Nashville Scene 8-27-20

AUGUST 27–SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 I VOLUME 39 I NUMBER 30 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE

CITY LIMITS: A DISTURBING MONTH RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CULTURE INSIDE THE MNPD

NASHVILLE BYLINE: THE COMPLEX HISTORY OF THE BARBERSHOP HARMONY SOCIETY PAGE 7

PAGE 6

BLACK B BL LACK L ACK

EXPLORING THE RICH HISTORY OF TOM WILSON, BLACK BASEBALL AND NASHVILLE’S CONNECTION TO THE NEGRO LEAGUES

BY ANDREA WILLIAMS

cover_8-27-20.indd 1

8/24/20 6:58 PM

We know the real thing when we hear it—we can sense the truth. Country music is an authentic, artistic beacon in the world for anyone seeking that genuine home of the soul. When the music rings true, it elevates everyday living to exceptional heights. The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum stands always for that unassailable place in the American story.

CountryMusicHallofFame.org

2

NASHVILLE SCENE | MONTH 1 – MONTH 2, 2018 | nashvillescene.com

CONTENTS

AUGUST 27, 2020

6

21

A Disturbing Month Raises Questions About the Culture Inside the MNPD .........6

More Than a Dream

CITY LIMITS

Sexual harassment allegations and a botched raid are the latest issues plaguing the police department

BY STEVEN HALE

Mayor’s Office Details Smaller ‘Draft’ Transit Plan ................................................6 Cooper plan would cost $1.5 billion, focus on buses and basics

BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT

BOOKS

Jon Meacham delivers a rich account of the life of civil rights icon John Lewis

22

MUSIC

When the Spirit Moves You .................... 22 Ruston Kelly explores the promise of a new start on Shape & Destroy

BY LORIE LIEBIG

Exploring the long history of the Nashvillebased organization — and its modern-day reckoning with racial inclusion

Dianne Davidson redefines the blues on her first new album in three decades

BY RADLEY BALKO

Soul Extension......................................... 23

This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

Justin Townes Earle Dies at 38

BY MICHAEL RAY TAYLOR AND CHAPTER 16

Nashville Byline: The Barbershop Harmony Society ........................................................7

Pith in the Wind .........................................9

THIS WEEK ON THE WEB:

Angle of View .......................................... 23

BY EDD HURT

Dan Penn’s new album sums up the career of a great songwriter

Fisk President Kevin Rome Out After Abuse Allegation Postal Service Woes Hinder Independent Music Hallelujah! The Belcourt Is Back, Drive-In Style.

BY EDD HURT

10

Five Takeaways From Black Equity in Americana: A Conversation ................... 24

COVER STORY

Notes from the Aug. 20 panel presented by the Americana Music Association

Black Diamonds

Exploring the rich history of Tom Wilson, Black baseball and Nashville’s connection to the Negro Leagues

BY ANDREA WILLIAMS

BY BRITTNEY McKENNA

25 FILM

14

Primal Stream 23 ................................... 25 Deeply resonant drama and apocalyptic vibes, now available to stream

CRITICS’ PICKS Go to Movies in the Park-ing Lot: 9 to 5, shop for Record Store Day’s RSD Drops exclusive titles, stream Parnassus Books’ virtual event with Southern Wildlife Watcher Rob Simbeck, contact your representatives and support independent music venues, watch Mr. Soul! at the Belcourt Drive-In and more

18

BY JASON SHAWHAN

The Importance of Being Excellent ....... 26 Hosts of San Dimas Today podcast celebrate release of Bill and Ted Face the Music

BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

27

NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD

FOOD AND DRINK

Sugar Shock: Pastry Pivot How two local pastry chefs have carved out their own sweet spots in the midst of chaos

27

MARKETPLACE

BY MEGAN SELING

20 ART

Future Past Is Present An online video exhibition examines what’s come before to explore what comes next

BY JOE NOLAN

Call for take-out!

Authentic Mexican Cuisine & Bakery...Side by Side!

615-669-8144 PanaderiayPasteleriaLopez

䴀䄀匀䬀匀 刀䔀儀唀䤀刀䔀䐀

䤀一 匀吀伀刀䔀℀

615-865-2646 TacosyMariscosLindoMexico

917A Gallatin Pike S, Madison, TN nashvillescene.com | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

Contents_8-27-20.indd 3

3

8/24/20 7:09 PM

PET OF THE WEEK!

EARLIER THIS WEEK 21 dogs/pups moved to NHA from an Atlanta shelter partner. Kelly was one of those rescued Puppers.

There’s a “Fun Fact” about the transport that needs to be shared: The road trip music was 80’s themed to the max. When the song “One Night In Bangkok” came on Kelly thought it was like totally tubular and sang along to THE ENTIRE SONG! So please note: Kelly’s future forever family - That is his awesome jam! Besides loving to sing, Kelly is approximately 1 year old, weighs 35 pounds and is as sweet as can be. #AdoptKelly by visiting nashvillehumane.org/booking Call 615.352.1010 or visit nashvillehumane.org Located at 213 Oceola Ave., Nashville, TN 37209

Adopt. Bark. Meow.

Microchip. Neuter. Spay.

Shop online at parnassusbooks.net Curbside pickup available! @parnassusbooks1 @parnassusbooks @parnassusbooks1

UPCOMING VIRTUAL EVENTS THURSDAY AUG 27 6:00PM ZOOM with LORI GOTTLIEB Maybe You Should Talk To Someone

SATURDAY AUG 29 INDEPENDENT BOOKSTORE DAY! Follow us on social media to learn more!

SUNDAY AUG 30 2:00PM FACEBOOK LIVE with SUSAN EADDY & JESSICA YOUNG Eenie Meenie Halloweenie & A Magic Spark

MONDAY AUG 31 6:00PM FACEBOOK LIVE with ROB SIMBECK The Southern Wildlife Watcher

TUESDAY SEP 1 6:00PM FACEBOOK LIVE with REBECCA WHITEHEAD MUNN All of Us Warriors 7:00PM VIRTUAL EVENT with MARGARET ATWOOD The Testaments

WEDNESDAY SEP 2 6:00PM FACEBOOK LIVE with JAMIE SUMNER Tune It Out

THURSDAY SEP 3 6:00PM FACEBOOK LIVE with LISA PAPP Madeline Finn and the Therapy Dog

GET TICKETS & LEARN MORE AT PARNASSUSBOOKS.NET/EVENT

4

FROM BILL FREEMAN WE MUST MAKE AMERICA RIGHT AGAIN: TRUMP’S SHADY PRACTICES AND HALF-TRUTHS There are many questionable and concerning things about President Donald Trump and his administration. But the most concerning issues are his clear preference for shady dealings and the twisting of facts to suit his purposes.

Shady dealings have been the hallmark of Trump’s business empire and his presidency alike. With Election Day nearing, Trump’s defenders argue that indictments of senior officials and illegal campaign activity should not count against this president. They’re missing the point.

Entirely.

Leaders who knowingly surround themselves with people who operate on the murky side of legality are accountable for that behavior. Nixon too surrounded himself with people willing to break the same rules they held others to. Trump said often before taking office that he would hire “only the best people,” but his legacy is littered with trusted appointees and advisers charged, indicted and convicted of multiple federal crimes.

The latest Trump ally to be indicted for federal crimes is Steve Bannon, the movie producer, pseudo-newsman and political strategist. He can now add “arrested on federal charges” to his résumé.

The expression “the fish rots from the head” is painfully applicable in this instance.

Some people argue that personal morality is not a consideration to decide a candidate’s fitness for public office. Trump supporters dismiss his extramarital affairs and unsavory business tactics and point to his management of America’s economy as proof. Trump’s economic policies have saved America, they say. We need that now even more.

Of course — and no surprise here — Trump has grossly exaggerated his economic prowess. MSNBC’s Steve Benen analyzed Trump’s claims: “The best year for jobs during Trump’s presidency — 2.31 million in 2018 — fails to reach the job growth in any of the three final years of Barack Obama’s presidency. … Annual job growth totals from both 2015 and 2016 were better than any year of the Republican’s tenure, at least so far.” How ironic, given the fact that Trump’s 2016 campaign was built around telling voters that the economy was horrible and he’d make it vastly better.

Using U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports going back to 2005, Forbes senior contributor Chuck Jones came to the same conclusion in July: “Even with the positive job results the past two months, the unemployment rate and the number of unemployed people under President Trump are still at worse levels than at any time during President Obama and the Great Recession.” We can examine the figures — they’re available online.

The numbers are clear: Our country’s business cycles over the past dozen years are agnostic to which party is in the White House. Sound economic policy is much more than choosing one political ideology over another.

So we should discount Trump’s claims that he’s master of the economy — which

makes his unforgivable ethical missteps a more important measure. As Christianity Today described it: “This president has dumbed down the idea of morality in his administration. He has hired and fired a number of people who are now convicted criminals. He himself has admitted to immoral actions in business and his relationship with women, about which he remains proud.”

Even the president’s own sister candidly voiced her concerns over his character. In an eyebrow-raising conversation secretly taped by her niece and recently released to The Washington Post, Maryanne Trump Barry didn’t bite her tongue when asked about her brother’s nature. “He has no principles,” she said. “None. None.”

Moral lapses in judgment are just one of the worrisome signs of Trump’s persona.

His cavalier approach to the security of our nation has convinced 70 former national security officials and Republican members of Congress to disavow Trump.

They don’t mince words in their compelling letter. “We are profoundly concerned about our nation’s security and standing in the world under the leadership of Donald Trump,” they write. “The President has demonstrated that he is dangerously unfit to serve another term.” Add to this looming list the names of former Secretary of State Colin Powell and former President George W. Bush, and we have a list of respected Republicans who are speaking out against Trump’s performance and character.

So I am moved to ask those Americans who are still considering casting their vote for this man: Why? Trump has led us to the brink on nearly every possible front. It is time to make America right again.

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

Copyright©2020, Nashville Scene.

210 12th Ave. S., Ste. 100, Nashville, TN 37203.

Phone: 615-244-7989.

The Nashville Scene is published weekly by FW Publishing LLC. The publication is free, one per reader. Removal of more than one paper from any distribution point constitutes theft, and violators are subject to prosecution. Back issues are available at our office. Email: All email addresses consist of the employee’s first initial and last name (no space between) followed by @nashvillescene.com; to reach contributing writers, email editor@nashvillescene.com.

Editorial Policy: The Nashville Scene covers news, art and entertainment. In our pages appear divergent views from across the community. Those views do not necessarily represent those of the publishers. Subscriptions: Subscriptions are available at $150 per year for 52 issues.

Subscriptions will be posted every Thursday and delivered by third-class mail in usually five to seven days. Please note: Due to the nature of third-class mail and postal regulations, any issue(s) could be delayed by as much as two or three weeks. There will be no refunds issued. Please allow four to six weeks for processing new subscriptions and address changes. Send your check or Visa/MC/AmEx number with expiration date to the above address.

In memory of Jim Ridley, editor 2009-2016

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.

NASHVILLE SCENE | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

Letter_08-27-20.indd 4

8/24/20 6:59 PM

Live music looks different this year.

Tune in to Lightning 100 all Labor Day weekend as we bring the festival to your backyard!

LiveOnTheGreen.com

LABOR DAY WEEKEN

Sponsored by:

D Thurs

day 9/

3 - Su

nday

9/6.

LISTEN

at Lightn

ing100.com

, 100.1 FM, or the Lightning 100 app. @LiveontheGre

en

nashvillescene.com | MONTH 1 – MONTH 2, 2018 | NASHVILLE SCENE

5

CITY LIMITS

A DISTURBING MONTH RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT THE CULTURE INSIDE THE MNPD

Sexual harassment allegations and a botched raid are the latest issues plaguing the police department

MAYOR’S OFFICE DETAILS SMALLER ‘DRAFT’ TRANSIT PLAN Cooper plan would cost $1.5 billion, focus on buses and basics

BY STEPHEN ELLIOTT

N

early three years ago, then-Mayor Megan Barry took to the stage at the Music City Center, surrounded by her predecessors in the office as well as other city dignitaries, to unveil what she called “the largest project in modern Nashville history.” It was an unprecedented suite of transit projects including 26 miles of light rail, an underground transfer station, more than $5 billion in capital costs and billions more in operating costs.

The plan and its sales tax increase failed spectacularly when put to a vote of Nashville residents, and

6

and Metro Councilmembers renewed calls for his ouster, but he had planned to stay until October. On Aug. 10 — after initially making dismissive statements about the allegations — Cooper called for an independent investigation, and a day later interim Chief John Drake did the same.

“I want to be clear that I and the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department have absolutely no tolerance for sexual harassment or sexual misconduct,” Drake said in a written statement. “Any allegation of that nature against any police department employee will be taken very seriously and investigated.”

Drake added that the Office of Professional Accountability — whose credibility has also been called into question by critics inside and outside of the department — would be reviewing the Silent No Longer report. The MNPD, he said, had joined the mayor in asking Davidson County District Attorney Glenn Funk to request an inquiry by the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation. The TBI confirms its involvement to the Scene.

“We have received a request from District Attorney General Glenn Funk to investigate a reported series of sexual misconduct allegations involving several employees of the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department,” TBI spokesperson Josh DeVine said. “At this time, our team continues to review any and all information available to us, as we work to determine the investigation’s specific scope. To that end, we’d encourage anyone with information

that may assist agents investigating this matter to contact us at 1-800-TBI-FIND or via email at TipsToTBI@tn.gov.”

The allegations have prompted video messages of support on social media from women in Nashville — including one from the Rev. Nontombi Naomi Tutu, the daughter of Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

The Metro Council’s Women’s Caucus also demanded a “thorough investigation that treats these women fairly and that, in good faith, seeks the truth.”

But it wasn’t long before Drake was issuing another statement addressing the conduct of the department’s officers. On Aug. 20, he announced that two supervisors and an officer had been decommissioned after they carried out a raid on the wrong apartment in Edgehill. The fact that they showed up at the wrong address was bad enough, but the tactics used by officers (and captured by body cameras) were equally unsettling,

by Drake’s own admission. MNPD officers rammed down the front door and entered the home with guns drawn, refusing to even allow Azaria Hines — the Black woman who lived there with her 15-year-old cousin and 3-year-old nephew — to get dressed. And all this to execute a search warrant related to a juvenile accused of a nonviolent crime.

The department’s ostensible attempts to

make amends also appeared condescending to some observers. They left groceries at Hines’ home and sent Midtown Hills Precinct Cmdr. Dwayne Greene, who is Black, to apologize to her in person. One longtime MNPD officer who spoke to the Scene on the condition of anonymity notes with frustration that while the raid did take place within the area covered by the Midtown Hills Precinct, the officers involved came from MNPD’s West Precinct. That precinct is led

by Cmdr. David Corman, who is white.

All this occurs as the city begins the process of hiring a new police chief to lead the department.

Both situations — the allegations of sexual assault and harassment as well as the botched raid — raise questions about the sort of culture that would lead to such behavior. The city’s acting police chief himself has acknowledged that the tactics used by officers during the raid in Edgehill would be alarming even if the address had been correct. What’s more, the women who allege sexual misconduct inside the police department also say they were hesitant to report the incidents for fear of retribution or because they had, in fact, already experienced it.

If these are the rotten branches we can see, then what about the roots?

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

now one of its chief critics has a plan of his own.

The rollout, like the new plan, was relatively quiet.

No big celebration at the Music City Center. No fancy graphics. John Cooper, during Barry’s term a Metro Councilmember but now the mayor, revealed his promised transit plan via interviews with his transportation adviser, Faye DiMassimo.

Cooper’s plan would cost less than $1.5 billion in capital spending and would focus on “meat-and-potatoes issues,” DiMassimo tells the Scene: improved bus service, taking care of the backlog of sidewalk and infrastructure work, a dedicated-lane rapid bus service down Murfreesboro Pike, and transit centers in North Nashville and Green Hills, among other projects (many of them pulled from previous planning documents like nMotion). DiMassimo highlights a city survey that found that more than 90 percent of Davidson County residents and workplaces will be within half a mile of an improvement included in the plan.

