Nashville Scene 5-14-26

ANATOMY OF A GERRYMANDER

>> PAGE 7

ART: PHOTOGRAPHER

TAMARA REYNOLDS BEARS WITNESS TO ISOLATED COMMUNITIES

>> PAGE 26

PETER

STANDS STRONG ON CARRY THE LIGHT

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CHURCH and STATE

Downtown Nashville’s progressive clergy find purpose in their proximity to the Tennessee General Assembly

BY HANNAH HERNER

WITNESS HISTORY

This Song of the Year award from the Academy of Country Music was presented to Rick Hall of FAME Recording Studios in 1994 for his publication of John Michael Montgomery’s chart-topper “I Swear.”

From the exhibit Muscle Shoals: Low Rhythm Rising

artifact: Courtesy of FAME Recording Studios

artifact photo: Bob Delevante

NEWS

Anatomy of a Gerrymander

Amid fierce Capitol protests, Memphis loses majorityBlack congressional district and Republicans gain midterms advantage in quick special session

BY ELI MOTYCKA

Was Tony Carruthers Sentenced to Death Based on a False Narrative?

The idea that three victims were buried alive has persisted for decades despite expert refutations and doubt from the original medical examiner

BY STEVEN HALE, NASHVILLE BANNER

Pith in the Wind

This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

COVER STORY

Church and State

Downtown Nashville’s progressive clergy find purpose in their proximity to the Tennessee General Assembly

BY HANNAH HERNER

CRITICS’ PICKS

Brave New Works Lab, Tech N9Ne & E-40, Gallagher Music Festival, Moonrise Kingdom and more

FOOD AND DRINK

The Mane Attraction

In the former home of McCabe Pub, Lion’s Share brings country club comfort to Sylvan Park

BY ELI MOTYCKA

YONIC

The Nature of Things

When filling and emptying a house, more unites us than divides us BY CARRINGTON FOX

ART

Bearing Witness

Speaking with photographer Tamara Reynolds about her series Melungeon BY KATHLEEN HARRINGTON

MUSIC

Shine On

Peter Frampton stands strong on Carry the Light

BY DARYL SANDERS

More Than Words

Renée Fleming and Rod Gilfry illuminate Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz in The Brightness of Light BY AMY STUMPFL

The Spin

The Scene’s live-review column checks out Courtney Barnett at the Ryman BY H.N. JAMES

FILM

Splices

The Belcourt’s Milestones of the Last Quarter Century series anchors the theater’s upcoming film slate BY LOGAN BUTTS

Kind of Blue

Sophy Romvari’s debut feature Blue Heron is a refreshing take on the mental health family drama BY ANNIE PARNELL

NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD AND THIS MODERN

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ON THE COVER:

From left: the Revs. Travis Meier, Ingrid McIntyre, Austin Becton

Photo by Hamilton Matthew Masters; photo assistance by Eric England

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How do you find out what’s happening in your community?

When a school board rezones a neighborhood, local news is how families find out in time to respond.

When a health clinic opens, it’s how neighbors learn it exists.

When disaster strikes, it’s how people know where to go and what to do.

But that only works if the information is reaching people in ways that are useful.

We are asking residents across Middle Tennessee to share how they get local information and what may be missing.

ANATOMY OF A GERRYMANDER

TENNESSEE

TENNESSEE

TENNESSEE

TENNESSEE

BY ELI MOTYCKA

POLITICS HAS EARNED a reputation for slow and unwieldy changes. Laws, precedent and arcane rules of democracy calcified over centuries often require careful work and scrutiny to untangle. Last week, the Tennessee General Assembly proved it can work quickly under the right pressures — namely Republicans’ imperious leader President Donald Trump and Tennessee’s senior U.S. Sen. Marsh Blackburn, the state’s odds-on next governor — to slash through codified protections, statutory rules and arguments made by the GOP just a few years ago.

Shortly after the close of this year’s regular legislative session, Trump and Blackburn urged their fellow Republican, Gov. Bill Lee, to reconvene the legislature and redraw Tennessee’s congressional map — to redistrict Memphis and gerrymander the state out of its sole remaining Democratic seat in Congress. Lee did so in a matter of days.

“Before us is whether we think democracy is serious or not,” state Sen. Jeff Yarbro (D-Nashville) told Republicans in a committee meeting on May 7. “Citizens ought to be able to see what their district is, see if they got support, get signatures and qualify to represent their community and try to make their country better. This legislation turns it all into a game.”

Democrats’ many passionate and well-reasoned arguments about last week’s abrupt Republican-led redistricting process failed to stop the bills sponsored in each chamber by state House Speaker Cameron Sexton (R-Crossville) and Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin) that eliminated Memphis’ majority-Black congressional district. Throughout committees and floor sessions, Black legislators like Sens. Charlane Oliver (D-Nashville) and London Lamar (D-Memphis) and Reps. Justin Jones (D-Nashville), Antonio Parkinson (D-Memphis) and Justin Pearson (D-Memphis) made the racial consequences clear to white Republican leadership.

“It doesn’t matter what you pass, how you draw maps, you can do it any way you want to,” said Rep. Johnny Shaw (D-Bolivar), a Black minister who has represented West Tennessee since 2001, on May 7 — the session’s final day. “There’s a man that’s higher than all of us, and he’s looking down on us right now. Just remember that this old Black guy told you, before you leave here, that you are hurting nobody but yourself.”

Parkinson put words to his district’s existential frustration with the chamber’s longtime double standard against Memphis.

“Let Memphis secede from the state of Tennessee,” Parkinson said, directing his words at Sexton. “I’m dead-ass serious. You’re constantly beating on us, let us out.”

Waves of booming protesters delayed various committees, deliberations and votes, with Ten-

nessee Highway Patrol clearing chambers and arresting civilians. But Republicans easily commanded the votes at every turn. Sexton, often with organizational help from House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland), kept a full schedule of meetings for members of his ruling party in the session’s short 72 hours. Rankand-file legislators frequently spilled in and out of his sixth-floor office and conference room, saying little as the party organized its slate of votes. With no one to answer to, the GOP offered little in the way of explanation throughout the week, vaguely gesturing to population changes from the dais.

Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District, the state’s only congressional seat represented by a Democrat, was protected for decades under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 — a towering policy victory won by the civil rights movement. The Supreme Court gutted these protections in its April 29 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, tipping political dominoes that fell from the White House to Blackburn to Lee to the Tennessee State Capitol. Tennessee law, including one statute that explicitly prohibits mid-decade redistricting, proved flimsy obstacles repealed with little discussion in Republicans’ five-bill series. Lawsuits — led by the NAACP’s Tennessee chapter and candidates scrambling to adapt ongoing campaigns — have followed in state and federal courts.

Beyond the blatant dilution of Black voters’ political power, the special session risks voter disenfranchisement via its stunted timeline. Candidates have a matter of days to sort out paperwork. New ballots could spell a logistics disaster for county election commissions.

Having redrawn maps as recently as 2022 — when the Republican supermajority drew out Nashville’s congressional seat using 2020 U.S. Census data — lawmakers have now introduced another variable likely to stoke additional voter confusion in a state that consistently ranks near the bottom in election turnout. A federal lawsuit challenging the maps, filed by the Tennessee Democratic Party, throws Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti’s words back at him to make this point.

“Changing the rules on the eve of an election would wreak chaos upon the electoral process and would unnecessarily risk voter confusion and disenfranchisement of Tennessee’s military and overseas voters, causing irreparable harm to the Defendants and to the public interest,” Skrmetti argued just four years ago.

Republicans face slim odds to retain the U.S. House of Representatives in November, and Trump has leaned on his party to draw new districts in states with seats held by Democrats.

