didn’t really flick any hot chicken levers in the judges’ capsaicin receptors. Instead, they described “sort of a general savory flavor, not sensing Nashville hot chicken at all,” and called it “really good but no heat.”

One unimpressed judge declared, “It feels like branding more than anything.”

When the final scores were tallied, the big winner was the Wilde Nashville Hot Chicken Chips, taking top scores in both taste and cravability. Marigold’s currylike popcorn was judged the spiciest, but its authenticity score compared to hot chicken dragged its total down. The most authentic was, unsurprisingly, Flock Chips, thanks to the fact that Hattie B’s flavor profiles are probably ingrained into the DNA of some of the tasters.

At the end of the exercise, while the judges did discover some new taste treats that they said they would seek out in the future, the general consensus was that Nashville hot chicken flavoring really does best belong on chicken. Unless, we suppose, you dip those Wilde chips in Ranch dressing.

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CULTURE

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IN SEARCH OF OUR MOTHERS’ GARDENS

An art installation in Elizabeth Park honors Black women of North Nashville

BY LENA MAZEL

T

hrough the violence, uncertainty and chaos of the 20th century, the Black women of North Nashville carried on.

They took their kids to school.

They championed voting rights and desegregation. They built schools and institutions, went to work and organized gatherings. They cared for others in countless ways, and kept their community strong.

Now a new art installation in Elizabeth Park aims to honor their contributions.

The project started in 2018 with Art Against Violence, an initiative by advocate and author M. Simone Boyd (who has contributed to the Scene). Art Against Violence aims to inspire North Nashville to “reject apathy, take strategic action and fight violence with youth employment.” Boyd, with a Metro Public Works grant and a partnership with the woodworking-apprenticeship program Maple Built, employed community youth to create a wood mosaic of Curlie McGruder, the late March for Freedom organizer, voting rights activist and president of the local NAACP chapter. She was also an advocate for the students leading the lunch counter sit-ins and Freedom Rides. The mosaic has hung in Elizabeth Park since 2018.

This year, the installation has extended to include an 18-month exhibition honoring four more Black North Nashville women: Nora Evelyn Ransom, Mary Louise Watson, Willie Mae Boddie and Juno Frankie Pierce.

They and McGruder are five of the many Black women who defined a community known not just for its headlines, but for its

care for others, says Boyd.

“As a writer, my work is centered around helping shift the negative narrative that I think surrounds North Nashville,” Boyd says. “There’s a lot of danger in a single story — the North Nashville I experience is very different from the North Nashville I see often in the media. I experience North Nashville as a place of love, care and community.”

Boyd conceived of the project during a walk around the neighborhood with two friends. “We just walked around and talked about our experiences with being Black women,” she says. That walk, Boyd explains, “solidified how while our neighborhood is changing, Black women have contributed to this community, and we need to uplift their legacy and their contributions.”

For the mosaics, Boyd initially chose three women who changed the political landscape of Nashville. In addition to McGruder, this included Watson, a major figure in school desegregation whose daughters were two of the first 16 students to attend integrated Nashville schools. Amid bomb threats and intimidation, Watson led the desegregation effort with kindness and grace.

“You have to keep teaching that this is the better way — to love and respect everybody,” Watson told NewsChannel 5 in 2009.

“Not just one, but everybody.”

There’s also a mosaic of Pierce, a suffragist and founder of the Tennessee Vocational School for Colored Girls in 1923. Politically savvy, Pierce fought for the right to vote as a way to leverage support for the school. Addressing the 1920 state suffrage convention in the Tennessee Capitol, she said: “What will the Negro women do with the vote? We will stand by the white women. … We are asking only one thing — a square deal. … We want recognition in all forms of this government.

We want a state vocational school and a child welfare department of the state, and more room in state schools.” Though Black women were left out of the 19th Amendment, Pierce continued to advocate for the school, and the League of Women Voters of Tennessee successfully petitioned the General Assembly to pass a bill creating it in 1921.

But beyond the political advocates and

leaders, there are women who maintain the fabric of a community in more private but equally important ways. This was the case for Ransom and Boddie, whom Boyd found through talking to community members about their families. Ransom moved from Murfreesboro to North Nashville in the 1940s, raised 11 children, and worked at St. Thomas Hospital for more than 30 years.

She never drove, but was highly involved locally, serving as a senior usher at 14th Avenue Baptist Church and leading a social club, which held monthly gatherings.

Boddie (“Mama Boddie,” as she was often called) was equally active: She served as a cafeteria cashier in Nashville public schools, made popsicles for neighborhood children in the summers, and potty-trained “dozens” of local kids. She lived on 14th Avenue for 45 years. “The interstate was literally built on her street,” Boyd says. “Yet in the face of all that, she was still caring for the neighborhood and loving the community.”

Women like Ransom and Boddie don’t always show up in historical accounts; this makes them all the more important to acknowledge. Set against a world of bomb threats, lynching, riots and countless other adversities, their contributions are even more significant.

“Keep in mind that between 1879 and 1960, thousands of Black people were lynched in America,” Boyd says. “Yet these people like J. Frankie Pierce … what she was able to accomplish despite racial violence and systemic terror that was happening at the time … it’s just beyond me, and something I think we should be celebrating.”

