SEPTEMBER 2 016 KELSEY WALD ON
where s t u ic ci y m rides to
the beat
w w w . ve r t i ci t y n a s h v i l l e . c o m
co m i n g s o o n
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WHY I DRIVE
I'm earning my teaching degree while running a local non-proot for Nashville kids called GROW Enrichment and homeschooling my two girls. I love helping the community and driving helps me chase my passion while supporting my family. - GINGER-ROSE, UBER NASHVILLE
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WHY I DRIVE
I'm a retired Army Veteran. My son and I are both full-time students at a local university. Driving with Uber helps me meet new people and keeps my mind sharp! - ANTHONY, UBER NASHVILLE
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P h o t o : C a i t B ra d ey
vint age + handmade goods
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THE 360˚ ISSUE NATIVE IS EXPERIMENTING WITH
360° VIDEO AND VIRTUAL REALITY EXPERIENCES
TO EXPLORE HOW THE RISING NEW
TECHNOLOGY CAN GIVE
OUR READERS A UNIQUE
LOOK INTO NASHVILLE ARTS AND CULTURE.
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Come Together Create has partnered with NATIVE to help them find exciting ways for their print and digital media to interact. Links to 360° videos accompany the stories throughout this issue, putting you in the middle of the action. Watch them with a smartphone or get the full, immersive virtual reality experience by viewing through CardboardVR. Happy VR-ing!
Jonathan Pears
GET CARDB YOUR OA VIEWERRDVR native : .is/ca
Founder/Director of ComeTogetherCreate.com
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TABLE OF CONTENTS september 2016
42 32
62 52 THE GOODS 21 Beer from Here 24 Cocktail of the Month 28 Master Platers 87 You Oughta Know 91 Animal of the Month
FEATURES
74
32 Kelsey Waldon 42 Martin’s Bar-B-Que Joint 52 Alan LeQuire 62 People Like Art 74 CAPPA
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Photo: Kelsey Cherry Model:@annamaemusic
@CASTILLEJANASHVILLE | EDGEHILL VILLAGE
LIVE COLORFULLY. STAY WILD. 1200 VILLA PLACE - SUITE 403 - (615) 730-5367
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DEAR NATIVES,
T
hanks for tagging us, y’all! Be sure to check out these Instagrammers, and #nativenashville to share your photos with us. president, founder:
publisher, founder:
ANGELIQUE PITTMAN JON PITTMAN
creative director:
MACKENZIE MOORE
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CHARLIE HICKERSON DARCIE CLEMEN
art director:
COURTNEY SPENCER
community relations manager:
JOE CLEMONS
editor:
@thelocallady
@aprilgloamingpublishing
community representatives:
film supervisor:
writers: @libenson
@erinnbates
photographers:
production:
@saltandvinenashville
@stay_foxx
POLLY RADFORD KELSEY FERGUSON CASEY FULLER ANDREW LEAHEY CHRIS PARTON SAMUEL SHAW ITORO UDOKO COOPER BREEDEN JEN McDONALD DANIELLE ATKINS LAURA E. PARTAIN EMILY DORIO CHRISTOPHER MORLEY DYLAN REYES JONATHON KINGSBURY GUSTI ESCALANTE
interns:
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founding team: founder, brand director:
MACKENZIE MOORE JOSHUA SIRCHIO TAYLOR RABOIN DAVE PITTMAN
founder:
CAYLA MACKEY
to advertise, contact:
for all other inquiries:
@brinnblack
SALES@NATIVE.IS HELLO@NATIVE.IS
@hollyleigh10
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BLACKFOOT GYPSIES 9/2 - MUDDY ROOTS 9/10 - FURTHER FEST 9/24 - PILGRIMAGE
PAUL BURCH
9/7 - PARNASSUS BOOKS (w/AUTHOR BARRY MAZOR) 6:30PM w/FATS & JEN GUNDERMAN WINE 9/20 - AMA SHOWCASE, CITY WINERY 9PM (TBA FRIDAY 8/19) w/WPA BALLCLUB 9/25 - DOWNTOWN LIBRARY w/WPA BALLCLUB 10/1 - COLUMBIA, TN MULETOWN FEST w/WPA BALLCLUB 10/12 - MUSIC CITY ROOTS w/WPA BALLCLUB 10/13 - THACKER MOUNTAIN, OXFORD, MS
RESPECT THE UNEXPECTED. VISIT PLOWBOYRECORDS.COM FOR NEW RELEASES
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OUR ARTISTS: BLACKFOOT GYPSIES • BOBBY BARE • PAUL BURCH • BUZZ CASON • CHEETAH CHROME • CHUCK MEAD • THE FAUNTLEROYS • THE GHOST WOLVES • JD WILKES & THE DIRTDAUBERS • JIM ED BROWN
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FALL 2016 VINTAGE ARCADE • SKEE BALL • KARAOKE ROOMS • YARD GAMES • BAD DECISIONS 20 / / / / / / / / / / / / / / //////
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COFFEE BREAKFAST LUNCH OPEN DAILY 7AM-4PM
700 FATHERLAND ST. 615.770.7097 SKYBLUECOFFEE.COM E S TA B L I S H E D 2 0 1 0 22 / / / / / / / / / / / / / / //////
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STRONG LIKE BULL by Ben Clemons of No. 308 photo by jen mc don a l d
The phrase “Be good worker. Strong like bull, smart like tractor” has been used in many movies and television shows for at least the last sixty years. This drink is just that: a drink you can depend on to get the job done. We’ve even gone one step further and thrown in some ginseng to battle the old adage that too many whiskey drinks can leave a man crying the Stone Temple Pilots’ phrase “I’m half the man I used to be” should an opportunity for love arise. For fans of classic whiskey drinks like Manhattans and Old Fashioneds, the Strong Like Bull does not rely on the season but is an all-year, all-weather, all-thetime great whiskey drink.
