JANUARY 15–21, 2026 I VOLUME 44 I NUMBER 49 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE
STREET VIEW:
WHAT TO DO ABOUT BNA TRAFFIC >> PAGE 7
NEWS:
LEGISLATURE RETURNS WITH FOCUS ON IMMIGRATION, VOUCHER EXPANSION
BOOKS:
AUTHORIZED BIOGRAPHY OF JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE PAINTS A VIVID PORTRAIT >> PAGE 26
>> PAGE 8
Talking Cruel Joke with Ken Pomeroy, speaking with the founders of the Country Latin Association and more
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WITNESS HISTORY This Patti Brothers piano accordion, with art-deco grille, belonged to Pee Wee King, the groundbreaking bandleader, songwriter, and recording artist who helped bring waltzes, polkas, and cowboy songs into mainstream country music and the Grand Ole Opry. From the exhibit Country’s Grandest Stage: The Opry at 100 artifact: Courtesy of Pee Wee King artifact photo: Bob Delevante
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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 22, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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CONTENTS INTRODUCING
SCENE AND BE SEEN
NEWS
7 Street View: What to Do About BNA Traffic
CHECK BACK HERE WEEKLY TO LEARN ABOUT LOCAL PROMOTIONS, PARTNERSHIPS AND EVENTS.
More people than ever are traveling to and from the airport. What’s the city’s plan?
EVENTS WE’RE INTO
BY LENA MAZEL
7 Pith in the Wind This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog
8 Legislature Returns With Focus on Immigration, School Voucher Expansion Recent Americans for Prosperity events reveal the priorities of Tennessee’s Republican supermajority BY HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS
8 Equity Debates Ignite at Planning Commission Meeting
Candlelight vigil for Renee Nicole Good at Centennial Park, Jan. 8, 2026 PHOTO: ANGELINA CASTILLO
New zoning policies, proposed Buchanan Street regulations lead to contentious public hearing about fairness and displacement BY ELI MOTYCKA
11 COVER PACKAGE: COUNTRY MUSIC ALMANAC 11 Your Time Will Come
27 The Spin The Scene’s live-review column checks out Dumpster Fyre Fest at The Cobra
BY BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER
BY H.N. JAMES
13 Con Corazón
FILM
28 New Testament Amanda Seyfried gives 100 percent in The Testament of Ann Lee
BY BAILEY BRANTINGHAM
14 Passing the Mic
BY JASON SHAWHAN
Writers, broadcasters and scholars weigh in on the present and future of country music
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NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD AND THIS MODERN WORLD
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MARKETPLACE
COMPILED BY STEPHEN TRAGESER
16 Keep Your Ears Out Our writers recommend a dozen artists to watch in 2026, from Palmyra and Kashus Culpepper to Laci Kaye Booth, Meels and beyond
Fashion for a Fraction Fashion for a Fraction at The Factory at Franklin Sunday, Feb. 15 at Factory at Franklin’s Liberty Hall. Visit fwpublishingevents.com for more information.
WIN FREE STUFF
MUSIC
Talking with Ken Pomeroy about weathering the whirlwind of her breakthrough year
Talking with the Country Latin Association’s Angie K and Andrea Vasquez about supporting Latino musicians around the world
Hot Chicken Week Hot Chicken Week will be on Jan. 26 - Feb. Heat things up this winter with the Scene’s annual Hot Chicken Week. For more information, visit fwpublishingevents.com/hotchicken-week.
Sweet Scene Declare your love with a FREE valentine in the Nashville Scene! Nominate people, pets, or local institutions like nonprofits, restaurants, and businesses. Most submissions will be featured in our Love Issue on February 12. Submissions close February 1. Visit nashvillescene. com/sweetscene for information.
BY SCENE STAFF AND CONTRIBUTORS
Introducing New Newsletter We’re launching newsletters focused on all the stuff you love. Scan the QR code above to sign up for weekly newsletters highlighting local news, events, and more!
LOOKING AHEAD
19 CRITICS’ PICKS
Sunday Night Soul’s final show, Ruston Kelly, You Got Gold: A Celebration of John Prine, Cristina Vane and more
ON THE COVER:
FOOD AND DRINK
Ken Pomeroy; photo by Kali Spitzer
25 Schmear Campaign
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CONTACT
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26 Cover Me Over The authorized biography of Justin Townes Earle paints a vivid portrait BY ANNIE PARNELL
FOLLOW US @NASHVILLESCENE
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Music City Food and Wine Music City Food and Wine will return April 24 – 26 at Centennial Park learn more at musiccityfoodand winefest.com.
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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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WHO WE ARE
2ND & BROADWAY NASHVILLE, TN
Live Music at ON BROADWAY
1.10 William Michael Morgan
1.17 Mitch Rossell
1.22/23 Ashley McBryde
From Fr om platinum-selling pla pl a chart-toppers cha to underground icons, ic on s, household names to s, icon ons ons, t undiscovered gems, hi f’ N c co ommitte mmi Chief’s Neon Steeple committed eeple is h commi o ommi to bringing the very best national and regional talentt back to Broadway.
JANUARY LINE UP 1.10
William Michael Morgan
1.15
Britnee Kellogg
1.17
Mitch Rossell
1.18
Dixieland Delight
1.19
Chief’s Outsiders Round w/ Skyelor Anderson & Ben Kadlecek and Guests Craig Campbell, Mason Maddocks, Brendan Stevens, Mike Sweep
1.21
Jamie O’Neal Gypsum Album Release Show
1.22
Ashley McBryde: Just Me and My Shadow
1.23
Ashley McBryde: Just Me and My Shadow
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Buddy’s Place 15th Anniversary Show w/ Kayley Bishop, Fraser Churchill, Abbey Cone, Sean Kennedy, Paul Sikes, Striking Matches, Cyndi Thomson
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Uncle B’s Damned Ole Opry Play The Chicks “Wide Open Spaces” w/ Bryan Simpson, Caitlyn Smith, Moose Miller, Abbie Callahan, Aniston Pate
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The Sadies
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Aaron Nichols
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF D. Patrick Rodgers MANAGING EDITOR Alejandro Ramirez SENIOR EDITOR Dana Kopp Franklin ARTS EDITOR Laura Hutson Hunter MUSIC AND LISTINGS EDITOR Stephen Trageser ASSOCIATE EDITOR Logan Butts AUDIENCE EDITOR Annie Parnell CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jack Silverman STAFF WRITERS Julianne Akers, John Glennon, Hannah Herner, Hamilton Matthew Masters, Eli Motycka, Nicolle Praino, William Williams SENIOR FILM CRITIC Jason Shawhan EDITORIAL INTERN Noah McLane CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Cat Acree, Sadaf Ahsan, Ken Arnold, Ben Arthur, Radley Balko, Bailey Brantingham, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Rachel Cholst, Lance Conzett, Hannah Cron, Connor Daryani, Tina Dominguez, Stephen Elliott, Steve Erickson, Jayme Foltz, Adam Gold, Kashif Andrew Graham, Seth Graves, Kim Green, Amanda Haggard, Steven Hale, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, P.J. Kinzer, Janet Kurtz, J.R. Lind, Craig D. Lindsey, Margaret Littman, Sean L. Maloney, Brittney McKenna, Addie Moore, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Katherine Oung, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Daryl Sanders, Nadine Smith, Ashley Spurgeon Shamban, Amy Stumpfl, Cole Villena, Kay West, Nicole Williams, Ron Wynn, Kelsey Young, Charlie Zaillian ART DIRECTOR Elizabeth Jones PHOTOGRAPHERS Angelina Castillo, Eric England, Matt Masters GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Sandi Harrison, Tracey Starck, Mary Louise Meadors GRAPHIC DESIGN INTERN Taylor Stringer PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Christie Passarello MARKETING AND EVENTS DIRECTOR Robin Fomusa EVENTS MANAGER Tristan Maryanski BRAND PARTNERSHIPS AND EVENTS MANAGER Alissa Wetzel MARKETING AND PROMOTIONS MANAGER Meredith Grantham PUBLISHER Mike Smith ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Michael Jezewski SENIOR ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS CONSULTANTS Teresa Birdsong, Olivia Britton, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Niki Tyree ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS CONSULTANTS Kailey Idziak, Allie Robbins, Andrea Vasquez SALES OPERATIONS MANAGER Chelon Hill Hasty ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS ASSOCIATES Audry Houle, Jack Stejskal SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR Susan Torregrossa PRESIDENT Mike Smith CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Todd Patton CORPORATE CREATIVE DIRECTOR Elizabeth Jones IT DIRECTOR John Schaeffer DIGITAL DIRECTOR Caroline Prater CIRCULATION AND DISTRIBUTION DIRECTOR Gary Minnis FW PUBLISHING LLC
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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
NEWS: STREET VIEW PITH IN THE WIND
WHAT TO DO ABOUT BNA TRAFFIC More people than ever are traveling to and from the airport. What’s the city’s plan?
NASHVILLESCENE.COM/NEWS/PITHINTHEWIND
BY LENA MAZEL
State Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) has announced that she will not repeat a run for congressional office, instead focusing on her current position representing House District 51 in the Tennessee General Assembly. Behn announced in July that she would run for Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District, a seat left open by the retirement of incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green. Republican Matt Van Epps won the seat in December’s special election with the help of millions in outside spending from national conservative committees. Behn says her remaining campaign cash will help fund a Davidson County organizer for the 2026 election cycle and stand up Unrigged, an organizing project that Behn says will support another run for national office in the coming years.
ON SEPT. 15, traffic from BNA reached nearly unbelievable levels. Gridlock lasted for hours. On I-40, people left their rideshares and began to walk toward the airport. Tennessee Department of Transportation response crews started to divert traffic. Airport officials referred to the backup on that late-summer day as “unprecedented,” and at the time, unsubstantiated rumors swirled that the chaos was caused by a riot. TDOT later said that late afternoon traffic was caused by an accident, and the next day, the Metro Nashville Airport Authority said delays were “the result of several concurrent factors.” But beyond this event, it’s easy to see what’s causing airport traffic jams: More people are coming into the city than ever before, and most of them are coming and going to and from the airport in cars. The city is taking steps to make those journeys quicker, easier and safer. But without the dedicated bus lanes or train services present in many other midsize U.S. cities and a dubious future for The Boring Company’s planned Teslasonly Music City Loop tunnel, the next few years will test whether Nashville’s infrastructure can keep pace with its growth. The airport is projected to serve approximately 25 million passengers in fiscal year 2026, airport authority representatives tell the Scene. That’s an average of 70,000 passengers per day. “BNA has experienced unprecedented growth, with passenger volumes more than doubling over the past decade,” says Charlotte Weatherington, director of corporate communications and marketing at BNA. Similarly, figures from TDOT show that the average annual daily traffic (AADT) on I-40 near Donelson Pike was 143,759 vehicles in 2024, up from 131,824 vehicles in 2015. (At the time of this writing, TDOT’s 2025 figures are not yet available.) So more people than ever are traveling to and from the airport. What’s the city’s plan? The airport authority has a few proposals. In a report published in response to the incident in September, they highlight five strategies: reassessing traffic monitoring and existing data, further strengthening their internal traffic response training, partnering with “transportation network companies” (rideshares like Uber and Lyft), using technology like LiDAR to better predict and understand traffic, and partnering with state and local agencies for improved response. In a statement sent to the Scene, airport authority reps highlight their expansion
PHOTO: ANGELINA CASTILLO
Street View is a monthly column taking a close look at development-related issues affecting different neighborhoods throughout the city.
programs: BNA Vision ($1.5 billion) and New Horizon ($3 billion, with more than $300 million dedicated to roadway improvements). BNA Vision ran from 2017 to 2024 and included expanded concourses, an international arrivals building, new ground transportation areas and other improvements. New Horizon will include “approximately four miles of new roadways, five bridges required to complete the terminal loop road, and utility relocations,” they say. It’s planned to provide capacity for up to 40 million passengers through BNA. Airport authority representatives also point to collaboration with TDOT. “These roadway improvements are dependent on the completion of TDOT’s Donelson Pike Project, which BNA supported by providing an incentive that enabled TDOT’s contractor to complete the work one year ahead of schedule,” say reps. TDOT tells the Scene that the department has invested $150 million into the new Donelson Pike Interchange. “Our goal is to help BNA leverage this infrastructure to better accommodate its growing traffic demands,” says Erin Zeigler, TDOT’s regional communications officer. TDOT also offers traffic management for the airport, helping clear accidents quickly and supply lane closures, diversions and detours to prevent traffic from building up. During the gridlock on Sept. 15, they offered this support, diverting vehicles onto Donelson Pike to clear traffic. The mayor’s office has also made airport access improvements a “significant priority,” says Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s press secretary Alex Apple. This includes increasing public transit frequency, “an important part of WeGo service enhancements that are funded by
Choose How You Move.” “The Choose How You Move team, including WeGo and NDOT, have started conversations with the airport and look forward to a positive working relationship,” says Apple. The mayor’s Choose How You Move transit initiative — successfully passed by a 2-to-1 voter margin in a 2024 referendum — has a number of upgrades planned near the airport, and increased bus access recently went into effect. Beyond The Boring Company’s planned tunnel, which has recently been blighted with labor disputes and questions about feasibility, the city does have the potential to complete more extensive airport transit in the future. Speaking to the Nashville Banner about airport transit last month, Metro Councilmember Sean Parker said increased bus frequency and a dedicated bus lane could help people get downtown faster. O’Connell’s office tells the Scene that an express bus lane, if planned, would have to be approved by the state legislature. The airport also has the infrastructure to accommodate light rail, but no trains are currently planned to and from the airport. Unsurprisingly, airport traffic severity depends on how well a city’s existing systems cope with population growth and tourism. Cities like Nashville feel more pressure because of an increase in travelers, while cities with “excess infrastructure” because of decreasing populations give residents and tourists the easiest time getting to and from the airport. But for now, Nashville’s traffic will probably keep on growing. Hopefully, the transit options will soon catch up. ▼
After refusing Mayor Freddie O’Connell’s request for him to resign, Metro Nashville’s Department of Emergency Communications Director Stephen Martini has been placed on administrative leave following an investigation into yearslong allegations of sexual harassment, intimidation, mismanagement and toxic workplace culture. A report notes that many employees refrained from coming forward with specific details, declined to go on the record with their complaints or wanted to remain anonymous — all due to fear of retaliation. Patrice Coleman, the current deputy director of operations, has been appointed as acting director while Martini goes through procedures established by Metro’s civil service rules.