Tennessee’s three-day special session carved new political terrain that drew Memphis into

U.S. Congress

TENNESSEE

U S Congress

U.S. Congress

TENNESSEE

Amid fierce Capitol protests, Memphis loses majority-Black congressional district and Republicans gain midterms advantage in quick special session

TENNESSEE

Districts Adopted May 7, 2026

Districts Adopted May 7, 2026

U.S. Congress

TENNESSEE

Districts Adopted May 7, 2026

U S Congress Districts Adopted May 7, 2026

TENNESSEE

TENNESSEE

Districts Adopted May 7, 2026

U.S. Congress

U S Congress

U.S. Congress Districts Adopted May 7, 2026

U.S. Congress

TENNESSEE

Districts Adopted May 7, 2026

U S Congress

U.S. Congress

Districts Adopted May 7, 2026

Districts Adopted May 7, 2026

Districts Adopted May 7, 2026

TENNESSEE

U.S. Congress

Districts Adopted May 7, 2026

Districts Adopted May 7, 2026

three meandering districts, two of which stretch nearly to Davidson County, comfortable padding margins for Republican candidates from the Mississippi River to the Great Smoky Mountains. While two East Tennessee districts survived intact, population-balancing from cracking Memphis had additional effects on Nashville, now split into Tennessee’s 4th, 6th and 7th Congressional Districts.

“They really didn’t leave us anything,” state Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) muttered to herself, making sense of a vote-share spreadsheet from national Democratic analysts on dual monitors in her Cordell Hull office.

Down the hall, Pearson’s office was buzzing with staff, friends and family. Next steps fall on Democrats with the resources and vigor to campaign — like Pearson and Behn — despite lopsided numerical disadvantages across sprawling geography.

According to federal voting history, the six most competitive congressional districts now favor Republicans by between 10 and 20 percentage points when compared to voting in Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory — Democrats’ best showing in the past three statewide elections. Models put the new 9th Congressional District, which favors Republicans by 12 to 15 percentage points, as the state’s most competitive, followed closely by the new 5th Congressional District, where Behn competed in December’s special election to replace retiring Republican U.S. Rep. Mark Green. Democrat Chaz Molder, the clean-cut Columbia mayor who has raised seven figures for his congressional challenge primarily by slamming incumbent U.S. Rep. Andy Ogles, has joined court challenges to the new maps and vowed to continue his campaign. Nothing has united Democrats like the special session. During one particularly powerful floor protest, House representatives — some of whom spent the year clashing — actually joined arms. As soon as he announced a primary chal-

“

“LET MEMPHIS SECEDE FROM THE STATE OF TENNESSEE. I’M DEADASS SERIOUS. YOU’RE CONSTANTLY BEATING ON US, LET US OUT.” —REP. ANTONIO PARKINSON (D-MEMPHIS)

lenge to reigning U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen — a Democrat who has represented Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District since 2007 and claims nearly 50 years in Tennessee politics — Pearson began reshaping the state’s Democratic Party. Now co-plaintiffs on a federal lawsuit against the new districts, the two had promised a generational clash that would showcase key divisions in a party that has struggled to find unity. Cohen showed off his ample rhetorical skill as Democrats’ invited guest during special session hearings. But in a gold Vanderbilt baseball cap in the tunnel between Cordell Hull and the state Capitol, Cohen, 76, paced slowly with the aid of a cane, stopping every few steps to greet a familiar face. Republicans’ appetite has forced rapid change in the state that will likely end his long political career one way or another. Southern Democrats are already rethinking large-scale party strategy to meet the moment’s new challenges. Real questions linger about how rural and suburban voters will use their outsized voting power in Tennessee and whether any candidate can chart a popular path across hundreds of miles against an unpopular president and unpopular policies in just a few months. ▼

WAS TONY CARRUTHERS SENTENCED TO DEATH BASED ON A FALSE NARRATIVE?

The idea that three victims were buried alive has persisted for decades despite expert refutations and doubt from the original medical examiner

This story is a partnership between the Nashville Banner and the Nashville Scene. The Nashville Banner is a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization focused on civic news. Visit nashvillebanner.com for more information.

ON APRIL 26, 1996, after securing the convictions of James Montgomery and Tony Carruthers for a triple murder, Shelby County prosecutors asked jurors to sentence the men to death. In making the case that the murders were “heinous, atrocious and cruel,” they highlighted a medical examiner’s grim testimony that the three victims — Marcellos Anderson, his mother Delois and Anderson’s teenage friend Frederick Tucker — had been buried alive in a North Memphis cemetery.

“If these murders don’t qualify for the death penalty, then none ever will,” then-prosecutor Bobby Carter told the jury, according to a report in the Commercial Appeal. “If you want to know or have an idea what it’s like to suffocate, just hold your breath for 30 or 45 seconds. We can never know how Delois and Marcellos and Frederick felt.”

After deliberating over what another prosecutor had described as “horrible, almost unmentionable, haunting facts,” the jury gave Montgomery and Carruthers three death sentences each.

But in the decade that followed the trial, as post-conviction litigation played out in the courts, testimony from other forensic experts cast serious doubt on those supposed facts. Now, with the state set to execute Carruthers on May 21, his attorneys are arguing not only that forensic testing might prove his innocence, but that his death sentence was based on an inflammatory falsehood.

“The notion that the victims were buried alive is false and a myth propagated by the state at trial to secure a conviction at any cost and the most harsh punishment possible,” Amy Harwell, one of Carruthers’ attorneys at the Federal Public Defender’s office, tells the Nashville Banner in a statement.

“Since those myths have been debunked and the truth has come to light,” she adds, “two jurors have said that had they known that the victims were not buried alive they would not have voted for death.”

Still, the idea that the victims were buried alive has continued to be printed in court filings and news stories related to the case.

It’s part of what attorneys have portrayed in court filings and a clemency petition presented to Gov. Bill Lee last week as a perfect storm all but guaranteed to produce

BY STEVEN HALE, NASHVILLE BANNER

unjust outcomes. Carruthers’ profound mental illness, they’ve said, led to him running off six attorneys ahead of his trial and then presenting a disastrous defense when he was forced to represent himself. His codefendant Montgomery was granted a new trial in 2000 after an appeals court ruled the two men should have been tried separately. He pleaded guilty in exchange for a 27-year sentence and was released from prison in 2015. But Carruthers remained on death row.

Harwell argued to a judge in Memphis in March that Carruthers is gripped by psychotic delusions about his case and so mentally ill that he is not legally competent to be executed. The judge ruled that he is, and the issue is under appeal. Meanwhile, the American Civil Liberties Union is arguing in state and federal courts that fingerprint and DNA analysis on previously untested evidence could prove Carruthers’ innocence. The original trial did not include any physical evidence connecting Carruthers to the murders.

In a clemency presentation to the governor’s legal counsel last week, Harwell’s case for mercy touched on those issues but also sought to emphasize the reasons to believe that Carruthers’ conviction and death sentence resulted from a fundamentally unfair trial. One of those, according to Carruthers and his attorneys, is the state’s reliance on a witness who later recanted his testimony and was recently revealed to have been a confidential informant.

Another is the narrative that the victims were buried alive. In Carruthers’ clemency petition, his defense team explained its significance. In the Tennessee Supreme Court’s analysis of the proportionality of Carruthers’ death sentence in 2000, they wrote, the court used the phrase “buried alive” three times.

But at a post-conviction hearing in 2005, Dr. Cleveland Blake testified that he’d reviewed the evidence from the case in 1996 at the trial court’s request and concluded that the victims were dead before they were buried. He had been available to state that during the trial, but Carruthers — representing himself and focusing on the case for his innocence — never called him to testify.

“That is, the mentally ill defendant who was sanctioned with the loss of counsel, was then faulted for failing to understand that Dr. Blake’s testimony could save his life,” Carruthers’ defense team wrote in the clemency petition.

Blake’s conclusion was echoed by Dr. George Nichols, another forensic pathologist, who testified that he found no evidence to show that any of the three victims were alive when they were buried.