“These women found a way,” Boyd says.

“When people were being lynched, their homes were being threatened, they found a way to build a community in this place.

And that’s what we will do — we will find a way to keep Nashville loving, caring and connected, despite all the challenges we’re facing.”

“I hope we uphold the legacy these women have entrusted us with — that North Nashville continues to be a place where people care for those who have less.”

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NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 - MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

BOOKS

STORIES MORE LIKE MEMORIES

The Crocodile Bride is a gripping family saga about the power of storytelling

BY TINA CHAMBERS

T

he Crocodile Bride, the debut novel by Ashleigh Bell Pedersen, is a gripping family saga about the power of storytelling — especially its ability to warm and soften the edges of cold, THE CROCODILE BRIDE

BY ASHLEIGH BELL harsh reality. PederPEDERSEN sen creates a world HUB CITY PRESS at once tragic and 296 PAGES, $26 beautiful, violent and magical, desperately impoverished yet rich in meaning.

It’s the summer of 1982 and Sunshine Turner is about to turn 12. She lives with her father Billy in the tiny village of Fingertip, La., located near the Atchafalaya River. One of the New Deal communities founded by Eleanor Roosevelt to help families recover from the Great Depression, Fingertip once offered 99-cent mortgages and guaranteed jobs at a nearby sugar mill. Sunshine’s grandparents settled there in 1942 (population: 62), but since the sugar mill closed, jobs are scarce, and the few families who have not left have sunk into poverty.

Sunshine has never met her mother. Her father says he found her as a baby tucked inside a Florida orange crate delivered by a great blue heron to the front porch of their yellow bungalow. He raises her on the stories he learned from his mother, Catherine, who hails from a fictional version of Portland, Tenn., where part of the novel is set.

Catherine told bayou stories of witches and trolls, ghosts and “haints,” and above all, the story of the crocodile bride — a small, dark woman in a white dress who lives deep inside the legendary Black Bayou, in a house built on top of the crocodile’s disembodied heart. The crocodile bride is a healer, and people travel from far and wide to see her: “She didn’t need to speak or be spoken to.

She didn’t need an explanation of pain, a teary confession or plea. She simply lay her hands on the injured or sickly or heartbroken, and inside of her, an understanding pooled like cool green water.”

In contrast, the crocodile is an enormous and insatiable beast, with “cracked, yellowed teeth like blades” who greedily gobbles down the gifts — coins, jewelry, silverware — brought as a sort of toll to enter the bride’s sanctuary. Those who forget to bring a gift are liable to be gobbled down themselves. In fact, the crocodile isn’t particular about what he eats: “He swallowed the palmettos that spiked the shoreline, the lily pads, the snapping turtles, a wagon wheel encrusted with rust and small snails.

He swallowed whole families of alligators, then he chewed his way through their marshy den, teeth gnawing through the mud as though it were chocolate cake, licking his lips in what was, unfortunately, only a brief

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moment of satisfaction.”

It’s not the tall tales, fables and folklore of their swampy home that haunt Sunshine’s family, but the desperate cycle of abusive men who have damaged their wives and children with their words and fists. Sunshine lives in a ramshackle home with too little food and too little care. Her father disappears for days at a time, and when he is home, she watches carefully to see whether he will be in a pleasant “June mood” or if his drinking and depression will cause dark clouds to descend. “It could be blue-skied over Fingertip,” she explains, “but pouring down rain inside the yellow house.” Sunshine is wildly imaginative and curious about many things, but her life is lonely and confusing. She has many questions but too few answers, especially about her father’s increasingly alarming behavior.

Throughout the narrative, Pedersen allows Sunshine’s aunt and grandmother to tell their own stories of domestic abuse, lost dreams and the price they paid by remaining silent. Sunshine, burdened by her own fears and secrets, follows their example at first. Then late one night when the darkness threatens to engulf her, she runs out into the swamp in search of help, setting in motion events that will change her family forever. “Sometimes stories were like that,” Pedersen writes. “It was like you were born knowing them deep in your bones, and when you finally heard them told, they were more like memories.”

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

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 - MAY 25, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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MAY 24

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NASHVILLE SCENE | MAY 19 - MAY 25, 2022 | nashvillescene.com

MUSIC

PLAYING SATURDAY, MAY 21, AT THE STATION INN

SISTER ACT Revamped and revitalized, stellar bluegrass group Sister Sadie looks ahead

BY BRITTNEY McKENNA

S

ometimes the most fruitful creative projects are happy accidents. Such is the case for the widely renowned bluegrass outfit Sister Sadie, who first came together on a whim, just more than a decade ago, to play at Nashville bluegrass institution the Station Inn. Since then, the band has become one of the genre’s most exciting acts, winning awards and breaking records across the community.

“We started at the Station Inn with no intention of doing dates or making records,” vocalist and fiddler Deanie Richardson tells the Scene. “It was just friends [saying], ‘Let’s get together and play a night at the Station Inn.’ We’ve known each other our whole lives, and it was just a magical thing from the first downbeat at rehearsal, before we even went up there. … It was just all about the music and our friendship and how much we loved playing music together. And then all this other stuff starts happening.”