State House Speaker Cameron Sexton has reportedly been at the White House “numerous times” to plan anti-immigration policy with Trump adviser Stephen Miller. Longtime Scene opinion columnist Betsy Phillips has some choice words for the speaker. “There are only two options,” she writes. “Option one: Cameron Sexton is fine with all these crooks and their army of masked thugs, so he has no moral qualms about going to D.C. and plotting along with them. Or the other option: He is such a coward that he can’t say no to them.”
NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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NEWS
LEGISLATURE RETURNS WITH FOCUS ON IMMIGRATION, SCHOOL VOUCHER EXPANSION Recent Americans for Prosperity events reveal the priorities of Tennessee’s Republican supermajority BY HAMILTON MATTHEW MASTERS
THE TENNESSEE GENERAL ASSEMBLY returns this week for its 2026 session, during which immigration and the expansion of school vouchers are likely to take center stage amid a tightened budget. On Jan. 6, Americans for Prosperity Tennessee — a conservative political action organization — hosted a legislative preview event in Knoxville, where Republican lawmakers gave new insight into the legislature’s pending assault on immigration. As reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel, one of those lawmakers — state Rep. Jason Zachary (R-Knoxville) — revealed for the first time publicly that the state is working directly with Stephen Miller. Miller, who is President Donald Trump’s homeland security adviser and deputy chief of staff for policy, is responsible for crafting the Trump administration’s immigration policy.
EQUITY DEBATES IGNITE AT PLANNING COMMISSION MEETING
New zoning policies, proposed Buchanan Street regulations lead to contentious public hearing about fairness and displacement BY ELI MOTYCKA THE METRO PLANNING COMMISSION’S bimonthly Thursday night meetings are familiar territory for property-use attorneys and real estate developers. They field councilmembers’ bills about zoning changes, property peculiarities, land-use questions and infrastructure ideas that happen in Davidson County’s 526 square miles. The Jan. 8 meeting was instead a heated debate floor for competing visions of Nashville’s fastest-changing neighborhoods — so packed that the fire marshal had to step in to enforce the room’s maximum capacity. “It’s not a protest, it’s a public hearing,” Chair Greg Adkins warned early in the meeting. “If we continue to
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In a video taken at the Knoxville AFP event, Zachary can be seen saying that state House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) has been working with the White House for six weeks, and that approximately 10 pieces of immigration legislation will be filed in the first weeks of the session. Zachary calls the immigration legislation “one of the primary objectives in the session.” “It is strong legislation, and the president is behind us,” Zachary said. “The president has promised his support on social media for us, and we are being told Tennessee will go first. … We had a leadership meeting about four or five weeks ago with the [state] Senate and the House. Everybody is on board.” The policy push comes nearly one year after a special session of the legislature saw the passage of a bill, sponsored by Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) and House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland), that established the state’s centralized immigration enforcement division. In the spring, Gov. Bill Lee appointed former federal agent Ryan Hubbard to lead the division as the state’s first chief immigration enforcement officer. Lawmakers will also debate a bill introduced by Johnson in June that aims to criminalize the “doxxing” of federal agents and allow for the removal of elected officials — an escalation against Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell, who has been targeted by Republicans following his statements in opposition to an immigration enforcement operation in Middle Tennessee in May. Johnson’s bill, sponsored in the House by Sexton, would make the “criminally negligent public release of certain confidential records” a class-E felony, and would pave the way for the
removal of public officials from office. “I want to build upon that legislation that we passed that’s been very effective to say that anyone — a local elected official, anyone else, a mayor, a county mayor, a city alderman, a city, a county commissioner, anyone else — if you dox or expose any personal information about any Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer, you will go to jail,” Johnson said at a Jan. 8 AFP event in Franklin. “You will be charged with a felony. We’re not going to create a disincentive for these hardworking men and women to come into our state and do their job and get these violent people out of our communities.” State Rep. Gabby Salinas (D-Memphis) has filed House Bill 1482, which would prohibit ICE from entering school or church property without first providing notice. “No child or person should fear being abducted or risk having their family ripped apart when they leave their home,” says Salinas in a release. “We are losing friends, neighbors, caretakers, and community members daily.” The Republican supermajority also aims to expand the state’s Education Freedom Scholarship program, also known as school vouchers. The program, which passed during the aforementioned 2025 special session, is another top priority for AFP. State Rep. Charlie Baum (R-Murfreesboro), who teaches economics at Middle Tennessee State University and supports the state voucher program, says the state would need approximately $145 million to expand the program to twice its size. State Sen. Dawn White (R-Murfreesboro), who serves as the Senate Education Committee chair, said on Jan. 6 that she’s “all for expansion” of the program. Lamberth said on Jan. 5 that “not one red cent from those [new] scholarships comes from our public
schools.” During numerous AFP events, Republicans spoke about paving the way for cuts to state regulations. Discussions are also underway around the future of cannabis following President Trump’s executive order to reclassify the plant from a Schedule 1 to a Schedule 3 drug, with the president saying that cannabis has “legitimate medical uses.” Tennessee Democrats are now calling for state cannabis reform amid uncertainty over what the impact of rescheduling will be in the state and across the nation. State Sen. Ferrell Haile (R-Gallatin) said during a Sumner County AFP event that any state reform regarding cannabis “has to be concerning medical only.” “We’re not prepared for when this comes off the schedule,” Haile said. “It’s going to be the Wild West. We’ve experienced that with hemp. We’ve had to pull back on that already. We want to be in better shape with this, and so that’s the reason that we want to look at this. … It will be whatever recommendations come out of the cannabis commission, and they have certainly done a lot of work and research on that.” The state’s House Democrats have listed among their top priorities “eliminating the grocery tax” (language that has been co-opted by Republican Lamberth), “prohibiting algorithmic pricing,” “fighting for free school-based meals and summer food programs” (Gov. Lee recently rejected federal food assistance funding for children), “lowering health care costs and capping vital [prescription] drug prices,” and “modernizing transportation infrastructure to reduce reliance on gas taxes.” The Scene will have a more detailed breakdown of the priorities, bills and challenges of this year’s session in an upcoming issue. ▼
have outbursts, we’ll ask everybody to leave, and one by one we’ll have people speak. Let’s keep it professional.” Familiar advocates and activists, as well as organized neighbors and business owners, sparred over several controversial land-use changes that they consider crucial to determining the city’s future. Many appealed to worries about gentrification, the much-discussed socioeconomic phenomenon of a neighborhood’s longtime character and residents upended by wealthier transplants. Alongside its counterpart — displacement — gentrification has become an urbanist buzzword for the many ill symptoms of real estate capitalism. Commissioners reviewed a bill from District 26 Councilmember Courtney Johnston to allow areas to exclude detached accessory dwelling units (DADUs), small freestanding units commonly found in backyards of single-family homes. Johnston, who told the commission she didn’t plan to implement the exclusion in her district, clashed with those pushing for more dense and creative residential forms to help diversity housing in historically single-family neighborhoods. The council has frequently wrestled with DADUs, building an entire permitting and regulatory apparatus for DADU development in recent years. “We know which neighborhoods are going to use this tool — more privileged, wealthy neighborhoods,” said resident Jeremiah Wooten. “Access to prosperity
improves all. Creating more affordable small housing allows more access to prosperity for all.” Commissioners deferred action on the bill until its Feb. 12 meeting. Four hours into the marathon meeting, debate renewed over a new regulatory tool from Councilmember Brandon Taylor: a Commercial Compatibility Overlay aimed at one short stretch of Buchanan Street in North Nashville. Historically the heart of the city’s Black community, North Nashville has seen house-flipping from speculative real estate development, uneven public investment from the city and slow commercial revitalization. Residents wary that planning, zoning or decisions could set off a rapid real estate frenzy have preached careful steps toward a more robust future for the area. North Nashville’s Democratic state Rep. Harold Love sat just behind the speaker’s podium. Taylor’s 16-acre overlay seeks to control development on a critical local strip with particular restrictions against liquor stores, cigarette markets, nightclubs, automotive industry and “alternative financial services,” a legal category including payday lenders. Opponents frequently referenced an 11 p.m. business curfew that they say would hinder business. “It’s a good intention but it will cause harm to the businesses there,” says Leon Luke, owner of Traphouse Wingz, one affected business. “While it was busy
being ignored, we put our blood, sweat and tears into this street because we believed in it, while everyone else, like The Gulch, had their eyes on other things. We believed in that street.” Simone Boyd, a neighborhood advocate who has written for the Scene and lives off Buchanan Street, heralded the guidelines. She brought the room back to Feb. 7, 2024, when she first noticed city trash cans on Buchanan Street, and spoke about protecting the area’s steady progress. “For those of us who have endured the pain of disinvestment and lack of public infrastructure, it was a cause for celebration,” Boyd said. “While we do have new trash cans — and they’re being emptied on Buchanan — we do not have the public infrastructure, like trash or parking infrastructure, to support robust nightlife. As rents continue to rise, businesses have been displaced from downtown Nashville. Like my neighbor says, we don’t want to be a ‘baby Broadway.’” Others said Buchanan was unfairly targeted for nightlife while spots like Five Points and Broadway regularly see late-night chaos. Commissioners emphasized the public’s apparent confusion over certain aspects of the bill and the need for more community dialogue. Commissioners deferred the bill for two meetings to foster more public input. Taylor told the room he would simultaneously defer the bill in Metro Council. ▼
NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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12/12/25 10:01 AM
Talking Cruel Joke with Ken Pomeroy, speaking with the founders of the Country Latin Association and more
BELIEVE IT OR NOT, the train has left the station for the ride that is 2026. And we at the Scene are proud to present our fifth annual Country Music Almanac, a look at the state of Music City’s biggest cultural export now and in the year ahead. In the issue, we catch up with rising Oklahoma-residing country star Ken Pomeroy, discussing her 2025 breakout with her album Cruel Joke and the role of her professional relationship with director and showrunner Sterlin Harjo (Reservation Dogs, The Lowdown). We also check in with Andrea Vasquez and Angie K, founders of the Country Latin Association, and our writers share the skinny on 12 artists to watch in the new year. And in our annual survey, we hand the mic over to journalists and scholars for their perspective on the highs, lows and in-betweens of country music. Pull up a chair: It’s a big table and there’s a lot to dig into.
Your Time Will Come Talking with Ken Pomeroy about weathering the whirlwind of her breakthrough year
PHOTO: KALI SPITZER
BY BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER
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IN THE FINAL moments of the penultimate episode of the Emmy-nominated FX series Reservation Dogs, a haunting song plays as Elora (Devery Jacobs) drives away from her estranged father Rick (Ethan Hawke), whom she’s recently reconnected with. Fans of the series — a brilliant comingof-age dramedy that follows four Indigenous teens growing up in rural Oklahoma — scoured Reddit pages, social media and even Shazam, attempting to find the name of the stirring track with gentle acoustic fingerpicking underpinning a bitter lyric about growing up. Finally, the artist herself posted to the Reservation Dogs subreddit, solving the mystery and thanking new listeners for supporting a song that she hadn’t released yet. “Siyo, y’all!” Tulsa, Okla.-based singer-songwriter Ken Pomeroy wrote. “I am the artist who wrote and performed ‘Cicadas’ at the end of the episode!” That was fall 2023. Fast-forward a little less than two years to spring 2025, and Pomeroy released her stellar LP Cruel Joke via revered indie label Rounder. In fall 2025, Reservation Dogs creator Sterlin Harjo’s noir comedy The Lowdown also premiered on FX; it prominently features Pomeroy’s music, and she even appears in the show alongside Hawke, Jeanne Tripplehorn and Kyle MacLachlan. Pomeroy credits Reservation Dogs for “kicking things off” for her music career. But the 23-year-old singer-songwriter has been cutting her teeth in the Oklahoma music scene for nearly half her life, getting her start performing at her dad Skippy’s motorcycle shop turned concert venue. Raised in Moore, Okla., Pomeroy is Cherokee. Her great-grandmother, aka “mamaw,” gave her the name ᎤᏍᏗ ᏀᏯ ᏓᎶᏂᎨ ᎤᏍᏗᎦ, which means “Little Wolf With the Yellow Hair.” Ever since she heard John Denver’s “Leaving on a Jet Plane” at 6 years old, Pomeroy has been transfixed by the power music has over our emotions.
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Oklahoma has such a rich history of songwriters and storytellers. How has the state’s music scene influenced you? I think Oklahoma in general has influenced me as an artist, not only just [the music] scene. But I’m really thankful for all of the people who I grew up around that accepted me as a peer, even though I was obviously much younger than them and much newer to music than them. Kyle Reid, Carter Sampson, John Moreland, John Calvin Abney — all of those people that were basically the Oklahoma scene and cultivated that vibe — were always so welcoming of me and so supportive. That could have definitely gone the other way. So I’m really thankful for how they treated me and how I was just so welcomed in. Kyle Reid helped me with my first and second record when I was … like 13 or 14. I don’t even think it’s on streaming services anymore. [Laughs]
Speaking of Oklahoma music icons, you once opened for Wanda Jackson. I had been singing a little bit at the Oklahoma Opry and she was coming through, and I got asked to sing backup vocals with her. Then I got asked to open for her. I mean, it was just so cool. She got to tell me all these crazy stories and tell me about her love with Elvis. That was one of the first moments where I was like, “Oh my gosh, there are so many levels to this.” She really liked my outfit, which was a Nudie Suit-inspired two-piece set that my stepmom made for me for this show. She said that her stylist would’ve loved it as well. [Jackson is] very small, and she’s very spunky too. When I walked offstage after opening for her, she smacked my butt. I think that she meant to maybe pat me on the back, but I still don’t know to this day. It was really funny.