*Red ginspeng syrduginseng Steep 2 re simple tea bags in 20 syrup for minutes.
THE GOODS 2 oz Rittenhouse Rye 1/2 oz Suze gentian liqueur 1/2 oz red ginseng syrup* 2 dashes Angostura bitters 1 lemon peel F Stir all ingredients in a mixing glass until properly diluted and pour into a freshly chilled coupe glass. Garnish with grapefruit peel.
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##NNATATIVE H VIVILLE IVENNAS ASH LLE
NO FUCKS GIVEN
LOSE YOUR INHIBITIONS WITH OUR BUTI YOGA TRIBE
NEW STUDENTS: 10 CLASSES FOR $20 26 / / / / / / / / / / / / / / //////
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beauty: @unionmaid colorist: @llaurynwithay lens: @willvastine
SCOUT’S MAKES LIFE MORE COLORFUL A BARBERSHOP FOR MEN & WOMEN OF ALL AGES
WALK IN ANY DAY OF THE WEEK FOR A QUALITY CUT, COLOR, OR STYLE
COMING SOON – FRANKLIN + THE GULCH E A S T N A S H V I L L E - S Y LVA N PA R K
W W W . S C O U T S B A R B E R S H O P. C O M
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MASTER PLATERS
W HIPPED FETA CHEESE
W I T H C H E F K E V I N R A M Q U I S T O F F I V E DAU G H T E R S B A K E RY PHOT OS BY DAN IELLE AT K IN S 28 / / / / / / / / / / / / / //////// //////
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THE GOODS 6 1/2 oz feta cheese 2 tbsp olive oil 4 oz cream cheese 2 tsp lemon juice 1 1/2 tbsp butter 1/4 tsp granulated garlic 1/4 tsp black pepper
DIRECTIONS F Put all ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth and creamy (about 4–5 minutes). F Use as a dip with pita bread and veggies or as a spread on a sandwich.
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T H E
S H O P S
AT
GALLATIN& STRATTON
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KELSEY WALDON ON GROWING UP IN A
H U N T I N G L O D G E , C L A S S I C C O U N T R Y, A N D R E C O R D I N G H E R N E W A L B U M , I ’ V E G O T A W AY BY ANDREW LEAHEY | PHOTOS BY LAURA E. PARTAIN
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LIFE MOVES SLOWLY IN MONKEY’S EYEBROW, KENTUCKY. Tucked into a quiet bend of the Ohio River, it’s your prototypical unincorporated community, full of green farmland, black asphalt, and a whole lot of empty space. There are no stoplights. No bars. No landmarks, even, unless you count the TV tower that juts skyward from a field near Monkey’s Eyebrow Road, transmitting the coverage of the NBC affiliate in nearby Paducah. There, in a hunting lodge owned by her father, Kelsey Waldon began writing songs as a teenager. The lodge was fairly busy—as busy as a place in Monkey’s Eyebrow could be, at least—thanks to the guests who’d show up during hunting season, looking for a crash pad after spending all day shooting wild geese. It was an upgrade for the Waldon family, who’d spent most of Kelsey’s earlier years in a trailer. Before a driver’s license afforded her the opportunity to hit the highway every weekend in search of entertainment—usually in Paducah, the closest thing to a big city within an hour’s drive—Waldon spent a lot of time around the lodge, making the most of her time in the smallest of small towns. She planted tobacco. She practiced the acoustic guitar. She looked for arrowheads. It was music that occupied most of her time, though, and music that would eventually take her to Nashville. “I grew up listening to a lot of ’90s country,” she remembers. “But it was broader than that too. When I got into high school, I was learning Beatles records. They were my first big band. I had a friend who gave me the Rubber Soul album, and it just exploded from there. The same thing happened with The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan.” Years later, Waldon is still quick to list her influences. She covers two of them—the Gosdin Brothers and Bill Monroe— on this year’s I’ve Got a Way, an album that mixes pedal steel punch, Telecaster twang, and pearls of country wisdom (example: “You can’t place a crown on the head of a clown and then hope he turns out to be king,” a line that could’ve come from a Loretta Lynn song) into Waldon’s own version of new-school country. In a genre whose biggest acts have become increasingly infatuated with pop music over the past two decades, Waldon remains as countrified as Monkey’s Eyebrow itself, singing with a Kentucky drawl that’s imperfect, rural, and refreshingly real. She has no use for
Auto-Tune, no interest in electronic loops, no need for digitally enhanced snare hits. Instead, the songs on I’ve Got a Way sound like they came out of a honky-tonk, not a computer, and they’re given plenty of steam from a band whose members include pedal steel player Brett Resnick and electric guitarist Jeremy Fetzer, two of Nashville’s most sympathetic pickers. “It makes me feel claustrophobic to think about music that doesn’t move,” she says. “I want my songs to feel free, to have that pure energy I hear in a lot of my favorite records. When we made I’ve Got a Way, we’d do a couple different takes in the studio, then all sit there and listen. Even if some of the tempos were wavering during a certain performance, we’d keep whatever we felt had the best energy. We just went by that rule.” Waldon first moved to Nashville as a nineteen-year-old. No one from her family had ever finished college, and she didn’t plan on it either, focusing her time instead on a minimumwage day job and a schedule of nighttime shows. It was a tough time. Disillusioned, she retreated back home to Kentucky for a bit, only to return to Nashville several months later with a new plan. This time, she enrolled at Belmont University and began chasing down a degree in songwriting, looking for a way to bridge the twang of her childhood country records with the pop smarts of those Beatles classics. She buckled down, did her homework, wrote songs, graduated, played shows, and paid her dues. Bro-country was beginning its reign on country radio, but a new scene was developing too—a scene filled with local songwriters who were fusing the country music of their parents’ generation with lyrics that spoke to the modern world. Waldon cast her lot with that group, joining simpatico singers like JP Harris, Andrew Combs, and Margo Price in fighting the good fight. It was The Goldmine, her independent release from 2014, that helped spread Waldon’s music far beyond the borders of East Nashville. Fueled with songs about honky-tonk heartache and the struggles of working women, it found an audience in unexpected corners, receiving props from outlets like The Wall Street Journal along the way. Part of the album’s success could be attributed to the creative team Waldon put together, which included sound engineer Anderson
“IT MAKES ME FEEL CLAUSTROPHOBIC TO THINK ABOUT MUSIC THAT DOESN’T MOVE.”