That “other stuff” includes a Grammy

nomination, multiple IBMA Award wins and inclusion in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum’s American Currents: State of the Music exhibit. In 2019, the band became the first all-female act to win Vocal Group of the Year at the IBMAs, which they’ve now won three years in a row. That came in the wake of their most recent album, 2018’s Grammy-nominated Sister Sadie II. The band recently signed with respected ’grass-centric record label Mountain Home Music, with whom they’ll release new recordings — likely a full-length album — later this year. Though details on the project are scant for now, Richardson assures that the music will be worth the wait. She and the rest of the band are already at work honing the track list, which will be made up of covers and a handful of original new tunes.

“We’ve talked with [Mountain Home] several times over the last few years,” says vocalist and banjo player Gena Britt. “They put their confidence in us and vice versa, as far as being able to work together. In that respect, it was a good fit. They support us and the direction that we want to go.”

The band is set to begin recording what’s expected to be its third album in August, and it will mark a notable evolution for the group. Since the last release, founding members Dale Ann Bradley (guitar, vocals) and Tina Adair (mandolin, vocals) stepped away

to focus on their solo work. The upcoming studio project will be Sister Sadie’s first with its new band members Mary Meyer (mandolin, vocals), Hasee Ciaccio (bass, vocals) and Jaelee Roberts (guitar, vocals).

Like their predecessors, each of them brings a boatload of honors, and Richardson and Britt credit them with bringing new energy to the band.

“We have different vocalists, new personnel,” Richardson says. “So I think the direction for Sadie is changing. We’ve always been a more traditional bluegrass kind of band. … I think we have some opportunities to mix up some things a little bit.”

Days before our conversation, Richardson played fiddle as part of the house band at the annual Country Music Hall of Fame induction ceremony. It was a bittersweet occasion, as inductee and country legend Naomi Judd had died just a day earlier.

While the mood was certainly somber, Richardson says all who gathered were still comforted by their shared passion for and connection to country music.

“That’s a day that I look forward to and treasure all year,” she says. “Getting to be a part of that house band is one of the most incredible honors of my life. … Naomi’s death brought sadness, but it was also very sweet. Everybody there was just gracious and sweet. … I felt like it was a large fam-

ily sitting there, mourning the loss of an amazing human being, but also celebrating the careers of these other amazing human beings.”

As if they didn’t have enough on their plates in this busy season, the band also recently played MerleFest. It was their first appearance at the famed long-running North Carolina roots music festival. In addition to the thrill of discovering new acts, Richardson and Britt were both just happy to be onstage again, following the halt in live music brought by the pandemic.

“To be musicians and not be onstage in front of an audience — not having that experience and that energy for two years now — that’s hard for folks like us,” Richardson says. “And it’s just good to feed that part of your soul again. It fills me up, just being onstage with these ladies. It’s pretty electrifying.”

Sister Sadie will bring that electrifying energy back to the Station Inn on Friday.

Richardson and Britt agree the show is a full-circle moment for the band, in which they’ll bring their revitalized lineup back to the stage where their story started.

“It’s a pretty special place for Deanie and I both,” Britt says. “We have a lot of history there. I’ve been going there since I was a teenager, and she’s been going since she was a little girl. So we’re excited to get back there.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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MUSIC

WORK IN PROGRESS

Sofia Goodman pushes jazz forward, musically and culturally

BY SEAN L. MALONEY

T

he Sofia Goodman Group plays progessive jazz. Historically, that phrase has been used to describe several different schools of thought, but what we’re talking about is a weird niche for people who like a lot of music in their music — a lot of ideas beamed to their ear holes. It’s smooth but it isn’t easy. It’s beautiful, but it isn’t wallpaper. There are electric and electronic elements, but they don’t dominate the soundscape. This variety of progressive jazz is its own tradition, and unless you’re PLAYING WEDNESDAY, already a fan, it is MAY 25, AT RUDY’S JAZZ far-removed from ROOM the approaches you probably think of when someone says “jazz.”

It’s a style that pulls liberally from, oh, the past 50 years of small-combo maximalism, where players push boundaries within themselves and for their audience, creating information-dense interplay free of irony.

Goodman and her band — featuring a boatload of top-notch young instrumentalists, including Serah Zhanell on percussion, Leland Nelson on bass, Rheal Janelle on guitar, Alex Murphy on piano and Troy Atkins on soprano sax — are currently at work with engineer Kevin Turner on their second album, a follow-up to 2018’s Myriad of Flowers. The ensemble, which you can see Wednesday at Rudy’s Jazz Room, prides itself on bringing a revitalizing energy to a genre that has a reputation for getting stale and staid under the influence of hidebound traditionalists, despite many of its heroes and heroines being the ones who take on the daunting task of reinventing it.

“I don’t believe in having to spell out the story all the time,” says Goodman, who composes original material for the group and leads the band from the drum throne. “I feel like that robs the audience of their own imagination. So I try not to overly explain, but find a way that I can offer my own personal experience.”