Your music has been featured on both Reservation Dogs and The Lowdown. How did your
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connection with Sterlin Harjo come about? That partnership came about pretty organically. We were mutuals on Instagram, and that kind of started the Reservation Dogs conversation. I remember him messaging me and asking if I had any new music coming. I sent him some songs and then he ended up using two of the three songs that I sent in the Reservation Dogs episode, which honestly kicked things off for us. It’s been great ever since. We did live sessions with him. And we also are just friends. I’m really thankful for that friendship, because it’s awesome to be around other creative people that get it. We [both] also live in Tulsa. Today he even called me and he said: “Can I drive by your house? I have a gift for you.” And he got me a raccoon-tail hat. So if you see me wearing this hat nonstop, that’s why. You also have an onscreen role in The Lowdown. What was that experience like? It was truly one of the most interesting things that I got to be a part of. I got to work with legends, and I’m so thankful that I even was considered a part of that. I think my favorite memory of working on that was just how chill everything was. … It was very family-oriented in a strange way. I got to work with Kyle MacLachlan, Jeanne Tripplehorn, Ethan Hawke, Keith David, Tim Blake Nelson. It was insane. The first day I was there, I had to take photos with Tim Blake Nelson to put around the house [on set] for shooting the show, since he [plays] my dad. He found out that I was a musician and I just played songs for him in his trailer. He plays mandolin, so we played some songs together. It was really cool. It lightened the mood a lot.
Ethan Hawke is also a huge music lover. Did you talk about music with him on set? Definitely. He played my guitar. Him and Sterlin would sing songs 24/7 on set.
You’ve said your great-grandma is a huge influence on you. What’s something you’ve learned from her? Oh yes — my mamaw. She’s still kicking. She might be living forever at this point. She has always made it clear — which I kind of wrote a little bit about in “Coyote” — [that] life is short, but also there’s going to be enough time for you to become the person you want to become.
You’ve spoken about how important storytelling is in Native cultures. Do you feel that that influenced your interest in songwriting? I think that it kind of happened by default. I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that I’m doing what I’m doing.
Animals appear in your songs quite a bit — “Wrango” and “Coyote” to name a couple. What draws you to that imagery? I never really meant to put so many animals in my songs. … I think the way that I look at things, it’s easier to look at things with animals in place of some people and feelings.
What made you want to title the album Cruel Joke? It’s funny because I actually got some pushback on the title. I felt really strongly about it, just because making this record was a little bit tumultuous, but also I’ve kind of lived tumultuously. I think that’s just the best word that I could [use to] describe things. I wouldn’t change a thing. I think that everything that I’ve experienced has made me who I am right now, and
PHOTO: KALI SPITZER
“Deep emotion for me, a lot of the time, was feeling kind of sad,” Pomeroy tells the Scene. “So I think by default I was really drawn to sad songs. But any songs that really made me feel something, I was super drawn to.” On Cruel Joke, Pomeroy explores grief, family upheaval and childhood trauma through gorgeously melancholic tunes such as “Days Getting Darker,” the aforementioned “Cicadas,” “Innocent Eyes” and “Pareidolia,” which Pomeroy says is an homage to a song of the same name by Big Thief’s Buck Meek. The album was released right as the Oklahoma country music scene was having a moment, with fellow Sooner State artists such as Turnpike Troubadours, Kaitlin Butts and Wyatt Flores making waves — something Pomeroy is proud to be a part of. “There’s so much to how Oklahoma has been a part of who I am and what I do now,” Pomeroy says. “It’s almost like every part of what I am and who I am.” The Scene caught up with Pomeroy — who’ll make her Ryman debut in February when she opens for Shane Smith and the Saints — to discuss her breakthrough year, sharing the stage with Wanda Jackson, jamming with Tim Blake Nelson and more. Our conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
allowed me to do what I’m doing. But also I think it’s fair for me to acknowledge some of the hard things that I’ve had to go through. Specifically with this record, some of the songs are 10-plus years old, and some of the songs are a year old. It’s just a collection of songs from the majority part of my life that was a little bit of a cruel joke. Do you have a favorite song on the album? I’d say “Dogs Die” or “Rodeo Clown.” It’s always hard for me to take a step back and look at my songwriting and not barf, just because you’re your own critic. But those two I can separate myself from a little bit. With “Dogs Die” I feel like I really got my point across, even though it’s a really short song. … It’s about finding out about new family members that you didn’t know existed and finding out about really intense family lore that came up way later in my life that I just had no idea about. I feel like that’s been happening a lot with people with DNA tests. Everyone’s discovering more about people in their lives.
What has surprised you the most about the past year, career-wise or otherwise? I think what
Cruel Joke was featured on several year-end lists. How does it make you feel to see the album getting such a positive response? I’m really grateful for
surprised me most is maybe how hard it all is. I knew it was going to be hard, but I think interpersonally, there are a lot of things that you have to think about. Music and the music business is so personal with everything, and it’s really interesting to grapple with the fact that your emotions are being sold. But it’s also like, I want that to happen because I want to share what I’m doing. There are also hard decisions about even just what the record looks like or what the next year looks like or what the plans are — it’s almost very strange for me sometimes. What do you hope people take from your music? I hope that they just take a feeling away from it. I just want to make people feel. I always say that, but I really do. I think so much music nowadays is just mass-produced — which can be cool too. But music is such a sacred and beautiful thing that all of us have enjoyed for hundreds and hundreds of years, and we can all heal from it. That’s really, really important to me. What can fans expect from you next? I’m trying to write as much as I can. This is kind of the first time in my life where I’ve had to write for an album. I’ve had so many songs throughout my life, and I got to pick and choose from them, and pick what I thought were the best fits for Cruel Joke. But now it’s like I’m starting from a blank slate. It’s interesting. There’s a lot of pressure, but also I’m trying to let go of the insecurities that I’m just making up in my head and just let it all happen. ▼
all the kind words that people are saying. I’ve gotten really, really sweet messages about people having a tough year and the album helping them get through it, which is literally the whole point of me doing this in the first place.
CRUEL JOKE AVAILABLE VIA ROUNDER OPENING FOR SHANE SMITH AND THE SAINTS FEB. 20 AT THE RYMAN
Looking back on the past year, what are you most proud of? I’m proud of how I’ve taken it all in — or maybe the lack of me taking it all in, because I feel very much the same. You know what I mean? There’s so many changes and so many new things that I have to deal with and such. But I’m sitting on my couch right now with my dog Wrango, on the phone with you.
NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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Con Corazón Talking with the Country Latin Association’s Angie K and Andrea Vasquez about supporting Latino musicians around the world BY BAILEY BRANTINGHAM
maybe make things feel a lot easier for people.” It’s an era of turmoil for many Latino artists, and Angie K, Vasquez and other artists involved with the Country Latin Association find solace in community — and the organization’s panels, artist showcases and live concerts encourage engagement. Country Con Corazón, a showcase the CLA put on during CMA Fest in June 2025, came right after a surge of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement activity in Nashville in May. Following the ICE raids and arrests, Latino families lived in fear, scared to congregate and
“If all we are is a connector between people that want to make country music all over the world, and they need a place to just kind of congregate and talk and meet each other,” says Vasquez, “I feel like that completely satisfies the goal we had for it.” In a city saturated with songsmiths and storytellers, new and diverse voices are being heard more loudly than ever. “It doesn’t matter what you are or where you come from,” says Vasquez. “If you love country music, there’s a place for you here.” Disclosure: Vasquez works in the sales department of the Scene’s parent company, FW Publishing. ▼
VISIT COUNTRYLATIN.COM FOR UPDATES
ANGIE K (LEFT) AND ANDREA VASQUEZ
PHOTO: ALYSSA BARKER, APPLE MUSIC
THE PAST DECADE has seen lots of changes that are decidedly not for the better in the global social and political climate. But one more positive movement is broader recognition of how marginalized groups have contributed — both historically and presently, and often in fundamental ways — to cultural phenomena that racist attitudes and policies have erased them from. A decade ago, you weren’t likely to hear the words “Latina” or “Latino” and “country music” in the same sentence, despite a rich history of Latino country fans and musicians, from Freddy Fender to The Mavericks to Sammy Arriaga and beyond. Today an increasing number of country artists who are Latino are becoming more and more visible, at least to fans and critics, and Nashville is increasingly becoming a creative hub for them. Independent Latina country artists Angie K and Andrea Vasquez met years ago, after moving separately to Nashville. While they each found their place in the country community and began building their careers, they recognized that many of their fellow Latino country musicians had not. They made a mutual decision to pour themselves back into the community that had served and supported them. Observing the heartbreaking challenges immigrant communities across the U.S. continue to face, the pair began a journey to help Latino artists feel seen. “Sometimes the hardest part of continuing a dream is believing it’s possible,” says Angie K during a recent phone call with both artists. “And when you feel alone against the government that can feel very impossible.” When the holidays slowed down Vasquez and Angie K’s busy professional lives in December 2023, they began to tinker with the idea of a Nashville-based community for Latino country artists. They bought a website domain and got to work on social media channels for what would become the Country Latin Association. The two strive to be anti-gatekeepers in the country industry. Keeping in mind how our digital age lessens the influence of physical distance and geographical borders on building a fan base, the CLA hit the ground running, helping guide Latino musicians into the American country scene. Primary goals for the organization include connecting Latino artists around the world and laying out the best ways for them to break into mainstream music networks. Among their endeavors is the Latina in Nashville podcast, whose second season began at the start of the new year. Vasquez hosts, and the show features stories from Nashville-based Latino entrepreneurs, hitmakers and creators. “If we can just help loosen the mystery a little bit, which is harder for somebody who isn’t even in this country,” says Vasquez, “then you can
draw attention from law enforcement. For the first time since the peak of COVID lockdown, cultural centers like South Nashville’s Plaza Mariachi had empty parking lots. “The whole place had been a ghost town for weeks, because people were too scared to go out with their families,” says Angie K. Despite the uncertainty, the pair decided the show would go on in solidarity. Country Con Corazón was one of the first events to draw crowds back to Plaza Mariachi, fostering a night of reprieve and celebration for a community that had experienced a tidal wave of heartbreak. “It just gave everybody kind of a moment of positivity,” Angie K says. “They felt a little supported by our community too, the country music community. … Like, ‘We got your back.’” Throughout the past year, the CLA has kept boots on the ground in support of the music community, maintaining their mission by turning ideas into reality for artists.
NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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Passing the Mic
Writers, broadcasters and scholars weigh in on the present and future of country music COMPILED BY STEPHEN TRAGESER
PER TRADITION, we invited journalists and scholars who focus on country music to share their takes on the present and future of the genre. Here is a sampling of their perspectives on topics from 2025’s best country releases to the changes they’d like to see in the industry (edited for length and clarity).
CARTER FAITH
As a lover and defender of Megan Moroney — whom I’ve earnestly described as a “songwriter’s songwriter” — I felt despondent watching her performance at the 2025 CMAs. The vocals were the crux of the issue, but the awkward staging and overactive dancers didn’t do her any favors. Swiftian in all the wrong ways. —WILL GROFF Morgan Wallen. Emblematic of trends and behavior that reflect the worst attitudes and attributes of both the music and some segments of its audience. —RON WYNN Morgan Wallen’s I’m the Problem. Wallen leaves a bad taste in my mouth in general, but this album was particularly mediocre with so much needless filler. Why is it two hours long? —BAILEY BRANTINGHAM
WHAT WAS YOUR FAVORITE COUNTRY SINGLE AND/OR ALBUM RELEASED IN 2025?
WHO IS ONE COUNTRY ARTIST YOU HOPE WILL MAKE WAVES IN 2026?
“Choosin’ Texas” by Ella Langley. Her twangy drawl mixed with the pedal steel is gonna get me every time. Also Jason Isbell’s Foxes in the Snow (if that counts as country). —BAILEY BRANTINGHAM As ever, “country” is a fluid concept. Wednesday, “Elderberry Wine” and Bleeds; Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band, “Monte Carlo / No Limits.” —WILL HERMES The Kentucky Gentlemen’s Rhinestone Revolution. This album was a joyful, accessible (in the best way possible) act of defiance in a year that was brutal for marginalized country artists. I’m grateful to the Campbell twins for staying the course and creating the inclusive, rhinestoned world they want to see. —HUNTER KELLY Amanda Shires’ Nobody’s Girl, Chaparelle’s Western Pleasure, Madeline Edwards’ Fruit, Margo Price’s Hard Headed Woman and Marty Stuart & His Fabulous Superlatives’ Space Junk were my tops in the country-leaning Americana space. Lots of other great releases fell more into the folk and rock categories for me. —KELLY MCCARTNEY My favorite single was Chappell Roan’s “The Giver,” with its Shania-hits-the-club energy, and my favorite album was Kelsey Waldon’s Every Ghost. Together they point to the sonic country spectrum of my dreams. —DAVID CANTWELL Either S.G. Goodman’s Planting by the Signs or Tyler Childers’ Snipe Hunter. I wrote about Childers’ latest tour for the Scene. Kentucky is having a moment. —ANNIE PARNELL “Way Too High (2010)” by Muscadine Bloodline. A “Time Marches On” for zillennials.
Ken Pomeroy’s album knocked me out and deserves more ears. Excellent writing, beautiful voice, and a keen perspective rooted in Native heritage. And respect to Carter Faith: smart, very funny, soulful, still in her 20s, hopefully unstoppable. —WILL HERMES Laci Kaye Booth’s 2024 album The Loneliest Girl in the World is one of my favorite country records of the past decade and she continued to stun me with her 2025 single “Luck of the Draw.” I can’t wait to hear more from her, and I’d love to see her get more mainstream recognition this year. —BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER Kaitlin Butts. —JOSEPH HUDAK, MARISSA R. MOSS Sam Shackleton, Kirby, Sammy Arriaga.
Margo Price, “Don’t Let the Bastards Get You Down”; Eric Church, Evangeline vs. the Machine.
—WILL GROFF
—JOSEPH HUDAK
Jesse Welles, “Domestic Error.” On repeat, as loud as possible. —MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER Carter Faith, Cherry Valley.