“The mayor made a commitment during his campaign to a new people-first transportation plan, something that was fundamentally about the people in Metro, the residents, the businesses, the neighbor-

hoods, and to deliver that during his first year,” DiMassimo says. “I think our council and our mayor and our community understand that the metro cities across this country that are going to emerge from COVID into

recovery with the highest amount of success are going to be those that never quit making progress.”

The plan is “absolutely” a draft and will be finalized after more discussions with Metro Councilmembers

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

T

he Metro Nashville Police Department has been confronted this month not just about how its officers conduct themselves on Nashville’s streets and in its neighborhoods, but also about the kind of culture that has developed inside the department. The nationwide reckoning with American policing, and the disproportionate harm it does to already marginalized communities, had already led to historic protests in Nashville. But the calls for systemic change are coming from inside the department too.

In early August, the sexual assault survivors’ organization Silent No Longer Tennessee went public with allegations of sexual assault and harassment, as well as sexist and racist comments, inside the MNPD — allegations they say were ignored by police leadership. One woman, a former MNPD officer who spoke at a virtual press conference but remained anonymous, said she had been sexually assaulted by Capt. Jason Reinbold at work. The organization says more than 20 women have made allegations of sexual misconduct inside the department.

A day after the Silent No Longer press conference — and as the department faced more scrutiny over the arrest of a 61-yearold houseless Black man for violating the city’s mask mandate — Mayor John Cooper announced that MNPD Chief Steve Anderson’s retirement was being expedited.

Anderson had initially announced his retirement in June after community organizations

PHOTO: STEPHEN ELLIOTT

BY STEVEN HALE

NASHVILLE SCENE | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

CityLimits_08-27-20.indd 6

8/24/20 7:28 PM

CITY LIMITS

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE BYLINE

THE BARBERSHOP HARMONY SOCIETY

Exploring the long history of the Nashville-based organization — and its modern-day reckoning with racial inclusion

BY RADLEY BALKO

Radley Balko is a journalist who covers criminal justice and more for The Washington Post. He is author of the books The Rise of the Warrior Cop and The Cadaver King and the Country Dentist. With his ongoing series Nashville Byline, he’ll profile fascinating characters, businesses and other parts of Nashville.

W

e’re currently in a moment of nationwide racial reckoning.

Institutions big and small, coast to coast, are reflecting on history and attempting to unearth, reconcile and atone. Newspapers are grappling with their own coverage of lynchings. Confederate monuments have come down. Universities are trying to figure out how to separate themselves from the tainted legacies of their funders and founders.

This summer, as the COVID-19 pandemic and the George Floyd protests raged in the background, I thought I might pursue a topic less fraught — barbershop quartets.

You’ve probably seen their headquarters on Seventh Avenue North. It’s the building with the 20-foot mural of Norman Rockwell’s famous Saturday Evening Post cover — the one with three barbers harmonizing with a half-shaved customer. Seems wholesome. Uncontroversial. Safe.

But then Brian Lynch, who handles communications for the group operating out of that building, enthusiastically responded to my email. And it became clear this column wouldn’t be all straw hats, handlebar moustaches and hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal.

“Barbershop has been hit hard by COVID-19,” Lynch wrote to me. “Our primary activity — standing close together, exhaling with gusto — is among the more dangerous activities one can undertake right now.”

He followed with this: “A huge issue for us over the past few years has been building a culture of inclusion and understanding our musical heritage in African American communities of the South. Even before #BLM, this overwhelmingly white male organization has been taking steps in understanding and teaching ourselves.”

So this will be a column about racial reckoning after all — because the story of barbershop quartets isn’t just about cheesy outfits, close harmonies and the synchronized splaying of arms. It’s about Jim Crow, blackface and minstrelsy, cultural appropriation and, ultimately, penance. It unfolds in places like New York during the wave of early-20th-century immigration, and in Tulsa, Okla., not long after the race riots. It

traverses the cultural divide between rural and urban America. It also includes some surprising cameos from the likes of Louis Armstrong, Fiorello La Guardia and the notorious city planner Robert Moses, who took a stand for integration in the barbershopping world even as he was uprooting Black neighborhoods and destroying Black wealth with multilane expressways.

For a long time, the carefully crafted narrative of barbershopping in America looked a lot like that Norman Rockwell painting.

It was whole milk, apple pie and courting

parlors. As Gage Averill, dean of the College of the Arts at the University of British Columbia, writes in his history of the genre, barbershopping exploded in popularity in the years after the Great Depression and before World War II for its nostalgia, its appeal to neo-Victorian values, and the fellowship and camaraderie barbershoppers found in harmonizing with one another. This music was participatory. You didn’t listen to it, you made it. It was also overwhelmingly white — at least as it was portrayed in pop culture.

That history was uprooted in 1992 by a piece in the journal American Music by Tulane University jazz historian Lynn Abbott.

After scouring newspaper articles, old sheet music and historical archives, and conducting a series of live interviews with survivors of the era, Abbott firmly established that key elements of barbershop — signature characteristics like ringing chords and “snakes” and “swipes” (when one or more voices change pitch while others voices remain the same) — pervaded Black culture dating well back into the 19th century.

Abbott found unmistakeable similarities to the barbershop sound in the music of

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

and the community through October. DiMassimo says the goal is to get the package before the Metro Council for a vote in November.

DiMassimo insists that a dedicated funding source like a sales tax levy for transit is not being considered in the short term, but could be on the table later. Dedicated funding streams like sales and other taxes are included on the list of dozens of funding buckets included in the mayor’s office materials on the plan.

“That’s not the tool we need right now,” she says.

“It doesn’t mean it should never be there, but it does mean that it’s not the tool that we’re contemplating in any manner right now.”

Instead, Metro would seek “opportunistic funding” in the form of state and federal grants and other funding options. Those might be easier to swallow in a year when Cooper and the Metro Council raised property tax rates by more than 30 percent while cutting back on some city services in response to a COVID-19 revenue shortfall.

That lack of a dedicated funding stream has some transit advocates cautious in their support for the Cooper plan.

“There is a basket of potential revenues available under the IMPROVE Act for this purpose,” says Councilmember Freddie O’Connell, who chairs the Metro Council Traffic, Parking and Transportation Committee. “You can use wheel tax and a handful of other things, but they don’t add up to the funding stream that you would need to carry out a plan of any ambition in terms of annual revenue. At some point it’s got to become an actual plan. I look at this as a rough draft rather than a final draft, but I don’t think that’s necessarily a problem as long as we can eventually get to a final draft.”

O’Connell applauds the Cooper administration for including the council early in the process, which he calls “a very significant departure from previous planning conversations.” He also says that “the plan itself has a lot of worthwhile elements,” specifically highlighting new “innovation corridors” along Charlotte and Gallatin pikes.

Nora Kern, executive director of Walk Bike Nashville, had a similar response: cautious optimism.

“The last one was throwing everything possible into the bucket, and the voters rejected it as being too huge,” Kern says. “I think the price tag looks more doable and probably a better intermediate step — before we have four light rail lines, let’s get our buses fixed and make our neighborhood streets safe and fix our traffic lights.”

Like O’Connell, Kern is seeking more information on the money behind the plan.

“You can’t plan multiyear investments for a whole system while relying on grants and one-off funding sources,” she says, “because if you don’t get that one grant, then the whole thing falls apart, and it makes it really hard to make those longerterm decisions that you need to make a five-year investment in the bus system.”

But DiMassimo believes it’s possible to piece the funding together, and she thinks the Metro Council will buy in, even after this year’s tough budget process.

“We understood the financial constraints that Metro, our residents and businesses face,” DiMassimo says. “We’ve been through a tornado and then the pandemic. The mayor inherited some really significant budget constraints, and those have only deepened with those tragic events. With that top of mind, we said now’s not the time to come forward with a big dedicated funding approach. Now’s the time to come forward with something where we can begin to make a difference [for] our residents, neighborhoods, businesses and Metro Nashville, but do it in a way that’s understanding of the times that we’re in.”

MARTY MONSON

nashvillescene.com | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

CityLimits_08-27-20.indd 7

7

8/24/20 7:03 PM

slave spirituals, gospel music and jubilees.

Indeed the very term “barbershop quartet” is almost certainly more Black than white in origin. As now, Black barbershops at the time were likely to be neighborhood gathering spots -— social scenes known for the sort of conviviality and camaraderie that could give rise to spontaneous singing and harmonizing.

“We’re talking about people hanging in barbershops, on street corners, in churches,” Lynch says. “They were singing hymns, folk songs, whatever came to mind.

They sang the music of the day.”

Abbott also discovered that in the Midwest, the barbering trade after the Civil War was dominated by Black freedmen, and Black-owned barbershops often had mixedrace clientele, exposing white people to Black music.

The music was far more improvisational than today’s barbershop music, though improvisation is still common, if not recognized as the purest form of the music. “There’s a term called ‘woodshedding,’ ” Lynch says.

“One singer lays out a lead line, and then the others jump in with harmonies.”

The better singers performed at social gatherings, churches and festivals. The rise of minstrel shows in the 19th century saw white performers co-opting the music to mimic and mock the Black performers.

The songs themselves would later prove popular enough that white performers were paid to record them. White performers would of course add their own flourishes and phrasing, but the process effectively amputated the song and style from its Black roots.

More traditional white harmony groups were also popular at the time, and peaked in about the 1890s with the popularity of sheet music. The printed music provided a canon of common material, and synthesized the various styles — though once again, that often meant white publishers co-opting traditionally Black songs. “Sheet music was designed for the masses,” Lynch says. “It was the pop music of its day. But to be popular, it needed to be easy to play on a piano. Easy to sing. Easy to harmonize.”

Eventually, a standard formula emerged.

“You eventually settle on a form where the second tenor is the lead, and the tenor above the lead is chasing harmonies that make sense,” Lynch says. “You have a bass chasing roots and fifths. And a baritone at the bottom, adding all sorts of goofy notes that only he understands.”

Barbershop quartets were further popularized in vaudeville, and then on radio programs, producing American standards like “Sweet Adeline” and “Down by the Old Mill Stream.” Barbershop took off in the mid1930s, as the country was still recovering from the Depression and looked warily at the possibility of another war. The music’s rich harmonies and themes of simpler times won broad appeal. Amateur quartets grew popular in the South and Midwest — where audiences basked in the nostalgia, tradition and Americana — and among immigrants on the coasts who aspired to be part of all three.

But the mainstreaming and popularization of barbershop music also further left its Black influences behind. Publishers started to define the genre with collections of barbershop standards that washed out

8

the Black roots, even while including songs that originated in Black music. The move to standardize and formalize barbershop, and to sell it as sheet music, also left less room for improvisation.

“There’s this move to define the form — this is barbershop, and this isn’t,” says Lynch. “Gospel and jazz continue to evolve, while the standardization we see in white barbershop is trying to freeze the music in time. And so it starts to actively diverge from its roots in African American music.”

Louis Armstrong said that singing barbershop in New Orleans had a profound influence on his later career, and some scholars have posited that Black barbershop was a major influence on jazz. White barbershop, meanwhile, merged into Tin Pan Alley. By the late 1930s, interest in the music was soaring, so much so that New York City was hosting the first organized annual competitions. In 1938, Owen Clifton “O.C.” Cash, a wealthy tax attorney for an oil company, ran into Rupert Hall, another wealthy oil man, at a bar in the Kansas City, Mo., airport. Both were from Tulsa, and both sang barbershop. After a few drinks, they started singing standards and were eventually joined by others in the lobby of the Muehlebach Hotel. The two agreed to host a “song fest” when they returned to Tulsa.

As the story goes, 40 singers showed up at the first gathering. The next week, it was more than 70. The third event was so wellattended that it caused a traffic jam. A local Associated Press reporter looked into the commotion, and Cash, sensing an opportunity, told him he was head of a nationwide barbershop quartet organization. He printed up business cards, and the group was born.

The next year, the group’s first conference and competition had more than 1,000 attendees.

Cash was a political conservative with a sharp wit. His initial letter to his fellow barbershoppers began, “In this age of dictators and government control of everything, about the only privilege guaranteed by the Bill of Rights not in some way supervised and directed, is the art of Barber Shop Quartet singing.” In a dig at what he saw as the pretense and bureaucratic bloat of the New Deal, Cash signed under the title “Third Assistant Temporary Vice Chairman.” Cash and Hall named their new organization the Society for the Preservation and Propagation of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in the United States, or SPPBSQSUS, a jab at the alphabet soup of New Deal acronyms.

Today, the society is officially called the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America (SPEBSQSA), though the group informally goes by the less cumbersome Barbershop Harmony Society (the latter is the name you’ll find on that building on Seventh Avenue North).

As music historian Averill writes in his history of barbershop music, New York’s barbershop competitions had been hosted by an unlikely trio: former New York Gov. Al Smith (an Irish Catholic), Mayor Fiorello La Guardia (son of an Italian father and Jewish mother), and the urban planner and head of city parks Robert Moses (son of German-Jewish immigrants). The first competition was held in 1935. The Bay City Four of Brooklyn won with a couple of booze-themed songs — “Drink to Me Only

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

CITY LIMITS

With Thine Eyes” and “There’s a Tavern in the Town.” The following year, the competition grew popular enough to be moved to a stadium, and featured a faux-retro main street, complete with a stage tavern, tobacconist and Chinese laundry. The third year, an all-Black group from Harlem took second place.

The two emerging barbershop scenes converged in 1939 when Rupert Hall wrote to Robert Moses to offer him an honorary membership in the new group — in recognition of Moses’ efforts to popularize the music. New York happened to be hosting the 1939 World’s Fair, and Moses planned to use the event to showcase his ambitious urban renewal projects. He offered to host the second SPPBSQSUS conference and competition at the fair. The event was a huge success.

But a clash was inevitable. Cash was an anti-government corporate tax attorney, New Deal critic and Midwesterner, and saw barbershop music as a purifying element and means of promoting civic virtue (he’d later prohibit songs about drinking and partnerships with alcohol companies). Moses was a proud New Yorker who oversaw massive government works projects, and was the most prolific spender of Works Progress Administration funds in the country. Midwestern barbershop sought to rescue the form from the profane excesses of vaudeville. East Coast barbershop celebrated vaudeville and the immigrant experience.

The 1941 national competition was held in St. Louis. Winners of regional competitions across the country would congregate to compete for the grand prize. The New York regional competition was won by the Grand Central Redcaps, a quartet who worked as porters at the city’s famed train station.

They also happened to be Black. When O.C. Cash got word of this, he wrote to the New York organizers to object. “To keep down any embarrassment, we ought to not permit colored people to participate,” he wrote.

He requested that the New York organizers send a quartet of singing policemen instead.

Robert Moses issued a furious reply. If he had known that Black quartets were excluded, he wrote, “We would have immediately dropped out of the competition.”

Instead, they’d drop out now. Former Gov. Al Smith also resigned from the organization in protest. Moses, who would later be criticized for obliterating black neighborhoods and business to make way for his projects, closed with a stinging reminder of the genre’s roots.

“Let me add that if American ballads of Negro origin are to be ruled out of barber shop singing, most of the best songs we have will be blacklisted.”

Cash took offense. He argued, apparently without irony, that even if the racial prohibition were lifted, the Red Caps should have been disqualified because they sang negro spirituals instead of barbershop standards.

Until 1963, whiteness was a prerequisite for membership in SPEBSQSA, and participa-

NASHVILLE SCENE | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

CityLimits_08-27-20.indd 8

8/24/20 7:04 PM

CITY LIMITS tion in its competitions, which of course barred the people who created the music and their descendants from participating in and enjoying its popularity.

“Even after the prohibition was lifted, the music by then was a million miles away from its roots,” says Lynch. “It would be a white men’s organization for a long time.”

Today the Barbershop Harmony Society is led by Marty Monson, an earnest, affable, likable white man from Iowa (as opposed to Lynch, who is an earnest, affable, smiling white guy from Wisconsin). In his tenure, Monson has overseen a kind of awakening — or awokening, if you prefer — about the organization’s past.

“We’re in a transformational time,” Monson says. “We haven’t been very good at integrating until only recently. It’s something we’ve had to work on. We need to look like the communities in our backyards.”