Goodman is a Massachusetts native with degrees from both Berklee College of Music and Belmont University, and her experience has been one of challenges and perseverance — from mental health issues and sexual violence to the patriachal impulses that are embedded deep in the music world in general and jazz in particular. She works in a vernacular that, at its worst, is more evocative of dads with ponytails playing air drums than diversity, equity and inclusion.

But she doesn’t let the disparity direct her creative intuition. “[When I was young] I resonated with punk rock because it was like, you know, ‘Fuck the system,’ ” says Goodman. “But my music teacher saw that I really liked music.

And so she told me about the Berklee fiveweek summer program. I went, and Esperanza Spalding was my ensemble teacher. My whole entire world totally shifted because just being there — just being exposed to the

musicians and how they worked together and played together — it opened me up to a lot of stuff, musically and otherwise.”

But with the eye-opening exposure to the magic of music also came the harsh realities of the violence and misogyny that have long bubbled under the jazz scene’s hip veneer.

Drugged and raped in her dorm at the age of 19, Goodman saw firsthand the callous ways that both institutions and insular communities can treat victims of sexual violence. It is the type of tragedy that has cut short more promising musical careers than we can know, an unnecessary challenge in what’s already an uphill battle.

“I feel happy that so much has changed, even from when I was at Berklee College of Music around 2010, 2012,” Goodman says. “I feel like being in college would be so much different now as a woman in the

music scene, because of a lot of the work that women musicians especially have done to protect younger generations — because of what they went through or what they witnessed. It seems like, finally, people are gonna be held accountable.”

Goodman walks the walk in her work with grassroots organization Nashville Women in Jazz. With a mission to “encourage and empower women and underrepresented people in Nashville’s jazz scene,” NWIJ distributes a women-centric event calendar, is building a database of players and makes outreach appearances at local jazz events. You might have seen Goodman holding down the NWIJ booth at the recent 25th anniversary run of Murfreesboro Jazz Fest.

Fusing different sounds is a great thing, but moving toward a better future in the face of oppression is what really matters.

Goodman creates compositions that allow her collaborators to have a conversation among themselves and with their audience. Her art, wordless though it is, embodies optimism in the face of harrowing challenges that is eclipsed only by the radness of her drum solos.

“I’ve had a lot of bad things happen to me, traumatic things,” says Goodman.

“And I think that I’m kind of at a point where I would like to find a way to talk about these things. I feel like it could help people.”

Goodman’s work strives for lofty goals, takes big musical risks and aspires for the freedom to manifest itself fully. It is truly progressive and fundamentally jazz — and a reason to be excited about the continuing evolution of jazz in Music City.

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nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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MUSIC

THE SPIN

POP LIFE

BY STEVEN HALE

plaid-clad frontwoman with a cover of No Doubt’s “Just a Girl.”

It’s easy to see the influence of those artists on Rodrigo. In her, one can see a kind of sugary amalgam of Taylor Swift and Hayley Williams’ Paramore with a dash of Phoebe Bridgers — indeed, Rodrigo ended up giving millions of dollars in royalties to the first two because of the undeniable similarity between some of her songs and theirs. But it’s easy to imagine Rodrigo having her own long career, not because of those similarities but because of her own clear talent as a multi-instrumentalist, singer-songwriter and performer. From the way she commanded the Opry stage, you’d never have known it was her first time.

The middle of her set included an acoustic medley of “enough for you” and “1 step forward, 3 steps back,” and a call back to her High School Musical days with the song she wrote for the show, “All I Want.” I was not familiar with this particular number, but the crowd definitely was. To say they were singing along throughout would not be true: They were absolutely screaming along throughout. That was nothing compared to what was to come, though, when Rodrigo closed the set with the scorned-lover smash hits “traitor,” “deja vu” and “good 4 u.”

At one point, Rodrigo came to the front of the stage and collected several Nashville stickers to add to her collection from other tour stops. She told the crowd it was her first time in town, that she loved it here and that she got to meet one of her heroes, Jack White. She’ll be back, but next time the room and the crowd will be even bigger.

THE MAN, THE MYTH, THE LEGEND

BY CHARLIE ZAILLIAN “It’s a special night for us — a dream come true,” declared Orville Peck in his trademark booming baritone to a packed crowd gathered on Friday the 13th for the masked musician’s first-ever Ryman headlining gig.

The fanfare around Peck — queer cowboy, wayward troubadour — has only grown since his left-field Sub Pop hit debut Pony three years back. Having jumped to major label Columbia for his second LP Bronco, he returned to Music City with a new batch of songs, and followers eager to hear them.

PHOTO: LANCE CONZETT

YOUTH GOT IT: OLIVIA RODRIGO

PHOTO: MATT MASTERS

O

n the night of May 10, my wife and I made our way through the line to get into the Grand Ole Opry House, which stretched from the venue’s doors out to the parking lot and to the edge of Briley Parkway. As we reached the entrance, a thought struck me: Olivia Rodrigo is only a couple years older than the teenager we’d just left with our kids. This somewhat distressing realization led to two more. First: “Lol, we’re old.” And second: The 19-year-old former High School Musical: The Musical: The Series star has become a global pop sensation — even before she can drink, to borrow a phrase from “brutal,” the opener of her debut album Sour.