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KELSEY WALDON: Sit in on an intimate 360° acoustic performance from Kelsey’s living room: www.native.is/kelseywaldon360
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East, still several months shy of his own breakthrough as a major-label solo artist. Her band was top-notch, too, with Resnick—a pedal steel powerhouse in the vein of Buddy Emmons—taking center stage as The Goldmine’s most evocative mood setter and soloist. At the heart of the album, though, was a songwriter whose twang-filled torch ballads and rootsy rave-ups rang true. She wasn’t some country singer who’d grown up in the suburbs, blasting the Dixie Chicks from the dashboard of her parents’ SUV. She was a native of southwestern Kentucky, raised on a farm whose bordering roadways weren’t even paved until she turned eleven. She was believable. “You know it’s not my first time / But it’s better than last time,” she crooned on “Not My First Time,” a gorgeous track about inching away from one-night stands and closer toward something resembling love. “Brother got in trouble, now the money’s all gone / Now mama’s sick and I sling bottles at the Mule / And people still ask me why I didn’t go to school,” she sang during “High on Heels,” the album’s most upbeat track, shining a light on the snares that keep many small-town
Americans trapped in the towns they once dreamt of leaving. Released two years later, I’ve Got a Way offers a stripped-down version of The Goldmine’s sound. There are fewer overdubs this time around. Fewer layers of multitracked vocal harmonies too. The goal was to keep things simple and clutter-free—to spotlight the band without taking too much focus away from the front woman. “I wanted to keep everything sparse and leave a lot of space,” she remembers of the recording process, which kicked off with a fourday session in November 2015 and wrapped with a pair of productive days this past February. “A lot of my favorite records use space like that, and I think it sounds beautiful. It’s just air moving in the room, you know? When you hear a song like ‘Night Life’ by Ray Price, it’s just his vocals and the pedal steel and the drums, with everything recorded in a really reverby space. And it’s just incredible sounding. I was really influenced by records like that.” That’s not to say I’ve Got a Way is quiet. With Fetzer, Resnick, and producer/bassist Michael Rinne all making return appearances, the
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album brims with contributions from a band whose members have worked together before, both in the recording studio and on the road. There’s a familiar push and pull between, say, Fetzer’s Telecaster and Resnick’s steel—a balancing act that would be hard to create if the two were strangers—and the overall effect is that of a songwriter who’s finally found her home, years after leaving Monkey’s Eyebrow. Pointed and personal, I’ve Got a Way transforms the intimate details of Waldon’s recent history—including a breakup or two—into universal songs. She chases away the heartache with songs like “All By Myself” and “You Can Have It,” two defiant tributes to standing alone, and tips her hat to Bill Monroe with a cover of “Traveling Down This Lonesome Road.” Elsewhere, she slows down the tempo for the album’s closer, “The Heartbreak,” another number that turns the traditional breakup ballad on its head. “I wanted to thank you for the heartbreak,” she tells a former flame, “because it brought me to where I am.” Like before, there’s a sense of nostalgia to Waldon’s music, which ignores the newer trends that have pushed country music out of the Bible Belt and into the worldwide mainstream. This is classic stuff, harking back to an era when women wore high-waisted flares and men rocked bushy mustaches. It’s far from pastiche, but it still wears its old-school flair with pride. After spending two years on the road—with another four months of tour dates on the horizon, which will find Waldon, her band, and their 1993 Ford Club Wagon crisscrossing the eastern half of the country—she’s learned what kind of music suits her best. “All of my favorite country records come from the ’70s,” she gushes, listing albums like John Hartford’s Nobody Knows What You Do and Mel Street’s Country Soul. “The bands were so tight! So rhythmic. And those records just had the right sound. We went after that with this album, and it feels right for us too.”
2 0 0 0 2 1 S T AV E S NASHVILLE, TN 615-385-3334
5 1 1 1 M A RY L A N D WAY B R E N T WO O D , T N 615-373-0030
Na s h v i l l e Pe r i o . c o m
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C A R S E AT H E A D R E S T w / T H E L E M O N T W I G S - M E R C Y L O U N G E MARADEEN - THE HIGH WATT
S T. L U C I A w / K i N D - T H E C A N N E RY BA L L R O O M R A C H A E L YA M A G ATA - M E R C Y L O U N G E AMERICANA MUSIC FESTIVAL - MERCY LOUNGE, THE CANNERY BALLROOM, THE HIGH WATT
W I L D C H I L D w / S U S TO - M E R C Y L O U N G E N A DA S U R F - M E R C Y L O U N G E T H E F E L I C E B R OT H E R S - T H E H I G H WAT T T H E O H H E L L O S w / S W E A R & S H A K E - T H E C A N N E RY BA L L R O O M DA R L I N G S I D E w / F R A N C E S L U K E A C C O R D - T H E H I G H WAT T E L E P H A N T R E V I VA L - M E R C Y L O U N G E T H E DA N DY WA R H O L S w / S AV OY M OT E L - M E R C Y L O U N G E T H E FA I N T w / G A N G O F F O U R & P I C T U R E P L A N E - M E R C Y L O U N G E BRONZE RADIO RETURN - MERCY LOUNGE F OY VA N C E - M E R C Y L O U N G E C A S S M c C O M B S w / D E L I C AT E S T E V E - T H E H I G H WAT T I S L A N D S - T H E H I G H WAT T S A I N T M OT E L w / H I P P O C A M P U S & W E AT H E R S - T H E C A N N E RY BA L L R O O M 40 / / / / / / / / / / / / / / //////
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PAT MARTIN BUILDS A MECCA TO WEST TENNESS EE BARBECU E IN THE HEART OF DOWNTO WN NASHVILL E
BY CHRIS PARTON | PHOTOS BY EMILY DORIO
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“I ALWAYS SAY, ‘FRANCE HAS THEIR CHEESE, WE HAVE OUR BARBECUE.’”