—RISSI PALMER
—AMANDA MARIE MARTÍNEZ, BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER
Ken Pomeroy, Cruel Joke. —BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER Kirby, Miss Black America. —STEACY EASTON The Delines, Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom. —EDD HURT Rachel Brooke, Sings Sad Songs. —AMOS PERRINE Treaty Oak Revival, West Texas Degenerate. —CHRIS PARTON
Crys Matthews, Reclamation. —BEE DELORES Tyler Childers, Snipe Hunter; Ella Langley, “Choosin’ Texas.” —MARISSA R. MOSS
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—STEACY EASTON
TYLER CHILDERS
Cam, “Alchemy”; Madeline Edwards, Fruit. Shaboozey, “Good News”; Rodney Crowell, Airline Highway. —RON WYNN Anna Tivel, Animal Poem (Americana); Hailey Whitters, Corn Queen (mainstream country). —RACHEL CHOLST
WHAT ARTIST OR NEW RELEASE DISAPPOINTED YOU THE MOST IN 2025? Jason Isbell’s commitment to his own
cleverness, his kind of self-satisfaction. Also that Morgan Wallen still has a career. —STEACY EASTON Keith Urban. —JOSEPH HUDAK George Strait. —CHRIS PARTON I don’t know why we had to have two albums by Jesse Welles, or why so many respectable songwriters collaborated with him. —RACHEL CHOLST I was disappointed in the amount of artists of color that were dropped from their labels in 2025. —RISSI PALMER The continued “butt rock” influence of 2000s rock on mainstream country left me cold and feeling completely shut out of the party, which isn’t a bad thing. There are other parties going on in and around country music that don’t activate my fight-or-flight response. —HUNTER KELLY
Carter Faith. —AMANDA MARIE MARTÍNEZ Lillie Mae Rische. —EDD HURT William Beckmann. —WILL GROFF Pynk Beard. —RISSI PALMER Maggie Antone. —MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER Mandi Sagal. —BEE DELORES Rachel Brooke. —AMOS PERRINE Ole 60. —CHRIS PARTON I’m really rooting for Madeline Edwards to get a much bigger audience. Her independently released Fruit album is better than 99 percent of what Music Row is putting out. —KELLY MCCARTNEY I don’t know if they’re cooking anything up right now, but I really hope Our Native Daughters return to the scene. We need them more than ever. —RACHEL CHOLST I hope that Mickey Guyton finally gets the sustained attention and recognition she deserves as being a great country performer, period. Not that her trailblazing aspects should be downplayed or overlooked. —RON WYNN The Kentucky Gentlemen bring such convivial energy. I’m also keeping my fingers crossed for a new solo Sierra Ferrell drop in 2026. I miss her. —BAILEY BRANTINGHAM Adam Mac just dropped his second thoughtful and cheeky collection of country tunes, Southern Spectacle. It landed him a performance spot on The Kelly Clarkson Show and a mention as Billboard’s Country Rookie of the Month. I’m hopeful Adam continues to grow his audience in the new year. —HUNTER KELLY
NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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RESPONDENTS:
BAILEY BRANTINGHAM: Nashville Scene DAVID CANTWELL: co-founder and critic, No Fences Review RACHEL CHOLST: Nashville Scene; No Depression; editor, Rainbow Rodeo BEE DELORES: The Bluegrass Situation, FLOOD Magazine STEACY EASTON: journalist; author; critic WILL GROFF: The Wall Street Journal, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork WILL HERMES: New Music + Old Music, NPR, The New York Times, Rolling Stone, Pitchfork JOSEPH HUDAK: editor and host of Rolling Stone’s Nashville Now EDD HURT: Nashville Scene, PopMatters, Chapter 16 HUNTER KELLY: Nashville Scene, MS Now, Untethered Southerner MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER: Nashville Scene; educator AMANDA MARIE MARTÍNEZ: assistant professor of American studies at UNC-Chapel Hill KELLY MCCARTNEY: host of Record Bin Radio on Apple Music Country MARISSA R. MOSS: journalist and author; cofounder, Don’t Rock the Inbox RISSI PALMER: singer-songwriter; host, Color Me Country Radio on Apple Music Country; contributor, Whose Country Music? (Cambridge University Press) ANNIE PARNELL: audience editor, Nashville Scene; FLOOD Magazine CHRIS PARTON: Nashville Lifestyles, Nashville Scene, The Bluegrass Situation AMOS PERRINE: Through the Lens columnist, No Depression BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER: Nashville Scene, Texas Monthly, The Bluegrass Situation RON WYNN: Nashville Scene, Tennessee Tribune, The Bluegrass Situation, Rock and Blues Muse
All too predictable that a mainstream country-singing Black woman, let alone one who’s Canadian, wouldn’t get any radio play. But Sacha’s Woman in the Mirror album could’ve gone several hit singles deep, if only. I sure hope more people check her out going forward. — DAVID CANTWELL
Rebecca Porter! She released her debut album Roll With the Punches this year, and I love her take on classic country. —ANNIE PARNELL
WHAT’S ONE STORY IN THE COUNTRY MUSIC WORLD THAT DESERVES MORE ATTENTION NEXT YEAR? An AI single topped the country digital sales chart, yet it hardly got any serious attention, let alone appropriate condemnation, as far as I could tell. So much for authenticity. —DAVID CANTWELL
The way that AI is going to affect not only artists, but writers and producers — and how it will increase the disparities for women and
people of color in the genre while exploiting their sound. —RISSI PALMER The use of AI, especially in the writers’ room. —JOSEPH HUDAK
The use of AI at any level should be banned in music, and we should talk about that. —KELLY MCCARTNEY
How the industry will respond to changing technology, changing audience expectations as the Trump era wanes, and how it will respond to AI. —EDD HURT The cost of everything. Concert tickets, of course, but also the cost of a new vinyl LP or a new band tee. Also, the expenses that sometimes come with a show-going experience — parking, food, hotel and anything else you may need in order to spend a night singing your favorite songs at a big show. Fandom shouldn’t require you to get a second job. —MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER
William Beckmann as a songwriter and vocalist. —AMANDA MARIE MARTÍNEZ Country crossovers: country soul, country rock, country pop. —WILL HERMES YEEDM. —WILL GROFF That nothing has actually changed in terms of representation for women on country radio — there are some surface signs that make it look better than it is. —MARISSA R. MOSS Marginalized artists have always struggled to get a piece of the pie on Music Row, but those opportunities are getting even slimmer. I’d love for someone to quantify ways in which this is actually happening. On the other hand, artists in Nashville and beyond work so hard to support each other, and I think the Scene should turn a big magnifying glass on the ways artists organize themselves — politically, artistically or both. —RACHEL CHOLST The folks who move to Nashville hoping to make it, and do so on the margins — just enough to keep the dream alive. —AMOS PERRINE Recorded-music revenues are huge again, back on par with the glory days of the ’90s, and with far less expensive physical packaging and distribution. Yet young artists are still signing “360 deals,” which were originally intended to offset label losses on file sharing in the 2000s. Do they feel it’s worth the trade? —CHRIS PARTON I feel like a broken record, but I’d love to see more attention given to queer country artists like The Kentucky Gentlemen, Denitia, Adam Mac, Fancy Hagood and Chris Housman. They continue to create inventive, incisive country music in the face of DEI rollbacks and antiLGBTQ+ rhetoric and laws reaching fever pitch during Trump 2.0. It was so encouraging to see them all continue on in this hellscape of a year. —HUNTER KELLY
That Black country artists are legitimate and important parts of the total country music industry. And that if given ample opportunity and support they can be hitmakers and success stories like any other artists. —RON WYNN The indie-rock press has been all over the recent wave of noisy, rootsy rock bands like Wednesday and Florry. But that hasn’t gotten any attention in country publications. I’d love to see someone dissect what’s going on there from
WEDNESDAY a country perspective. —ANNIE PARNELL I think that the grind is wearing on people. It is impossible to make a living as a writer or as a musician, and the endless touring, the merch-hawking and the begging that makes a career — the dependence on parasociality and the rapacious nature of fandom — makes people less healthy. There are also no middle- or long-term creators. Any attempts that people have made to accurately consider the history of the genre have been complete failures, and in terms of radio play, for example, the genre is still too white, too male, too straight and too middleclass. There is still great music being made in the spaces not recognized by the mainstream. But talking to other critics who have been writing about the genre for decades, we have lists of musicians who we think would have broken through; they never do. I’m thinking of Sammy Arriaga and Freddy Fender, and about the complete lack of progress in the years between their careers. Or about how we treat Zach Top compared to how we treat Hailey Whitters. But I spent a lot of time listening to centuries-old folk music this year. We have figured it out before, and we will figure it out again, I just don’t know how. —STEACY EASTON
IF YOU COULD INSTANTLY CHANGE ONE THING RELATED TO THE COUNTRY MUSIC BUSINESS, WHAT WOULD IT BE? I am at the point in my career where I am all “serenity prayer” on all these motherfuckers. —STEACY EASTON
Less dependence on calcified commercial radio programming, and more mainstream shine on indie artists like Kelsey Waldon, Florry, Ken Pomeroy, Hailey Whitters, Case Oats, Ryan Davis, Wednesday, Waxahatchee, etc. —WILL HERMES Less infighting about authenticity and claims to “outlaw” country. It’s all so boring! —AMANDA MARIE MARTÍNEZ
More room on the radio for different types of country music. —JOSEPH HUDAK Giving independently produced music radio airplay. —AMOS PERRINE There’s a lot of things I’d change. A small one is that I’d love to stop hearing about Morgan Wallen. —ANNIE PARNELL This isn’t exclusive to country music, but I’ve been workshopping a silly take for years, so I
guess I’ll share it here: Live music should be indoors, period. I’m tired of getting rained on at shows, guys. —MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER I would loosen the stranglehold of corporate radio and consultants on what type of songs and what artists get exposure and airplay. You shouldn’t have to go to satellite or specialty stations to get thematic and content diversity in the songs that make it onto commercial country radio playlists. —RON WYNN Country music is a microcosm for the country, writ large. And the modest progress we made in diversity and inclusion a few years ago didn’t hold up because it was largely performative. Until we willingly and collectively dig into the roots of that systemic problem, that’s always going to be the case on both the micro and macro levels. —KELLY MCCARTNEY The fan mindset that a country artist speaking out against current political injustice automatically contradicts their blue-collar narratives. —BAILEY BRANTINGHAM More opportunities given to queer artists and Black artists. —BEE DELORES Well, after genie-blinking away all of the genre’s racial, gender and generational fences, I’d say it sure would be great if our music bizrelated world could allow a wide array of music journalists and critics to, you know, earn a living. —DAVID CANTWELL I would watch what is happening in the country soul/Southern soul space if I were an executive in country music. There is a whole subgenre developing on its own that would absolutely THRIVE if there were marketing resources dedicated. Money is literally being left on the table. —RISSI PALMER The big labels have so much money. Why not take more risks? What does it matter if your McKinsey-mandated year-over-year growth doesn’t work out? You still have your mansion, right? —RACHEL CHOLST The influence of Americana and folk and classic country wouldn’t be completely cut off from mainstream country music. I’d never see Kid Rock or Nickelback on the lineup for a country music festival again. That’s two things, but they go hand in hand. —HUNTER KELLY If someone could Men in Black our global memory of social media, that would be great. Imagine the possibilities. Also, I’m ready for the mustache to phase out again. —CHRIS PARTON Jelly Roll retirement? —WILL GROFF ▼
NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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Keep Your Ears Out
Our writers recommend a dozen artists to watch in 2026, from Palmyra and Kashus Culpepper to Laci Kaye Booth, Meels and beyond BY SCENE STAFF AND CONTRIBUTORS EVERY YEAR the cornucopia of rising country talent overflows with noteworthy artists in Nashville and beyond. To help you keep up, we’ve picked out 12 artists with outstanding songs and vital perspectives to share.