Some parents dropped off their teens in the parking lot, while others joined them in the serpentine line of youth. Did I mention we’re old?

Attendees seemed familiar with British synth-pop singer-songwriter Holly Humberstone. After a brief intermission, the Opry lights went down and One Direction’s “Olivia” started blaring. The crowd — how else to put it? — lost their damn minds. Even if you have resisted Rodrigo’s dominance of pop music over the past year — and I have not — I would defy you to not give in to the energy of several thousand of her fans realizing that she is about to walk onstage. People in that room were as excited as I have ever been about anything. And good for them. They were about to have a great time.

After her band teased the crowd with the song’s pop-punk opening riff, Rodrigo took the stage — which was giving major high school prom energy, adorned with shimmery streamers and bleachers — singing the aforementioned “brutal,” followed quickly by “jealousy, jealousy,” her lament about the ill effects of our Instagramcentering culture. After that, Rodrigo took a seat at the piano and played the opening notes of “drivers license,” the song that turned her from a talented young Disney star to an absolute juggernaut in platform boots. Upon its release in January 2021, “drivers license” topped the charts, trended on TikTok, appeared in a Saturday Night Live sketch and was inescapable on the radio. I can report that enthusiasm for the tune has not diminished.

Perhaps strategically, Rodrigo is playing theaters on the Sour Tour when she could presumably be filling arenas. It is her first tour, after all, and it’s better to have lots of people wishing they could get into a show than risk any empty seats. But also, while pandemic time-warping may make it seem as if she’s been around forever, she is still essentially brand-new, with one album to her name. She simply doesn’t have enough songs yet for the kind of set that fills a bigger venue. In part, one assumes, this is why her 14-song set included two covers, the first of which was Avril Lavigne’s “Complicated” — an old standard to this Gen Z crowd. She performed it well, but her own songs are better. Later, she paid tribute to yet another

TWANGRI-LA: ORVILLE PECK A little earlier, Nashville’s own Teddy and the Rough Riders gave folks finding their seats a set that teased their ability to go long on their Southern psych and countryrock leanings, but kept it accessible for the occasion. The group has toured with Peck throughout the spring, making up for a 2020 tour they were supposed to do together that was canceled because of COVID. Teddy’s core trio of Ryan Jennings, Jack Quiggins and Nick Swafford have long been road dogs, and it’s great to see them get an enthusiastic response from Peck and audiences alike.

Onstage, in the studio and any other moment Peck is in music mode, the singer-songsmith-guitarist wears his Zorro-like fringed face mask, which is more than a costume.

When the Scene had a chat with Peck in 2019, he explained that his creative North Star is Dolly Parton: “I didn’t realize she was a real person when I was a kid — I thought she was a character, like Pee-wee Herman, because she was larger than life.” Regarding his own songs, he continued: “I write about personal experiences — where I’ve lived and traveled, people I’ve met — and do it with some flair, because that’s how I want to do it. I don’t see it as a character, or a shtick. I’m Orville Peck, and these are my stories.”

Clad in a sharp dark-green suit, Peck shared those stories with a commanding presence that didn’t feel choreographed.

Between hip-shakes and high-kicks, he met his bandmates at their stations to rock out in unison. His chemistry with guitarist Bria Salmena, the Toronto-residing musician who shared lead vocal duties with Peck on Bronco closer “All I Can Say,” was electric.

Salmena also stood in admirably for Shania Twain on the original “Legends Never Die” and for Emmylou Harris on the Gram Parsons cover “Ooh Las Vegas.” My showgoing companion likened Salmena’s husky vocals to Martha Wainwright’s; when she and Peck sang together, it echoed the charmingly offkilter dynamic between X’s John Doe and Exene Cervenka.

Pony was sparse and haunting, and the backing players at Peck’s second-to-mostrecent Nashville show at Mercy Lounge for AmericanaFest ’19 conjured a delirious racket. But the tunes and performances this time around felt slicker, brighter and more fleshed-out. Nearing the midpoint of its cross-continental itinerary, the current band was a well-oiled machine. A raucous take on

Pony standout “Turn to Hate,” played early in the set, boasted spot-on multipart harmonies and triple-guitar action, with Peck’s hollow-body Gretsch serving jangle for days.

Peck embraced the role of entertainer, with ample between-song background info and colorful asides. Ahead of Pony’s “Queen of the Rodeo,” a yearning ode to a drag queen, he implored showgoers to support the local drag community. “I recommend it if you like art, hard work, determination and passion,” he said. “It’s for everybody. Tip them in cash.”

For the midset waltz “Drive Me, Crazy,” from Peck’s stopgap 2020 EP Show Pony, he relocated to the piano at stage left, and dedicated the tune to “the truck drivers out there.” Long-haul trucker or not, it felt like each person in the room hung on Peck’s every word. “He hasn’t missed a note yet!” marveled a neighbor in my section.

Bronco continues to play up the legend Peck established on his debut. Slower tunes like the wide-eyed road song “Outta Time,” effusive ballad “C’mon Baby, Cry,” and majestic centerpiece “Kalahari Down” translated sublimely in the live setting. The word-salad pastiche “Any Turn,” however, didn’t land as well; it adds little to what Bob Dylan or R.E.M. did, respectively, with “Subterranean Homesick Blues” or “It’s the End of the World as We Know It (And I Feel Fine).” Disappointingly, it seems that “Buffalo Run,” my shoegaze-y personal fave from Pony, has been phased out of the set list.