The Barbershop Harmony Society moved its headquarters to Nashville in 2007, relocating from an office on Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. They currently have 45 full-time employees, and famous barbershoppers include Jimmy Fallon, Dick Van Dyke and Dirty Jobs’ Mike Rowe.

In 2017, the BHS made the Grand Central Redcaps honorary members, and mounted a plaque for each member at the headquarters on Seventh Avenue. They also set up a scholarship endowment in the quartet’s name to benefit young Black barbershoppers. In his keynote address at the annual conference that year, Monson declared that the group must strive to be “radically inclusive,” to what the BHS website calls a

“thunderous” ovation.

“We want this history told,” Monson says. “We’d like to see it as part of music curriculums in schools. We want to encourage more dissertations and academic studies on the origins of our music, on where it comes from.”

Monson adds that in recent years the annual barbershop “Harmony University” training at Belmont University has featured quartets from Turkey, India, Germany and Brazil — the last performing in Portuguese.

In 2019, the barbershop story came full circle when the top prize at the international festival went to a quartet called Signature, which features a Black man as lead and two Latino men in harmony. The group competed with arrangements based on songs by Beyoncé, Jennifer Hudson and Marvin Gaye. In 2017, the BHS opened up to women. Monson says part of the challenge for him has been not just atoning for the group’s past, but modernizing while still retaining the traditions that make barbershop unique — especially when those traditions are what severed the music from its roots in the first place.

“We never want to lose that all-male singing experience,” Monson says. “But we also need to create room for everyone to participate. In the end, it’s about the joy and camaraderie of making music with other people.

The vast majority of barbershoppers aren’t onstage or performing for applause. They’re jamming with other people. They do it for that magical moment of joining your voices together as one.”

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

THIS WEEK ON OUR NEWS AND POLITICS BLOG: There was more unsettling news out of the Metro Nashville Police Department as interim Chief John Drake announced an investigation into a bungled raid at an Edgehill apartment.

Officers were attempting to serve a warrant on a 16-year-old for a nonviolent offense, but the teenager hadn’t lived in the apartment for more than a year. What’s worse, Drake said, is that the raid became unnecessarily violent, as shown on body camera footage MNPD shared during a press conference. “One thing that I’ve talked about, at least for the last month, is: De-escalate, de-escalate, de-escalate,” Drake said. “And in this particular situation, we didn’t de-escalate.

We actually escalated, in my opinion. We could have prevented this.” Azaria Hines, who lives in the apartment with her 15-year-old cousin and 3-year-old nephew, told WSMV she was sleeping naked when the officers started banging on the door and shouting that they had a search warrant.

MNPD said officers acquired the address from an MDHA database that hadn’t been updated since November 2018. Two officers and a supervisor were decommissioned pending the investigation. … A 69-year-old man incarcerated at Lois M. DeBerry Special Needs Facility in Nashville died last week after testing positive for COVID-19.

He is the third incarcerated person at the prison

in less than a month to die after contracting the disease. According to the Tennessee Department of Correction’s database on COVID-19 in the state’s prisons, nine prisoners at DeBerry are currently infected and 147 are still waiting on test results. Nine prisoners have died across the state since the beginning of the pandemic. … Several dozen demonstrators gathered downtown Saturday to protest the state legislature’s passage of a draconian bill enhancing punishments for vandalism (which, according to the bill, includes such nefarious property destruction as chalking sidewalks) and unauthorized camping (which, according to a broad reading of the law, would bar dangerous occupations like having a picnic on a blanket) on state property. The bill was signed by Gov. Bill Lee last week. The march, which made its way from Bicentennial Capitol Mall State Park to Legislative Plaza, was organized by Teens for Equality and People’s Plaza. The latter group recently concluded its round-the-clock occupation of Legislative Plaza after 62 days, a period that was marked by frequent arrests and standoffs between protesters and state troopers.

There were no arrests Saturday. … Fisk University ousted President Kevin Rome two weeks after putting him on administrative leave after a man swore out an order of protection against him, alleging Rome drugged him, vandalized his home and damaged the plumbing. Rome’s attorney denies the man’s claims. Provost Vann Newkirk will continue as interim president.

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

RV Park & Campground + Zipline Hiking + Disc Golf + More

nashvillescene.com | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

CityLimits_08-27-20.indd 9

9

8/24/20 7:05 PM

BLACK EXPLORING THE RICH HISTORY OF TOM WILSON, BLACK BASEBALL AND NASHVILLE’S CONNECTION TO THE NEGRO LEAGUES

BY ANDREA WILLIAMS

E

very winter, not long after the new year, the owners of teams in the Negro National League gathered in a conference room in an Eastern city to discuss the past season and plan for the one ahead. These discussions often simmered with tension as the cadre of equally strong personalities jockeyed for power and influence. But according to the Chicago Defender newspaper, the Feb. 2, 1940, meeting in Philadelphia was “the stormiest meeting in the history of the Negro National League — and there have been many stormy ones.”

That day’s point of contention? Leadership of the Negro National League — which at the time rested on the shoulders of Thomas T. Wilson of Nashville, Tenn.

Wilson was but a year into his tenure as the NNL president at that point, but for Abe and Effa Manley, owners of the Newark Eagles, that was a year too long. From Effa’s perspective, the league needed a neutral leader — someone who didn’t have personal interests to protect via affiliation with a team, someone who could call the shots that would improve the league’s overall operations. Wilson, who owned the Baltimore Elite Giants and had been nicknamed “Smiling Tom” because of his generally congenial nature, wasn’t that at all.

After a heated back-and-forth, the owners cast their votes, with the final tally resulting in a deadlock. Three owners were in favor of Wilson maintaining his post. The

10

other three, led by the Manleys, pushed for the appointment of C.B. Powell, then publisher of the New York Amsterdam News newspaper, who had zero team connections.

In the aftermath, Wilson told the Chicago Defender how upset he was that “a few of the members attempted to oust me without a notice.”

Three weeks later, on Feb. 23, the owners reconvened to debate the still-unresolved matter of who would be league president for the 1940 season. At that meeting, in an apparent win for the longtime baseball exec, Wilson was successful in gaining re-election.

Effa, however, saw things a bit differently.

She’d lost her bid to see Powell installed, of course. But even more important: She had a feeling there would be greater losses — for everyone — to come.

BORN IN ATLANTA IN 1890, Tom Wilson moved to Nashville with his parents when they began studying at Meharry Medical School. Wilson’s parents were en route to becoming Black doctors in a city that already boasted Preston Taylor and J.C. Napier among its prominent Black citizenry, and this chosen career path certainly afforded their son some financial advantages. For his part, Wilson was astute enough to capitalize on them — especially in regard to America’s new pastime.

By the early 20th century, baseball had proven itself both entertaining and potentially lucrative for white and Black teams alike. An 1887 “gentleman’s agreement”

instituted by leadership in organized white baseball barred Black players from its ranks for nearly 60 years, but that couldn’t stop Black players from playing their own games. Talented athletes and savvy businessmen partnered to form teams that barnstormed around the country, staging contests wherever there was dirt and a paying crowd — all the while proving the tenacity and resourcefulness of the entire Black community.

Wilson wasn’t much of an athlete, but he quickly learned that taking the field wasn’t the only way to get involved in the growing sport. In 1913, Andrew “Rube” Foster, one of the best Black pitchers of the era, traveled to Nashville to play a series of games against an all-star team culled from the Capital City League, an industrial league featuring a handful of company-sponsored semipro outfits. According to Bill Traughber’s Nashville Baseball History, the games played at Sulphur Dell — the sincedemolished ballpark where Nashville’s First Horizon Park now stands — drew the largest attendance for a Black sporting event in history. Wilson, seeing the money changing hands and the enraptured crowd smiling and laughing in their Sunday best, decided he wanted in.

Wilson soon began sponsoring games for area teams, fronting the costs for stadium rentals and other expenses and pocketing the profits. In 1918 he his formed own club, the semipro Nashville Standard Giants, and in 1920, he took the team a step further by

becoming a charter member of the brandnew Negro Southern League.

By that time, Foster had morphed from all-star pitcher to player-manager and future-focused executive. He had long known that the success of Black baseball was possible only through organization and cooperation, and in February 1920, he brought together owners from a handful of Midwestern teams to found the Negro National League, which would become the first successful Negro League in baseball history.

Some of the owners chafed at Foster’s unyielding control over the league, as well as the fact that he collected 5 percent of gate receipts for scheduling and booking league contests, ultimately earning more money than the other owners. But in the end, Foster’s contemporaries understood they were better off inside Foster’s league than outside it, that there was value in cohesion.

Indeed, just a month after the NNL was founded in Kansas City, Mo., representatives from a group of Southern Black teams — including the Birmingham Giants, Chattanooga Black Lookouts and Wilson’s newly renamed Nashville Elite Giants — gathered in Atlanta and agreed to form their own official circuit. Though that league quickly disbanded, it was further proof that Black baseball could be a viable enterprise, even if a series of ups and downs over the next 13 years rendered its long-term future anything but inevitable.

The first Negro World Series, played between the Kansas City Monarchs of the

NASHVILLE SCENE | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

Coverstory_08-27-20.indd 10

8/24/20 5:56 PM

PHOTO COURTESY OF NEGRO LEAGUES BASEBALL MUSEUM INC.

NNL and the Hilldale Daisies of the Eastern Colored League, was staged in 1924. Then, just one year later, Foster had a debilitating accident: He suffered brain damage due to a gas leak, most likely carbon monoxide, in an Indianapolis boarding house. Neither he nor his still fledgling Negro National League would ever recover.

Meanwhile, throughout the trials that rocked the Negro Leagues at large, Wilson remained a committed baseball man. He kept his club on the field, independently barnstorming from city to city, and by 1928, had even built a park of his own. Reports suggest that Wilson — considered one of the wealthiest men of any color in Nashville — may have generated part of his wealth from an illegal numbers operation. Whether that is true or not, it’s certain that Wilson reinvested his funds in the Black community. Wilson Park, completed in Nashville’s all-Black Trimble Bottom neighborhood in 1929, was the most tangible example.

On any given game day, Wilson Park was the pride of Nashville’s Black community, and not just because it was the first Blackowned stadium in the South. Because Wilson didn’t have to pay the rental fees that Blackowned teams who lacked a home field did, Wilson retained more of his revenues. He used those to develop a hotel, field softball teams and, later, build the Paradise Ballroom nightclub.

THE STOCK MARKET CRASH of 1929 and ensuing Great Depression, which wreaked

financial havoc across racial lines, were especially devastating to the Black community. Teams and leagues shuttered as fans stopped coming to games, and paying players became increasingly untenable. But by the early 1930s, there was new hope in the form of a Pennsylvania-based entrepreneur and numbers banker named Gus Greenlee.

Greenlee had come to baseball in a sort of roundabout way, when the then-semipro Pittsburgh Crawfords showed up at his nightclub and asked for a financial investment. Greenlee eventually assumed ownership of the club and turned it into one of the dominant teams of the era, at one time featuring hardball legends Satchel Paige, Josh Gibson and Cool Papa Bell in his lineup.

To be clear, Greenlee certainly had personal reasons for pursuing a career in professional baseball. There was money to be made, of course, and a bitter rivalry with Homestead Grays owner Cum Posey provided intense motivation. But like Rube Foster before him, Greenlee also understood that achieving success as a Black owner of a Black baseball team would be more likely within a structured league — an organization that could provide a set schedule against quality opponents, thereby providing more stable profits and a more respectable product for fans. So in 1933, Greenlee launched the second iteration of the Negro National League — the newest embodiment of Foster’s mantra, “We are the ship, all else is the sea” — and became its president. And it was in this league that Wilson and his Elite

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

NASHVILLE ELITE GIANTS, 1935

THE HISTORICAL MARKER ON SECOND AVENUE SOUTH WHERE TOM WILSON PARK USED TO BE

nashvillescene.com | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

Coverstory_08-27-20.indd 11

11

8/24/20 5:57 PM

PHOTO COURTESY OF MARR AND HOLMAN RECORDS

PANORAMIC VIEW OF SULPHUR DELL, 1927 Giants finally found their home.

During the NNL’s inaugural season, Wilson put his promotional skills to work by partnering with Greenlee and Robert Cole, the new owner of the Chicago American Giants, to stage the first East-West Classic.

This was Black baseball’s version of Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game, which had launched the same year, and it was both a social and economic success from the start.

Despite rainy weather that likely hampered attendance, 12,000 fans still showed up to Chicago’s Comiskey Park to see Black baseball’s best in battle.

If that first year of the NNL was to be any indication, Wilson, Greenlee and others had no reason to assume that the Negro Leagues wouldn’t prosper indefinitely. The 1933 season wasn’t perfect by any means, but it was solid enough to create a new foundation for Black players and teams for years to come.

Unfortunately, many of the issues that had plagued Black baseball since its earliest days continued to be a problem. Costs continued to be high while profits were low or nonexistent; players jumped from team to team at will, always in search of a bigger paycheck; and a lack of home stadiums necessitated dealings with self-interested white booking agents.

By the end of the ’30s, the league was in disarray. Greenlee, who had been mired in conflict with several of the team owners, was also in dire financial straits. After losing his most valuable players to the Dominican Republic during the 1937 season, he began facing uncertainty in his numbers operation, and the career of a boxer he was managing was cut short.

In early 1939, with few other options, Greenlee disbanded the Crawfords and was officially out as the president of the Negro National League. Wilson — who had since moved his Elite Giants to Columbus, Ohio, and Washington, D.C., before finally settling in Baltimore — was in.

UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES, Wilson’s affable, nonconfrontational nature might have been excusable or, at the very least, disregardable. But as the 1940s wore on and baseball’s integration became imminent, an unwillingness to make difficult decisions was beginning to bode poorly for all of Black baseball.

Wendell Smith, the sports editor for the Black Pittsburgh Courier newspaper, publicly addressed the heresy of Major League Baseball’s longstanding color line when interviewing white managers and players as they came to Pittsburgh to play the Pirates. Have you ever seen any Negro

12

ballplayers who you think could play in the major leagues? Smith would ask. Yes, of course, the men would say, almost without fail.

In total, around 75 percent of Smith’s subjects — including superstars like Dizzy Dean, Honus Wagner and Mel Ott — admitted that they supported the idea of Black players in the majors. And if Smith’s informal poll presented one of earliest cracks in white baseball’s ivory veneer, America’s involvement in World War II was perhaps the most forceful. No longer could the majors justify denying Black players a right as basic as joining the baseball team of their qualification — not when some of those same players had been shipped off to Europe to fight for the rights of their fellow American citizens.

Negro Leagues execs were as attuned to these developments as the Black athletes who hoped to one day suit up in the majors.

Suddenly, it seemed, as whispers of integration grew into manic screams, Manley’s admonishments for Black baseball to clean up its act for respectability’s sake — to honor player contracts, report game results in a timely manner and bring in neutral leadership — proved more prescient than ever.

When Branch Rickey announced on Oct. 23, 1945, that Jackie Robinson had signed a contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers organization and would be joining the minor league Montreal Royals in the spring of ’46, Negro Leagues owners were left scrambling. They could only assume that Robinson would be the first of many Black players called across the quickly eroding color line, and they needed to find a way to protect themselves and their business interests in the interim.

Meanwhile, even Wilson decided to speak out in the wake of Rickey’s news. He’d remained silent when former MLB Commissioner Kenesaw Mountain Landis declared in 1942 that owners had every right to sign a Black player if they wanted. But now that an MLB owner had actually done it, thereby throwing the Negro Leagues into upheaval, he could remain silent no more.

“I would like to see a dozen or more [Black players] signed,” Wilson told the Chicago Defender in December, “but believe since we get the men, develop them and spend money in doing that the Negro clubs ought to be paid something.”