Then, in 2007, the medical examiner who had originally introduced that idea — the late O.C. Smith, whose career had ended in a bizarre scandal years earlier — filed an affidavit in court stating that he could no longer stand by that opinion. He added that he believed his reassessment had led to the plea deal that got Montgomery off of death row.

Despite all that, news stories published as recently as last week have stated as fact that “all three victims had been kidnapped, shot and then buried alive under another person’s grave.” Recent court filings from the Tennessee attorney general’s office have done the same, albeit with a footnote citing evidence presented at the original trial. Asked why the state continues to include that dubious detail, AG press secretary Phil Buehler points to a district court’s opinion stating that “Smith’s affidavit does not demonstrate that the testimony was either false or not Smith’s opinion at the time when it was presented.”

It was nevertheless presented, however, to the jury that sentenced Carruthers. And two of those jurors have since said it was the main factor in their decision.

“Had I known that the victims were not buried alive,” one said in a signed declaration, “I would have not voted for a death sentence.”

This article first appeared on Nashville Banner and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. ▼

Last week’s Metro Council meeting (pushed back two days to accommodate May 5’s Metro primary elections) took place just hours after state legislators hastily redrew voting maps to split up Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District during a special session. Many councilmembers had spent time at the Capitol throughout the week, and at Thursday’s meeting, the council brought renewed focus to local politics. The body advanced legislation related to permitting for sidewalk signage, fostered a truce regarding privately installed wooden benches throughout the city, and fleshed out details of a new Midtown Central Business Improvement District, which is drawn around parts of Demonbreun, Division and (upper) Broadway and will oversee a slight property tax fee that will fund additional beautification and policing.

Writes Scene opinion columnist Betsy Phillips the state’s Republican supermajority did as it was told by President Donald Trump and U.S. Sen Marsha Blackburn last week: They gerrymandered Memphis But then they were shocked and outraged by the protests that ensued. “Just to be clear, carving up Memphis because an adjudicated rapist, convicted felon and pal to pedophiles tells you to, as Trump did, is apparently becoming of a state legislator. But being grossed out and pissed off is not.” She continues: “Simping for Trump works only for as long as Trump remains popular in Tennessee. And I’d want to know how many acres farmers will be planting this spring and how high gas prices are going to go before I’d bet on Trump’s popularity being unshakable.”

Almost immediately after Gov. Bill Lee signed into law legislation passed during last week’s special session on congressional redistricting, the NAACP’s Tennessee chapter filed a lawsuit against Lee and the Tennessee General Assembly seeking to void redistricting. The lawsuit alleges that the special session proclamation by the governor did not “specifically” state the call to change a statute that would prohibit late-decade redistricting or mention residency requirements for elections. And on Friday afternoon, the Tennessee Democratic Party filed its own lawsuit in the U.S. District Court of Middle Tennessee. A statement from TNDP chair Rachel Campbell reads, in part: “We are outraged that Governor Bill Lee and Tennessee Republicans are attempting to roll back generations of civil rights progress in just three days through a redistricting scheme designed to unlawfully silence Black voters.”

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CHURCH and STATE

Downtown Nashville’s progressive clergy find purpose in their proximity to the Tennessee General Assembly

BY HANNAH HERNER | PHOTOS BY HAMILTON

THE HARDEST PART of the Rev. Ingrid McIntyre’s work at the state legislature is the opening prayer.

State lawmakers take turns nominating a pastor to pray before each House and Senate floor session at the Tennessee General Assembly. And often, says McIntyre, that prayer is at odds with the legislation discussed afterward.

“This is my love language,” McIntyre says of prayer “This is the language I use to live my life, and you are hijacking it to use it as a weapon for your ideals, and that is not what they are there for.

“They’re voting for this thing that is gonna rip children away from their parents,” she continues, referencing the state’s draconian immigration laws, “and that doesn’t really align with what I heard in your prayer this morning.”

McIntyre and many of the state’s legislators share a religion: Christianity. She and one lawmaker, Sen. Bill Powers (R-Clarksville), even share a pastor — McIntyre’s own father. But their interpretations of their faith have put them on opposite sides of the aisle, and the aisle is widening.

When the Tennessee General Assembly is in session, after leading Glencliff United Methodist Church on Sunday, McIntyre typically spends the rest of her week at the state Capitol. Ever-present in the halls and at meetings, she has been heckled by representatives who call her “father” when she wears her clerical collar. They’ve said “nice scarf” in reference to her liturgical stole. She’s even been accused of being a paid protester. “Have you seen my bank account?” she asks. She’s also been removed from the Capitol chambers for interjecting during the proceedings, but she always comes back.

“That’s the thing that I really feel called to, is to be a witness here — a witness who inserts their thoughts every once in a while,” she says. McIntyre works with the Southern Christian Coalition, a grassroots group of progressive pastors focused on political engagement. Locally,

there’s overlap between SCC and the Nashville Downtown Church Collective, a 2023-formed group of pastors operating downtown churches. For many of them, their proximity to Capitol Hill makes the legislature part of their responsibility as pastors. These progressive pastors share a goal: showing that Christianity is more than the conservative viewpoints common among Tennessee’s Republican supermajority.

STATE REP. JOHNNY GARRETT (R-Goodlettsville) — one of the sponsors of this year’s legislation requiring local governments to work with ICE — is a member of Long Hollow Church, part of the Southern Baptist Convention. House Majority Leader William Lamberth (R-Portland), who sponsored legislation criminalizing the act of simply existing in the state as an undocumented immigrant, lists himself as a Baptist too.

The state Senate’s co-sponsor for both bills, Senate Majority Leader Jack Johnson (R-Franklin), references his faith in campaign materials.

The Rev. Austin Becton with the Southern Christian Coalition had hoped that immigration would not be a hot topic at the Capitol during this year’s recently concluded legislative session. The Tennessee General Assembly has focused on banning abortion, increasing access to guns and stifling the rights of trans people — things that, he notes, aren’t explicitly mentioned in the Bible. Immigrants are mentioned in the Good Book, however — they’re referred to as “strangers,” “aliens,” “sojourners” or “foreigners” in different translations. The directions are clear, says Becton: Care for them.

“At least biblically, it’s crystal-clear,” Becton says of the Bible’s view on immigration. “I’m sitting here dumbfounded today listening to rhetoric of some conservative faith leaders. How are you justifying this?”

When they’re not at the Capitol, Becton and McIntyre — among other clergy members — accompany immigrants visiting the Department

MATTHEW MASTERS

of Homeland Security for routine immigration check-ins. They collect contact information and offer to store people’s belongings, bearing witness to circumstances in which people have been abducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

If he had taken another path, Becton says he might even have shared the viewpoints of his more conservative counterparts. He was poised to take over the Pentecostal church he grew up in after his father retired. It was a very conservative community, and he felt its ire when he began to question the congregation’s views. “Why doesn’t pro-life include capital punishment?” he remembers asking.

“To watch the venom that came from that little statement was the beginning of a wakeup call for me,” Becton tells the Scene. “Because I was like, ‘Why are you getting so angry over really just trying to say, how do we value the dig-

nity of human life?’”

He transferred to the Anglican church, starting a successful parish in Nashville in 2020. In June of last year, in honor of Pride Month, he posted an essay online criticizing Christian churches’ treatment of LGBTQ people. That caught the attention of his higher-ups, Anglican bishops. Rather than facing a disciplinary ecclesiastical trial, as it’s known in the church, Becton opted to resign. He’s now working to transfer to the Episcopal Church, known for its full inclusion of LGBTQ individuals.

Like the sponsors of this year’s anti-immigration legislation, the Rev. Royal Todd — associate clergy at First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill — is a Baptist too. His views, however, differ greatly from those of Garrett and Lamberth. (When writing about their church, members of First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill are careful to use its full name. Stop before “Capitol Hill” and read-

ers may mistake it for its deeply conservative Southern Baptist Convention counterparts — including Nashville First Baptist Church less than a mile away.)