After the main set ended with Bronco’s rambunctious titular tune, Peck & Co. returned to the stage amid stadium-rock-like chants of “OR-VILLE!” Peck guided the band and audience through a single-song encore, “Take You Back (The Iron Hoof Cattle Call).”

The call-and-response exercise grew so heavy on whistling, hooting and hollering it sent me toward the exits a few minutes early.

My tolerance for overzealous fans aside, the hour-plus performance built up at all the right points, wound down when it felt natural to, and altogether hit the mark. Rejoicing in the pews spilled into the aisles, and young, queer attendees all around had what appeared to be religious experiences.

For the time being, questions about the mileage Peck can ultimately get out of being a masked balladeer felt irrelevant — this evening was one that’ll live on.

EMAIL THESPIN@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 – MAY 18, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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FILM

MEN WE REAPED

The insidious Men manifests the terror of being a woman

BY SADAF AHSAN

A

s a woman walking down the street, doing my job, going to dinner, waiting for the bus, having drinks with a friend — there is almost always a moment when I glance over my shoulder, grip the keys a little tighter MEN and mute the music R, 100 MINUTES OPENING WIDE FRIDAY, blaring through my MAY 20 earbuds. I sense that I’m not alone.

This is a familiar routine for so many women. Our common fear? Men. As journalist Mary Dickson notes in the ever-topical 1998 PBS documentary No Safe Place: Violence Against Women, “Ask any woman you know. You always have a plan.”

Here are the cold facts: According to the World Health Organization, 1 in 3 women worldwide has been subjected to either physical and/or sexual intimate-partner violence or non-partner sexual violence in their lifetime, mostly by men.

For some, a movie title as simple as Men is enough to inspire dread. Writer-director Alex Garland’s latest might be one of the

most insidious horror films in recent years.

The narrative itself is relatively simple.

After Harper (a typically spellbinding Jessie Buckley) tells her husband James (Paapa Essiedu who, as always, lit up his scenes but could’ve been used more) that she’s leaving him, he erupts into a violent argument with her, telling her he will kill himself if she follows through. It turns out that he does indeed die — gruesomely — but whether it is intentional is unclear. What is certain is that Harper is traumatized and takes off to a sprawling rented home in the English countryside to get away and heal. There, she encounters a man, in many variations.

Bear with me. Among them, there is Jeffrey, the “nice guy” groundskeeper who makes it his mission to “protect” her; a nude man who sprouted like a weed in the woods

and who Harper encounters on a walk; a police officer who minimizes the threat Harper feels after she realizes the nude man may be stalking her; and a vicar who has a suspiciously dry mouth and wandering eyes. All these men project a grotesque thirst and lasciviousness.

And all are played to equally hilarious and chilling effect by Rory Kinnear, a long-underrated actor who gets his due here tenfold.

With each character, his appearance shifts ever so slightly, from buck-toothed Jeffrey to the silver-haired vicar. His eyes, however, remain eerily foreboding. They’re the type that women fear at night — eyes that might be watching, that might be following. But, of course, #NotAllMen. As each of the Kinnears makes Harper the subject of his perversions, they actively gaslight her and make her question her own

EXIT THE VOID A ritual of unimaginable sadness, Vortex is also a monument to a life lived on its own terms

BY JASON SHAWHAN

T

he opening sequence of Vortex finds a couple, played by legendary French actress Françoise Lebrun and Italian horror director Dario Argento, both in their 80s, having a nice little lunch on the balcony of their Paris apartment.

VORTEX NR, 142 MINUTES; IN It’s a sweet moment, and FRENCH WITH ENGLISH as one might expect from SUBTITLES OPENING FRIDAY, MAY 20, French-Argentine writer/ director Gaspar Noé, it AT THE BELCOURT is the bellwether of kindness and stability against which we will measure the document of unspeakable sorrow that the characters and the audience will experience over the next twoand-a-half hours. Because immediately following that scene, the film itself fractures into split screen, where it will spend the rest of its runtime. Even when in the same room, even when talking to one another, the couple is never truly connected again.

There is a sustained pain in this film that you cannot escape. Perhaps you’ve not lost anyone to dementia, or Alzheimer’s, and that’s great for you. It’s an ongoing process of cruel disassembly that I wouldn’t wish on the worst people in the world, because the thing about dementia is that it transcends ideology. There’s no tenet that survives what dementia does, so it really doesn’t matter what kind of person one might have been — it all gets shredded, and all that’s left are weirdly shaped

memories, and inevitable slideshows that try and fit a life into the confines of a piece of music.

Vortex does something interesting as a film that we don’t usually see from narratives on dementia/ Alzheimer’s — usually there’s a partner suffering from the actual disease, and the film focuses its perspective through the other partner. Here, in this cozy, museum-like apartment that is literally constructed from the wild academic and intellectual life that this couple has built over decades together, we are always privileged with the perspectives of both individuals. And as such, we see how the shared life, the common frame of reference that they have established and burnished, is becoming unavailable

to both of them. They are both still alive, but the life they’d been living together no longer exists. There’s merely a collection of nonfunctioning save points on walls and shelves, and these two are both unmoored in what they thought was their safest and most nurturing of spaces.