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THE SOUND OF AN ELECTRIC WINCH ringing through the dining room at Martin’s BarB-Que Joint on Belmont Boulevard is the signal. It’s finally time. A heavy steel plate rises off a brick-lined pit as aromatic smoke billows out and curious patrons gather round, hoping for a glimpse of something ancient—but also new and unusual for most people—a finished whole hog, ready to eat after more than twenty-four hours of patient, woodfired cooking. Questions start flying toward Martin’s founder/owner/spiritual center, Pat Martin. “How long does it take?” “What temperature is that?” Others gape with wide eyes at the unmistakable face of a once-living animal, and the bravest of the bunch ask for samples. Martin fields them all with a smile, happy to share his passion with every last guest. This is the bedrock of barbecue itself, imprinted in our very DNA and the foundation of Martin’s wildly successful Nashville-based business: the love of meat cooked over an open fire and sharing it with others, personal differences be damned. For Martin, life doesn’t get any better than this. He’s been growing his group of barbecue joints for ten years now—three locations around Nashville and one in Morgantown, West Virginia—but he’s been drawn to the craft of whole-hog cooking since he was a youngster in West Tennessee. He still practices that bare-bones West Tennessee style (one of many barbecue philosophies that are as similar and yet distinct as Southern culture itself ), but with the massive new restaurant he just opened downtown on 4th Avenue, he’s about to take it to a whole new level. “If you go about one hundred miles east of Memphis, there’s about five counties right around the Tennessee River that traditionally always served whole hog barbecue,” he explains, tucking into the award-winning pulled-pork
sandwich he still consumes, covered in coleslaw, at least once a week. “That’s where I learned to cook it.” Just as the daily lunch rush begins and a diverse mix of locals and tourists pours in, we’re sitting at a table covered in meaty goodness and chowing down as we talk. Surrounded by clues to Martin’s roots and personality—the walls are covered with down-home knickknacks and pro-wrestling memorabilia—Martin doesn’t really look the part of the focused entrepreneur he actually is. Dressed in a ball cap, T-shirt, jeans, and flip flops, his preferred image is more backyard-grilling good ol’ boy—maybe a little gruff at times, but welcoming, quick to laugh, and always respectful, with a true desire to make people happy. His primary method of accomplishing that goal is through their bellies, and it’s a love that started long ago. “I’ve been fascinated with grilling and barbecue since I was probably in the ninth grade,” he explains, now squeezing lime on a catfish taco made with his grandfather’s breading recipe. “My dad would grill, my grandfathers would grill, and it was a man’s thing. As a kid, you’re looking up to the men in your life, so it was a cultural thing, but it was also just one of those things I’ve always enjoyed. It really is my hobby . . . Some guys play golf, this is what I like to do.” A perfectionist by admission, the thing Martin likes to do best is take a 185-pound hog and cook it down over hickory coals. It’s a process he first encountered while attending college at FreedHardeman University in Henderson, Tennessee, and he found out just how unique it was. “I always say, ‘France has their cheese, we have our barbecue. Drive fifty miles and it changes,’” he says. “West Tennessee whole-hog barbecue is a little bit larger hog, we cook at a little bit lower temp, and we pull and serve. In the Carolinas they chop and dice, and when you start going to
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South Carolina or Georgia, they mop [with sauce] heavily. It’s really the same thing, just a few different roads getting to the same house.” In Martin’s house, simplicity and tradition meet with a need to have something for everyone. On top of the wholehog pulled pork, they also offer smoked brisket, turkey and chicken, fried catfish tacos, mouthwatering burgers (the new Dixie Burger is topped with pimento cheese and pork), and more, plus a variety of sides all made from scratch and based on family recipes. There are no freezers or microwaves in the place, meaning everything is made on the spot and when it runs out, there won’t be any more until the next day. That still happens quite a bit, and Martin sees it as a badge of honor. While customers might get upset at first, they
MARTIN’S BBQ: Take a 360° look inside Martin’s new downtown location: native.is/martins360
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also appreciate the commitment to freshness, especially in today’s naturally sourced food culture. But when Martin opened up his first restaurant in Nashville a decade ago, that wasn’t the case. “People weren’t accustomed to that here, and they certainly weren’t accustomed to whole hog,” he explains, picking up a dry-rubbed spare rib that literally falls apart in his hand. “What they really cared about was a good barbecue sandwich or a good barbecue plate, but they didn’t really care about the differences. I was confident that Nashvillians would start appreciating it, though, and what’s happened is people are educating themselves about what they’re eating, where it comes from, all that romantic, cliché stuff—but it’s not really romantic and cliché, it’s really substantive.” Much like the rise of the gourmet
burger, the renewed interest in authentic regional food has led to a comeback for quality barbecue. Traditional wholehog joints in rural areas have all but died out due to the economic factors of labor and yield loss (it takes three shifts of pitmasters to mind the fires, and after cooking, that 185-pound hog is down to about 65 pounds), but Martin’s refusal to cut corners has helped his food become a beloved fixture on the Nashville scene. His barbecue has gone farther than that, though, taking the Martin’s brand to the Today show and into magazines like Esquire and Men’s Journal, and all over the country and even around the world for competitions and demonstrations. But his newest venture might be the biggest leap forward yet. The latest addition to the Martin’s