“Over and over again, from Genesis to Revelation, God asks of us, be mindful of how you treat the stranger, because you were once the strangers,” Todd says. “Over and over again. That’s a thread that nets the gospel together. So I think there’s a strong biblical foundation for not just tolerating, but welcoming immigrant populations.”

The Nashville-based Southern Baptist Convention has been hit with many lawsuits — including suits alleging sexual abuse — in recent years. It’s a topic that Tennessean reporter Liam Adams has reported on extensively. The denomination also recently removed churches from SBC membership because they had female ministers. Additionally, the SBC does not ordain or allow marriage for LGBTQ individuals. Even so, it’s the largest Protestant denomination in the country. A Pew Research study published in 2025 found that 4.4 percent of U.S. adults are Southern Baptist. The second-largest Protestant group is United Methodists at 2.2 percent of U.S. adults.

First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill was the first Black Baptist church in the state to ordain a woman. Its founder Nelson Merry, who was formerly enslaved, was incarcerated in the late 1800s because he illegally ordained a marriage between an interracial couple. The church is part of the historically Black National Baptist Convention, as well as American Baptist Churches and Progressive National Baptist Convention. The church has hosted civil rights leaders on its grounds, including Diane Nash, Martin Luther King Jr. and even Frederick Douglass.

LGBTQ members are welcome at FBCCH.

“We are the Baptists that aren’t interested in what happens in the bedroom,” quips the Rev. Shane B. Scott, who began leading the church in 2024. At the 150th anniversary of FBCCH in 2016, the church had a joint worship service with its SBC counterparts Nashville First Baptist Church. But that wouldn’t happen today.

“I made it very clear that we cannot be in relationship if you are insistent upon supporting the policies of Donald Trump,” Scott says of Nashville First Baptist. “I have nothing to do with you.”

Scott has frequented the nation’s capital for political actions during his tenure as a pastor. He displays a photo of himself with late Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain in his office, taken the day before the politician voted to preserve the Affordable Care Act in 2017. The ACA has since been gutted by the Trump administration.

Scott notices a difference in Republican politics compared to just two years ago, when he prayed during the legislative session.

“These men and women have been given the weighty task of speaking and working for the people of the state of Tennessee,” he prayed at the time. “Their responsibility isn’t to just some people, but they have a responsibility to all people. And so God, I come today lifting them up to you that you would have mercy on them.”

“At least biblically, it’s crystal-clear. I’m sitting here dumbfounded today listening to rhetoric of some conservative faith leaders. How are you justifying this?”

—THE REV. AUSTIN BECTON, SOUTHERN CHRISTIAN COALITION

Emphasizing “all people” was an indictment, but also an admission that we all need grace, Scott says. Since then, he says, “Their fear of Donald Trump has made them unreasonable.”

“I think that there are some good people on the other side of the aisle, but they’re scared of this man, and as a result, he is playing them like a puppet.”

Trump’s deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller collaborated with the Tennessee General Assembly’s Republican leaders on this year’s slate of anti-immigration legislation. The president has seen overwhelming support from white evangelical groups — he has a 72 percent approval rating among the group, according to Pew Research Center data.

THE MOST VISIBLE markers of a progressive church: ordaining women and LGBTQ clergy, as well as allowing LGBTQ parishioners to be married in the church. Evangelical Protestants tend to lean right politically and are more socially conservative, while mainline Protestants — also known as modernist Protestants — are more socially and politically liberal.

Christians also separate themselves in the way they interpret the Bible. One common difference between progressive and conservative Protestant groups is how literally their church leaders interpret the Good Book.

The Rev. Travis Meier of First Lutheran Church in downtown Nashville does not consider the Bible to be infallible.

He defines progressive viewpoints of the Bible through answering the following with a yes:

CLERGY MEMBERS ON THE FIRST DAY OF THE 2026 LEGISLATIVE SESSION

“Can we be OK with difference? Can we struggle with the world not being black-and-white? Can we sit in the uncomfortable gray areas of life?

Can we be OK with not having the answers to questions?”

Having studied the Bible in several languages, Meier acknowledges that it has contradictions, and as a historian, he also includes historical context. For example, marriage is defined in several contradicting ways in the Bible — a fact that is relevant to efforts to ban LGBTQ marriage in Tennessee this year.

“I take my little sign of eight biblically sanctioned visions of marriage and say, ‘Which of these eight are you talking about?’” says Meier, a member of the Southern Christian Coalition and founder of the Nashville Downtown Church Collective. “A committed relationship today shouldn’t be judged on the social paradigms of seventh century B.C. Assyria. Are we going to base our sexual ethics on a 2,600-year-old understanding of human relationships?”

Progressive pastors also express a shared concern about the rise of Christian nationalism — an ideology positing that America was founded as a Christian nation and should remain so today, and its laws should be based on Christian values.

“It’s a narrow view that says, ‘This is all for me, and you’re not a part of it unless you believe what I believe, say what I say, look like me, act like me, do what I say,’” says Meier. “‘If not, you’re either gone, or we’re gonna enslave you, or we’re just gonna get rid of you completely,’ which is unfortunately a history that Christianity itself has to reckon with the damage it’s done historically.”

While the Rev. Zach Sasser with Downtown Presbyterian Church frequents protests, vigils and other political actions, he’s taken to starting his Sunday sermons with a bit of fluffy good news.

“Sometimes the role of the church is to just help everybody breathe and have some space and then have the moral framework so they can go back out and engage where they’re capable,” Sasser says.

One of the roles of a Christian, Sasser says,

is to try to bring heaven to earth. To make it more heaven-like here, he says, laws should be fair, people should be treated well, and they shouldn’t have to worry about where their next meal is coming from or whether they have access to housing. It’s part of a repeated refrain from pastors featured in this story — it’s most important to care for people on the margins of society.

“What I see in the elected representatives is a need for power and control, and some of them probably … feel like there are bad things in the world and they want to fix it, and the way they can do it is through garnering power and controlling it,” Sasser says. “I also think there are a lot of people who just want to be in control.”

LIKE THE LEADERS of First Baptist Church, Capitol Hill, the Rev. Stephen Handy of McKendree United Methodist Church wants to take a page from Martin Luther King Jr. and other leaders of the civil rights movement. It’s why in 2023 he marched silently as religious leaders carried seven caskets to the Capitol in honor of the victims of the Covenant School shooting. Handy says that when you disrupt the flow of capitalism, that’s when you’ll really get the attention of the powerful.

“We’re pointing fingers, and we’re screaming and yelling, and he didn’t do that,” Handy says of MLK. “People get caught up in the emotions of the event, so they then walk away and I say, ‘What was accomplished?’ So you let your anger out. You’re just gonna go back and watch more television, right? You’re gonna rebuild that anger.”

Outside of political demonstrations, Handy also regularly visits divinity school classmate and pastor of Lee Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church — his friend, state Rep. Harold Love (D-Nashville).

One of the more tenured downtown pastors, Handy has been putting his focus lately on bringing the church to people downtown. They’ll host live music on the rooftop of the church’s Christian Life Center and plan to offer a community meal on Church Street in the future.

“A committed relationship today shouldn’t be judged on the social paradigms of seventh century B.C. Assyria. Are we going to base our sexual ethics on a 2,600-yearold understanding of human relationships?”

—THE REV. TRAVIS MEIER, FIRST LUTHERAN CHURCH

“We want to simply gather, because we know food brings people together,” Handy says. “We also know preaching can irritate people.”