group of locals at a rural rest stop, there’s a story to tell. Those new to Fox’s music should spin “Hillbilly Hymn (Okra & Cigarettes),” his buzzworthy take on an old-time spiritual number that opens with: “When the Lord comes back / Ain’t gonna be no cops / You can cook your own / You can smoke your crops.” Expect more when Fox releases a new album later this year via Free Dirt Records. MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER
les label Geffen. Her breakthrough 2024 album The Loneliest Girl in the World, a stellar collection of ethereal, bootgaze-y songs, showcased her lyrical prowess and smoky vocals and earned her the title of “country Lana Del Rey” among fans. Booth built on that fanfare in 2025 with “George F****** Strait,” a cheeky ode to the King of Country and his ability to get more handsome with age, and “Luck of the Draw,” a poignant look at life’s disappointments. If there’s a shred of justice in the music industry, Booth really will be the next big thing — this time on her own terms. BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER
pepper stakes his sonic claim at the four-courner crossroads of country truth-telling, rock ’n’ roll bravado, hand-raising gospel and fleet-fingered folk. Listen for yourself this month, when his debut album Act I hits earbuds and turntable speakers via Big Loud. The album features 18 songs, all co-written by Culpepper and tracked in Muscle Shoals, Ala., including the previously released blues-rockin’ duet with Marcus King, “Southern Man,” and “Broken Wing Bird,” a stunning acoustic collaboration with Sierra Ferrell. If you’re not sold on our endorsement, take Sir Elton’s word for it: He described Culpepper as “if Bill Withers made country music.” MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER
PALMYRA Palmyra’s debut album Restless is a reckoning. Released in March 2025, it reflects on the fatigue of constant touring, the discovery of a bipolar diagnosis and the nuances of gender dysphoria — but lifted by the vocal harmonies of Mānoa Bell, Teddy Chipouras and Sasha Landon, those struggles are transformed into stories of redemption and resilience. It’s been a treat to see this Virginia trio rise lately, recently signed to Oh Boy Records. Their homegrown blend of alt-country and folk is perfect for fans of Saintseneca or The Avett Brothers, and they’re unafraid to plumb the depths for transcendence. ANNIE PARNELL
LIZZIE NO Eagle-eyed readers will note that Lizzie No has appeared on this list before, and they’re always someone to keep an eye on. The relatively recently arrived Nashvillian releases and relentlessly tours heartfelt, often-rocking country music, like last year’s live LP Commie Country and 2024’s Halfsies. They also co-host two thoughtful podcasts: Basic Folk, in which they interview fellow musicians with co-host Cindy Howes, and Y’allidarity Social Club, in which they discuss the intersection of music and labor theory and policy with the aforementioned Nathan Evans Fox. And they maintain a vibrant social media presence as well as run an OnlyFans account to make ends meet in an economy that is not friendly to artists. Lizzie No has a lot to say, and we’d all be wise to listen. STEPHEN TRAGESER
LACI KAYE BOOTH NATHAN EVANS FOX North Carolina native Nathan Evans Fox describes his music as “songs that sound the way gas stations feel.” Travelers who embrace backroad escapism on wayward drives between one town and the next know exactly what Fox means. With songs layered in roots, gospel and folk, Fox often lends his melodies to capturing life’s overlooked complexities; after all, for every
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In her song “Cigarettes,” Laci Kaye Booth addresses something that’s all too familiar to young artists: getting swept up in the promise of being “the next big thing” only to be dropped by a major label that never seemed to support their artistry. “The same Champagne that they bought me / I popped it when they dropped me,” Booth sings, nodding to a newfound sense of creative freedom. When it happened to her, Booth followed her instincts and they proved correct: She soon signed with storied Los Ange-
BRYAN RUBY ADAM MAC Kentucky native Adam Mac, the self-described Disco Cowboy, is the best kind of cowboy. Tapping into the gaudy, horny, petty energies that make folks like Jeannie C. Riley and Conway Twitty such a fun listen, Mac rebels against country norms while falling into the intersecting portion of a wonderful Venn diagram of country traditions. His 2025 LP Southern Spectacle is comfortable — with itself, with the broader cultural situation, heinous as can be, and with addressing his audience without any bullshit. His knack for genre integration — a li’l disco here, a li’l countrypolitan there, some soul runs sprinkled amid the yacht-rock turnarounds — underscores his lyrical exploration. He presents pop bona fides and country authenticity while being thoroughly, delightfully queer. “All Dollars, No Sense” takes aim at consumerist class identifiers and over-accessorized artifice, while “Dust Off Your Boots” and “Southern Spectacle” tap into a post-Kesha Music City polygenre playfulness. SEAN L. MALONEY
KASHUS CULPEPPER No one in country music seems to approach songcraft quite like Kashus Culpepper. In a town where carbon-copied melodies can spread as quickly as a winter cold, there may not be a higher compliment. An Alabama native, Cul-
Bryan Ruby has had a downright methodical approach to building his life in country music since arriving in Nashville, similar to the way he handled his former baseball career: head down, take the gig, give it all you got, see where it leads. But he’s also stayed true to himself: Ruby is the first pro ball player to come out while he was active in the sport. Ruby’s first album, Diamonds Are Forever (2023), was a wholesome farewell to that chapter in his life, showcasing his made-for-CMT bourbon-smooth voice and sincere songwriting. Last year’s Growing Season found him recovering from a devastating breakup with his almost-fiancé. With his recent singles “Mood Ring” and “Take You There Sometime,” Ruby shows his flirty and thriving side. Now that Nashville is catching up to Ruby’s ’90s sensibilities, here’s hoping he finally hits his home run in 2026. RACHEL CHOLST
OLIVIA ELLEN LLOYD When considering the country and folk scenes near me in New York City, one artist always floats to the top of my mind: Olivia Ellen Lloyd, a Brooklyn songsmith who originally hails from Shepherdstown, W.Va. In May 2025, she delivered her sophomore LP Do It Myself, an airtight collection of masterful tunes that fuse country-rock and bluegrass references, all anchored by her powerful voice. I’ve witnessed Lloyd tear through these songs in front of a
NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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MAKING WAVES
packed room with a full band on a Saturday night and in front of six people as an opener on a random Tuesday. No matter the setting, her lyrics always hit; their simple and poignant honesty makes you want to be more honest with yourself. I’ll always follow Lloyd’s career because I’ll always have room in my life for more of her beautiful songs. Newcomers have a lot to catch up on, and here’s hoping she’ll make her way back to Nashville soon. JACQUELINE ZEISLOFT
connected from the natural flow of time. Meels weaves clever, contemporary concepts into structures that are more ancient, more mycelial even than the visual era she is evoking. And there’s a harmonica-playing raccoon puppet sittin’ on a log — that’s just good art. While it doesn’t feel like Meels has made A Definitive Artistic Statement yet, it does feel like a trailer for a career that will be putting butts in theater seats for a long time. Her debut EP Across the Raccoon Strait is due Jan. 30, so expect some high-visibility moves as 2026 rolls along. SEAN L. MALONEY
Country Music’s Hottest Young Star inks with WME, kicks off CMA Fest 2025, & hits the road with his first headlining “I Still Got It” Tour
OUT NOW
NICK SHOULDERS
THE DELINES On their 2025 album Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom, Portland, Ore.’s The Delines cast their narratives of bad luck and thwarted dreams in music that redefines the sound of country music. Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom is The Delines’ sixth album, and singer Amy Boone delivers bandleader Willy Vlautin’s songs without any extraneous dramatization. The tactic works perfectly: Vlautin describes the bad situations that transpire in “Nancy & the Pensacola Pimp” and “Maureen’s Gone Missing” with a novelist’s eye for detail. Mr. Luck & Ms. Doom is also musically innovative: Vlautin anchors his songs with keyboards, horns and electric guitars. The band has a new album, The Set Up, slated for March release. EDD HURT
Sometimes an artist making music in an old style feels superficial. Not so with Arkansas’ Nick Shoulders, whose acoustic-centered and solidarity-oriented country-folk is both contemporary and timeless, even though it sounds like something you might have heard in the 1950s on a radio show with Barn Dance in the name. Shoulders isn’t dour, but you never get the sense he’s anything less than honest, and that lets lines like “Every misdeed I committed / I had a choice and I won’t forget it” on his recent LP Refugia Blues knock you on your ass. Add to that the work of Gar Hole, the label he co-founded and whose signees include Sabine McCalla and Jonny Fritz, and you’ve got a recipe for some serious indie country power. STEPHEN TRAGESER
MylesMorganMusic.com
CMAT
MEELS Meels came to our attention with two videos straight from the cathode-ray era of country variety shows. Through meticulous attention to detail, her vids manage to draw on the high weirdness of Hee Haw without playing the irony card or drifting into parody. They’re an impressive tribute to a lost art form and provide a slightly disorienting framework for “Willow Song” and “The Wizard,” two tracks that feel dis-
The music on the three studio albums CMAT has released to date skews to pop, but it’s filtered through a sensibility that makes room for country. Ciara Mary-Alice Thompson was born in Dublin, Ireland, and sang in the electro-pop duo Bad Sea before releasing her first single in 2020. CMAT’s 2022 debut album If My Wife New I’d Be Dead includes a superb and surprising song titled “Nashville,” which you might expect from an artist who is country, pop and Americana all at once. Her 2025 album Euro-Country is unlike anything coming out of Nashville at the moment, and it’s brilliant. CMAT’s lyrics split the difference between self-revelation and outrageousness, and she creates music to match. EDD HURT ▼ NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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7:30 The HercuLeons with Jody Nardone, Andy Peak, Paul Kramer, Will McFarlane, Abe Parker + Bill Lloyd with Jim Hoke
WMOT Roots Radio Presents
1/9 Finally Friday featuring
8:00
Backstage Nashville! Daytime 12:30 1/17 Hit Songwriters Show featuring Tyler Reeve, Sarah Buxton, Kendell Marvel with Baylee Lynn + Gloria Anderson
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SUN Jonny Lucas with Aaron Friend and The Enemies 1/18 with special guest Roger Cook
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The Time Jumpers
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Resurrection: A Journey Tribute
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The Emo Night Tour
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1/19
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3/17 SMILE EMPTY SOUL
W/ PRIMER 55, MAKEs MY BLOOD DANCE, & EMERGE
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FEB 10 Fox stevenson w/ Yue jan 15 magic city hippies w/ supertaste feb 11 Tyler ramsey & Carl Broemel w/ Moose Loon jan 16 spafford jan 17 club 90s presents: the upside down 80s party feb 12 Jonah Kagen w/ anna graves Feb 13 The Emo Night Tour JAN 18 CLASSIC CITY WRESTLING w/ DEEOHGEE Jan 21 Sierra Carson w/ Riley Whittaker, caroline carter & laken campo feb 14 clay street unit w/ cris jacobs feb 16 Smile Empty Soul w/ Primer 55, Makes my blood dance, & Emerge jan 22 stanaj w/ jack avery & Clark Beckham jan 23 an east nashville tribute to the traveling wilburys feb 17 Caroline jones feb 18 The Birthday massacre w/ Daedric & dommin jan 24 east nash grass feb 19 Kelsey waldon w/ Gabe lee JAN 27 IGUANAHEAD, MATERIALIZER (FKA THE SWELL feb 20 clipping. w/ open mike eagle FELLAS), AND AVALON feb 20 Shadowgrass JAN 28 BONNIE STEWART AND FRIENDS feb 21 saxsquatch w/ shea-k jan 29 couch w/ thumber feb 22 Clinton kane jan 30 brett sheroky feb 23 samm henshaw JAN 31 SOS: THE RECESSION POP PARTY feb 24 maggie lindemann feb 1 So/us The peter gabriel experience feb 26 lindsay ell w/ Brye & Bre kennedy feb 3 sudan archives w/ Cain culto feb 27 Goldie Boutilier w/ Syd Taylor feb 4 don was & the pan detroit ensemble feb 6 Nordista Freeze's space prom: to dream or not to dream feb 28 Langhorne Slim feb 7 Nordista Freeze's space prom: to dream or not to dream mar 3 Amy Ray Band w/ Kristy Lee
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COMING SOON 1/22 WROCKFEST 2025 1/23 SAM TINNESZ & FRIENDS FEATURING ZAYDE WOLF 1/24 GUILTY PLEASURES: THE FINAL COUNTDOWN 1/25 RIZZ & THE BELIEVERZ WITH JOHN SALAWAY & FRIENDS AND BELLA GARLAND 1/27 NEFESH MOUNTAIN 1/28 ROONEY’S IRREGULARS
1/29 BACK UPFRONT: FEATURING 2/15 DAR WILLIAMS WITH DANNY MITCHELL SETH FLIER 2/20 JOHN OATES & 1/30 & 1/31 - PAUL THORN THE GOOD ROAD BAND 2/1 PAUL BOGART 2/4 & 2/5 JAMES MCMURTRY WITH BETTYSOO 2/21 STRUMMING FOR THE FUTURE FEATURING CHRIS YOUNG 2/7 SMOKING SECTION 2/22 KYLE TUTTLE BAND 2/12 THE HERCULEONS 2/25 THE STRUMBELLAS 2/13 SAY SHE SHE: CUT & REWIND TOUR 2/27 THE PIANO MEN: THE MUSIC OF WITH KATZÙ OSO ELTON JOHN & BILLY JOEL 2/14 EAGLEMANIACS
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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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Todd Snider Tribute w/ Levi Snider & Friends
Wayne White & Username Password w/ Chris Gantry
Upcoming shows jan 15 taylor noelle & abby Johnson jan 31 low gap w/ Julia digrazia jan 18 Todd snider tribute w/ levi snider & friends feb 1 Jon Auer (The Posies, Big Star) jan 20 natalie del carmen (Free show) feb 6 El dorodo w/ of the dell JAN 21 jess woodland w/ kade hoffman feb 25 Mike Viola w/ drumming bird jan 23 wayne white and username password w/ chris gantry [7pm] MAR 6 Gavin Marengi [7pm] jan 23 The sleeveens w/ sinkers and pull chains [9pm] MAR 6 Pony & star 99 w/ trash man [9pm] Jan 24 Taylor Mccall w/ olivia wolf mar 11 the ramona flowers jan 25 the beast takes over o.g. basement mar 23 moondoggy JAN 28 one wheel fireworks show "Jason, Eternal" album release mar 25 hudson freeman is a touring artist w/ Ruby plume
CRITICS’ PICKS: WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF THINGS TO DO Visit calendar.nashvillescene.com for more event listings
RUSTON KELLY
Ruston Kelly has made a career out of writing songs about exorcising demons. Through it all, there’s always been the promise of hope. Pale, Through the Window, written in the wake of a spiritual awakening and newfound love, delivers on that promise. “I thought I wanted bliss, but I needed peace,” Ruston Kelly sings on “Still,” a track on Kelly’s most joyful and gratitudeforward album to date. Kelly found that peace one evening through a quiet moment spent playing the piano before bed. “Suddenly I felt overcome with gratitude for being able to play and sing,” Kelly shared in a press release. “My soul felt activated, and there was a sense of peace beyond anything I could describe.” The album traces Kelly’s life after that moment of clarity — from finding love with his now-fiancée Tia Cubelic, who plays violin on “House in the Country,” to the tender “Twisted Root,” which finds Kelly reflecting on his history with addiction and moving toward forgiving himself. Kelly makes it clear that happiness and tranquility don’t translate to having all the answers. “Even when you’re feeling so much joy, you’re still going to have those moments of questioning and doubting,” he says. “That’s what it means to be a human.” Kelly will bring his Pale, Through the Window tour to the Ryman Auditorium on Saturday, and there may be no more deeply cathartic way to celebrate surviving 2025 and being a little kinder to ourselves in 2026. BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER 8 P.M. AT THE RYMAN 116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.