Rickey had of course paid nothing for Robinson’s contract with the Kansas City Monarchs, his former team. In fact, Rickey hadn’t even contacted Monarchs ownership before cornering Robinson in his Brooklyn office in August 1945 and questioning his

NO LONGER COULD THE MAJORS JUSTIFY DENYING BLACK PLAYERS A RIGHT AS BASIC AS JOINING THE BASEBALL TEAM OF THEIR QUALIFICATION — NOT WHEN SOME OF THOSE SAME PLAYERS HAD BEEN SHIPPED OFF TO EUROPE TO FIGHT FOR THE RIGHTS OF THEIR FELLOW AMERICAN CITIZENS. willingness to accept undue torture en route to becoming Black America’s new hero. It was this issue of nonpayment that most concerned the Negro League moguls, for — as Wilson mentioned — they had invested considerably in transforming Black baseball from sandlot to stadium, side hustle to lucrative enterprise.

In response to Rickey’s thievery, the Negro League owners lobbied Happy Chandler, MLB’s new commissioner, for recourse. In the hopes that the Negro Leagues might be absorbed into Major League Baseball as official minor leagues — a move that would allow them to keep their teams intact and be paid fairly for each recruited player they developed — the owners also promised to implement new league constitutions and player contracts that more closely resembled those employed by the majors. Regarding the matter of electing league presidents who weren’t affiliated with any team — an issue that had been raised inside and outside of Black baseball — Wilson offered to step down from his position. It was a decision made as much because of his declining health as his consent to make room for a neutral leader.

Ultimately, however, all of these actions were too little too late. Rickey’s recruitment of Robinson had endeared him to the greater Black community as a savior of sorts, and with Chandler’s unwillingness to step in and demand fair player compensation, there was no reason for the Dodgers boss to offer it. By April 1946, Rickey had signed four other Black players in addition to Robinson, including future Hall of Fame

catcher Roy Campanella from Wilson’s own Elite Giants team.

If there is a silver lining to be gleaned from Wilson’s failing health, it’s that he never had to see how quickly the Negro Leagues crumbled. He didn’t have to watch as attendance at Negro Leagues games began its rapid plummet once Robinson took the field with the Dodgers in April 1947 — when former Negro Leagues fans decided they’d rather watch white baseball’s lone Black star than pay to see a team full of notyets and never-wills still playing on segregated teams.

On May 17, 1947, a little more than a month after Robinson’s big-league debut, Wilson died from a heart attack outside his Nashville home. Even when he’d moved his team across the country, and even when he’d assumed a leadership position in the East Coast-based Negro National League, Wilson maintained his home in Tennessee. It was where he always returned when baseball gave him a chance to step away, and where he remained loyal to the Black community he’d spent his whole life entertaining.

• • • Andrea Williams is an author and journalist who lives in Nashville with her husband and four children. Her book, Baseball’s Leading Lady: Effa Manley and the Rise and Fall of the Negro Leagues, publishes Jan. 5, 2021, and signed copies can be preordered from Parnassus Books (parnassusbooks.net/ andreawilliams).

EMAIL EDITOR@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

Coverstory_08-27-20.indd 12

8/24/20 5:57 PM

OF

NASH

#BON20

E2

E ★ B

ST

PRESENTED BY

020

.CO M

★

A U S G E .

S 3 0 O L

VOTING

C

LAST CHANCE TO VOTE FOR THE BEST OF NASHVILLE!

I V

L L

VOTE NOW AND CAST YOUR BALLOT!

nashvillescene.com | MONTH 1 – MONTH 2, 2018 | NASHVILLE SCENE

13

CRITICS’ PICKS FILM

W E E K L Y

R O U N D U P

T O

D O

MOVIES IN THE PARK-ING LOT: 9 TO 5

MOVIES IN THE PARK-ING LOT: 9 TO 5

THEATER

make invaluable contributions to our music scene. Since its inception in 2008, Record Store Day has played a part in reminding the general public that mom-and-pop stores are there for you year-round by creating a single day on which folks line up for their shot at special limited-run releases. With [LET THE PARTY BEGIN] the trajectory of the pandemic anything CHECK OUT STUDIO TENN’S FIRST but clear, the RSD organization announced VIRTUAL MUSICAL VARIETY SHOW in May that there would instead be three Summer may be winding down, but separate events called RSD Drops, on Aug. Studio Tenn is turning up the heat with 29, Sept. 26 and Oct. 24, with a smaller its first Virtual Musical Variety Show. selection of exclusive titles on each day.

Hosted by artistic director Patrick Cassidy, During the first installment on Saturday, this online event replaces Studio Tenn’s you can find goodies like a special edition annual fall fundraiser One Night Only, of Billie Eilish’s Live at Third Man acoustic and will showcase a wide range of talent session, a 45 RPM pressing of The Black — including veteran stage and recording Keys’ “Let’s Rock” and Brittany artist Jason Graae (Forever Plaid, Howard’s Live at Sound Emporium It’s a Grand Night for Singing, EDITOR’S NOTE: (a suite of six songs from her Falsettos, Wicked), along with AS A RESPONSE TO THE solo debut Jaime recorded live local favorites Megan Murphy ONGOING COVID-19 at the historic studio). Visit Chambers and Patrick PANDEMIC, WE’VE CHANGED recordstoreday.com for a Thomas, plus L.A.-based THE FOCUS OF THE CRITICS’ PICKS SECTION TO INCLUDE ACTIVITIES complete list of releases. Each performing artist Deanna YOU CAN PARTAKE IN WHILE participating store will have Anthony. A number of VIP YOU’RE AT HOME. its own protocol for handling packages are available, and the sales safely and fairly. Things fundraiser also includes a silent change quickly, so call or visit the auction — featuring everything website of your favorite shop for the from luxury vacation and gift packages most up-to-date information. And if you are to an acoustic guitar signed by Luke Bryan. going out — to somewhere that’s having a You can catch the show on the Studio Tenn safe, socially distanced in-person event like website, or its Facebook or YouTube pages.

Viv & Dickey’s (see our Pick on that below) It’s free, but a $25 donation is suggested. 7 — don’t be a jerk about wearing a mask and p.m. Thursday, Aug. 27, at studiotenn.com keeping a safe distance from your fellow AMY STUMPFL vinyl-heads. STEPHEN TRAGESER

president?” asks trauma specialist Mayowa Obasaju in Back to Natural, a documentary about the history of Black hair and the movement to liberate it. Directed by Gillian Scott-Ward, Back to Natural documents how Black people face discrimination for the way their hair grows naturally — a form of oppression that dates back to early colonization, when colonizers would shave the heads of African people when they were enslaved. Today we see hair discrimination in the way the public treats even our most noncontroversial public figures — like Olympic gymnast Gabby Douglas — and in the way schools police the hair of Black children. The multibilliondollar beauty industry is predicated on the notion that women can access power through beauty — but for Black women, this power is only accessible if they are willing and able to lighten their skin and straighten, relax and fundamentally change

the way their hair grows. In a little more than an hour, a cast of scholars, hair experts, medical professionals and more tell a brief but nuanced history of natural hair and introduce the movement to embrace it. The Brooklyn-based virtual series BLKDocs has chosen Back to Natural as its latest feature, and you can rent it via blkdocs.org from Aug. 27-Sept. 3. In addition, the Belcourt and the Scene have partnered with BLKDocs to revive our Living Room Film Club. At 8 p.m. Monday, Aug. 31, we’ll host a discussion about Back to Natural with Scott-Ward and Nashville-based filmmaker Meleisha Edwards. Register for the discussion via belcourt.org. 8 p.m. Monday, Aug. 31, at belcourt.org ERICA CICCARONE

BACK TO NATURAL

[FOR THE RECORD]

SHOP FOR RECORD STORE DAY’S RSD DROPS EXCLUSIVE TITLES

COVID-19 has put many, many businesses in precarious positions, including independent record retailers who

FILM

MUSIC

T H I N G S

[CUP OF AMBITION]

For this, the final week of August, we at the Scene are bringing you a stonecold classic in a safe, socially distant setting as part of our Movies in the Parking Lot series. Released 40 years ago this December, 9 to 5 remains perpetually relevant thanks to its themes of workers’ empowerment and feminism — not to mention the fact that it’s a lot of fun. It also features dynamite performances from its trifecta of powerhouse stars, Jane Fonda (who also co-produced), comedic legend Lily Tomlin and particularly Dolly Parton, the latter of whom made her featurefilm debut here. Parton also wrote and performed the film’s iconic titular song, which ultimately went platinum, spent two weeks at No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 and earned the singer a pair of Grammys.

Good luck getting that one out of your head once our screening is over. In order to attend, enter our lottery for parking passes.

We’ll select 50 winners for each screening, with up to six guests allowed per car. Visit nashvillemoviesinthepark.com for more information and to enter the parking-pass lottery. (Note: Our second MIPL film, 2019’s Little Women, was postponed due to inclement weather and rescheduled for Friday, Aug. 28.) 8 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 27, at OneC1TY, 8 City Blvd. D. PATRICK RODGERS

14

O F

[NATURAL WOMAN]

WATCH BACK TO NATURAL AND ATTEND LIVING ROOM FILM CLUB

“If Michelle Obama had natural hair, would Barack Obama have been elected

NASHVILLE SCENE | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

criticspicks_8-27-20.indd 14

8/24/20 5:52 PM

[LET IT ROLL]

CONTACT YOUR REPRESENTATIVES AND SUPPORT INDEPENDENT MUSIC VENUES

Small and midsize clubs with capacities between 150 and 1,500 people are where talent is nurtured and scenes are built, and they contribute substantially and consistently to the local economy in cities lucky enough to have them. Running a venue, especially as an independent operator, is difficult in a normal year, but 2020 has been a helluva roller coaster.

Like other businesses that rely on public gatherings, venues across the country shut their doors in March to slow the spread of COVID-19, with few opportunities to generate revenue. A trade group called the National Independent Venue Association launched in April, with one of its goals being to lobby for federal aid. An internal survey reported that nearly 90 percent of NIVA’s roughly 2,000 member venues expected to close permanently if significant financial aid didn’t come within six months. In July, Sens. Amy Klobuchar and John Cornyn introduced a bill called the Save Our Stages Act offering the support NIVA has asked for.

At press time, both houses of Congress are on their summer recess and remain deadlocked on how to proceed with broader relief legislation. While bills like Save Our Stages and RESTART (a more general aid proposal that would help venues and other small businesses) are in limbo, you can still help out. If you’ve got funds to spare, you can buy merch from your favorite clubs — there’s no better time to pick up that T-shirt you’ve had your eye on, or even a sweet new mask — or donate directly to crowdfunding campaigns established for venue expenses and staff salaries. You can also call or write to your representatives

in Congress and urge them to vote for legislation that will help preserve these vital spaces. NIVA has made it dead simple to send an email to all of your reps simultaneously via saveourstages.com; you can use what they’ve already written or write your own. STEPHEN TRAGESER [HE’S A SOUL MAN]

WATCH MR. SOUL! AT THE BELCOURT DRIVE-IN

Young Black folk who appreciate the African-American arts and culture of yesteryear may get pissed off while watching the new documentary Mr. Soul!, playing this weekend as part of the Belcourt’s newly announced drive-in series (and online after that). I know I was when I learned about Ellis Haizlip — the late, openly gay producer launched a public-TV variety show called Soul!, which aired from 1968 to 1973. This show not only featured live performances from artists like future R&B icons Stevie Wonder and Al Green to fiery spoken-word orators Nikki Giovanni and The Last Poets — it also gave a forum to activists, authors, entertainers, controversial figures and whomever else had something to say about being Black in America. But the part that might piss viewers off? Nixon, of course, had to put a stop to that shit, eventually cutting off the funding that could’ve kept the show on the air. Thankfully, this doc sheds light on the fun, funky time Haizlip and others had putting this lost piece of Black-and-proud TV together. The Belcourt Drive-In kicks off this weekend in the theater’s parking lot, and will also feature screenings of Hitchcock’s The Birds and North by Northwest. Mr. Soul! will also be available to watch via the Belcourt’s site in the coming days. Find more info at belcourt.org. 7 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 30, in the Belcourt parking lot, 2102 Belcourt Ave.

and Goodies. The charming odds-and-sods emporium is packed tight with used vinyl and tapes, vintage threads, furniture, artwork and other curiosities discovered during owners Melanie and Phillip Ruiz’s frequent thrifting quests across the South and Midwest. Salt-of-the-earth Gen-Xers from Dayton, Ohio (home of the Wright Brothers — and the Deal sisters), the Ruizes are great conversationalists with excellent taste, and the inventory at V&D’s is priced to move. It’s reminiscent of secondhand shopping in the pre-Etsyand-Discogs days, where you aren’t necessarily seeking out anything specific but with a little digging can reasonably expect to find treasures you may not have even known existed — and you won’t leave frustrated that everything’s been picked over. On Saturday, this outdoor event will

[NOW, WE’RE COOKING]

PREORDER THE SCENE’S NEW COOKBOOK, NOURISH NASHVILLE

We’re nearly six months into a global pandemic; you deserve to eat more than beans and banana bread. With Nourish Nashville, the Scene’s new cookbook, you can get all the secrets behind some of your favorite local dishes without leaving your kitchen. Learn how to make Bastion’s famous nachos and Maneet Chauhan’s Hot Chicken Pakoras! Ryan Bernhardt walks you through preparing his TKO Chicken, Arnold Myint shares both his and his late mother Patti’s take on shrimp and crab toast, and Mas Tacos’ Teresa Mason hands over her beloved tortilla soup recipe, which gets more and more flavorful the longer you let it simmer — imagine how good the house will smell. There are vegetarian and vegan recipes — Deb Paquette’s Roasted Cauliflower With Truffle Pea Pesto and The Wild Cow’s Cashew Goat Cheese — and even a few desserts. Tami Lenore of the Peach Cobbler Company helps you make good use of this season’s favorite fruit with her Habanero Peach Streusel Cobbler. The best part? A portion of initial book sales will be donated to participating chefs and

CRAIG D. LINDSEY [SECOND TIME AROUND]

SUPPORT VIV & DICKEY’S RECORD STORE DAY OUTDOOR EVENT

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

COMMUNITY

After 23-some-odd weeks in lockdown, we’re all basically zoologists, herpetologists, entomologists and ornithologists for the creatures that roam our yards and neighborhoods. In my little patch of the world, the celebrities are a clutch of increasingly bold rabbits.

It was an especially fecund year for the infamously fecund species, and bunnies of all ages have been taking advantage of the decreased car traffic to roam wherever they damn well please. I’ve also noticed far fewer turkey vultures than usual. No doubt the drop in automobile trips has caused a drop in roadkill. (Fewer carcasses, fewer sightings of nature’s public works crew.)

Rob Simbeck, whose award-winning journalism has appeared in a number of respected publications and also the Nashville Scene, will release his newest book Aug. 28, and it’s perfect for These Times. The Southern Wildlife Watcher examines 36 animals native to these parts, looking at everything from habitat and diet to the folklore surrounding the creatures.

Simbeck, joined by fellow author Michael Sims, will chat about his book in a virtual event hosted on Parnassus Books’ Facebook page. 6 p.m. Monday, Aug. 31, on Parnassus Books’ Facebook Page J.R. LIND

commemorate the shop’s third anniversary, as well as Record Store Day — a spring tradition deferred by the coronavirus lockdown that, like baseball, returns better late than never. There’ll be RSD-exclusive records for sale along with live bands, a photo booth and a tie-dye station, and shoppers will be allowed in the store a few at a time. If you too hate thinking about a world without small businesses — especially ones that, in the absence of foot traffic, rely on word-of-mouth — this is an ideal time to make the short trip up north to show this semi-local, slightly hidden gem your support. 10 a.m.-10 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, at Viv & Dickey’s Oldies and Goodies, 1262 Jackson Felts Road, Joelton CHARLIE ZAILLIAN

VIV AND DICKEY’S RECORD STORE DAY OUTDOOR EVENT

BOOKS

STREAM PARNASSUS BOOKS’ VIRTUAL EVENT WITH SOUTHERN WILDLIFE WATCHER ROB SIMBECK

FILM

[GET LOST]

MUSIC

BOOKS

CRITICS’ PICKS

In a modest strip mall just off I-24 in the town of Joelton lies Viv & Dickey’s Oldies

nashvillescene.com | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

criticspicks_8-27-20.indd 15

15

8/24/20 5:53 PM

CRITICS’ PICKS

THEATER

ERICA CICCARONE [HAPPY BIRTHDAY, ACTORS BRIDGE!]