Lebrun has a presence that can’t help but kick your ass. She’s kind-eyed and sturdy, propelling herself through life with the physicality of someone whose feet know the streets of her neighborhood even if those decades of certainties are no longer so certain. A retired psychiatrist, her character is suffering from dementia, and she’s keeping all sorts of things to herself. Speech is becoming a deliberate choice,

motivations and fears. Take, for instance, when she confides in the vicar about what happened with James, and he tells her she should have given him another chance — that “men do strike women sometimes; it’s not nice, but it’s not a capital offense.”

Toxic masculinity permeates, the horror of which is most relatable in two key moments. On her first day away, Harper joyously listens to her voice echo in a cavernous tunnel, only to run away when she spots a male silhouette at the end of it. Later, she howls in pain at a church in the countryside while having flashbacks about James.

Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury’s electrifying score does half the work here — those echoes and screams sound more like sirens that repeat with growing dread as Harper’s nightmarish getaway unfolds.

As with his past works Ex Machina, Annihilation and Devs, Garland explores a familiar theme here: the anxieties and tensions we create between us, and how they come to define the human condition.

This particular social commentary — replete with biblical and pagan imagery, and a third act stuffed with Cronenbergian levels of body horror (like, bring a paper bag with you) — feels much more abstract and openended than his other explorations, making for more of a singular feeling than a film.

While it certainly isn’t for everyone, it does feel like required viewing, if only so it isn’t just we women who will walk home after the credits roll and take one more look behind us. Just to be sure, just to be safe.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

rather than an ongoing activity. And there are moments when she confronts the unspannable holes in her own memory and the audience is staring into the void that awaits us all — and it burns.

There’s something equally fitting and perverse in seeing Argento, who as a filmmaker over the past 50plus years has been responsible for some of the most baroque and imaginative dealings of death ever put on film, firmly in the grip of time and age. No black-gloved assassin, no murderdoll or unexpected room full of barbed wire or rendering corpses, no horror emerging from a museum wall is coming to disrupt the linear progression from life to death. He delivers an effective performance, rooted in a life spent calling the shots and making decisions slowly having its sturdy, vintage support structure being undone. If Lebrun’s work in this film is an even-keeled desperation, Argento is a drowning man, slipping beneath the surface of Infinite Looming End and fighting his way back out to gulp lungfuls of air and fresh draughts of sorrow.

Noé has spoken rapturously of Michael Haneke’s 2012 Palme d’Or-winning Amour, a tale of similar ongoing loss due to dementia. But Noé has always been a more ethical filmmaker than Haneke, and Vortex feels far less schematic and needly than Amour.

We never feel as if we’re watching an experiment, only bearing witness to an unending ache. After a brain hemorrhage almost killed him on New Year’s 2020, Noé emerged and made this film, both a tribute to his mother (who died of dementia in 2012) and to his hard-won perspective on the fragility of existence. For someone who has specialized in films that exhibit extreme content, he has always rooted his work in real emotion. If Vortex is the beginning of a new pathway for Noé, know that he has in no way mellowed — this is the most pitiless film he’s yet made. And he’s still one of the best we’ve got.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | MAY 19 – MAY 25, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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DON’T PANIC! Racial comedy-slashthriller Emergency is both obvious and necessary

BY CRAIG D. LINDSEY

A

ny African American will tell you that sometimes, you just have to laugh at racism. I mean, it’s the 21st century, and nevertheless some white people still get scared out of their wits and automatiEMERGENCY R, 105 MINUTES cally call the cops SHOWING MAY 20-24 AT THE if they see brownBELCOURT; STREAMING MAY 27 VIA AMAZON PRIME skinned folk doing something they VIDEO consider suspicious.

But those brown people can get scared too.

If these past couple of years have taught us anything, it’s that even the most innocent person of color can instantly be wiped off the face of the earth over nothing more than misunderstanding.

The new movie Emergency — which has a brief run at the Belcourt this week before heading over to Amazon Prime Video — makes a farcical nightmare of the fear and panic Black and white people face whenever they’re around each other. College seniors/buddies Sean (RJ Cyler, aka Earl from Me and Earl and the Dying Girl) and Kunle (Donald Elise Watkins) plan on being the first Black students to do the “Legendary Tour,” hitting a bunch of campus parties in one night. Their plans unfortunately hit a snag when they come home and see an unwelcome visitor, a passed-out white girl

vegan with gluten-free options (Maddie Nichols), on their living-room floor.

Along with their mixed-race roommate Carlos (Sebastian Chacon), these guys will now spend the evening trying to figure out the proper way to deal with this dilemma without cops taking them to jail or worse.

While future Princeton student Kunle wants to call 911, the high, paranoid Sean would just prefer to dump her at a party and be done with it.