Bar-B-Que family sits smack in the middle of downtown Nashville’s vibrant tourist holy land, occupying the building on 4th Avenue that most recently housed The Rutledge. After a year of nonstop construction, though, it’s now mostly unrecognizable—a two-story behemoth of a super joint with four hog pits, three dedicated smokers, three full bars, a full-size restaurant, a huge open-air beer garden, and two separate kitchens. The original part of the building houses a traditional Martin’s dining room and two private areas for catered events, but an old gravel parking lot that once languished out back has been transformed into the building’s second story, complete with a hay-wagon stage, a cozy lounge area made of shipping containers, games like ping pong and
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shuffleboard, and a spacious courtyard of picnic tables, making it one of the biggest and most inviting hangout spots in the downtown area. “Really what I had in mind is I want you to come with your friends, y’all get a slab of ribs or a pound of brisket, eighteen wings or whatever you want, and then just go out there and pile up, sit down with a bucket of beer—more like family style,” he says during a tour, dodging workers and issuing directions as the building’s final pieces come together. Then he adds with a smile, “I want to trap you.” The vibe of the place is the same as all the other Martin’s locations, with knickknacks and wrestling memorabilia covering the walls, a come-asyou-are feel, and hog pits on display for everyone to see, but Martin is really upping his game this time. The scope is truly massive, with quadruple the hog-cooking capacity and plans to take the restaurant to whole-hog-only status (since his other locations only have one barbecue pit each, they’re forced to supplement their pulled pork supply by also smoking whole shoulders). “That’s really me saying, ‘Okay, ya’ll now get it, you appreciate whole hog, so I’m gonna invest the money,’” he explains. It’s certainly a big bet—quite possibly the biggest whole-hog barbecue joint in the world—but like a true Southern gent, Martin is intent on staying humble. “The real spirit of barbecue to me is not bragging,” he says, back at the restaurant and blending in with his customers. “The real spirit of barbecue is just cooking what you cook with humility and trying to make other people happy, using your food as a vehicle for that. That’s the way I used to feel before—I was the guy who would always cook before football games or whatever. You work your ass off and spend all your money just for those smiles. So I’m just gonna keep serving our food and get better every day.”
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WE COULD BE HEROES
AFTER GIVING NASHVILLE MUSICA A N D AT H E N A PA R T H E N O S , SCULPTOR ALAN LEQUIRE IS HONORING
TENNESSEE SUFFRAGISTS WITH HIS NEWEST WORK, TENNESSEE WOMAN SUFFRAGE
MONUMENT
BY SAMUEL SHAW | PHOTOS BY CHRISTOPHER MORLEY
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SUFFRAGISTS Alan LeQuire describes heroic scale in technical terms: “That means life-size plus 20 percent.” Most Nashvillians are familiar with LeQuire’s larger-than-life works. This is the sculptor that brought Nashville Athena Parthenos, who holds the life-size Nike in the palm of her hand. The figures of Musica are fifteen feet tall and the entire sculpture ascends to forty feet. The colossal heads that make up his recent Cultural Heroes are each the size of a small person. Life-size plus a fifth may seem modest, but in LeQuire’s latest public art commission, size combines with timing and placement to tell a Nashville tale of truly heroic proportions. The soft-spoken artist tours me around his studio on Charlotte Avenue, a space animated by dozens of miniature clay studies, works in progress, and finished pieces that watch over the apprentices, interns, and gallery managers that share the workspace. We pause on the molds of three purposeful women, about seven feet tall, eyes forward over our heads. They are suffragists Anne Dallas Dudley and J. Frankie Pierce of Nashville and national suffrage activist Carrie Chapman Catt. The women are part of LeQuire’s latest civic contribution, Tennessee Woman Suffrage Monument, which consists of heroic scale portraitures of five women, marching together on a pedestal, in bronze. A future memorial plaza in Centennial Park will house the figures (as of August 26, they have a temporary home at another Centennial Park location). “The other two [Sue Shelton White of Jackson and Abby Crawford Milton of Chattanooga] are at the foundry . . . I’ve never seen them all together, so I’m a little bit nervous,” LeQuire tells me. But these women already tell their own story. In August 1920, Nashville was thrust into the national spotlight as Tennessee legislators were called to a special session to vote on whether (or not) to be the thirty-sixth (and deciding) state to ratify the Nineteenth
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Amendment, determining that women should have the right to vote. A movement seventy-two years in the making, women’s suffrage activists organized in Nashville to influence lawmakers against a (familiarly) kicking and screaming conservative opposition. The “antis”—businessmen, politicians, several prominent women, and other members of high Southern society—decried the end of civilization. They harassed and bullied the suffragists; they courted the media with the opinion that voting compromised femininity; they slandered the suffragists as ugly, bitter “she-males;” they threatened violence. But the suffragists prevailed. Tennessee ratified by one vote. The deciding vote came after one legislator’s mother wrote a letter that convinced him to change his mind at the last minute, which effectively ended his political career (as if you need any more reason to vote this year). Nearly one hundred years later, 2016 represents a landmark year for women in politics. This year has witnessed the first woman mayor in the city of Nashville and the first woman presidential nominee from a major party on the national stage. Still, less than one in ten U.S. public monuments are of women. “I am motivated to bridge the gap between history and the present,” says LeQuire, “so the timing is right.” The placement is also right. In heroic scale, the Tennessee suffragists are real, approachable, historical figures—not gods or muses. But outside the Parthenon, under the eye of Athena, the suffragists also evoke the heroes of antiquity. They are excellent: strong in their collectivity, inspiring in their daring, and successful in battle. The suffragists are recognized and honored: they won the right to vote in their own lifetime so that the rights and demands of full citizenship could live beyond them. They are renowned: cast in bronze, they and their victories will be immortalized here among the ancients. But the suffragists are animated in the
[THE SUFFRAGISTS] REMIND OBSERVERS THAT PROTEST IS A HEROIC PRACTICE AND WILL FOREVER DEFINE AMERICAN POLITICS.