CELEBRATE ACTORS BRIDGE ENSEMBLE’S 25TH BIRTHDAY

Since 1995, Actors Bridge Ensemble has been telling “the stories that Nashville needs to hear.” So why not share a few more, in honor of the theater company’s 25th birthday? On Saturday, Actors Bridge will present a unique celebration that artistic director Vali Forrister has dubbed something of a “storytelling performance,” looking back at some of the company’s big milestones and unique productions.

Nashville performing artists — including Marcus Hummon, Rachel Agee, Cynthia Harris, Clay Steakley and Heather Connelly Lefkowitz — will be on hand to share some of their favorite memories, along with highlights from various world premieres that Actors Bridge has staged over the years. Plus, participants from this year’s Act Like a GRRRL program will present an original piece. A donation of $25 gets you a Zoom link to the party, and a fun VIP package is also available for $125. Visit actorsbridge.org for complete details.

7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, at actorsbridge.org

FILM

AMY STUMPFL [ORIGINAL CINE]

STREAM THE ULRIKE OTTINGER RETROSPECTIVE

It’s rare that a filmmaker is a true original, but “original” is one of the first adjectives that comes to mind when describing the work of German filmmaker Ulrike Ottinger. She’s the focus

16

NATHAN SMITH [SHOULD I STAY]

FOLLOW STAY HOME GALLERY ON INSTAGRAM

One of the bright spots of living through this pandemic is being able to see all the innovations that arise as people grapple with staying home for such an extended amount of time. Just as the COVID-19 pandemic began to change reality in America, artistcurators Pam Marlene Taylor and Kaylan Buteyn started a series of Instagram posts under the rubric Stay Home Gallery.

The series took off, and after amassing a few thousand followers and a grant from Metro Arts, they opened an additional artist residency in bucolic Paris, Tenn., and have published a book that chronicles the artwork that’s been exhibited so far.

If you haven’t been following Stay Home Gallery since the account popped up in early March, I recommend starting immediately, and then scrolling through the early posts on the virtual gallery’s grid. Stay Home began with weekly Instagram exhibitions, like Fidgeting, which featured work by exceptional artists Andrea Joyce Heimer and Annie Brito Hodgin, to name two. The concept is innovative, the timing is perfect, and the work is solid and often extremely affordable. Follow at @stayhomegallery on Instagram — and pay attention to whatever Taylor and Buteyn do next. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER

[THE FOUR HORSEMEN]

EXPERIENCE ENCORE DRIVE-IN NIGHTS: METALLICA

Back in June 2008, around 100 people got a very special memory of Metallica in Nashville when the arena-metal legends stopped in for a surprise performance at The Basement. Still, as our live-review column The Spin aptly noted when the band played Bridgestone Arena in 2019, the band is near and dear to the hearts of legions of fans across generations. Once upon a time, Metallica lyrics inked on a TrapperKeeper

might have gotten some folks sent to the principal’s office, while younger fans may have spent many a sleepless night trying to master Guitar Hero: Metallica. But regardless of age, they can all agree that the band’s loud, intricate, vitriolic music offers a cathartic rush that’s tough to beat.

Messrs. Hetfield, Hammett, Ulrich and Trujillo haven’t played publicly in about a year, but they’ve knocked the rust off for a career-spanning private performance (with full spectacular production and an opening set from Canadian alt-metal outfit Three Days Grace). Footage has been edited into a special concert film that will be simulcast at some 300 drive-in movie theaters on Saturday, Aug. 29, as part of the Encore Drive-In Nights series. If this sounds like your perfect COVID-era family night out, you’ll have to drive a little bit, since the two closest participating cinemas are the Montana Drive-In in Tullahoma, Tenn., and the Sparta Drive-In in Sparta, Tenn.

Tickets are $115 for each vehicle (up to six passengers). See the Ticketmaster website for all locations, start times and ticketing details. STEPHEN TRAGESER

EXPERIENCE ENCORE DRIVE-IN NIGHTS: METALLICA

[DOG DAZE]

CHECK OUT THIRD MAN’S THAT DOG REISSUES

“By definition, a crush must hurt — and they do,” sang That Dog’s Anna Waronker on “Long Island,” one of 13 songs from the L.A. band’s 1997 swan song Retreat From the Sun. The album split the difference perfectly between lovestruck and over-it, feminine and tomboyish, grunge and indie pop. The crush-worthy foursome — Waronker, drummer Tony Maxwell and twins Rachel (bass) and Petra Haden (violin) — never hit it big like their DGC labelmates and fellow Angelenos Beck and Weezer did. At the same time, That Dog also never slid into mediocrity, leaving behind a small but sturdy three-album catalog that

PHOTO: ROSS HALFIN

So you’ve bought some recommended books about anti-racism. Hopefully, you’ve read some of them. Now what? Unpacking personal and systemic racism is a lot, and I wouldn’t blame anyone for pausing to process trauma, grief or rage. But as many Black thinkers have noted, this reckoning about our country’s racism can’t just be a moment that we move on from, and we have to work together to make change happen.

Well here’s a great local resource: The Porch Writers’ Collective is offering a free antiracism reading group. The first session will take place virtually at 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29. The group will discuss Ijeoma Oluo’s So You Want to Talk About Race, which has topped many reading lists this year, and for good reason. Published in 2018, So You Want to Talk About Race has become an essential text in understanding the fundamentals of how racism systematically functions in our culture and institutions.

As Oluo writes in her preface, you can take the lessons of this book to your office or Thanksgiving dinner table. The Porch has provided a starter guide to participating in and starting an anti-racism reading group that can help us show up for a productive, honest conversation. Find it — and keep tabs on future group discussions — at porchtn. org. 4 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 29, at porchtn.org

saved its best for last with Retreat. Still, as fun as secret-handshake cult classics are, the record deserved better than it got, arriving during alternative rock’s twilight (just before the nü-metal explosion) and a few years before vinyl began staging a comeback. I’m not sure what prompted Jack White & Co. to do their part to fix that by releasing Retreat for the first time on LP via White’s Third Man Records (along with 1995’s Totally Crushed Out!), but it’s as appreciated as it is unexpected. Own a piece of power-pop gold and support your neighborhood rock ’n’ roll gift shop/record pressing plant/rock venue compound — a win-win. CHARLIE ZAILLIAN MUSIC

PARTICIPATE IN THE PORCH’S ANTI-RACIST READING GROUP

ART

[TALK ABOUT IT]

of an ongoing streaming retrospective presented by New York’s Metrograph theater. Though her films have been hard to come by for many years, they’re completely unforgettable once you’ve seen them; Ottinger conjures an absurd and phantasmagorical world in which truly anything is possible, a cinematic space that exists beyond the confines of genre or gender. Ottinger’s films are rich with an inventive spirit, stuffed with sumptuous costumes, bold set design, and new ways of personal expression. Highlights of the series include Freak Orlando, an extravagant and indescribable adaptation of Virginia Woolf’s Orlando that’s even more transgressive than Woolf’s already boundary-pushing novel; Joan of Arc of Mongolia, a fascinating synthesis of fiction and anthropological travelogue about a group of European women who join an allfemale tribe of Mongolian nomads; and The Image of Dorian Gray in the Yellow Press, Ottinger’s reimagination of the classic Oscar Wilde tale as a subtle drag pageant.

MUSIC

BOOKS

restaurants. Preorder Nourish at nourishnashville.com, where there’s also an option to donate money — in any amount — to the restaurants. You eat, local chefs get paid. Delicious. MEGAN SELING

NASHVILLE SCENE | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

criticspicks_8-27-20.indd 16

8/24/20 5:52 PM

20%

of sales benefit the participating restaurants’ staffs!

A collection of recipes from Music City’s best chefs

Preorder now at nourishnashville.com nashvillescene.com | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

17

FOOD & DRINK

PASTRY PIVOT

How two local pastry chefs have carved out their own sweet spots in the midst of chaos

L

BY MEGAN SELING

okelani Alabanza, Hattie Jane’s Creamery’s ice cream whisperer, lost her job not long after COVID-19 arrived in Tennessee. “I remember it was March 18, the day after St. Patrick’s Day,” she tells the Scene.

Alabanza had been the executive pastry chef and culinary director at Hattie Jane’s since 2016, when the ice cream shop opened its first location in Columbia, Tenn. For four years, she developed literally hundreds of recipes — Strawberry Fennel, Butterscotch Oreo, Roasted Meyer Lemon and Chai Coconut Ash. (The last was a blacker-thanmidnight scoop perfect for Halloween.)

Alabanza helped put Hattie Jane’s on the map by creating shocking yet somehow still tasty limited-run batches that highlighted the tastes of Tennessee.

There was a Goo Goo Cluster ice cream laced with Jack Daniel’s; a Nashville Hot Chicken flavor made with a blend of garlic, bourbon, smoked paprika and cayenne; and even a creation called Puckett’s Barbecue,

a vanilla ice cream swirled with the restaurant’s signature barbecue sauce and charred pineapple.

“That time was so weird and scary and uncertain for everyone,” Alabanza says about the early days of the now monthslong pandemic. “A lot of people were losing their jobs.”

But it didn’t take long for her friends and family to rally around her. Now was the time, they said, for Alabanza to put into motion an idea she’d been harboring for years.

“You have to mourn the end of something, go through that emotional thing,” she says.

“Then my parents were calling, my friends were texting, like, ‘This is it, you need to do this now!’ I was like, ‘What are you talking about? I don’t even want to leave the house!’ ” For years Alabanza has wanted to create her own ice cream line, a brand of dairy-free ice cream that would combine the health benefits of cannabidiol with the nostalgia of ice cream. She was partly inspired by a friend who passed away from cancer, who, while sick, was able to ease some of her

SATURATED’S TURMERIC AND GINGER ICE CREAM

18

PHOTOS: DANIEL MEIGS

SUGAR SHOCK

SATURATED’S MINTY CHIP ICE CREAM

symptoms with CBD. “I just knew, when I was permanently laid off, I didn’t want to stop making ice cream,” Alabanza says. “Humans love ice cream. So much. They love it! I kept thinking about when you have a disease and it’s affecting your body and you don’t want to be in pain.

I realized, ‘Oh my gosh, what if someone could have something that was nostalgic, a flavor, and medicine was administered in that?’ That’s really where the thinking came from. I’m trying to bring nostalgia and comfort in the form of ice cream.”

I first tried Alabanza’s product, Saturated, at a bake sale benefiting the ACLU at East Nashville’s lou in June. Alabanza made a CBD-free Juneteenth flavor — a hibiscus, raspberry and lime sorbet that really was the best sorbet I ever recall eating. It was smooth — not at all icy like so many sorbets can be — and the bright berry punch of the raspberries slowly melted into the citrusy and floral blend of lime and hibiscus. Her Salted Watermelon (with 20 milligrams of CBD per serving) is another nice surprise.

The saltiness isn’t at all pungent; instead it deepens the watermelon flavor, somehow making it even more intense and fruity than if you were to take a fresh bite of the melon’s red flesh.

Alabanza announces new flavors and popups on her Saturated Instagram account, @saturatedicecream. Sometimes she’ll take orders for local deliveries, other times she makes custom flavors for special events.

Her ice cream has also been available at Cafe Roze, Brightside Bakeshop, City House and Anzie Blue.

“The future’s e-commerce and distribution,” Alabanza says. “I want it to be distributed across America and show up in dispensaries and be in boutiques and local stores. That’s really the goal for Saturated, to get it out and have it available and to be a subscription-based business. That was always my goal.”

M

athew Rice was laid off in the spring, just a couple of months after COVID-19 first arrived stateside. He’d been the pastry chef at Pastaria since the restaurant opened in 2017; he moved to Nashville for the job.

Like Alabanza, it wasn’t until Rice lost his job that he really felt the urge to make a long-held idea a reality. The dream of opening a small cookie window, where people could walk up and buy a well-made and fun treat, had been spinning in his head for years.

“I was sitting at home, worrying, ‘What am I going to do if the restaurant closes or they can’t afford to have me back?’ ” Rice tells the Scene. “I began to think about my cookie idea, and thought I would just start out offering [cookies] through Instagram to see if people would be interested. And they were. It was really popular from the get-go.”

Rice named his cookie business Pink Door Cookies. For now, customers place their orders online and then visit his home — which really does have a pink door — to pick up their treats. But thanks in part to a successful Kickstarter campaign (more than $17,000 has been raised as of press time, with the Sept. 2 closing date still days away), Rice says he hopes to have Pink Door’s window up and running by early October. He’s already secured a space in Chestnut Hill’s BentoLiving Hotel.

“I’ve been almost as busy as I would have been with a full-time job just by doing cookies,” Rice says. “There was definitely a demand. Everybody was like, ‘Thanks so much for doing this, you don’t know how much it means, there’s nothing to look forward to right now and your cookies give us something to look forward to once a week.’ ” Pink Door’s menu is full of both innovative creations and familiar flavors — there’s snickerdoodle, funfetti and a recently perfected chocolate-chip recipe

NASHVILLE SCENE | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

food_08-27-20.indd 18

8/24/20 5:29 PM

FOOD & DRINK

: Winners’ Reader poll

VOTED BEST FOR 15 YEARS!

s, Thanks for your! vote Nashville

PRESENT THIS COUPON FOR

20% OFF YOUR TO-GO ORDER ONLY MUST BE PRESENT AT SITAR (EXP. 9/30/20)

WE DELIVER WITH: GRUBHUB...POSTMATE DOOR DASH...UBER 116 21st Ave. N. | 321-8889 | SitarNashville.com

We Deliver: Call @ 526-9100

FREE PARKING!

PHOTO: DANIEL MEIGS

G PINK DOOR COOKIES about 10 years in the making. With other treats, Rice leans on his skills as a pastry chef to experiment. A lavender cookie gets its purple color from powdered dragonfruit sugar, and an ’80s-inspired flavor pays homage to the decades-old rumor that Life cereal’s Mikey (“He likes it!”) died after eating Pop Rocks and drinking Coke at the same time. (Mikey, aka John Gilchrist, is alive and well.)

The snickerdoodle is a perfect example of Rice’s ability to both balance and enhance flavors. It’s dotted with cinnamon chips that melt into soft little pools of intense cinnamon flavor, giving the cookie a chocolate-chiplike texture. The outer coating comes from crumbs of Cinnamon Toast Crunch instead of the usual cinnamon-sugar mixture. The yuzuflavored cookie, which is finished off with a stripe of sour-rainbow gummy tape, has an extra boost of something, too. Yes, there’s the citrusy flavor of yuzu, but there’s something else there too. I try to explain it on the phone

to Rice: “It’s not lime, it’s not lemon, it’s … it’s —” “Skittles extract,” he says. I nearly scream. Brilliant. It’s like a candy-flavored cookie without the squishy bits of Skittles getting weird in the oven.

“Cookies have always been my favorite thing to make,” says Rice. “I feel like they’re humble, but you can elevate them in really wild ways. Having been a pastry chef for almost 20 years at this point, I bring a lot to cookies that’s unexpected, and I’m incorporating the components and flavors of plated desserts but in cookie form.”

Keep an eye on @pinkdoorsweets on Instagram for menu updates and cookie window news.

It feels impossible to say this global disaster comes with a bright side, but thanks to Alabanza and Rice’s ability to pivot in the pastry world, at the very least we still have something sweet to help see us through.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

IN TOWN HOTTEST CHICKEN l, Too!) (Most Flavorfu 624 MAIN ST. · 254-8015 NOW OPEN: 1135 BELL RD. , STE 313A , ANTIOCH · 615-739-8359

We Cater Let Us Bring Our Truck To Your Next Event! Visit Us on Facebook

ER K RD A A M W FILM COT TS N A I ILL

31 .

G U A , M Y A O D O N MO . ON Z M 8 P. Discuss Back to Natural with filmmaker Gillian Scott-Ward Presented by the Nashville Scene, The Belcourt Theatre and BLKDocs

Learn more and register at

belcourt.org

nashvillescene.com | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

food_08-27-20.indd 19

19

8/24/20 5:29 PM

ART

(615) 255-2527 mortonplumbing.net

Find out what’s going on

.com

DORSE BROWN, THE MISEDUCATION OF ME

Voted Best in Nashville 6x!