YOU GOT GOLD: A CELEBRATION OF JOHN PRINE PAGE 20
WEEKEND CLASSICS: THE HOT ROCK PAGE 20
AL DI MEOLA PAGE 22
MUSIC
[HERE WE GO AGAIN]
ALL YOU NEED IS KILL
Based on the same light novel that inspired Doug Liman’s 2014 film Edge of Tomorrow, the newly released All You Need Is Kill follows soldiers Rita (Ai Mikami) and Keiji (Natsuki Hanae) in a future in which a dormant alien flower named Darol awakens, causing creatures to slaughter everyone at the nearby base. But Rita soon realizes that when she dies, the day starts over. She lives, fights and dies — over and over — in an attempt to break the time loop. Made by Studio 4°C — the company that also worked on Masaaki Yuasa’s Mind Game (2004) — All You Need Is Kill uses a blended 2D/3D animation style accompanied with a bright color palette to bring a visual feast; the fight scenes are stylish and fast-paced, with the death loops edited into rapid-fire action sequences. The story will be familiar to fans of the Tom Cruise-starring Edge of Tomorrow, but it offers a new perspective and is drenched in a neon-flora aesthetic. KEN ARNOLD OPENING THURSDAY AT REGAL AND AMC LOCATIONS
[TRYING TO FIND A BALANCE]
THE WINTER CARNIVAL TOUR FEAT. ATMOSPHERE & MORE
Come over here, friends, and warm your cold hip-hop hearts by this fire lineup. 2025 was a good year to be an old-head, with new records from veteran performers sounding fresh and ferocious. The auto-correct-infuriating Jestures by Minneapolis duo Atmosphere was at the front of the pack, a double disc of well-seasoned rhymes and beats percolating with midlife energy like an early-afternoon cup of coffee. After 30 years, Slug and Ant are still finding new ways to explore sound on their own terms, having inspired entire branches of the hip-hop history tree while sounding more like themselves than ever. Atmosphere is joined on the Winter Carnival Tour, coming to Brooklyn Bowl Thursday, by underground lifers Kool Keith, Sage Francis and R.A. the Rugged Man, masterful performers all and some of the most continually fascinating personalities in the indie hip-hop community. SEAN L. MALONEY 8 P.M. AT BROOKLYN BOWL 925 THIRD AVE. N.
MUSIC
MUSIC
[GIVE UP THE GHOST]
FILM
THURSDAY / 1.15
MONDAY, JAN. 17
[ASCENSION]
COLTRANE 100: LEGACY It would be nearly impossible to
NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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[YOU’RE SO VANE]
CRISTINA VANE
While plenty of the great pickers around our fair Music City can hold their own on more than one instrument, no one is ripping on resonator guitar and banjo in quite the same way as Cristina Vane. We’re about a month shy of one year since she released her latest LP Hear My Call, which features guest appearances from such contemporary roots champions as Molly Tuttle and Bronwyn Keith-Hynes, not to mention production work by musician-abouttown Brook Sutton. While Vane’s considerable instrumental chops play a big role, she deftly blends mountain music, trad country, electric blues and a bit of rock in service of songs about looking back on romantic relationships that weren’t working. She’s especially eloquent about the deep kind of loneliness that creeps in when partners aren’t on the same page — hear “My Mountain” and “Whims of Good Men” for
[GOLDEN HOUR]
YOU GOT GOLD: A CELEBRATION OF JOHN PRINE
Concert documentary You Got Gold: A Celebration of John Prine considers the beloved late songwriter in a new light, centering less on the story of his life and more on his impact on the people around him. On and around the stage at a 2022 tribute concert at Prine’s favorite venue, the Ryman Auditorium, a stellar lineup reflects on his funny, kindhearted character: Tyler Childers recounts how Prine always carried around a Dairy Queen coupon in case it was someone’s birthday and he needed to get a cake, and Bob Weir remembers trying to dine vegan at Prine’s favorite greasy spoon, Brown’s Diner. It’s a heartwarming angle, interspersed with musical tributes like The War and Treaty’s powerhouse rendition of “Knockin’ Through Your Screen Door” and a Deadified “Great Rain” from Weir. As part of Music City Mondays and Nashville: A City on Film, You Got Gold holds court at the Belcourt for three showings this week — each with a conversation with Prine’s widow, Fiona Whelan Prine, to follow. Visit belcourt.org for showtimes. ANNIE PARNELL JAN. 16-19 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
[YOU NEVER MET A PAIR LIKE BUTCH AND THE KID]
WEEKEND CLASSICS: THE STING
Although they made only two movies together, Robert Redford and Paul Newman are remembered as one of the great duos of Hollywood superstar talent. By comparison, John C. Reilly and Will Ferrell have made three movies in which they were the stars. George Clooney and Brad Pitt have teamed up for six. Robert De Niro/Joe Pesci and James Franco/ Seth Rogen have each made seven. Yet the quality-over-quantity factor favors Redford and Newman. Following the success of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, which won four Oscars out of seven nominations, Redford and Newman reunited with director George Roy Hill for The Sting, a crime movie that was just as much fun as their first. Centered on a pair of Depressionera con men, The Sting is one of the truly great caper movies. The antagonist of the duo is an Irish American crime boss played flawlessly by Robert Shaw. Along with a ragtime soundtrack, a magnificent wardrobe and a plotline guided by silent-film-style title cards, the film creates a unique fantasy of the 1930s Chicago underworld. Winning seven of its 10 Academy Award nominations, The Sting is just as much an eternally captivating film as Butch Cassidy was four years prior. With three showings as part of the Belcourt’s Redford retrospective, The Sting is worth the effort to see on the big screen. For showtimes, visit belcourt.org. P.J. KINZER JAN 17 & 20 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
FILM
SUNDAY / 1.18
YOU GOT GOLD: A CELEBRATION OF JOHN PRINE
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[AFGHANISTAN BANANA STAND]
WEEKEND CLASSICS: THE HOT ROCK
One of the prime positives of the Belcourt’s Robert Redford retrospective is that it introduces audiences to hard-to-find films they’ve probably never seen or heard of before. The Hot Rock, which — as of this writing — is still not available on any streaming or VOD platforms, falls in that category. Bullitt director Peter Yates’ 1972 adaptation of pulp icon Donald E. Westlake’s 1970 comic novel features Redford
JAN. 18 & 20 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
MUSIC
SATURDAY / 1.17 FILM
some fine examples. Here’s your chance to catch Vane in her adopted hometown before she hits the road with Brennen Leigh. STEPHEN TRAGESER 8 P.M. AT SKINNY DENNIS 2635 GALLATIN PIKE
CRAIG D. LINDSEY
[SOMETHING ABOUT THE NIGHT]
DAN PENN & SPOONER OLDHAM
Although Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham are perhaps best known for their contributions to soul music, their achievement transcends the limits of genre. When I interviewed Penn for the Scene in 2020, he’d just released his first fully produced album in 26 years, Living on Mercy. As he told me then, “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.” With fellow Alabama native Dewey Lindon “Spooner” Oldham, Penn wrote “Cry Like a Baby” and “Fields of Clover” for the Memphis pop band The Box Tops. Meanwhile, the duo wrote the 1970 Clyde McPhatter song “Denver,” which I rank as one of pop R&B’s greatest moments. On their own, both Penn and Oldham have released fine albums, with Penn’s 1973 Nobody’s Fool and Oldham’s 1972 Pot Luck blending rock, pop and R&B. After reuniting in 1991, Penn and Oldham released a set of live performances, 1999’s Moments From This Theatre, which featured Penn’s impassioned singing and Oldham’s exquisite keyboard work. Sunday at City Winery, the great exponents of pop R&B play a rare show together — don’t miss it. EDD HURT 7:30 P.M. AT CITY WINERY 609 LAFAYETTE ST.
MUSIC
MUSIC
FRIDAY / 1.16
as prized Westlake creation John Dortmunder, a career criminal, newly released from jail, who assembles a team (George Segal, Ron Leibman and Paul Sand) to rob a rare stone from a museum. Actually, they steal it several times, as they learn how difficult it is to keep the gem in their possession. Complete with a score by the late legend Quincy Jones that’s as amusingly deadpan as the film itself, The Hot Rock is one of the funniest, most underrated heist films of the ’70s — and the best Westlake/Dortmunder adaptation. (What’s the Worst That Could Happen? could never!) And now local audiences will finally get a big-screen chance to see Redford in it. Visit belcourt.org for showtimes.
DAN PENN & SPOONER OLDHAM
FILM
overestimate the vast influence and legacy of jazz legend John Coltrane, who would have marked his 100th birthday on Sept. 23, 2026. The North Carolina native fundamentally revolutionized the saxophone, pushing musical boundaries and developing wildly innovative techniques. This weekend, fans can check out Coltrane 100: Legacy, featuring soloist Joe Lovano and the Nashville Symphony. Arranged and curated by acclaimed composer Carlos Simon, this new concert experience reimagines some of Coltrane’s most beloved works with fresh arrangements and rich orchestrations. Rising conductor Jonathan Taylor Rush will lead the orchestra, and Lovano (a Grammywinning saxophonist who, like Coltrane, is known for his fearless spirit and innovative style) will be on hand to present modern interpretations of Coltrane classics, along with a few new compositions that showcase the artist’s profound impact. The audience can also look forward to seeing a collection of personal photos from Coltrane’s all too brief but illustrious life and career. AMY STUMPFL JAN. 15-16 AT THE SCHERMERHORN 1 SYMPHONY PLACE
[THE DANCE FLOOR IS ALWAYS OPEN]
SUNDAY NIGHT SOUL FINAL SHOW
Over the past 12 years, the Sunday Night Soul showcase organized by Jason Eskridge and Cyd Blanchard has become a keystone for Nashville’s community of soul, R&B and gospel musicians and fans. That’s been crucial in a bustling music town with a history of indifference — and sometimes outright hostility — to our wealth of talented Black musicians and rich legacy in Black music. A superb singer and songwriter, Eskridge is a longtime Nashvillian who left a job as a mechanical engineer with NASA to come here and pursue music, and he launched Sunday Night Soul in a similar spirit to Lovenoise, around the time that organization shifted focus from hosting a vibrant weekly showcase in the Aughts to promoting huge concerts. However, the time has come for Sunday Night Soul to conclude — for reasons
NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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STAFF PICKS
nashvillescene.com
JAN 21
LEONARD SLATKIN’S HOLLYWOOD FEB 6 & 7
SPANO CONDUCTS BERNSTEIN Featuring Leshnoff & the Nashville Symphony Chorus
Classical Series presented by HCA Healthcare TriStar Health. Choral performances are supported by C.B. Ragland Company.
FEB 12, 13 & 15
Saturday, January 17
Saturday, January 24
SONGWRITER SESSION
SONGWRITER SESSION
Aaron Allen
Mark Irwin
NOON · FORD THEATER
NOON · FORD THEATER
Saturday, January 17
Sunday, January 25
PANEL DISCUSSION
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT
Behind the Seams
C. J. Lewandowski
With Holly George-Warren, Rebecca Seaver, and Steve Summers
1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
3:00 pm · FORD THEATER Sunday, January 18 MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT
Seth Costner 1:00 pm · FORD THEATER Saturday, January 24 FAMILY PROGRAM
Billy the Kid Makes It Big 10:00 am · FORD THEATER
Saturday, January 31 SONGWRITER SESSION
Carson Beyer NOON · FORD THEATER Sunday, February 1
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT
Bernie Leadon 1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
Make Your Pick. NashvilleSymphony.org
MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT
Linda Davis and the Scott Family 1:00 pm · FORD THEATER
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FATAI
JAN
ROW ONE
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65 NORTH PICKERS
JAN
ROW ONE
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BEACHMONT
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NOBIGDYL.
JAN
the mil
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BROADWAY RAVE
JAN
ROW ONE
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GASOLINA:
JAN
WITNESS HISTORY
2026
JANUARY
JAN
Sunday, February 8
JOHN DENVER: A ROCKY MOUNTAIN HIGH CONCERT CELEBRATION
ROW ONE
RAGGAETON RAVE THE MIL
Locals, Pay What You Want January 1 through 31, 2026, daily pay-what-you-want Museum admission is available for Nashville-Davidson and bordering counties, including Cheatham, Robertson, Rutherford, Sumner, Williamson, and Wilson.
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FULL CALENDAR
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TICKETS AVAILABLE AT WWW.CANNERYHALL.COM NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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not enumerated, but likely to include the demands of Eskridge’s sandwich shop Music City Sandwich Co. — but not without a grand finale set for Sunday. As of this writing, a reunion of dormant soul-and-funk aces Dynamo anchors the lineup, with more guests to be announced. STEPHEN TRAGESER
6 P.M. AT THE 5 SPOT 1106 FOREST AVE.
[THERE IS NO SPOON]
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION!: THE MATRIX
LOGAN BUTTS
MUSIC
7 P.M. AT THE FRANKLIN THEATER 419 MAIN ST., FRANKLIN [UNDER THE STARLIGHT]
BENMONT TENCH
Most people know Benmont Tench as the former keyboardist for Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, but he also is one of the most-recorded session players of the past 50 years. His session credits read like a who’swho of popular music and include Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr, The Rolling Stones, Brian Wilson, Stevie Nicks, Eurythmics, Roy Orbison, Elvis Costello, Bonnie Raitt and John Prine, to name just a few. But Tench is more than just a sideman — he’s also a songwriter of note, as he reminded us on his 2025 album The Melancholy Season. Tench brings his tour in support of The Melancholy Season to Nashville on Jan. 20 for a solo performance at City Winery, and while he has performed in Nashville with the Heartbreakers and appeared here in benefit and tribute concerts, the show will be his firstever in the city as a solo headliner. If an earlier leg of the tour is any indication, attendees can expect Tench’s set to include eight of the dozen songs from the new album, a couple from his first solo album and a healthy dose of covers, including a pair of songs from Petty and the
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Heartbreakers — “Straight Into Darkness” and “American Girl.” The set also will likely include interpretations of songs by Dylan, Chuck Berry, The Grateful Dead and The Velvet Underground. DARYL SANDERS 7:30 P.M. AT CITY WINERY 609 LAFAYETTE ST.
relaxed album by a master of modern guitar.