Thanks to Meier’s latest efforts and a grant from Project Thrive — a program developed by the Curb Center for Faith Leadership at Belmont University — the Nashville Downtown Church Collective is in lockstep more than ever, meeting once monthly. They want to put their large buildings to good use, including for the city’s unhoused population. They offer meals and a clothing closet at McKendree, and nonprofit social enterprise The Contributor is housed at Downtown Presbyterian Church. While all the congregations deal with expensive repairs in aging buildings and need income in addition to congregation tithing, part of the ethos of the Nashville Downtown Church Collective is this: If we’re all just trying to survive, why compete anymore? All of the churches share a staunch belief that they need to be downtown, to bear witness to everything that happens there.

“I tell people we cannot afford to lose our witness in downtown Nashville,” Handy says. “We can relocate tomorrow. I get a call about every

other month. People want [to buy] this space, and I get it. But do we need another high-rise in downtown Nashville?

“We need to build communities that are beloved, which means that they’re diverse, they’re equitable, they’re intentional, they look like the kingdom of God. So as long as I’m here, we’re not going anywhere.”

Some days when the Tennessee General Assembly is in session, McIntyre is one of just a few clergy members at the Capitol. Full-time clergy like herself do have a lot on their plates, she acknowledges. But Southern Christian Coalition members hope more will join them in person. She also points out that “Southern Christian” may be a vague term, but it challenges a common assumption — the group’s name illustrates that Southern Christianity and conservatism don’t always go hand in hand.

“The call is, at least for me, to do something outside of the four walls of the church building,” says SCC’s Becton. “We’re in a place where if faith leaders don’t think they need to be engaged right now, there’s a problem.” ▼

Visit

THROUGH SEPT. 6

[ALL ABOARD]

HISTORY

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL: NATIONAL PARKS & LANDMARKS BY RAIL

When it comes to summertime attractions in Nashville, strolling the gardens and exhibits at Cheekwood with your beverage of choice is always a good option. This summer’s must-see showcase is America the Beautiful: National Parks & Landmarks by Rail, a model train exhibition featuring more than 850 feet of track and 25 national landmarks, with 10 trains weaving throughout Cheekwood’s Color Garden. The landmarks were handcrafted from natural materials by Northern Kentucky-based artists Applied Imagination, the same designers who created Cheekwood’s permanent TRAINS! display. The 25 landmarks include iconic structures like the Golden Gate Bridge (a true standout in the exhibit) and the Statue of Liberty, and lesser-known locations like the John Muir House. There’s even a Volunteer State section featuring beautiful renditions of the Ryman, Graceland and a trio of East Tennessee stops: Cable Mill, John Oliver Cabin and Little Greenbrier School. Visit cheekwood.org for hours and ticketing information. LOGAN BUTTS

THROUGH SEPT. 6 AT CHEEKWOOD ESTATE & GARDENS

1200 FORREST PARK DRIVE

THURSDAY / 5.14

THEATER

[BLEEDING ME DRY] NASHVILLE REP: BLOODSUCKINGLEECH

Nashville Rep is wrapping up its season with a bold new play — and the launch of an exciting new initiative called Ingram New Works: Next Stage. Designed to move standout plays from the Ingram New Works Project further along in their development, Next Stage builds on the success of a staged reading with “an enhanced production.” Audiences can expect minimal design elements, but rest assured, this is a fully realized staging and performance featuring a slew of top talent. The new program kicks off this weekend with Amy Tofte’s highly anticipated BloodSuckingLeech. First presented as a staged reading in 2024, this dark comedy follows “a woman desperately trying to shield her aging mother from online scammers, only to find herself caught in a web of paranoia, guilt and unexpected hilarity.” Beki Baker is back to direct a stellar cast, including Rona Carter, Shannon Hoppe, Meggan Utech and Megan Murphy Chambers. Plus, there will be a post-

show talkback with the playwright following each performance. AMY STUMPFL MAY 14-17 AT NOAH LIFF OPERA CENTER 3622 REDMON ST.

[IN THE LAB]

THEATER

BRAVE NEW WORKS LAB

OZ Arts Nashville is widely known for hosting world-class artists. This season alone, the contemporary arts center has welcomed performances from France, Chile, Spain, Japan and South Africa. But with the return of its annual Brave New Works Lab, OZ shifts its focus, opening the door to some of Middle Tennessee’s most daring artists. It’s a fantastic program that encourages “multimedia experimentation and collaboration across disciplines.” This year’s lineup features a really exciting blend of fresh contemporary dance and performance art. First up, Eboné Amos (in collaboration with musician Alex Dolezal and singer O’Neal Black) will examine Black radical imagination through two very different forms — traditional spirituals and Afro-contemporary movement. Lenin Fernandez also has created a large-group dance piece that “utilizes the imagery of water as a tool for exploring aging, grief and memory.”

Jennie Liu and Andrew Gilbert will make their Nashville debut with “an electro-futuristic chamber operetta,” featuring indie darling Hannah Dorfman. And local dance favorite Amanda Reichert teams up with playwright Emmalee Manes to create a cheeky new dancetheater work that “explores the complex interior of an author’s imagination.” AMY STUMPFL MAY 14-16 AT OZ ARTS

6172 COCKRILL BEND CIRCLE

FRIDAY / 5.15

MUSIC

[SOMETHING IN THE WAY] THE SMOKING SECTION

Fans of old-school R&B and funk are in for a treat Friday night when session supergroup The Smoking Section returns to 3rd and Lindsley. “We’re going to do a gamut of tunes that range from Chaka Khan and Stevie Wonder to Earth, Wind & Fire and Tower of Power — some of the fun tunes from the ’70s and ’80s,” guitarist Tom Hemby tells the Scene. “We’ll play two sets — usually an hour-and-15-minute set, then we’ll take a 15-minute break and do another hour-and-15 or so.” The group featuring top Nashville session musicians and singers was founded in 2009 by keyboardist Tim Akers, who loved horn-driven R&B, and has continued to perform after Akers passed away in 2021.

that look like they could actually take you to space, plus a selection of historic racing vehicles. There will also be a vendor hall, kids’ activities, the Nitro Thunderfest dragster exhibition, Q&As and autograph sessions with current and future legends of the scene (names to be announced), and a ton of Nashville music, including bluesman Stacy Mitchhart. STEPHEN TRAGESER MAY 15-16 AT THE FAIRGROUNDS NASHVILLE

625 BENTON AVE.

SATURDAY / 5.16

FILM

[ALL THE COLORS] MIDNIGHT MOVIES: BEYOND THE BLACK RAINBOW

Kalatozov employed a variety of unorthodox methods, including using submarine periscope cleaners and cables to achieve oners that modern filmmakers could only dream of. Combine that with the political fervor the film audaciously displays and you’ve got a classic you can’t miss. The film is showing as part of the Belcourt’s Milestones of the Last Quarter Century series. For showtimes, visit belcourt.org. IAN MATTHEWS

MAY 16 & 19 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.