FUTURE PAST IS PRESENT An online video exhibition examines what’s come before to explore what comes next

BY JOE NOLAN

T

he title of a selection of videos in Unrequited Leisure’s latest online exhibition invites viewers to consider possible outcomes of the struggles defining this chaotic and confusing — but also dynamic and inspiraWHAT COULD HAPPEN VIDEOS BY DORSE tional — time. What BROWN, ELISHEBA Could Happen is ISRAEL MROZIK AND curated by NashvilAARON MROZIK lian Omari Booker, CURATED BY OMARI BOOKER a Black artist asON VIEW VIA sociated with North UNREQUITED LEISURE Nashville’s creative UNREQUITEDLEISURE. community.

COM/WHAT-COULDHAPPEN Booker’s Red Line exhibition at Channel to Channel was one of the best social art exhibitions on Nashville’s 2019 art calendar.

That big-picture display highlighted the concept of redlining — that is, the economic segregation that resulted from federal policies ostensibly meant to encourage home ownership. In actuality, the policies encouraged banks to deny mortgage loans to people of color in lower-income communities. One consequence of redlining is a lack of generational wealth in families of color, which still contributes to economic inequality today.

Booker’s curatorial effort at Unrequited Leisure remains focused on ideas about racist stereotypes and historical trauma, but these time-based presentations of dance, performance and sound are intimate affairs that work best when you watch them alone wearing headphones.

In a pair of videos by Dorse Brown, music and dance come together in history lessons composed of sound and movement. The videos feature Brown along with collaborators Shabaz Ujima, Gerald Watson and Michael

20

West. The MisEducation of Me highlights the year 1619, which is often cited as the beginning of the slavery era in America.

The videos also address stereotypes around Black male vulnerability. Brown and his fellow male dancers wear shirts bearing slogans like “chocolate charm,” “melanin appeal,” and “1619 & beyond.” The moods and movements here range from romantic and graceful to calisthenic to streetwise, and Brown — thankfully — doesn’t subject viewers to video art that merely documents the performance. His soundtrack jumps between various musical interludes, and his choreography is enhanced by the effective use of repetitive images, crossfades and double exposures in the edit. The final sequence ends with a verse from spoken-word artists Adán Bean and Sho Baraka’s track “Foreward, 1619.” Bean manages to recap 400 years of oppression in a slippery-slick rhyme that ends with a shout-out to Martin Luther King Jr.: “I am a man.”

Elisheba and Aaron Mrozik are the Nashville-based husband-and-wife collaborative team behind Blood at the Root. The video offers a tour of an empty Southern middle-class home, which quickly turns from nostalgic and almost sickly sweet and sentimental to weird and brutally ironic.

A display of knickknacks and furnishings, family photos and cheap souvenirs sounds innocent enough, but Blood at the Root excavates the domestic detritus to curate a conversation about generational racism.

This isn’t a video about the militant white supremacists you’d find on the homepage of the Southern Poverty Law Center website. This is about polite folk whose racism only peeks out at the edges in the form of a Confederate hero on a coffee mug, or in a racial caricature on a throw blanket.

The artists underline their theme by painting gooey, bright-white flames in the eyes of family members whose pictures decorate the walls of the house, celebrating birthdays, graduations, big wins and wedding days. The painted pictures are a highlight here, and I hope the artists consider a real-life exhibition of the flamingeyes photos once we can all look at art in person again. An uneasy piano score and a reference to Jordan Peele’s Get Out are the perfect white frosting on this angelfood cake.

Booker bookends the exhibit with a pair of short pieces that feature the curator interviewing his great aunt, who was born in 1916. The very brief videos reveal a lot about memories and those we’d rather forget, and they remind viewers that racist oppression isn’t ancient history in Black homes and in communities like North Nashville. Booker quotes lecturer Orland Bishop in his curatorial statement: “History is not only what happened, but what could have happened and didn’t, because we weren’t willing.” Booker adds: What Could Happen provides me an opportunity to interrogate the past and make a statement that has the power to enact change. If the black male body had not been vilified, what could have happened? If racist comments had been challenged, what could have happened? If we dealt with the discomfort of integration rather than segregating by other means, what could have happened?

The present is the future of the past, and the past of the future. Our actions — both as individuals and as a culture — are weighed by the balance of history from moment to moment, day to day. This is a turbulent, transitional time fraught with threats, but also one that’s rife with possibilities. What Could Happen reminds us that we may still make a bright tomorrow, but we will build it in the shadow of everything that has — and hasn’t — come before.

EMAIL ART@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

art_08-27-20.indd 20

8/24/20 2:54 PM

BOOKS

MORE THAN A DREAM Jon Meacham delivers a rich account of the life of civil rights icon John Lewis

BY MICHAEL RAY TAYLOR

A

little more than a month after John Lewis died from pancreatic cancer at age 80, noted biographer Jon Meacham has published His Truth Is Marching On: John Lewis and the Power of Hope. The death of the Georgia HIS TRUTH IS MARCHING ON: JOHN LEWIS AND THE congressman — a POWER OF HOPE civil rights icon and a

BY JON MEACHAM hero to many AmeriRANDOM HOUSE cans — prompted 368 PAGES, $30 nearly two weeks of national mourning at a level usually reserved for heads of state. Lewis’ final funeral service, held at Atlanta’s famed Ebenezer Baptist Church, was attended by former U.S. Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama, the latter of whom gave the eulogy. An ailing Jimmy Carter sent a message to the service.

Meacham, who lives in Nashville and Sewanee, won the Pulitzer Prize in biography in 2009 for American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House. He has published a string of books since, most recently The Glory of Hope, a personal meditation on the final words of Jesus. Although timely, the Lewis biography is not a recent undertaking — Meacham writes in an author’s note that he first met Lewis in 1992 and subsequently spoke with him many times, in person and by phone. The two conducted a number of personal interviews in 2020 for this longplanned book. The release of His Truth Is Marching On, originally slated for October, was moved up after Lewis’ death.

“This is not a full-scale biography,” Meacham writes. “It is, rather, an appreciative account of the major moments of Lewis’s life in the movement, of the theological understanding he brought to the struggle, and of the utility of that vision as America enters the third decade of the twenty-first century amid division and fear.”

The story of Lewis’ life — beginning on a sharecropper’s farm in Troy, Ala., where as a child he delivered sermons to chickens — is familiar ground. Lewis himself told it in a 2009 autobiography and in an award-winning series of graphic novels, starting with March in 2013. What Meacham brings to the tale is a keen eye for the historic moment, as well as reverence for the religious faith that drove Lewis to a life of personal sacrifice.

Meacham writes of the 17-year-old Lewis arriving at college in fall of 1957: Seminary was liberating. “By going to school in Nashville, Tennessee — many, many miles away from my parents in Alabama — I felt freer to find a way to get involved,” Lewis recalled. …

The primary activity — the only activity, really — was summed up in a question James Bevel, a charismatic fellow student, put to the newcomer from Troy

PRESENTED BY

on their first meeting: “Can you preach, boy?” It was all that mattered. Preaching was also free, and Lewis didn’t have money for much else.

Protest, Lewis soon discovered, is also free. When another student told him to “stop preaching the gospel of Martin Luther King and start preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ,” Lewis saw that as a “false choice,” deciding, “The words of Jesus had to be put into action.” He would soon meet King personally and through him become a civil rights leader, not just of students in Nashville but of college students across the nation. He joined the Nashville sit-ins from Feb. 13 to May 10, 1960. (When Lewis visited Nashville in 2016, he recalled the lunch counter in Woolworth’s, telling Chapter 16: “On Feb. 27, 1960, when the group downstairs had been arrested, we came downstairs to join them and get arrested and go to jail. That was my first one, my first arrest.”)

While Lewis’ most famous moment of protest occurred in 1965 during the “Bloody Sunday” march in Selma, Ala., nonviolent protest remained a way of life for him until his death. He was arrested five times for protesting as a member of Congress, and he led a House of Representatives sit-in for gun control legislation in 2016. In his final year, Lewis returned to Selma to walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the 55th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, and he later participated in several Black Lives Matter marches.

“We truly believed that we were on God’s side,” Lewis told Meacham of his life of protest, “and in spite of everything — the beatings, the bombings, the burnings — God’s truth would prevail. … But you have to believe that it can be real, that it can be more than a dream.” His Truth Is Marching On combines careful reporting, historic photographs, and detailed notes and appendices.

But the book ultimately shines brightest as a story of how one man made a difference by believing in justice and offering hope for a nation in difficult times.

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

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

FINAL TWO SHOWINGS THIS WEEK!

The Nashville Scene is wrapping up Movies in the Park-ing Lot this week with our final two movies!

AUGUST 27 9 TO 5 AUGUST 28 LITTLE WOMEN RESCHEDULED

FRE E FUN FILM S

VISIT WWW.NASHVILLEMOVIESINTHEPARK.COM FOR MORE DETAILS!

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

PRESENTED BY

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

SPONSORED BY

nashvillescene.com | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

books_08-27-20.indd 21

21

8/24/20 2:52 PM

MUSIC

SHAPE & DESTROY OUT FRIDAY, AUG. 28, VIA ROUNDER RECORDS

WHEN THE SPIRIT MOVES YOU Ruston Kelly explores the promise of a new start on Shape & Destroy

BY LORIE LIEBIG

O

n his breakthrough debut album Dying Star, Ruston Kelly took listeners through the raw, painful climb from the depths of addiction and heartbreak to a more hopeful future. But those steps toward a new life of sobriety and personal growth, which acted as a catalyst for his latest record Shape & Destroy, also came with their own set of challenges.

In 2018, Kelly had found a new level of both personal and career success, selling out headlining shows and earning critical praise. On the outside, things appeared to be coming together in a big way. At the same time, he found himself grappling with an uncertain new reality. During a stop at John Prine’s All the Best Festival that year, he had a simple realization that led him to what he calls a “spiritual transformation.” In order to work through his complicated feelings, he put pen to paper.

“I was there by myself and I was sober,” Kelly tells the Scene. “I like being around merriment, but there was something about

22

this time that really just hit me straight in the nose. I was like, ‘OK, you’re either gonna feel this way, or you’re going to learn how to deal with feeling this way.’ … I just started writing about [Dying Star] — what it meant to me and what I needed out of it.”

That marked the beginning of Shape & Destroy. The title of his latest record — out Friday and featuring the signature blend of indie-rock- and folk-schooled Americana that Kelly has dubbed “dirt emo” — has also become a personal motto for the singer. He explains: “It means, ‘Shape things that you want in your life. Shape the life that you want to live by getting rid of the things that are obstructing your vision of it.’ ” Just as he felt the urge to dive into creating new songs, Kelly got a call from his close friend John Carter Cash, who offered up his grandparents’ home in Hiltons, Va. (an area once known as Poor Valley), as a writing retreat.

“I went out there by myself for a week,” says Kelly. “I’m a huge Carter Family fan, so it was like being in a museum, but behind the glass. There were little handwritten

notes, reminders from Johnny Cash just laying in the junk drawer.”

Kelly’s connection with the Cash and Carter family runs deeper than fandom. He recently found out through an uncle’s genealogy test that he might be distantly related to the Man in Black himself. But whether they’ve got biological ties or are simply kindred spirits, the country legends’ influence on Kelly is both undeniable and lasting.

“I was raised on the beautiful Christian principles of judging less and loving more,” Kelly says. “The Carter Family were such strong believers, and there was such a powerful energy there in the house that was truly transformative.”

At Mother Maybelle Carter’s dining room table, Kelly penned the pensive but joyful “Jubilee,” which finds him searching for signs that the path he’s on is indeed the right one. Every song on Shape & Destroy has a thread of hope weaving through, even in the deepest fog of doubt, confusion or worry. In the contemplative “Rubber,” he wonders if he’ll be able to bounce back from the bottom, while in “Closest Thing” he describes how love can revitalize and heal us, even in the darkest of times.

The magical, incredibly raw feel of the recordings developed during a stint at Dreamland Recording Studios. The former church in Hurley, N.Y., provided the perfect space for Kelly to experience recording music sober for the first time. With the assistance of creative collaborator Jarrad K as well as

Kelly’s bandmates — including his father Tim “T.K.” Kelly, sister Abby Kelly and then-wife Kacey Musgraves, before their amicable split earlier this year — he harnessed a kind of creative force he’d never experienced in the studio before.

“It was a highly, highly powerful — without being overbearing — sense of energy,” Kelly says. “It was reaffirming in so many ways and like nothing I’ve ever been a part of before.”

Although they had the studio booked for a week, the crew had most of the album finished in just two days. Whether it was through fate, a spiritual force or sheer willpower to manifest a new destiny, Kelly created a record that speaks to the most mysterious and challenging elements of the human experience. The final song on Shape & Destroy — the haunting, harmony-laden “Hallelujah Anyway” — acts as a moving and hopeful endpoint.

“I would say that’s the most important song I’ve ever written,” Kelly says. “It was a way of saying: ‘No matter what pain you endure, you can still have gratitude for the love in your life. You can still have thankfulness and be humble. You can bow to whatever source that creates a sense of positivity and brings good things to you, has taught you how to be strong and how to recognize your ability to self-make through right principles and goodness.’ And that is invincible.

That never dies.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

music_08-27-20.indd 22

8/24/20 4:09 PM

MUSIC

PERIGON: FULL CIRCLE OUT FRIDAY, AUG. 28, VIA PERIGON MUSIC

ANGLE OF VIEW

Dianne Davidson redefines the blues on her first new album in three decades

W

hen singer, songwriter and guitarist Dianne Davidson hit Nashville 50 years ago, she got a publishing deal on the strength of her songs and a cassette she had recorded of them in her kitchen in Camden, Tenn. Davidson has mostly been in Nashville ever since, with a few interludes that have everything to do with her relationship to the music business. Her early work, cut here between 1971 and 1974, has stood the test of time.

Today she remains a consummate singer and thoughtful songwriter who can nail a blues performance. It’s been more than 30 years since Davidson released a new album of studio recordings, but on Friday she’ll release Perigon: Full Circle, a superb collection that builds on the strengths of her previous work.

Perigon isn’t the first release from Davidson this year. 1974, an LP she cut in Nashville in 1974, finally saw the light of day in the spring. Her new music is a continuation of a career that’s been devoted to the pursuit of her muse. Davidson remains a visionary exponent of folk-blues-country-pop, and she’s been searching for her ideal musical vocabulary since she began performing.

Davidson was born in Memphis on Feb. 7, 1953, and grew up in Camden, a town about 75 miles west of Nashville. She started her first band when she was 11, and by the time she was 15 she was writing songs. She nailed down her aforementioned publishing deal when she was 16, and she moved to town in 1970, securing a recording contract with Janus Records shortly after arriving in Music City.

“I listened to Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald and all of those people when I was young,” Davidson tells me in her wide, relaxed West Tennessee accent. She’s at her home near Nashville, and says she moved back to town from North Carolina in 2016 after spending time there and in upstate New York.

“So I kind of learned to sing from them, and then I started hearing R&B more,” she continues. “When I did my first record, it was a lot of pop R&B.” Davidson’s 1971 debut album Baby demonstrates Davidson’s range. Her big, perfectly controlled voice tended to the contralto range, and she wrote material like the album’s amazing Celtic-country-folk

tune “You Might as Well Be Free.” The song would fit comfortably on, say, Fairport Convention’s Unhalfbricking album, released around the same time.

Davidson’s follow-ups to Baby — 1972’s Backwoods Woman and 1973’s Mountain Mama — established her as a first-rate blues singer who could easily dip into country and folk. She cut the tracks that would become 1974 at Jack Clement Recording Studio on spec, but Janus, which would soon fold, passed on the record.

“On that record was a love song to a woman,” says Davidson. “I thought people, I guess, would be happy for me.” Listening to the record today, you’re struck by the range of Davidson’s songwriting.

In the remarkable track “Ain’t Gonna Sing Rock and Roll,” Davidson makes her case for the spiritual aspects of her music, as she sings: “I ain’t gonna be a slave / And I ain’t gonna be a worker / And I ain’t gonna be no man’s wife.”