Here director Casey Williams and writer KD Dávila do a full-length expansion on their 2018 short of the same name, turning the absurd yet tense chamber piece into a darkly comic road-trip movie. They even throw in a bossy coed (Girl Meets World pop princess Sabrina Carpenter), who becomes concerned when her li’l sis ends up missing. The movie (which won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival) is basically a racially charged Superbad for people who’ve been listening to Kendrick Lamar nonstop — two BFFs have a crazy night that could spark the beginning of them drifting apart, plus they have a goofy-ass sidekick tagging along.

Of course, it’s all high jinks until things get serious in the third act, as Williams and Dávila pound home the message that reluctant good Samaritans can easily become casualties. In the age of Black Lives Matter, a comedy-slash-thriller about three men of color trying to do the right thing without getting killed for it seems both obvious and necessary. To some viewers, Emergency might seem implausible and ridiculous. But for people who’ve come to see the police as more of a threat than a public service, this might be the most terrifying film they’ll see all year.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

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N A S H V I L L E M O V I E S I N T H E PA R K . C O M

CROSSWORD EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ ACROSS 1

Tour de France leg

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Potential con

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Keen

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Kin of King Kong

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Homer’s self-satisfied assertion?

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Aurora’s counterpart

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Multinational insurance inits.

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Kind of nut

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Feasts, e.g.

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Pours from one container to another

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Bums, for example?

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Court org.

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Spanish article

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Bug that no one likes

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Yam source, historically?

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Québec street

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Egg: Prefix

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Some raw materials

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Place to find a comet?

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7/7/22.

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Discriminatory compensation practice

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Info on a security badge, for short

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Falls into line

Water monitoring grp.

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Diamond figure

Laundry leftover

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Steps on a scale?

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That there

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Sweetheart

Band with the 4x platinum albums “Out of Time” and “Monster”

Home country of the two-time Olympic marathon winner Eliud Kipchoge

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Thoroughly … or a hint for parsing some lowercase letters in four of this puzzle’s clues

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Pitchfork-shaped letter

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Facility often referred to by its first letter

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Affect emotionally

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Mortgage org.

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Cat, in Córdoba

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“Sweet!”

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Bubbly source

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It’s an honor

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Arabian port

Like some checking accounts

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Critical time

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It may come in shells

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Name that’s an alphabetic trio

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Caesar dressing?

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Shark’s racket

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Pickle unit

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Certain facial decoration

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Waste line

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Lake in the Sierra Nevada

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Sounding shocked

4

Grok

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Currier and ___

5

Jazz Age, e.g.

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Self-seeker

Feature of many a Druid’s robe

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Subject of rationing in the old English navy

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Sea eagles

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Onetime inits. on the Supreme Court

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Work started by London’s Philological Soc.

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King of Saudi Arabia beginning in 2015

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Hide away

46

Like a wide grin

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Derrière

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Drench

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“J to ___ L-O! The Remixes” (2002 album)

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nashvillescene.com | MAY 12 - MAY 25, 2022 | NASHVILLE SCENE

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Marketplace

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www.rockylawfirm.com LEGAL Non-Resident Notice Third Circuit Docket No. 22D241

Rental Scene

RITU AGRAWAL vs.

RAKESH MENON In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a nonresident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon RAKESH MENON. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after May 26, 2022 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on June 27, 2022.

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a nonresident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon RAKESH MENON. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after May 26, 2022 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on June 27, 2022.

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: April 28, 2022 Robert Todd Jackson Attorneys for Plaintiff NSC 5/5, 5/12, 5/19, 5/26//22

Non-Resident Notice Fourth Circuit Docket No. 20D1454 BRANDI LA'SHERRELLE HAWKINS vs.

DESHAWN AUNRAY HAWKINS SR In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a nonresident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon DESHAWN AUNRAY HAWKINS SR. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after May 19, 2022 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on June 20, 2022.

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on June 20, 2022.

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk Date: April 22, 2022 David Kozlowski Attorneys for Plaintiff NSC 4/28, 5/5, 5/12, 5/19/22

Non-Resident Notice Third Circuit Docket No. 21D1153 CAROLYN BAKER JONES FULSON vs.

ARTHUR FULSON, III In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a nonresident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon ARTHUR FULSON, III. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after May 19, 2022 same being the date of the last publication of this notice to be held at the Metropolitan Circuit Court located at 1 Public Square, Room 302, Nashville, Tennessee, and defend or default will be taken on June 20, 2022.

It is therefore ordered that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks succession in the Nashville Scene, a newspaper published in Nashville.

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EMPLOYMENT HealthStream Inc., in Nashville, TN seeks a Advanced Product Solutions Developer to program new applications. Reqs. BS + 3 yrs exp. 100% telecommuting role. Reports to company headquarters in Nashville, TN. Can work remotely or telecommute. To apply: mail resume to HealthStream, Inc., 500 11th Avenue North, Ste 1000, Nashville, TN 37203; ATTN: Whitney Drucker, Must reference job title; and Job ID: 000062

SERVICES Richard R. Rooker, Clerk L. Chappell, Deputy Clerk Date: April 21, 2022 Sheryl Guinn Attorneys for Plaintiff NSC 4/28, 5/5, 5/12, 5/19/22

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S U H P I TC

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