MUSIC [REAL HOT PEPPER] JACK PEARSON

The Smoking Section’s current lineup features vocalists Joey Richey, Gene Miller, Kim Fleming and Kim Keyes, keyboardists Blair Masters and Boh Cooper, guitarists Hemby and Mark Baldwin, trumpeters Steve Patrick and Mike Barry, saxophonists Mark Douthit and Jovan Quallo, trombonist Barry Green, drummer John Hammond, percussionist Eric Darken and sound engineer Doug Sarrett, who is integral to the group’s electrifying sound. Due to a conflict, sax man Jimmy Bowland will be subbing for Quallo at Friday’s show. DARYL SANDERS

8 P.M. AT 3RD AND LINDSLEY

818 THIRD AVE. S.

CARS [GET YOUR KICKS] GOODGUYS LEGENDS OF HOT RODDING

Since its founding in Texas in the early 1980s, the Goodguys Rod & Custom Association has put on a lot of car shows all over the country, including multiple events in Nashville over the past decade and change. Friday and Saturday, the group launches a new format with a show at The Fairgrounds Nashville called Legends of Hot Rodding, specifically highlighting cars and trucks built before 1965. Among the more than 500 association members’ cars on display, expect everything from concourse-grade restorations that could convincingly roll out of a Space Age showroom to radical custom jobs

NASHVILLE SCENE • MAY 14 – MAY 20, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

Given the state of the world, it is entirely possible that there may come a day when a renegade scientist operating from immaculate surroundings in a Canadian science-fiction epic won’t be a surefire scenario for getting at the anxieties of bureaucracy and The Body. But to experience Panos Cosmatos’ 2010 debut feature Beyond the Black Rainbow is to take that journey on the well-worn chrome rails of a dark theme-park ride — deliberate, moody, drawing strength and structure from where technology and imagination (and the instincts buried deep within the reptilian brain) mingle their flow. The film, finally making its Nashville theatrical premiere (on 35 mm, no less), is a demanding tale about human endurance imprisoned in the machinations of weird men, with lots of experimental drug therapies, sentry automatons and the collapse of the barriers that stand between regular folks and the beyond. Like everything Cosmatos has made, it’s beautiful and gory and imaginative. Every image could be painted on the side of a van, and it gives mood and vibes — a Panos Cosmatos film doesn’t feel designed, it feels evolved directly into your cerebral cortex. The score, by Sinoia Caves (as well as a closing song from SSQ!), is the pulsating stuff of majestic nightmares, and the film itself is happy to take up residence deep where the spine and the skull tangle. This, especially at midnight, is essential viewing. There will be an intro from yours truly.

JASON SHAWHAN

MIDNIGHT AT THE BELCOURT

2102 BELCOURT AVE.

FILM [HEARTS OF A NATION] MILESTONES OF THE LAST QUARTER CENTURY: I AM CUBA

There’s a common perception among certain moviegoers that old movies can be stuffy and stagey. When one thinks about classic blackand-white films, sweeping camera movements and breathtaking single-shot scenes may not come to mind. But this simply means they’ve never seen a film by Soviet director Mikhail Kalatozov. Like other Soviet filmmakers of his era, Kalatozov was ahead of his time — with I Am Cuba in particular. The 1964 film tells the story of pre-revolutionary Cuba through four vignettes, each so visually impressive it’ll make you think you’re watching a modern movie.

Saturday night, celebrated singersongwriter-guitarist Jack Pearson returns to 3rd and Lindsley, the venue he’s called home for more than three decades. “I actually played their opening night 35 years ago,” Pearson tells the Scene. He also played the first of their 35th birthday shows back in January. A member of The Allman Brothers Band in the mid-’90s, Pearson has worked with an array of legendary recording artists, including Gregg Allman, Bobby “Blue” Bland, Jimmy Buffett, Vince Gill, Charlie Daniels, Joe Bonamassa, Keb’ Mo’, Bonnie Bramlett, Delbert McClinton, Mac McAnally, Gov’t Mule and Tedeschi Trucks Band. Blues Revue called Pearson a “world-class guitarist,” while Rolling Stone noted his “light touch and fluid, jazzy style” and “dynamic slide playing.” While he is comfortable playing a number of styles, he’s primarily known as a blues-rock guitarist, and Saturday’s show will be in that vein. The Nashville native says he and his band — keyboardist Charles Treadway and drummer Joshua Hunt — will perform material from across his career, which includes 18 albums under his own name. “Every show is different, and we love to improvise,” he says. “And sometimes I have surprise guests.” DARYL SANDERS

8 P.M. AT 3RD AND LINDSLEY

818 THIRD AVE. S.

FILM [WAS HE A GOOD DOG?] MILESTONES OF THE LAST QUARTER CENTURY: MOONRISE KINGDOM

As Nashville legend has it, a local musician went into labor during a particularly sweltering June screening of Moonrise Kingdom’s initial 2012 run at the Belcourt. How perfect for this sun-drenched, life-affirming movie, which takes at its heart both the baffling anxieties of parenthood and how deeply serious and fantastical childhood feels. There’s so much to love about Moonrise Kingdom: Frances McDormand and Bill Murray play off of each other perfectly as a set of problem-ridden psychoanalyst parents, while Tilda Swinton provides a stern straight man in the form of Social Services. And then, of course, there’s the young lovers: Jared Gilman is pensive and sweet as Sam Shakusky, and Kara Hayward’s Suzy Bishop is responsible for getting a whole generation of girls into Peter Pan collars, record players and blue eyeshadow. Wes Anderson’s beloved coming-of-age story and modern twee classic returns to the theater as part of

OPENS FRI, MAY 15 www.belcourt.org 2102 Belcourt Avenue Nashville, TN 37212

PET OF THE WEEK!

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Call 615.352.1010 or visit nashvillehumane.org

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2ND & BROADWAY NASHVILLE, TN

Live Music at ON BROADWAY

NASHVILLE’S

6:30 PM

PARNASSUSBOOKS.NET/EVENTS FOR TICKETS & UPDATES

THURSDAY, MAY 14

DIANE LES BECQUETS at PARNASSUS Where the Water Meets the Sky

SATURDAY, MAY 16

10:30 AM SATURDAY STORYTIME with PARNASSUS STAFF at PARNASSUS MONDAY, MAY 18

6:30 PM

JESMYN WARD with ZZ PACKER at FISK UNIVERSITY On Witness and Respair

6:30 PM RACHEL MOORE with MACKENZIE REED at PARNASSUS Safari Murder Party

6:30 PM TIM O'BRIEN at PARNASSUS The Tim O'Brien Songbook

10:30 AM

WEDNESDAY, MAY 20

THURSDAY, MAY 21

SATURDAY, MAY 23

SATURDAY STORYTIME with KIM HOWARD at PARNASSUS The Naked Streak

From platinum-selling chart-toppers to underground , household names to undiscovered gems, Chief’s Neon Steeple is committed to bringing the very best national and regional talent back to Broadway.

MAY LINEUP

5.1 Nashville Live Band Karaoke

5.2 Casey Beathard & Tucker Beathard

5.3 Jason Eady, Abe Partridge

5.9 Chase WrightChasing Shadows Album Release Show

5.13 Chase RiceUnheard Songs, Unforgettable Hits SOLD OUT

5.14 Rebecca Lynn Howard, Bridgette Tatum

5.15 Aaron Nichols & Friends From The Voice w/ Craig Wayne Boyd, Aubrey Nicole, Austin Gilbert

5.16 Waymore’s OutlawsRunnin’ with Ol’ Waylon

WRITERS’ ROUNDS AT CHIEF’S

5.17 Danielle Nicole

5.21 History Of Country Music Presented by CJ Field

5.22 Nashville Live Band Karaoke

5.23 Mo Pitney

5.26 Buddy’s Place Writer’s Round w/ Brett Sheroky, Tana Matz, Nate Fredrick

5.27 Uncle B’s Damned Ole Opry Plays and Sings The Judds!

5.28 Annie Bosko, Rachel Thibodeau

5.29 Nashville Live Band Karaoke

TICKETS AT

At Chief’s we understand that great music is born from the heart and soul of it’s creators, which is why our writers’ rounds are dedicated to celebrating the brilliant minds behind some of today’s most iconic songs.

the Belcourt’s Milestones of the Last Quarter Century series, where it’ll hold court with screenings May 16 and 19. For showtimes, visit belcourt.org. ANNIE PARNELL

MAY 16 & 19 AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.

MUSIC

[BAD STATE OF MIND] TREATY OAK REVIVAL

Were you raised on ’90s country radio and early-Aughts pop-punk? Did you attend both Fan Fair and Warped Tour? Did you grow up watching the video countdowns on both CMT and Fuse? If you answered yes to any of these questions and aren’t already onboard with Treaty Oak Revival, let this be your sign. Hailing from Odessa, Texas, the band has earned a legion of fans from the Lone Star State and beyond with their high-energy blend of country, Southern rock, pop punk and emo. They’re also known for their rowdy stage presence, which has more in common with punk house shows than your average country concert. The band’s latest album, West Texas Degenerate, finds the group reckoning with growing up and settling down, all while paying tribute to their West Texas roots. Treaty Oak Revival will bring their rollicking West Texas Degenerate Tour to Bridgestone Arena on Saturday. William Clark Green and Parker Ryan will open the show.

BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER

7 P.M. AT BRIDGESTONE ARENA 501 BROADWAY

MUSIC

[PULLING SOME STRINGS] GALLAGHER MUSIC FESTIVAL

Headquartered less than an hour south of Nashville in Murfreesboro, Gallagher Guitar Co. has an association with folk, bluegrass and string-band music that it’s no exaggeration to call “deep”: Late legendary picker Doc Watson’s “Ol Hoss” was one of founding luthier J.W. Gallagher’s first demonstration models. This year the company hosts its third string-centric celebration at Murfreesboro’s Walnut House studio and event space. Friday evening features a tribute to Watson with Don Gallagher and David Tipton, and the proceedings get started bright and early on Saturday with a flatpicking

contest at 9 a.m. A host of student performances round out the morning, while players from around the region — highlights include Josh Rinkel, late of high-octane string band Po’ Ramblin’ Boys, and multi-instrumentalist and old-school print artist Heather Moulder — are on the docket for afternoon slots. Shadowgrass, Sicard Hollow and Airshow, three touring acts who specialize in pushing the boundaries of string-band music, play in the evening. See gallagherfest.com for ticketing and scheduling information. STEPHEN TRAGESER

MAY 15-16 AT WALNUT HOUSE

116 N. WALNUT ST., MURFREESBORO

SUNDAY / 5.17

FILM

[EVERY RAY OF LIGHT] MILESTONES OF THE LAST QUARTER CENTURY: THE TREE OF LIFE

“There’s this shot of a woman soaring upsidedown on a swing, and I can’t tell you why, but I’m going to carry that with me the rest of my life.” Our late, great editor/hero Jim Ridley said this about The Tree of Life, the abstract yet cinematically poetic 2011 head-scratcher from uber-elusive filmmaker Terrence Malick. This is perhaps the closest he’s ever gotten to making an autobiographical film, mining memories of his childhood to tell the story of a middle-class family, led by producer Brad Pitt’s stern dad and Jessica Chastain’s supportive mom (aka the swing lady) in mid-20th-century America. Since this is a Malick film, do not expect that story to be told in a conventional fashion. The movie is basically a dreamlike collage of images and interior monologues, bouncing back and forth in time — even dinosaurs show up. Like most of Malick’s filmography, you either roll with it, swimming in the befuddling yet awe-inspiring fluidity of it all (like Ridley did), or find yourself asking, “What the fuck is this all about?” Either way, it’s an experience. Showing as part of the Belcourt’s ongoing Milestones of the Last Quarter Century series. Visit belcourt.org for showtimes. CRAIG D. LINDSEY

MAY 17 & 20 AT THE BELCOURT

2102 BELCOURT AVE.

NASHVILLE SCENE • MAY 14 – MAY 20, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

TUESDAY / 5.19

MUSIC

[STRANGER THINGS] TECH N9NE & E-40

Even knowing their history of collaborations, it’s still surprising to see Bay Area innovator E-40 and gritty Midwest rapper Tech N9ne link up for their Strange Wid’ It Tour. But think on it a bit more and you’ll realize they have plenty in common, chief among them longevity. 40 Water built an enduring and influential foundation of West Coast hip-hop with an eccentric flow and slang in the ’80s, and Tecca Nina hustled through the ’90s before becoming an underground king in the early 2000s thanks to lightning-fast delivery and dark delves into horrorcore. They each stand out as inimitable rap acts who founded their

while subtly advancing the form. O’Brien definitely knows his way around songs, and he possesses a congenial but pointed vocal style. On May 20 at 3rd and Lindsley, O’Brien marks the release of his book The Tim O’Brien Songbook — and Wisdom on Singing and Songwriting He’ll be joined by fiddler Shad Cobb and cellist Nathaniel Smith. O’Brien will also appear at Parnassus Books the next night, May 21, to talk about his book. The Parnassus event is free, but you need to register if you wish to attend. EDD HURT

7:30 P.M. AT 3RD AND LINDSLEY

818 THIRD AVE. S.

MUSIC [STUNT ROCK] FUTURE CRIB

Having recently watched Alex Ross Perry’s 2024 movie about Pavement, Pavements, I’m more convinced than ever that the band is one

own labels, and both continue to produce new music. Hell, they’re even cousins! Omaha’s King Iso supports. Go there, go dumb, and get weird.

ALEJANDRO RAMIREZ

8 P.M. AT MARATHON MUSIC WORKS 1402 CLINTON ST.

WEDNESDAY / 5.20

MUSIC

[SONGS FOR LIFE] TIM O’BRIEN

Singer, songwriter and multiinstrumentalist Tim O’Brien has a résumé that goes back to his days in Hot Rize, a bluegrass band that formed in 1978. The West Virginiaborn musician has also released a slew of albums that include collaborations with Darrell Scott and O’Brien’s sister Mollie O’Brien. For my money, Tim O’Brien broke out of the confines of traditional music with his deft 2014 cover of Chris Smither’s “Origin of Species” on Link of Chain: A Songwriters Tribute to Chris Smither Along the way, O’Brien has made his mark as a songwriter, penning tunes for the likes of Alison Krauss and Garth Brooks. His latest album is 2025’s Paper Flowers, which he recorded with his wife, Jan Fabricius. It’s a typically well-turned effort that keeps the virtues of bluegrass intact

of the most influential — and substantial — rock groups of the past 40 years. You can hear how Pavement has shaped the music of subsequent rockers on the Nashville band Future Crib’s 2025 album Impossible Songs. Future Crib doesn’t have Pavement’s edge, so there aren’t any moments on Impossible Songs where you can discern, say, the spirit of Mark E. Smith, the leader of British post-punk band The Fall, encroaching on the proceedings. In other words, the group doesn’t strike me as avant-garde — they say they’re influenced by Wilco, and I can hear that throughout Impossible Songs. Still, Future Crib sounds like they’re observing our current dystopia through the lens of an up-andcoming rock band in Nashville. They reference Devo and famed stunt performer Evel Knievel in “Crush,” one of the best tunes on Impossible Songs. Meanwhile, “Only a Wheel’s Worth” and “Particular” combine Pavement and Wilco in ways you’ll appreciate, and the album ends up sounding tougher — and more acerbic — than you might expect. On May 20 at Harken Hall, they share the bill with John Cooper Albright and Vivienne Blue. EDD HURT

6:30 P.M. AT HARKEN HALL

514 MADISON STATION BLVD., MADISON

THE MANE ATTRACTION

In the former home of McCabe Pub, Lion’s Share brings country club comfort to Sylvan Park

BY ELI MOTYCKA

LOOK OUT MOST front doors in Nashville and you’ll see a neighborhood changed by 15 years of population growth, largely defined by new residents’ wealth and old residents’ departure. Zero in on a neighborhood and you might get Sylvan Park; zero in on a restaurant and you might get 4410 Murphy Road, the former home of McCabe Pub.

Chef Robbie Wilson — and a large team of investors — spared no expense remodeling the decades-old mainstay into Lion’s Share. More than a decade ago, Wilson helped steer culinary direction for the forerunning M Street Hospitality team that brought Virago and Kayne Prime to The Gulch. Last year, Wilson returned his penchant for stylish restaurateurship to Nashville after manning multiple top-flight destinations

in San Francisco and California wine country. Now, at Lion’s Share, a surf-and-turf menu asks patrons to spare no expense on dinner, which comes with heaping West Coast luxury and ironically modest portions.