By all rights, the sheer quality of Davidson’s 1974 tracks should have ensured her a career as a solo artist. But as she says of that period, she felt doors closing on her. She continued to record and perform, working on the road and in the studio as a backup singer. After leaving music, and Nashville, in 1995 to work at a corporate job, she began performing again in 2015.

Perigon, which Davidson cut in 2018 and 2019 at Nashville’s Sundog Recording Studio, shows off Davidson’s post-blues vocals, which evoke the likes of Bessie Smith and Mavis Staples. Davidson’s judicious use of vibrato matches her first-rate phrasing on the album’s “Solitary,” a classic blues shuffle.

The album peaks with “True Believer,” a superb piece of folk-blues songwriting and singing. The New Age tendencies of Perigon come to the fore in this track, which also evokes the jazz-folk of Joni Mitchell, as Davidson sings: “You set sail for the island of my heart / Blessed by the stars to guide you safely to me.”

Elsewhere on Perigon, Davidson covers songs by Bob Dylan and Gretchen Peters, and she makes the record cohere through the sheer conviction of her singing and songwriting. Perigon is a blues album with a reason to exist. Listening to it, you won’t feel like a tourist.

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

PHOTO: ED MCNEES

BY EDD HURT

LIVING ON MERCY OUT FRIDAY, AUG. 28 VIA THE LAST MUSIC COMPANY

SOUL EXTENSION Dan Penn’s new album sums up the career of a great songwriter

BY EDD HURT

I

n recent years, several major pop artists have released what might be called late works — music that is richer than what they would have attempted in their youths. Looking along these lines, you could mention the late Chuck Berry’s 2017 full-length Chuck, which sums up the massive achievement of a great American songwriter.

On a global scale, the 78-year-old songwriter and singer Dan Penn, who splits time between Nashville and Northwest Alabama, stands with any pop figure working today.

As Berry does on Chuck, Penn maps out the contours of a highly influential style on his new full-length Living on Mercy, a quintessential late work that is Penn’s first fully produced studio album in 26 years. Recorded with a crack band, and featuring Penn in collaboration with a crew of first-rate songwriters, Living on Mercy may be Penn’s finest album to date. He helped invent soul music in the 1960s, but his latest music aims straight at pop, and doesn’t miss.

Penn cut the 13 tracks that make up Living on Mercy in 2019 and early 2020 at Nashville’s Creative Workshop and The NuttHouse, a studio in Sheffield, Ala. Living on Mercy sports a band led by keyboardist Clayton Ivey, whose embellishments define the sound of Penn’s latest music.

The record represents soul-pop as a well-defined, idiosyncratic musical language — one that Penn helped invent as a songwriter for performers like The Box Tops and Arthur Alexander.

“Well, I wrote two new songs last year, and I had some other songs that I had kind of put away,” Penn says from his Nashville home. “They’d never been cut, so I felt like it was time to cut another record. I’m proud to get something out. I was about ready to quit, but it looks like I’m ready to take another shot at it.”

At nearly 51 minutes, Living on Mercy gathers together the strands of Penn’s art. Like much of his solo work — the magnificently baroque 1973

album Nobody’s Fool and his ’60s singles for labels like FAME and MGM Records — it’s an experimental record that works perfectly as addictive pop. Penn and his co-writers lay out a harmonic language that continues to influence musicians around the world.

Penn grew up in Vernon, Ala., and listened to ’50s pop singers like Patti Page before turning to bluesman Jimmy Reed, whose simple, effective songs the young songwriter took as an early model. Penn cut his teeth singing Elvis Presley and Gene Vincent hits in Sulligent, Ala., and in the early ’60s began working for producer and FAME Studios owner Rick Hall in nearby Florence. By 1967, Penn was in Memphis, producing and co-writing hits for The Box Tops, a group that featured the young Alex Chilton on vocals.

As you can hear on Box Tops tracks like “I Met Her in Church” and “Fields of Clover,” Penn’s vision made room for idiosyncratic song structures. Although he’s known for co-writing now-classic tunes that have entered the repertoire of soul musicians — among his credits are the much-covered “The Dark End of the Street” and “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” — Penn doesn’t look at his work in terms of genre.

“I don’t ever think about country, and I don’t even think about soul anymore,” he says. “You know, I just walk on in there. We all had a good time with soul music. That’s what they finally called it, but to us it was R&B pop, and it still is.”

Living on Mercy ranges from the Beatles-esque pop of “Things Happen” to the country-soul-pop of “Clean Slate.” Meanwhile, “What It Takes,” written with Nashville tunesmith and Creative Workshop owner Buzz Cason, is a piece of unclassifiable music that reminds me of prog rock.

What’s most impressive about Living on Mercy, apart from Penn’s supremely casual vocals, is the quality of the songwriting. Listen to “Things Happen,” which Penn wrote with Bucky Lindsey and Wayne Carson. You’ll hear how Penn & Co. use modulation, just like The Beatles did throughout Abbey Road, to make the song more interesting. Every tune on Living gives up a beautifully written bridge or chorus that opens up the composition.

What he achieves on Living is, simply, living music.

Like Allen Toussaint, and Walter Becker and Donald Fagen, Penn is an R&B-pop master. He’s looking ahead, as he tells me.

“I just can’t hang around and think about the old days. Just going down the road living, I don’t think much about that.”

EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

music_08-27-20.indd 23

23

8/24/20 4:10 PM

MUSIC

JASON GALAZ, MARCUS K. DOWLING, REV. SEKOU, ADIA VICTORIA, KAMARA THOMAS, LILLI LEWIS

FIVE TAKEAWAYS FROM BLACK EQUITY IN AMERICANA: CONVERSATION Couples A Notes from the Aug. 20 panel presented by Americana Music Association that play the

BY BRITTNEY McKENNA together stay together

O

$20 off $50 or more in store & online

n Aug. 20, the Americana Music Association hosted Black Equity in Americana: A Conversation. Journalist Marcus K. Dowling moderated the livestreamed panel, which featured musicians Adia Victoria, Rev. SEE THE DISCUSSION ARCHIVED ON THE Sekou, Lilli Lewis and AMERICANA MUSIC Kamara Thomas as well ASSOCIATION’S as Muddy Roots Music FACEBOOK PAGE Festival organizer Jason Galaz. The hourlong conversation comes amid nationwide protests for racial justice and following years of dialogue about the diversity of Americana music and the Americana Music Association itself.

Here are five key takeaways from the panel. If you weren’t able to stream it live, you can watch it on the association’s Facebook page. A follow-up panel is set to take place during Thriving Roots, the virtual version of AmericanaFest that’s set for Sept. 16-18.

615-810-9625 | MyPleasureStore.com *Offer Ends 9/25/2020. Cannot be combined with any other offer. Discount Code: NSPL2G

PRB_NS_QuarterB_070120.indd 1

6/18/20 9:19 PM

ABS EXPERTS

$ 89 99

$ 59 99 FREE 09/30/20.

24

09/30/20.

$15

OFF $ 10 OFF 09/30/20.

09/30/20.

09/30/20.

1. White Americana musicians are not the rightful descendants of blues music. In Victoria’s opening remarks, she shared that despite her family’s roots in South Carolina running 400 years deep, she still gets treated as a “guest” in the Americana music community. She also noted that the artists who inspired her — Victoria Spivey, Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith among them — existed one generation away from slavery and do not have a direct connection to white artists making blues and roots music today.

“When I look at the Americana scene and I see predominantly white people pulling from this, who are borrowing from this, appropriating this,” said Victoria, “my thing is like: ‘That’s great, but their line does not lead to you. You are not the descendants of the blues, of Skip James, of Robert Johnson. That line does not lead to East Nashville.’ ” 2. Black Americana and roots musicians often get inaccurately recategorized into genres like R&B. In addition to making music, Lewis does A&R work for independent label Louisiana Red Hot Records. She explained that many of her Black roots and Americana artists get labeled as R&B musicians solely due to their race.

“The real question we always run into [with our emerging artists] is whether or not they’re going to be sidelined into a different genre,” Lewis said. “For example, Roland [Guerin] considers himself a roots musician. His record is called Grass Roots, and there is so much Americana on the record. There is always the question of, ‘Is it going to be shoved into R&B just because it’s a person of color making this music?’ ” 3. The space that does currently exist for Black artists in Americana is small and narrow in its scope. Responding to a question from Dowling about his recent interview with PopMatters, Rev. Sekou elaborated on what he told the online publication

about genres wrestling with issues ranging from aesthetic choices to artists’ ownership rights of their creative output.

“Blackness already functions in a limited way within Americana,” Sekou said. “The way this genre functions is that you are either a throwback to ’50s-, ’60s-style music, or you are … an African American [fronting] a white band. … That’s what my observation is, in terms of the music. Then you get rare moments, with sisters like Adia, who are expanding the genre, who are wrestling with the vicious legacy of white supremacy in the music by lifting up the women which she is directly connected to.”

4. Niche music communities need to be mindful of who they might be excluding and how they can make room for diversity. Galaz reflected on his early days organizing the Muddy Roots Music Festival, saying, “I realized that the crowd I had at first was a little too far niche in the wrong way.”

“Muddy Roots, the point of it is to highlight the music in between genres, or to book bands that force and blend together genres,” Galaz elaborated. “Maybe you grew up in punk rock but now you like the blues. Maybe you grew up a skater or a metalhead or whatever and you like bluegrass now. So there’s a blend. In doing that, at the beginning we had a lot of country, bluegrass, folk stuff, and we ended up with a lot of people who thought it was kind of like this big white thing.

They didn’t realize it was put on by someone who was half Mexican. Little bit of racism here and there. … So I made a decision, especially during the last election, to really weed that out and take it on and provoke it at points, so it would weed itself out.”

5. Streaming concerts and events have the power to democratize how people share and engage with music. After Victoria shared that during her early career she was constantly encouraged to conform to the straight white male gaze, Thomas responded with her own feelings on trying to be an artist while navigating white gatekeepers and spaces.

“I do think there is a lot of opportunity [in streaming],” Thomas said. “I think there is an opportunity to show things in this sacred space to a lot more people than maybe would have seen it, because there is no gatekeeper. If you found out about the show, you can come to the show. Maybe the gatekeepers have a little sway in terms of reaching a certain contingent of people or reaching a certain amount of people, but the fact that I can make something in this space and it’s going to exist there for you to find — and if I can pour as much of my love and beauty and art into this space as possible … I have to trust that. I think it’s an opportunity for the community … where the power can get flipped from the top to what we call ‘the bottom.’ ” EMAIL MUSIC@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

music_08-27-20.indd 24

8/24/20 4:11 PM

FILM

PRIMAL STREAM 23 Deeply resonant drama and apocalyptic vibes, now available to stream

BY JASON SHAWHAN

ATLANTICS

THE GARDEN LEFT BEHIND

T

here’s something therapeutic about addressing and adjusting your expectations for your life based on how you felt about things in the past and how you now feel about those same things. Films and visual media are actually great for this sort of thing — the same river twice and so on. I’ve found a surprising amount of goofy liberation in Mad Max rip-offs — there are hundreds of them, all working in a specific post-apocalyptic milieu, more often than not made with as much thrift and mercenary ingenuity as could be wrangled at the time. But because they’re all set after a societal collapse/ implosion/nuclear whoopsie, they are freeing from a lot of the anxiety-laden pandemic aspic we’re currently swimming in. You can expect to see a few of these popping up here in the next few weeks. And there’s always our previous 22 weeks of streaming possibilities.

Purpose is good, and this is mine. Read on for this week’s round-up of recommended streaming titles.

THE GARDEN LEFT BEHIND VIA VIDEO ON DEMAND Deeply resonant to anyone who has spent time as a New Yorker — and just as directly a shot of immediacy to the heart of any human being for whom transphobic violence has somehow remained abstract — this film from director Flavio Alves won the New Directors competition at last year’s Nashville Film Festival. The Garden Left Behind is vibrant and visceral, and packed with sincere and affecting performances.

There are moments that are going to sneak up on the coldest of hearts and supercharge their empathic response. Tina (Carlie Guevara) does ride-share driving for a living, handling household expenses for herself and her grandmother (the deeply charming Miriam Cruz) and saving money to complete her gender-confirmation surgery. She’s got a bunch of friends who liven up both the neighborhood and her life, helping her get confident enough to find

her political voice. She’s got a thing with a guy that has some potential, and she has a supportive counselor (Ed Asner, putting his heart into it). But even in New York City, it’s a stressful world that just never lets up, and that’s something anyone in 2020 can relate to. Alves’ film works in The Real, and never pulls any punches or dips into whimsy.

ATLANTICS ON NETFLIX A hit across the 2019 film festival circuit (including in Nashville back in October), Atlantics is a singular film that manages to find the sweet spot between socially conscious exposé and EC Comics cosmic revenge-scape. It is concerned with the social and emotional life of Ada (Mame Bineta Sane), a young woman in Senegal facing an upcoming wedding to a rich cipher while her world slowly unwinds as her true love is lost at sea. Writer-director Mati Diop has made something really special with this film, which calls to mind the Dardenne brothers’ Rosetta and John Carpenter’s The Fog, which is really an amazing achievement when you stop to think about it. Her camera (lit by Portrait of a Lady on Fire cinematographer Claire Mathon) finds the textures of seaside

THE ADJUSTER

uncertainty, urban sprawl, and lace and loss in a way that allows anyone anywhere to find the universal in this story. There’s a moment that calls to mind that moment in Beloved where Baby Suggs leads the women together, fixing their voices on a reconciliation with the suffering of the world, and it hits you like a collapsing building.

NOW APOCALYPSE ON STARZ When Starz canceled this horny, hyper-2019 sci-fi series from Gregg Araki (Mysterious Skin, The Living End) and Karley Sciortino after only one season, I mourned its passing in the way I mourned Sense8 and have since mourned Lodge 49.

There’s just nothing else like it out there, and little to compare it to — maybe Araki’s 2010 epic Kaboom in structure, but at heart this is Stranger Things on amyl nitrate if its performance of Midwestern America decided to head out west and shake its creature-hunting moneymaker for an indifferent industry of predators and aliens.

(Note: A lot of internet conspiracy theories seem to have tuned into this show and taken sloppy notes, eschewing the libidinous joy and fictitious nature of the material.)

Neon like the idea of a sexy VHS memory, economically relatable to social strata where hotness or freaktitude can open a lot of forbidden doors, and always ready to get off because an orgasm is the one hope that an oppressive society can’t take away, Now Apocalypse is one of the defining works

of the late 2010s. Steeped in pansexual everything and an attitude toward drugs of yes please, more drugs, and thank you, this show may honestly serve as the last will and testament of how people had any fun at all while everything collapsed.

Security guard/pothead Uly (Avan Jogia), actor/occasional sex worker Carly (Kelli Berglund) and research scientist Severine (arthouse icon Roxane Mesquida) are our leads, and they have mumblecore aesthetics and Bret Easton Ellis vocabularies, and I adore them. But it’s Beau Mirchoff as Ford who steals the whole show — he’s a deeply sensitive himbo working through his emotional issues in a way that you never see straight male characters do. It’s one of the most auspicious performances on TV, and I’ve not wanted a Zoom reunion for a TV show out of this pandemic (note: the Happy Endings Zoom reunion was amazing and essential) more than this one. You can knock the whole season out in five hours, and it’s an exponentially more pleasant way to spend an afternoon than doom-scrolling.

It manages to sublimate all the random apocalyptic energies that we’ve all been steeping in like a tea made of unease.

THE ADJUSTER VIA THE CRITERION CHANNEL Nobody finds the humor in kink quite like Atom Egoyan. The Canadian-Armenian director has been making films for more than 30 years, and while he’s never let himself be limited by genre, he specializes in ferreting out unexpected resonance in the wildest and weirdest of places. Noah (Casey Jones himself, Elias Koteas) is an insurance adjuster whose M.O. is to help itemize the chaos and catastrophe that the universe unleashes on the lives of his clients, and then help them turn new corners and find new paths through life ... with his gentleman parts. This is one of those art films that it is impossible to take a neutral stance on. Either it gets into your brain and randomly flips a few switches on the circuit board of your consciousness, or you’re going to wonder what the point of all this bureaucratic sexuality is. Egoyan’s wife, the legendary Arsinée Khanjian, almost steals the whole film as a porn censor who keeps bringing her work home. But if you’ve never seen Koteas get Canadian weird with it, buckle up.