WEDNESDAY / 1.21
The 98th Academy Awards may still be a couple of months off, but the Nashville Symphony is going full glam on Jan. 21 with Leonard Slatkin’s Hollywood. Promising “a night of cinematic brilliance,” this program features some of motion pictures’ most moving and memorable melodies — including Erich Korngold’s The Sea Hawk Overture; Bernard Herrmann’s suite from Psycho; Alfred Newman’s theme from The Song of Bernadette; Miklós Rózsa’s Spellbound Concerto for Piano and Orchestra; Jerry Goldsmith’s “The New Enterprise” from Star Trek; John Williams’ The Cowboys Overture; Randy Newman’s suite from The Natural; Hans Zimmer’s The Dark Knight Orchestra Suite; and more. It’s a terrific program, and a perfect way to welcome back Slatkin — a six-time Grammy winner who served as Nashville Symphony’s music adviser from 2006 to 2009. He recently returned to the role to guide the organization, as the search continues for its next music director. Concertgoers are encouraged to dress for the red carpet — or perhaps just as a favorite film character. And there’s even a VIP option, which includes a meet-and-greet with Slatkin himself.
[LIGHT TOUCH]
AL DI MEOLA
In the annals of jazz fusion, guitarist Al Di Meola ranks as a master of the genre. Signed to Columbia Records during the heyday of Weather Report and the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Di Meola released the 1977 song “Race With Devil on Spanish Highway,” a highspeed, riff-heavy classic of the style. Di Meola’s early albums on Columbia — 1976’s Land of the Midnight Sun, 1977’s Elegant Gypsy and Casino, from 1978 — brim with invention and endlessly cool guitar licks. As well, Di Meola’s early solo records feature playing by such estimable figures as drummer Steve Gadd, bassist Jaco Pastorius and keyboardist Jan Hammer. Di Meola also made his mark as a member of one of the greatest jazz-fusion bands, Return to Forever, where his elegant approach — less abrasive than, say, John McLaughlin’s — helped define that band’s style. Now 71, Di Meola continues to play and record, and his 2024 album Twentyfour shows off his light touch on both acoustic and electric guitars on tracks like “Eden” and “Genetik.” The electric-guitar tracks on Twentyfour might remind you of the glory days of jazz fusion, but it’s a contemplative,
EDD HURT
7:30 P.M. AT CITY WINERY 609 LAFAYETTE ST. [SLATKIN’S BACK]
NASHVILLE SYMPHONY: LEONARD SLATKIN’S HOLLYWOOD
AMY STUMPFL
7:30 P.M. AT THE SCHERMERHORN 1 SYMPHONY PLACE
FILM
BENMONT TENCH
MUSIC
At risk of revealing how gigantic a nerd I am, I used to reenact The Matrix in my backyard with Nerf and water guns as a child. The movie completely rewired my brain (in a good way … not in the too-online red-pilled way), and using toys to reconstruct the legendary lobby shootout was the only way I could process it as a first-grader. The Wachowski sisters’ megablend of kung fu, anime, cyberpunk, Hong Kong heroic bloodshed, gender dysphoria, Alice in Wonderland, stoner philosophy and the base principles of half a dozen religions scrambled a lot more eggs than just mine. And it still feels like the future on every subsequent rewatch, no matter how many years it’s been. If you get the chance to see it on the big screen this time around, make sure to pay extra close attention to the opening chase sequence, when Trinity (Carrie-Anne Moss) is fleeing the agents across rooftops. If you look in the background of the otherwise Australia-shot opening scene, you’ll see a familiar Batman-esque skyscraper. Just remember to take your pills beforehand.
MUSIC
FILM
TUESDAY / 1.20
[TOKYO VICE]
THE RED SPECTACLES
Released in 1987, The Red Spectacles was the first celluloid entry in the Kerberos Saga, a dystopian franchise created by anime legend Mamoru Oshii (Ghost in the Shell) that spread across live-action/animated films, manga, radio dramas and more. It starts off as a futuristic sci-fi actioner, with a trio of armored cops taking out a bunch of bounty hunters, slo-mo Peckinpahstyle. After the opening credits roll, it turns into something else entirely — Alphaville by way of Seijun Suzuki. After being on the run from the government, a police detective (Shigeru Chiba) returns to Tokyo to fulfill a promise to his comrades. But the Tokyo of this movie is
THE RED SPECTACLES a strange one, a place where nothing and no one is what it seems — and you need to go to the bathroom a lot. Thanks to a crowd-sourced campaign that raised 59,336,002 yen ($377,769 in American dollars), this paranoid, surreal, extremely nutty neo-noir has gotten the 4K DCP restoration treatment and will be showing for all you local weebs at the Belcourt this week. Visit belcourt.org for showtimes. CRAIG D. LINDSEY JAN. 21-22 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.
NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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1.18
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DAN PENN + SPOONER OLDHAM
AN EVENING WITH
BENMONT TENCH
1.21 AN EVENING WITH
1.23
SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT
AL DI MEOLA
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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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SPICE UP YOUR LIFE! JAN 26 - FEB 1
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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
Follow Us @NashFoodWeeks
FOOD & DRINK
SCHMEAR CAMPAIGN
A yearlong Bagelshop collaboration series encourages local chefs to try their hand at signature cream cheese combos BY MARGARET LITTMAN
JANUARY COLLABORATION WITH WHITE LIMOZEEN: RASPBERRY ROSÉ AND WHITE CHOCOLATE SCHMEAR
LAST YEAR, Max and Kayla Palmer reached across the city and united cultures with their New Year, All Year chef collaboration series. Chefs with different backgrounds worked with them to make bagel sandwiches highlighting traditional foods and celebrating different New Year’s observances. As the collaborations were wrapping up, the couple realized they didn’t want them to end. So for 2026, the Palmers have launched Bagelshop & Friends: Spread the Love. Each month, the Donelson-based bagel restaurant will collaborate with a different restaurant partner or chef to create a limited-time schmear — lingo, as you hopefully know, for cream cheese or other spreadables on a bagel. The schmears will be available for the full month in take-home pints and served on bagels and sandwiches at Bagelshop, rather than just for a few days, as was the case with last year’s promotion. And unlike 2025’s New Year, All Year, they will also be available at the participating chefs’ restaurants. As all Tennesseans know, January includes what should be a national holiday — Dolly Parton’s birthday on Jan. 19. So the collaborations start with White Limozeen, the rooftop restaurant at the Graduate Nashville Hotel that sports a giant pink chicken-wire bust of Dolly. The
raspberry rosé and white chocolate schmear (described as a little extra glam, just like Dolly) will be paired with a Bagelshop bagel during brunch at White Limozeen and daily at Poindexter Coffee in the Graduate Nashville lobby in Midtown. “We were just like, ‘How Dolly can we get?’” Max says. “It’s bright pink, it’s going to be fun, it’s going to be glittery, it’s going to be really cool, and just like, it’s going to feel like a sandwich that Dolly Parton would eat.” The series includes both sweet and savory combinations. Following January’s sweet combo is another timely sweet option: king cake cream cheese created with The Gulch’s The Gumbo Bros. (Details still to come on whether there will be a baby hidden somewhere in a bagel with a schmear.) Because Bagelshop is a “choose your own adventure” kind of place, diners can try the special schmear on a suggested combo or build their own. “If you want to get this white chocolate raspberry on a spicy everything bagel, then all the power to you,” says Max. “I am never going to stop you, and I’m possibly going to encourage it, because I like craziness, and I know that some things just happen to work.” With New Year, All Year, the team was developing the initiative as they went along.
But now that they’re more experienced with collaborations, they’ve been able to plot out the whole year — although they’re keeping some of the announcements under wraps until later. One perk of the promotion is the opportunity to work with chefs the couples admire, Max says. March brings a chimichurri schmear in collaboration with East Nashville’s Turkey and the
PHOTO: CASEY MABRY
PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND
Bagelshop & Friends: Spread the Love Instagram: @bagelshopnashville
Wolf Icehouse, available on a special menu item that has yet to be announced. “People used to ask us, ‘What is your favorite restaurant you’ve ever been to?’” Max says. “Going back years and years ago, me and Kayla used to travel down to New Orleans all the time, just to go eat at Turkey and the Wolf. It’s been cool since they opened [in Nashville] to work with them. It’s crazy that they even know who we are!” Max considers the Turkey and the Wolf bologna sandwich one of his favorites. “I’m equally as excited that it’s happening. We’re getting to work with such awesome people that I respect so much in the community.” Max appreciates that many of the collaborators do what Bagelshop hopes to do: deliver elevated flavors without a fancy fine-dining experience. “To be able to work with Maíz de la Vida, [Julio Hernandez] is such a great chef, and I’ve always just been enamored with the work that he’s done, especially since he kind of started around the same time we did back COVID-ish,” Max says. “We were doing farmers markets at the same time, and it’s just crazy. He started doing tortilla sales at a farmers market and then built such an awesome brand for himself. It’s been so cool to see.” The Maíz de la Vida collaboration is in May, following East Nashville’s Butcher & Bee in April, which will likely include a twist on their uber-popular whipped feta. The first half of the year wraps up with East Nashville’s Frankies 925 Spuntino. Each collab is available for one month only. “You have a month to come and try it, and if you like it, you can continue to try it throughout the month,” says Max. “Once it’s over, it’s time for something new, and probably something completely different.” ▼
BAGELSHOP OWNERS MAX AND KAYLA PALMER NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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BOOKS
COVER ME OVER
The authorized biography of Justin Townes Earle paints a vivid portrait BY ANNIE PARNELL
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 15 The Factory at Franklin’s Liberty Hall / 1 - 4 pm
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JUSTIN TOWNES EARLE had a thing he called “the myth” — the name he gave to the pervasive, destructive idea that all good artists have to suffer. “I believed the myth for a long time,” he once said. “I believed that I had to destroy myself to make great art.” “The myth” is introduced early in What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome, the new authorized biography of the late, great roots musician by journalist and Rolling Stone senior research editor Jonathan Bernstein, out Jan. 13 via Da Capo Press. It recurs throughout: Justin wielded “the myth” as a persona, a self-aware story of redemption and recovery that played into his work. But Bernstein writes that he also “bore intimate witness to its curse.” It’s a fitting framework from which to consider an artist who wrestled with his relationship to addiction — as well as his own mythology, and that of his turbulent relationship with his father, fellow songwriter Steve Earle. The elder Earle, who was often absent during his son’s childhood, was a frequent subject in Justin’s songwriting. The 2012 album Nothing’s Gonna Change the Way You Feel About Me Now opens with the line “Hear my father on the radio.” “Mama’s Eyes,” an addict’s confessional from 2009’s Midnight at the Movies, repeats the refrain “I am my father’s son” but reframes it for “I have my mama’s eyes.” Steve, for his own part, sang from afar to Justin in “Little Rock ’n’ Roller” from his 1986 breakthrough album Guitar Town — and after Justin’s fatal overdose at age 38, in “Last Words” from his 2021 tribute J.T. Behind the stories they told about each other, there was a dynamic as intertwined as it was complicated — a push and pull not just between father and son, but between artist and artist, in conversation and at odds. What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome deftly considers the nuances of that relationship, dusting off the lore around it and eschewing easy descriptions to get to its heart. Bernstein does the same revelatory work with other legends whose lives intersected with Justin’s, painting a vivid portrait of an artist who until now has been shrouded in other people’s stories. There’s the mythology of Nashville, which changed drastically over the course of Justin’s lifetime, and where he started his career with the band the Swindlers — it’s also where he established fleeting friendships with Jason Isbell and David Berman. There’s the gospel of his namesake, Townes Van Zandt, which his father was instrumental in spreading, and the lives of musicians like Jimmie Cox who inspired Justin’s work. And of course, there’s the cautionary tale of the music industry, which caught up with Justin’s lifelong fascination with folk and the blues during the 2000s’ “stomp-clap” movement and the rise of Americana, but left him empty. Justin’s work was buoyed by an online landscape
of indie bloggers and CD sales, but both dried up with the rise of streaming and the decline of music media more broadly. By the end of his life, he was nearly constantly on tour. “Music has an ugly side,” he once wrote in his journal, “and it is the business.” Bernstein writes with empathy and resolve, illuminating each mythos with intimate entries like these, as well as interviews, unpublished lyrics, unreleased recordings and careful research — including some from the Scene’s own pages. Thorny topics like Justin’s mental health and sobriety and his lineage in the history of white musicians taking inspiration from Black music are explored gently and with grace. Bernstein considers Justin’s place in Nashville’s history through the development of Belmont-Hillsboro, where he grew up alongside the children of Vanderbilt professors and songwriters, and of Lower Broadway, which Bernstein explains became a “country-music amusement park” around the time Justin moved back to the city in the 2010s. “What Nashville means to me isn’t here anymore,” he told the magazine Songwriting at
the time. “It’s buried under a bunch of crap and trampled under the feet of a whole new population that has moved here from L.A.” And isn’t that, after all, the project of biography after death: to bring to light someone who isn’t here anymore, and show us a new way to see them? With What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome, Bernstein doesn’t just reflect on Justin Townes Earle’s legacy — he excavates it, and asks us to look again. ▼
What Do You Do When You’re Lonesome: The Authorized Biography of Justin Townes Earle By Jonathan Bernstein Da Capo Press 368 pages, $30 Release celebration: reading, signing and performances 5 p.m. Friday, Jan. 16, at Grimey’s
NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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spin_1-1
PET OF THE WEEK!
MUSIC: THE SPIN
WE DIDN’T START THE DUMPSTER FYRE LOCAL MUSIC FESTIVALS pop up like mushrooms in Nashville, and if you’ve lived here even a little while you’re aware that the music scene contains many noncountry offshoots. Put these two facts together and you have Dumpster Fyre Fest, a three-night event held this year at The Cobra in East Nashville. Organized by Corey Tucker of BadAsh Booking, Stephen Smith of Regdar and the Fighters, and Joseph Page of experimental art-rock band Vladopus9, DFF showcased some unusual and highly creative tendrils of Nashville music culture — as many as eight acts on each of its three nights — and raised funds for a different worthy local organization at each show. Thursday’s show supported Nashville Launch Pad, while Friday’s supported Thistle Farms. Saturday’s show, of which we caught all but the first two performances, benefited youth arts organization YEAH!, whose representatives manned a table at the venue. Glitch punks Regdar and the Fighters describe their work as “weird, energetic music for nerds and music lovers.” Regdar treated The Cobra’s front room to a set of songs fueled by electric bass and what looked like a Dance Dance Rev-
FIT FOR FIGHTIN’: REGDAR AND THE FIGHTERS
SPIRITUS DANK-TI: HOLY BONGWATER
PHOTOS: STEVE CROSS
BY H.N. JAMES
INCENDIARY: VLADOPUS9 olution controller pad on the floor. He used the pad as a MIDI controller, coming up with an innovative solution to being a one-person band at this show. That’s definitely in keeping with their “nerdcore” identity and themes in their songs. It can be hard to avoid country music tropes in Music City, but some of the best bands embrace the influence and go their own way with it. Country Death provided a country-fried bluesrock jam fest, with band members trading off lead vocal duties and vocal harmonies. Add in some guitar jams reminiscent of Matthew Sweet, and you have an amalgam of several Nashville country-rock styles. The hilarious duo of Holy Bongwater — whose Jace McLain and Julia Larson also operate indie label Needlejuice Records, home to Regdar and others — gave us parody songs to remember. One standout was about unsolicited photos of the male anatomy to the tune of “Sweet Dreams” by the Eurythmics; another was about celebrity crushes. Keyboards and electric guitar are their mainstay instruments, with the occasional acoustic or uke thrown in, as both members trade vocal duties.