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present as well. Slightly larger than life, . . . that is what fascinates me.” It is fair to they remind observers that protest is a he- say that Tennessee Woman Suffrage Monuroic practice and will forever define Ameri- ment comes to life, but I find LeQuire a bit can politics. They remind us not to take for modest, like there is still more depth to how granted today what was bitterly contested he conceives his work. For example, scale in the past. Indeed, it is here, outside the refers to size, but the heroism of the TenParthenon, in the Athens of the South, that nessee Woman Suffrage Monument works at the monument also subverts the Southern, the intersection of time, space, and political masculine cult of antiquity by presenting consciousness. That epic quality can be found in all of Lefive powerful women as the heroines of conQuire’s major public works. Musica is much temporary democracy. more than a “Music City” tribute. Musica is latin for “art of the muses,” which the nine STUDIO LeQuire describes his work as “based in the figures represent. The statue at the center of figurative tradition,” and he draws artistic Buddy Killen Circle was always meant to be inspiration from classical Greek, Egyptian, a fountain as well, symbolizing the source and Roman sculpture (“mostly Greek”). of creativity—the earth opens up and water He’s always liked the idea of sculpting real bursts out, while the muses ascend upward people, but not in a “realist” sense. Instead, from the omphalos. As such, Musica is yet he strives for magical realism, or “making to be finished. The iconic Athena Parthenos is the largthe inanimate animate,” he says. “That is the fundamental mystery of art [sculpture] est indoor sculpture in the United States at
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forty-two feet tall, and it took nearly eight schools in France and Italy and sought out years to complete her. For all of modern apprenticeships with masters Milton Hetechnology, that is only one year less than bald and Puryear Mims before attending it took the ancient sculptor Phidias to com- grad school in North Carolina in the early plete the original version. Perhaps we need ’80s. Now LeQuire’s knowledge attracts stunot dig for any further significance in Athe- dents from around the world. When I interna though. She represents a fascination with view him, I meet an intern from France and and a mastery of the past, but it is less about a local apprentice who insists that LeQuire the goddess herself than it is a sculptural hosts the longest-running open studio with and philanthropic feat. It is also the work live human models in Nashville. His gallery/ that marks the culmination of LeQuire’s studio has been a Nashville destination for classical training in sculpture and the one decades. that made him Nashville’s preeminent pubSTATUES lic artist. LeQuire maintains a public presence, LeQuire is a Nashville native. “He’s the and at this stage in his career he is a will- most native there is!” his apprentice points ing source of learning for other aspiring out. I think she is taunting me (or the pubartists. More importantly, he is responsible lication, rather). She means something like for bringing this art to Nashville. Figurative while Nashville has produced artists of sculpture in the late 1970s was so out of fash- comparable stature in the past, LeQuire is ion that LeQuire found few formal training unique in his ability to have built an art caopportunities. He enrolled in European art reer (other than music) in Nashville alone,
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before it was cool, and he remains committed to the place that his artworks help define. To fully capture LeQuire’s work and career, it is indeed relevant to point out that Nashville is an off-center, Southern city, far from the galleries, critics, and publications that can make or break visual artists in places like New York City. But like many other notable Southerners, LeQuire had to leave to return as an artist. By the time he completed Athena, he was a big fish in a small pond. He then made compulsory visits to New York but realized that (even as a successful artist) affording rent and having a studio practice there were entirely different realities. Further, he says, “Nothing that was going on in New York [then] was interesting to me.” He already had commissions and notoriety in Nashville, and now he gets to live the lifestyle he wants and give back to the city that has always supported him. In fact, when LeQuire lists his earliest patrons, some other connections arise. They were all women: Anne Potter Wilson, Grace Zibart, Dr. Mildred Stahlman, and Anne Roos (along with her husband, Charles). “I have always tried to represent women in my work,” LeQuire says, when asked about his personal connection to Tennessee Woman Suffrage Monument. I look around his studio: also all women, including his wife, Andrée, who plays a major role in the making of Nashville. She is responsible for the nonprofit foundation that has recently secured funding for the much-anticipated fountain that will finally complete Musica. On my way out, Mrs. LeQuire is eager to show me video renderings of this fountain. No doubt its construction will tie up traffic for some time, and long-time and recently arrived Nashvillians alike will disparage the changes. The LeQuires also wish that Nashville would slow down. But their name is a fixture here, almost larger than life, helping to animate a rapidly changing place by connecting its past, present, and future.
MEN. WOMEN. HOME. GIFT.