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

nashvillescene.com | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

film_08-27-20.indd 25

25

8/24/20 5:58 PM

Save the dishwashing for later

Support Local

FILM

Visit nashvillescene.com for our daily takeout picks.

26

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING EXCELLENT

Hosts of San Dimas Today podcast celebrate release of Bill and Ted Face the Music

BY ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

T

here’s been a most curious trend in cinema over the past decade: filmmakers not just churning out remakes and reboots, but rather releasing proper sequels to films that came out decades ago. It happened not only with BILL AND TED FACE the big franchises like THE MUSIC Star Wars and Jurassic PG-13, 78 MINUTES AVAILABLE VIA VIDEO Park, but also Blade ON DEMAND FRIDAY, AUG. 28; Runner, Bad Boys and VIEWING PARTY 8:20 P.M. even Mary Poppins.

AUG. 28 AT THE STARDUST And now, rocketing DRIVE-IN THEATRE IN WATERTOWN, TENN. in from the past via magical phone booth and the power of ’80s guitar licks, Bill S. Preston, Esq., and Ted “Theodore” Logan are back in action.

The unlikely heroes of the Bill and Ted movies are now receiving just as unlikely a sequel — Bill and Ted Face the Music hits limited theaters and streaming services on Aug. 28. Keanu Reeves and Alex Winter return as the struggling musicians, complete with their pseudo-Valley Boy accents, for a long-awaited third entry in the series — and the two Nashvillians who host the San Dimas Today podcast couldn’t be more excited. Kelly Bolick and Jason Meares, Esq., (yes, he’s really a lawyer) started the Bill and Ted-focused podcast in 2018. Six months after the duo kicked off the podcast, Face the Music was confirmed.

“We’d like to take full credit for that happening,” jokes Bolick.

Bolick and Meares have been best friends since middle school, meeting after Bolick moved to

Hendersonville and the pair bonded over music and movies — especially the first two Bill and Ted films.

Part of the idea behind the podcast was to discuss the movies and what they meant to the pair growing up in the Nashville area. As music-loving suburban teens and best friends in the late ’80s and early ’90s, the hosts certainly related to the heroes. The duo also felt the films deserved more credit than they get — the cult films were “underserved in the media,” as Meares puts it.

“When we started this, there was really very little written or talked about with the Bill and Ted movies,” says Meares. “Kelly and I could talk about [the films] for hours — and we have — and it was a neat idea to actually try and add something to the culture that’s about something that’s so beloved to us.”

Producer Michael Eades, who runs the Nashvillefocused We Own This Town podcast network, pushed the pair to broaden the scope of the podcast and contact people who were involved in the films. By their second episode, they landed an interview with Chris Matheson, who co-wrote all three of the Bill and Ted scripts with Ed Solomon.

“That was just a game changer,” says Meares. The podcast has since landed interviews with other key players in the franchise, from actors to composer David Newman.

For the uninitiated, 1989’s Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, the first film, follows two lackluster musicians and students at Southern California’s San Dimas High School named — you guessed it — Bill (Winter) and Ted (Reeves). The duo travels through time via a magical phone booth to recruit major historical figures like Napoleon and Joan of Arc to pass a crucial school presentation. If they fail, their band will have to break up, and they’ll never create the music that shapes the course of humanity.

“Bill and Ted were really some of the first characters that I’d ever been exposed to that really believed in the power of music,” sayes Meares. “And one thing Kelly and I have always had in common is an extreme love of music. … And to see that embodied in two different characters — it’s just amazing.”

Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, released in 1991, wasn’t as acclaimed, but still shares some of the cult status of its predecessor. How could a goofy adventure-comedy that involves murderous robot doppelgängers, journeys to heaven and hell, board-

game battles against Death and a climactic battle of the bands not attract a dedicated following? The films even inspired a line of comics and a shortlived cartoon show.

Having happily consumed a pair of trailers and a one-minute clip from Face the Music (featuring the reliably funny Kristen Schaal), the hosts of San Dimas Today are most enthusiastic about the next cinematic entry, which reunites original cast members and writers. The trailers call back many of the previous entries’ elements, including the timetraveling phone booth, hell and Death, and also hint at the existence of a Bill and Ted multiverse. The duo’s daughters will also play a big role in the movie.

“I have full confidence in everything,” says Bolick.

“It feels like it’s all being done in the spirit of the first two movies, having the core group together creating it. I don’t think that they would let it suck, you know?”

“All indications are [that] it’s going to be excellent,” says Meares, adding that Dean Parisot (Galaxy Quest) is a perfect fit as director.

The COVID-19 pandemic has of course been a totally bogus development, trashing plans for various events and celebrations across the globe.

While the San Dimas Today hosts organized an art show at Vinyl Tap to celebrate last year’s Bill and Ted Day on June 9 (or 6/9, a reference to the film’s iconic “69, dudes!” line), this year’s plans were canceled. Still, Bolick and Meares are planning a socially distanced event to commemorate the new film’s release: a viewing party on Friday, Aug. 28, at the Stardust Drive-In Theatre in Watertown.

Even in these dire times, the hosts are keeping an upbeat attitude, consistent with the protagonists’ unyielding belief that things will work out if they keep it positive. That positivity is what makes the films so enduring. Despite some instances of problematic language and elements in the first two movies, says Meares, “a lot of it has aged really, really well.” What’s more, the first film’s iconic line “Be excellent to each other” has permeated American culture, inspiring street art and tattoos.

“It’s really the spirit of the characters and what Alex and Keanu bring to it,” says Bolick. “It’s just that pure joy. And I don’t think that that ever ages. ... Bill and Ted can still shine.”

EMAIL ARTS@NASHVILLESCENE.COM

NASHVILLE SCENE | AUGUST 27 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

film_08-27-20.indd 26

8/24/20 5:58 PM

Adoption Case No. 2353A IN RE: THE ADOPTION OF A FEMALE CHILD Gladis Rosibel Sanchez Lorenzo 02/27/2005 By:

CROSSWORD EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ ACROSS 1 4 8

1

Major source of wheat

12

Zipped

17

Hindu avatar

20

12

Kaplan course subj.

14

Neighbor of Algeria

15

Snubs, possibly

17

Swaying just before a disaster

4 13

5

31

Wedgy

20

Part 1 of an instruction for solving this puzzle

51

22

Mean

59

23

Donna’s predecessor?

24

Glamping option

26

Bold alternative: Abbr.

27

Image on the Missouri state quarter

7

8

25

28

29

34

35

40

43

11

910

16

LEGALS

26 30

36

37

41

44 47

48 53

46 49

50

54

60

61

55

56

57

58

62

63

64

65

66

67

68

69

38

42

45

52

10

22 24

33

9

19

21

32

NO. 0723

15

18

39

Blarney Stone site

6

14

27

19

A jigger is bigger than this

3

23

18

29

2

Daniela Lorenzo Arciniega (Biological Mother) And Raymundo Ruiz Martinez (Stepfather) PETITIONERS,

70

71

v.

Edwin Geovani Sanchez (Biological Father) ORDER FOR SERVICE BY PUBLICATION This cause came in front of the court on August 7, 2020, on a motion for publication filed by the Petitioners. In this cause it is appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon Respondent. It is ordered that said Respondent be served by publication and that said Respondent enter his appearance herein within thirty (30) days from the last day of publication of this notice and defend or default will be taken against him. The hearing to be held at the Williamson County Chancery Court in Franklin, TN. It is therefore ORDERED that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks in the local newspaper.

It is further ORDERED that said four (4) week succession publication will constitute service upon Edwin Geovani Sanchez in the above-captioned case.

Entered this the 7th day of August, 2020.

Judge: James G. Martin III By: Vanessa Saenz (#18875) Saenz & Maniatis, PLLC (615) 366-1211 Attorney for Petitioners NSC 8/20, 8/27, 9/3,& 9/10/20

PUZZLE BY ROBYN WEINTRAUB

70

Some winks

35

High point: Abbr.

52

Shrewd

71

Retired means of travel, for short

37

Poet’s “before”

54

In all honesty

38

“Can’t Help Lovin’ ___ Man”

56

Fiats, e.g.

57

Bridal shop display

58

Berkshire racecourse

60

Certain lawyers

62

It may be critical

31

Some loud chewers

34

Limelight stealer

1

Result of loose lips?

40

Cousin of “Inc.”

36

Didn’t stay put

2

The Cardinals, on scoreboards

Job that involves a lot of sweating

41

39

“I need your full attention over here”

3

Judd of country music

44

Ending that’s in the middle?

DOWN

40

Part 2 of the instruction

42

Many wages

43

Sewer

45

TV’s “Science Guy”

46

Tech info site

47

Heineken alternative

49

Smoking hot Italian?

51

1982 film that takes place inside a computer

10

Colonial force

11

Own a boat, say

53

Wrests

13

55

Cry in an opera house

Pewter accompanier in the Bible

16

59

Labor day event

Wads are made to do this

61

End of the instruction

21

63

Minimalist

64

Fish frequently caught by newts

“Emeer” for “emir,” e.g.: Abbr.

25

Castle feature

65

Ending for patri-

28

“Rosy” things

66

Leader typically appearing shirtless in “S.N.L.” parodies

30

Present … or a concise explanation of this puzzle’s theme

67

Colonnade trees

31

68

Hawn of the silver screen

“Special Agent ___” (Disney animated series)

69

Bustline muscles, informally

32

Copier tray abbr.

33

Go on

4

Hook associate

5

Handout on December 31

46

Santana of Santana

48

Like flour for baking

6

Peace Nobelist Root

50

7

Dough used in a taqueria

Original airer of “The Monkees”

51

Shortening used in recipes?

8 9

Org. for some future lts.

AWOL part

A L O H A

C D R O M

S L O B S

T A B O O

O N L O W

O K C W I I E D A

K A S S E N T E N D O G P O B I I C L E R Y A R D T R I G E E R F O T O H U R D U P I D M O T E S N E R

KIMBERLY YVETTE HORTON Vs.

IN THE CHANCERY COURT FOR WILLIAMSON COUNTY, TENNESSEE AT FRANKLIN Adoption Case No. 2353A IN RE: THE ADOPTION OF A FEMALE CHILD Gladis Rosibel Sanchez Lorenzo 02/27/2005 By: Daniela Lorenzo Arciniega (Biological Mother) And Raymundo Ruiz Martinez (Stepfather) PETITIONERS,

ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE J A C O B

Non-Resident Notice Third Circuit Docket No. 20D644

S E N I S F E I I C I C A R L O H E N Y P D

O R E O S

D O W N T O S N K E A W C T T E S R I A R

A C A N T I C A A G E Y D G A P M A H A A R E D T B A R C O D E H A R S I A N N I S E E N T E R K A R T

Online subscriptions: Today’s puzzle and more than 9,000 past puzzles, nytimes.com/ crosswords ($39.95 a year).

Read about and comment on each puzzle: nytimes.com/wordplay.

Crosswords for young solvers: nytimes.com/ studentcrosswords.

v.

Edwin Geovani Sanchez (Biological Father)

THOMAS DONNELL HORTON In this cause it appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the defendant is a non-resident of the State of Tennessee, therefore the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon THOMAS DONNELL HORTON. It is ordered that said Defendant enter HIS appearance herein with thirty (30) days after September 10, 2020 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 October 12, 2020. 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.

days after September 10, 2020 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 October 12, 2020. 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: August 13, 2020 Laura Tek Attorney for Plaintiff NSC 8/20, 8/27, 9/3, 9/10/20

2000

EMPLOYMENT Sr. Quality Assurance Specialist,(ATTG)(Manager) (Mult.

Pos.), Ernst & Young U.S. LLP, Nashville, TN. Conduct quality assurance testing of solutions to support the Americas Tax Practice.

Assist in the development of quality assurance and testing policies, standards and procedures. Requires travel up to 10%, to serve client needs.

Employer will accept any suitable combination of education, training, or experience. For complete job description, list of requirements, and to apply online, go to: ey.com/en_us/careers, and click on “Find jobs” (Job NumberNAS00111).

HealthStream seeks a Data Solutions Developer in Nashville, TN to design and develop new and tune existing SQL queries. Req. MS + 2 or BS + 5 yrs exp. To apply, mail resume to: HealthStream, Attn: Donna Snyder, 500 11th Avenue North, Suite 1000, Nashville, TN 37203.

Must Reference Job Title: Data Solutions Developer. Code: 000053. EOE.

Want to reach the best audience in Nashville?

Contact: classifieds@ fwpublishing.com today!

Advertise on the Backpage!

It’s like little billboards right in front of you!

Contact: classifieds@ fwpublishing.com

Rocky McElhaney Law Firm InjuRy Auto ACCIdEnts WRongFul dEAth dAngERous And dEFECtIvE dRugs

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

www.rockylawfirm.com

PANDEMIC. PROTESTS. MURDER HORNETS.

ORDER FOR SERVICE BY PUBLICATION This cause came in front of the court on August 7, 2020, on a motion for publication filed by the Petitioners. In this cause it is appearing to the satisfaction of the Court that the ordinary process of law cannot be served upon Respondent. It is ordered that said Respondent be served by publication and that said Respondent enter his appearance herein within thirty (30) days from the last day of publication of this notice and defend or default will be taken against him. The hearing to be held at the Williamson County Chancery Court in Franklin, TN. It is therefore ORDERED that a copy of this Order be published for four (4) weeks in the local newspaper.

It is further ORDERED that said four (4) week succession publication will constitute service upon Edwin Geovani Sanchez in the above-captioned case.

Entered this the 7th day of August, 2020.

Judge: James G. Martin III By: Vanessa Saenz (#18875) Saenz & Maniatis, PLLC (615) 366-1211 Attorney for Petitioners NSC 8/20, 8/27, 9/3,& 9/10/20

Richard R. Rooker, Clerk M. De Jesus, Deputy Clerk Date: August 13, 2020 Laura Tek Attorney for Plaintiff

THIS IS NOT THE YEAR TO LEAVE THINGS TO CHANCE. NSC 8/20, 8/27, 9/3, 9/10/20

FIND VOTING INFO AT NASHVILLE.GOV/ELECTION-COMMISSION nashvillescene.com | AUGUST 27 - SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | NASHVILLE SCENE

crossword_8-27-20.indd 27

27

8/24/20 2:55 PM

thank you to our nurses, doctors, medical personnel and support staff on the front lines helping keep us safe!

BOTH LOCATIONS OPEN DAILY 11-8 FOR TAKE-OUT YOUR FAVORITE MEXICAN FOOD & ‘RITA, TOO! 2330 8th AVE. SOUTH 615-988-0404 ille Nashv ! e Fuer t

MUSIC CITY

EAST/Five Points: 972 Main St. (615) 434-6000 Nashv ill stron e g!

PSYCHIC

20 special SPECIAL $

615-915-0515 284 White Bridge Rd

TAKE-OUT SPECIALS

BIG BOY BREAKFAST SANDWICH* $6.99 CHICKEN or BEEF KEBAB* $6.99

*”House-Cut” Fries Included Athens Family Restaurant 2526 Franklin Rd. Melrose 615-383-2848 Open Since 2004

WE !

ER DELIV

PLEASE VOTE US BEST CHINESE AGAIN THIS YEAR!

THAN

KS!

WRITERS’ R: CH NE

CE OI

WI N

luchador regular is the font

20 18

AUTHENTIC ASIAN CUISINE SICHUAN & CANTONESE

OPEN DAILY FOR LUNCH & DINNER: SUN. THRU THURS. 11-9 | FRI./SAT. 11-10 28

NASHVILLE SCENE | AUGUST 27 - SEPTEMBER 2, 2020 | nashvillescene.com

readers ’p ER: NN

WI

l ol

facebook/Luckybamboonash | B.Y.O.B. No Corking Fee! | ORDER ONLINE: luckybamboochinabistro.com 5855 Charlotte Pike | 760-5930 | 1/2 Mile West of White Bridge Rd. (“Up The Ramp on Left”)

20 18