Name: DROGO Age: 1 mo. Weight: 48 lbs. MEET DROGO! This sweet pup came to us in June at just 2 months old. Our team learned he had a rare congenital heart defect and then a toe injury that required extra care. Drogo is all about belly rubs, playing with his toys, and finding his routine with the people he loves. He knows sit, is potty-trained, has lived with dogs, and loves wrestling with his puppy playmates. Come meet Drogo at Nashville Humane and see if he’s the one who brings that smile home with you! Call 615.352.1010 or visit nashvillehumane.org Located at 213 Oceola Ave., Nashville, TN 37209
Perennial favorite Nashville band The Altered Statesman played a wonderful set of their soulful, mellow fusion of blues and rock. It’s uncommon to see a sax player as part of the usual mix of drums, bass, electric guitar and acoustic, but the Statesman weaves in this flowing, lyrical element to great effect. JayVe Montgomery of Abstract Black even made a guest appearance on the flute on their final song, a wandering and jazzy composition. It was clear that some festival attendees had come just for The Chewers, the duo of Michael Sadler and Travis Caffrey slinging their sludgy and sardonic electropunk songs. If you were a fan of recently shuttered DIY venue The Mouthhole, you know The Chewers and their absurdist humor. Electric guitar and drums with electronic tracks isn’t a unique combination of instruments, but The Chewers make it sound fresh and raw. While one attendee compared The Chewers to Swedish post-punks Viagra Boys, I was reminded of both Morphine minus the saxophone — perhaps due to Caffrey’s deadpan almost-spoken-word vocal delivery — and The Faint, which makes for an intoxicating combination. The aforementioned Vladopus9 ended the evening with a Swans-esque art-rock set. Vocalist Lisa Rau, guitarist Joseph Page and drummer Matt Bach started with a noisy, droning experimental composition with live looping vocal samples. The abrasive and dissonant beginning segued into a more lilting, continuous jam reminiscent of The Dirty Three but with a female voice. Vladopus9 clearly likes to change song structures and tempos to keep the audience on their toes, and to play with vocal and guitar effects. The back-and-forth flow between discordant and harmonious makes a pretty good metaphor for life: Sometimes you get the noise, sometimes you get melodious indie rock. Dumpster Fyre Fest reminds us of some important facts in tumultuous times and dark days. Music is for everyone, and there are many ways to make it. Creative expression and community still matter. And there are still ways to do good in the world on the local level when large world events feel crushing. ▼
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with JENNA LEVINE at PARNASSUS The Younger Gods FRIDAY, JANUARY 16 6:30 PM
JO SEGURA
with HANNAH BROWN at PARNASSUS The Lust Crusade SATURDAY, JANUARY 17 10:30 AM
SATURDAY STORYTIME
with WINSTON THE THERAPY DOG at PARNASSUS WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 21 6:30 PM
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with KARL DEAN & BILL PURCELL at PARNASSUS The Parks of Nashville SATURDAY, JANUARY 24 10:30 AM
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with ELIZABETH SHREEVE at PARNASSUS Ocean Journey: Animals in Motion Through the Seas FRIDAY, JANUARY 30 6:30 PM
GEORGE SAUNDERS
with ANN PATCHETT at MONTGOMERY BELL ACADEMY Vigil
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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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FILM
NEW TESTAMENT
Amanda Seyfried gives 100 percent in The Testament of Ann Lee BY JASON SHAWHAN
The Testament of Ann Lee R, 135 minutes Opening Thursday, Jan. 15, at the Belcourt in 35 mm
MONA FASTVOLD’S The Testament of Ann Lee is, without hesitation, one of the best films of 2025 — and it’s finally come to Nashville here in the front bit of ’26. It’s a biography, a legend, an illustration of the development of 18th-century Protestantism, and a searing example of what venues were available for a poor person of strong will to speak their very soul. The Testament of Ann Lee is also a musical, each of its numbers rooted in specific forms of experience and expression, each a kind of communion. It has always struck me as strange that some Protestant sects are afraid of dancing and/or music — these arts are of the divine. Anyone who has ever attended one can attest that there is nothing more dreary than a Church of Christ funeral — and it feels doubly noticeable that you’re required to steep in this vacuum of any emotion other than quiet regret. You don’t have to be a religious person to find the Ann Lee story fascinating. But if you are, or if you have held onto the capacity to knock it around in your brain, there’s something overwhelming about what writer/director Fastvold and her cast are enacting; at times a ritualized meditation, at times a church tract brought to life, but also at times a shout of rage and a Suspiria. We follow this young Mancunian woman (eventually played by Amanda Seyfried) through adversity and crisis, through the horrors of the world, into a spiritual flourishing. Spinning off from everyone’s favorite pacifists the Quakers, Ann Lee finds a transformative vision for her flock of Shakers, channeling the instincts of the body into dance and voice as a means of praise. Usually when religious fervor is depicted on screen, it’s either in a collective manner where large numbers amplify what we’re meant to be feeling and what’s being shown, or it’s a mania — sometimes it’s transcendent, sometimes it’s psychosis. But this is all about taking the carnal (embodied by Christopher Abbott at his most reptilian-brained and singleminded) and shunting it into kinesis. We experience the ecstasy of the Shakers through dance, and it’s a choice that makes perfect sense for cinema — the spiritual is made physical in an
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expressive and adaptive mode passed through each of the congregants. This isn’t empty, cold hierarchy radiating out from hundreds of eyes — this is something personal, and more importantly, something that can’t be faked just by tithing checks and ignoring tenets. The life of Ann Lee is a reaction to horror and injustice and circumstance; a life that thankfully could find a new path rather than being bound to the grinding mechanism of medieval tradition. It’s inspiring in a big-picture way, but also incredibly sobering when you stop to think about all the incredible thinkers and voices who were never able to escape the circumstances of being caught up in power structures they never had a chance of toppling and reworking. It’s a complex emotional experience when the Annapurna Pictures logo comes up at the beginning, because it’s been too long since we’ve seen it, but also because it’s representative of the one member of the Ellison family (Megan Ellison) not committed to fascist oligarchy. But if that signifies something to you (as a cinephile), it taps a very fallow point in the subconscious, allowing a lot to dig in and grow. There’s a moment when Lee and her ragtag congregation, upon arriving in America, are horrified by a slave auction, literally shouting shame at what is happening and the institution itself, and it is a staggering indictment of Right Now, because this feels gutsy. How far we’ve fallen — calling out the evils of slavery feels like such an uncharacteristically courageous declaration at this specific moment. Everybody likes to talk about how religious freedom is one of the tenets that the very idea of America is built on. It’s what drew the Shakers (along with many new sects that came up in the mid-18th century during the rise of Methodism) here, but it’s never quite that simple. It’s no surprise that the idea of “religious freedom” has been weaponized against anything and everything that runs against the orthodoxy of whoever is in power, but it is staggering that it’s been that way since the very beginning. This is quite the fascinating companion piece to The Brutalist (Fastvold’s last collaboration with her
romantic partner and co-writer Brady Corbet), as both are about the way America “welcomes” foreign visionaries and proceeds to take their distinctiveness for its own enrichment. Amanda Seyfried can do just about anything. She was in Mean Girls and Twin Peaks: The Return. I mean, she was on All My Children, and she starred in an Atom Egoyan psychodrama. As a performer, she is not typically bound by genre or content, and she gives 100 percent every time. In 2025 she gave us this transcendent, spiritual earthquake of a performance as well as the glorious operatic trash The Housemaid, and she’s presiding in both films. She digs deep into the historical texts of Ann Lee as well as the legends and ephemera, allowing this film to sort of be its own primary text and apocrypha at the same time. There’s stuff in here that will infuriate a lot of people. I can see some folks calling it blasphemous — it’s really just a question of how strong your faith is and whether you’re willing to do the emotional work. When you compare it to something grotesque like the Quiverfull movement, Shakerism and its proscription of sexual activity make sense (there’s some overlap with the dualist view of the 12th-century Good Christians here, tangling with the asceticism that had been percolating in Christian thinkspaces since the Byzantine Empire) — rather than bringing more and more lives into the world to suffer and die in separation from the divine, instead make a point to care for all those who are already here and could use the love and resources. Fastvold and her cast aren’t about making thought points — they’ve got a story to tell, a captivating one. But anyone who’s been horrified by what is continually done in the name of religion is going to find a lot here to grab hold of. There are times when a film is truly breathtaking, not in terms of overwhelming the viewer with spectacle or dopamine, but when something happens that overwhelms who you are and leaves you dazed on a cosmic scale, in a transformative state. And this film deserves all of the attention that, in a more hopeful world, it would rightly receive. ▼
NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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BACK OF THE BOOK
EDITED BY WILL SHORTZ
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ACROSS 1 Against 5 Greek goddess swallowed by her father and rescued by her future husband 9 Suisse peak 13 Spoils 14 Work of Bellini or Bizet 16 Stead 17 SEAL … SWAT… B … 19 Some ways off 20 Plane divider 21 English town known for its salt 23 Sustainable start? 24 Contraction that’s a homophone of 20-Across 26 Author Zora ___ Hurston 28 Utopia … 10 … ideal … 34 Warms up for a race, say 35 Columbus’s smallest ship 36 “No harm, no foul” 37 Bus. page news 38 Landing area in a long jump 40 Sign for cheap admission 41 Word with heavy or scrap 43 Slip (out), in a way 44 Cry over spilt milk? 45 Puff … Komodo … Smaug … 48 Take inspiration from 49 Quote from Homer 50 Cable staple since 1972 51 A replay might be seen in this 55 Echo starter 59 Prepares to throw 61 Fish … scuba … Army …
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DOWN 1 Alan of PBS’s “Scientific American Frontiers” 2 Wrapper at a Japanese restaurant 3 Steps up to, as the line 4 Right-leaning type 5 Super-trendy 6 Electrified Olympic weapon 7 Collect, as rewards 8 Huggers 9 In the style of 10 Something learned the hard way, often 11 Organization promoting international goodwill 12 Coin with 12 stars on it 15 Acting collectively 18 Un-solid-ify 22 Be worthy of 25 Sol’s sister 27 Toward the back of the boat 28 Big wheels in the Vatican? 29 Ray Charles’s first #1 R&B single (1954) 30 Hand sanitizer eliminates the need to do this 31 Quit 32 Art class staple 33 Abrupt endings, of a sort
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PUZZLE BY KEVIN CURRY
2022 book paying tribute to a 1960s rock legend 38 Narrow openings 39 Big Apple debut in 2010 42 This clue’s number, for the youngest U.S. president 34
“Lux-ur-ious!” 46 Nick of “Cape Fear” 47 Pan in the butt? 50 Cybersecurity concern 52 Electrical units 53 Maze runners, sometimes 44
9pm SONS OF STONE, JACOB KUHNS
$10 SHUR AT PMEXPERIENCE KEVIN FREEFREE T 64PM W HITEW AOLF NIMALS 2.3 2.1 9 PM C ROCTOPUSS , PUMP ACTION BLAZE $10 SAT 9pm RED CLARK, BIRCHWOOD & POPLAR CREEK 1.17 FRI 6PM WHITE ANIMALS FREE 2.2 SUN 2pm GUY BAND FREE SUN 4PMMELODY JAY PATTEN 2.4 1.18 4pm SPRINGWATER SIT-IN JAM SAT 4PM KEVINWOLF FREE 2.3 WED 7pm PMCW RITERS @ ,THE W ATER OPEN MIC 95PM ROCTOPUSS PUMP ACTION STAND-UP COMEDY OPEN MIC TUE 2.7 & POPLAR CREEKCORTNEY WARNER) (WITH YOUR HOST: 1.20 SUN 4PM JAY PATTEN BAND FREE 2.4 WED 5pm WRITERS AT THE WATER FREE! 115 1.2127TH AVE N. OPEN WED - SUN 11AM - LATE NIGHT 9pm FUNERAL DANCER $10 WED 5PM WRITERS @ THE WATER OPEN MIC
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Universal donor’s type, informally 56 Children’s author Blyton 57 Popular stick-figure webcomic 58 Quizzes 60 ___-cone 54
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New Zealand parrot whose name sounds like a Korean automaker
NashvilleScene.com lunch•happy hour•dinner
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ANSWER TO PREVIOUS PUZZLE C E D A R S A A B C C C P A G R A O R A L I L O S E M A R A T O O K N O T I C E P A L H E N R Y R I M S N I N E T I E S K I D U S E I N N S A O S E R T A A N I M A L S H I G H C A R A M E L D E L I T E MO S S P L E A T E D A R T G E O N E R D S O O H C R E E P I N G O U T I R S O N C E H O R A S C A R B O N D A T E O D O R U G L I T A L O N N E I L B E S T H Y D R A E D D Y 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.
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punkwoknashville NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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Marketplace
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COMMUNITY AMENITIES
Studio 79
3810 Gallatin Pike, Nashville TN 37216 studio79apartments.com | 855.997.1526
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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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NASHVILLE SCENE • JANUARY 15 – JANUARY 21, 2026 • nashvillescene.com
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