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PHOTOS BY DYLAN REYES STYLING BY BALEE GREER MODELS: BRIANN BOWHALL, SOPHIE ROBISON, AND CARLEY TRAWICK
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P E O P L E LI K E ART
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SINGER-SONGWRITER CAPPA PREDICTS
NASHVILLE WILL SOON BE A POP DESTINATION, AND IF HER RECENT SUCCESS IS ANY INDICATION, SHE MIGHT BE RIGHT BY ITORO UDOKO | PHOTOS BY JONATHON KINGSBURY
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NOT TOO LONG AGO, the terms “Nashville pop music” and “local singer-songwriter” strictly conjured up images of the polished Music Row machine and acoustic open-mic nights. And while those terms definitely still carry those connotations, these days they’re also starting to bring to mind new images. Instead of shiny, commercial studios on Music Row, think grungy bedroom studios in East Nashville. And instead of acoustic open-mic nights, think synth pop shows and DJ parties. One of the names at the forefront of this new breed of local singersongwriters is Carla Cappa, a.k.a. CAPPA. Over the last couple of years, the platinum blonde twenty-four-year-old has become a key figure in Nashville’s evolving indie landscape, and her infectious brand of synth pop is also turning heads outside the city. Though it may all seem fairly overnight, the budding pop diva’s journey from Cappa to CAPPA is actually a story many years in the making. CAPPA was born and raised in the suburbs of Philadelphia, where music played a key role in her childhood. Her mother was a singer-songwriter. “She gave me a guitar when I was five, and I started playing from there,” CAPPA tells me over coffee. While still in high school, she recorded her first album by using an assigned school presentation to snag two weeks in a recording studio, enough time to create a ten-song project. I solicit a few laughs when I ask her what kind of album it was. “Pop rock. Lots of guitars. Very different from what I do now,” she chuckles. “But it’s basically when I realized I absolutely wanted to do this for the rest of my life.” Her first efforts may have been raw and unpolished, but even back then, her natural affinity for songwriting didn’t go unnoticed. One of the songs on her first project won the USA Songwriting Competition when she was only seventeen. Along with this honor came a trip to Nashville for a showcase at the venerable Bluebird Cafe. It was CAPPA’s first trip to town. She was taken by Music City, enough to return for college at Belmont University upon graduating high school. Things didn’t go exactly as planned, however. “I went to Belmont for a year . . . and then I left. I just decided I wanted to be involved in the music scene and songwriting more than I wanted to be at school for it,” she explains. Still, she had second thoughts. “I moved home for six months because I wasn’t so sure anymore. And I took an ‘adult job’ working for Samsung. But then I was like, What am I doing? And so then I moved back.” CAPPA got a couple of internships around town, where she was able to meet new people as well as sit in on cowriting sessions. She eventually clicked with a few folks, and soon she was having her own sessions. “I think a big part of creating the music you want is having producers that understand you and what you’re going for, what you want to portray. I have recorded in New York, Philly, L.A., and Nashville, and truthfully, the producers I’ve worked with here have been my favorite thus far. Before I moved here, I had heard so often about it being only country music, but that’s really never felt like the case. I had thought about moving to New York or L.A. in the past, but Nashville seemed to have a lot of the
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good and none of the downsides of those other cities.” She mentions names like Jon Santana and Kenny Fleetwood, both producers she’s worked with consistently since moving to Nashville. It was with Jon Santana that she made her first EP as CAPPA, a five-song, self-titled effort that came out in April 2015, the result of an organic process she describes as “a bit accidental.” While working with Santana, the pair realized they had enough quality material for a project. They drew from an array of CAPPA’s half-finished songs and lyrics and put together an EP in just a couple of months. With its sleek, catchy production and clever, empowering lyrics about relationships and love, the debut resonated well with listeners. “I have been doing music for so long, and I think this was the first thing I put out that really seemed to click with people. I think once you are doing the type of music that represents you best, people seem to relate to it more easily.” CAPPA reflects on the years of trial and error it took to evolve into her current artistic self, back when she still released music under her given name, Carla Cappa. “I grew up on a lot of rock and pop rock music, so I had [previously] worked on some projects in that genre. I had also put out some music more in the EDM pop world. But I don’t regret any of the styles of music I have worked on. I think it’s made it feel extra special working on the music I am now.”
Since her debut EP, CAPPA has dropped a handful of new singles and a pair of memorable covers, all of which have garnered the blossoming pop darling considerable media attention and an increasingly devout following. Her two covers, personalized renditions of TLC’s “No Scrubs” and Spice Girls’ “Wannabe”—which she dropped earlier this summer on the song’s twentieth anniversary—celebrate her roots as a ’90s baby and pay homage to important pop classics. But while nostalgic nods never hurt any artist’s appeal, it’s CAPPA’s new and original tunes that are making the biggest impression. “I’m Good,” a single she released in May, is one of the highlights on her brand-new Queen of Hearts EP, which drops September 16. “‘I’m Good’ is basically a self-proclamation,” CAPPA explains. “It’s the idea that just because you aren’t in a relationship doesn’t mean you need—or want—someone on your arm to know your worth.” On the song’s catchy chorus, she sings with gusto, “I don’t wanna dance with you / I don’t wanna kiss goodnight / Don’t care about your money / And I don’t want a drink tonight / You gotta run before you drive / You’re just lookin’ to . . . Not the type / If you get someone else to go, you should, ‘cause I’m good.” The music video for “I’m Good,” which premiered in June on Billboard.com, found CAPPA working with local musician and friend Chancellor Warhol on what was incidentally Warhol’s directorial debut. The video is a vibrant and nostalgic # NAT I V ENAS HV I L L E
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“I’D SAY IN THE NEXT FOUR YEARS, PEOPLE ARE GOING TO COME TO NASHVILLE EXPLICITLY TO WORK ON POP MUSIC.”
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ode to summer nights, full of bowl- fellow Nashville singer-songwriter ing, arcade games, and lots of cruising Matt Wertz. It’ll be her first national around town (top down, of course). tour, and it’s a big step and an imThough it was their first time work- pressive accomplishment for an indeing together, CAPPA and Warhol share pendent artist with no record label or obvious chemistry. Perhaps we’ll see booking agent. Her bedroom-produced more collaborations from the pair in songs will soon be heard by audiences all over the country, and the timing the future. For now, CAPPA is focused on Queen couldn’t be better. CAPPA understands how special of of Hearts, a six-song offering that was approached with more deliberation a moment this is, both in her personal than her self-titled debut. Queen of career and for Nashville as a whole. Hearts took eight months to put to- “There’s been a lot of people working gether, compared to the two months it on stuff in their bedrooms, and there’s took her to create her prior release. For been awesome music. I started hearing this record, she teamed up again with it like two years ago when I started reJon Santana, whom she calls her “main leasing stuff. But now I think it’s getting a lot of notoriety, and people are guy. He’s my favorite.” On top of “I’m Good,” Queen of starting to come together and realize Hearts contains other singles released how good everybody else is. “[Nashville pop music] is just as over the past year, including “Other Girls” and “Mad About U,” a hypnotic, good as the things that are coming out genre-bending banger with charged of Los Angeles. Or the things coming bass lines and emphatic drum claps. out of Portland or New York. So I think Of course, there’s also yet-unreleased there’s a big turn happening. People material on the EP. CAPPA and San- have started moving to Nashville to detana build from where they left off the velop their pop music careers. I’d say first time around—that means a whole in the next four years, people are going new batch of dreamy, intoxicating pop to come to Nashville explicitly to work songs, complete with improved, more on pop music.” Who knows? Maybe in four years, robust production and tighter, more the newest wave of singer-songwriters refined songwriting. The rising star also has plans to tour arriving in Music City will be peppered nationally this fall. Starting this month, with fledgling musicians all vying to be she’ll be hitting the road, opening for the next CAPPA.
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YOU OUGHTA KNOW: THE JAG
THE JAG For up-and-coming and established artists alike, theft is a harsh reality that comes with life on the road. We’re not talking about getting “robbed” of awards or “robbed” by streaming services—we’re talking about breaking and entering, dudes snooping around in ski masks, that sort of thing. Hell, someone even stole $200,000 from Zeppelin in 1973 (that case is still unsolved, by the way). Unfortunately, local “slantgaze rock” band The JAG suffered a similar— though not quite as costly—fate at last year’s SXSW. After watching
past NATIVE cover feature Sol Cat perform, The JAG returned to their van to find that practically all of their gear had been stolen. One year (and one hell of a GoFundMe) later, The JAG are back and better than ever. On top of touring with Grace Potter and recording their latest LP, Pondermental Wonderment in Hypocricity, at The Bomb Shelter, the guys are back in the studio again. And if their sophomore effort was any indication, we’re in for even more sometimes-spooky, always-warbly, slantgaze goodness.
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A Harvard study has now shown that certain meditation practices are powerful tools to shift and change our physical health as well as our mental and emotional states. Learn to meditate and experience expanded awareness and deeper levels of inner peace.
ANIMAL OF THE MONTH
The
Written by Cooper Breeden*
DRAGONFLY It wouldn’t be too difficult to imagine characters like shadowdragons, boghaunters, pondhawks, or clubtails fighting in the ranks of orcs and trolls in the Battle of the Black Gate. Fortunately, we don’t have to journey to Middle-earth to marvel at these ominously named creatures. The life story of these dragonflies, like many insects, is the stuff of legends from a darker time, full of gore and brutality. Identifying a dragonfly in the wild may seem straightforward, but their appearance is not always as it may seem. Dragonflies are in the order Odonata along with another hovering creature often mistaken for a dragonfly: the damselfly. They look and act similar, gliding about like helicopters with long, slender bodies and veined, mostly translucent wings that may be dappled and splotched with varying hues and patterns. However, there are some key differences. The most obvious is how the two hold their wings when at rest. A dragonfly holds its wings flat out to the side, perpendicular to its body, whereas a damselfly keeps its wings folded together above its back and pointing backward. In addition, dragonflies are larger and bulkier in build; damselflies are more slim and dainty. Dragonflies are easy enough to spot when they’re waltzing about out in the open, but those are just the adults. Young dragonflies spend most of their lives underwater as nymphs, or naiads (the immature stage of the life cycle), before partially metamorphosing into adults. The adult stage of the cycle is actually the shortest, lasting from mere days to months. On the other hand, as a nymph they may spend several years underwater. Due to the adult dragonfly’s relatively short life cycle out of the water, they are usually found in the general vicinity of all sorts of water. They typically prefer still water or, if it’s a stream, gently flowing water. Before they lay their eggs, dragonflies go through a fierce mating process. It starts when the male captures the female by
grabbing her head with pincers at the tip of his abdomen (the long, slender part of his body). If the female is ready to mate, she creates a literal circle of love by extending the tip of her abdomen (where her genitalia are located) to the center of the male’s body, where one of his multiple sex organs is located. Throughout the process, which may happen in flight or while perched on a plant, the male will likely be bombarded by other eag eager males, who may shove him aside and shovel his sperm out of the female in place of their own. The female may have to put up with multiple rounds of this barbaric behavior until the very moment she lays her eggs. Many times a male will keep her in his pincers until he knows for certain she has layed her eggs and secured the survival of his genes. Once the horrific ritual comes to a close, eventually a nymph will hatch and begin its life underwater. But the carnage doesn’t end there. Though nymphs are the “immature” stage of the life cycle, they are equally as ferocious as their airborne parents. Dragonfly nymphs are adept predators and will eat anything from other nymphs and larvae to tadpoles and small fish. A nymph’s weapon is its fat lower lip (called a labium) that it ke keeps cocked and loaded, folded under its body. When prey is nearby, it launches its labium like a speargun and draws the victim in for a feast. There are some great underwater YouTube videos of hunting nymphs—just search “dragonfly nymphs hunting.” Though their lifestyle may seem uncivilized by our standards, dragonflies are an important part of the aquatic ecosystem. Environmental scientists survey invertebrate populations (which include dragonflies) to assess water quality, and in most cases the presence of dragonflies is an indicator that the water is clean. Dragonflies are fairly abundant—if you happen to see one flying around, keep your eye on it and you may witness its viol violent love dance.
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