A reported $4 million transformed Sylvan Park’s iconic neighborhood restaurant over the past six months into Wilson’s maximalist new outpost. The millions bought thousands more square feet, split between a cushy bar, an airy kitchen, a traditional dining room and a private event space. An exclusive upstairs lounge is restricted to investors and people with “cool vibes,” according to one staff member. From outside, it appeared to be empty.

Hardscape renovations replaced sidewalk access to the restaurant with a moat-like ditch

separating Lion’s Share from Murphy Road, meaning walkers must weave between freshly mulched shrubs or enter through a wide driveway. Through dark chateau doors, a neutral carpeted seating area punctuated by a quirky mix of wall hangings completes the interior scheme. Uncozy, the space is denlike only in how design choices seem to reflect a single male individual. Before any snacks or bites, diners settle into the overall sense that Lion’s Share is a self-contained fortress planned from the outside in, landing the restaurant closer to a 21st-century country club than the ageless patina earned by Sperry’s or BrickTop’s.

On a cool Tuesday night, the self-proclaimed neighborhood gem struggled to draw hordes of undersized baseball players and their hungry

families past Edley’s Bar-B-Que nearby. As the clock struck 7 p.m., Nashville’s fine-dining-curious trickled in, complementing the waitstaff’s matching green sweater vests with suits and ties and diamonds.

Drinkers can peruse five Champagnes, six chardonnays, seven cabernet sauvignons, and no beer. (This last deficit will be corrected by press time, according to an apologetic bar-

Lion’s Share 4410 Murphy Road hear-us-roar.com

tender.) Red wine starts at $80 per bottle, while white wine climbs sharply from $70.

Featured cocktails, listed on a weighty gold metallic clipboard, are heavy on blends and set the menu’s precedent for creative twists on classics. Spiked iced tea — the House Tea — strikes a satisfying middlebrow swizzle, mixing cognac, liqueur, Southern Comfort, Captain Morgan and a fat, juicy lemon wedge. Go up with the Cocchi-featuring knockout Vesper or Cotswolds Spritz, or down with a Mezcal Negroni or Bowmore Boulevardier. The efficient bar team nails each one, and they come out quick and cold.

Lime and truffle flavors plump slices of kanpachi (amberjack) the size of matchbooks. The seafood cuts are a standout selection among the menu’s raw openers, which include tuna, scallops, oysters and sea bass. While fine dining has widely adopted Japanese exports like sashimi and seaweed, Wilson’s jus mastery and high-quality sourcing score more cross-Pacific hits, including a petite, pricey and perfect ponzu-bathing avocado hemisphere smeared with wasabi.

Fluffy bread and chewy pasta may seem like simple pleasers, but handmade doughs are easy to mess up. Wilson’s delicate agnolotti, stuffed with ricotta and topped with tender Alabama blue crab, might be the menu’s can’tmiss order. Towering milk bread combines Hawaiian roll sweetness with cascading butter ribbons for an umami contrast — contingency carbs with sauce-mopping capability. Ribbons of cultured butter — like the flavored, savory crushed ice that comes with an otherwise sorry

shrimp cocktail — are among a few menu gimmicks that are more charming before the check arrives.

If you arrive expecting to indulge, caviar and beef can quickly become the default. Instead, explore the five-star produce that carries several excellent flame-grilled small plates and simple salads that crunch, all essential souvenirs from Wilson’s highly regarded Bay Area stint. A small bowl of Calabrian-chile-garnished sugar snap peas and a perfectly cooked maitake bundle could easily finish off a meal here. The Appalachian half-trout barely swims above its lemony butter sauce, while the filet mignon narrowly beats nugget allegations (listed online as 8 ounces and at the restaurant as 6). Amid so many carefully planned multistep balancing acts, the biggest surprise is the kitchen’s apparent stinginess with salt, particularly on meat and fish — feedback that came unsolicited from multiple diners.

Getting less for more might be the most succinct way to describe whatever profitability strategy now grips the city’s cutthroat restaurant scene. As in any jungle, the strong still survive, and it’s not likely that a seasoned veteran like Wilson has gone into this latest venture without doing the numbers. His newest project is a certified apex predator — led by a well-connected and charismatic principal cooking impressive food, serving strong drinks and claiming investors across Belle Meade — and it already threatens more Sylvan Park casualties in nearby Lola and Park Cafe. There is only so much to go around. ▼

THE NATURE OF THINGS

When filling and emptying a house, more unites us than divides us BY

CARRINGTON FOX

Vodka Yonic features a rotating cast of women, nonbinary and gender-diverse writers from around the world sharing stories that are alternately humorous, sobering, intellectual, erotic, religious or painfully personal. You never know what you’ll find in this column, but we hope this potent mix of stories encourages conversation.

I THOUGHT I’D be better at cleaning out my childhood home. As an avid estate sale shopper, I understood the bearish economics of trash and treasure. My weekly rounds to liquidations of midcentury ranch houses had taught me that even prized brown furniture or Blue Willow china can become a white elephant. So when Mom decided to leave her home of 50 years, I thought I’d be immune to the sentimentality that would project false value onto her trousseau. I would empty that house like a boss.

From the moment I had a home of my own, I trawled estate sales. I sourced everything my family needed — furniture, tools, art, bikes — for pennies on the dollar. And while my empty nest now needs nary a home good, the thrill of the hunt still makes my heart race.

An estate sale is not a Walmart. You can’t count on it for a shopping list. But humans are predictable, so you can make assumptions. For example, in a dwelling occupied by the same owner since the Eisenhower administration, there will be a workbench in the basement, holiday kitsch in the attic and a toilet-chair in the garage. If the owners had children, the kitchen will stock an arsenal of single-use gadgets received as desperate gifts. There will be artifacts of the Lucite era. There will be porcelain songbirds.

It’s these patterns that seduce me to estate sales. Even now, when I need nothing but to cull my own possessions, I crave the anthropology, the universality, of an estate sale. Familiar caches of empty Cool Whip tubs and tepid triumphs of fourth-place ribbons remind me that I’m not unique. My belongings — and by extension my worries — are, let’s face it, basic. Armed with such self-awareness and a roll of contractor-grade trash bags, I prepared to excavate Mom’s condo.

We started strong, 86-ing dog-eared magazines, expired hotel toiletries and VCR recordings of fourth-place finishes. Between Goodwill runs and Poshmark postings, we efficiently moved assets to higher value.

There were moments of hilarity, like when my brother found our baby teeth. We added the tiny, bejeweled boxes to our respective “keep” piles, until my biologist sister-in-law said Hell No We Don’t Keep Teeth.

And there were discoveries of heartbreak, like the three-word farewell Dad scrawled to Mom the day he died.

There were infuriating piles of 20th-century tax forms and photograph negatives, a creepy stuffed Santa strangled by nonfunctional twinkle lights, and — mea culpa — an armory of single-use kitchen gadgets. There were also trea-

sures of adorable provenance: glass fruits purchased on a honeymoon, mouse-shaped booties crocheted for grandchildren.

And there were porcelain songbirds.

House wren, warbler, brown thrasher and scarlet tanager had alit on a shelf in my childhood bedroom when Mom absorbed the worldly goods of her own matriarch. Before her stroke, my grandmother Meme had displayed these ornithological objets proudly and spoken of them often — though I suspect neither as proudly nor as often as if they had been authentic “Boehm birds,” by artist Edward Marshall Boehm, whose avian porcelain adorned the White House. Meme really wanted fine Boehm (pronounced “Beam”) birds like Ike and Mamie collected, but a knockoff house wren was the closest she got.

“Don’t you want them?” Mom asked when I proposed to trash the thrasher.

Hell No I Don’t Want the Off-Brand Birds.

“Your grandmother loved them,” she said, crestfallen.

And I loved my grandmother, so before I said things about her counterfeit tanager that I might regret, I ferried the not-so-fine feathered bequest home and displayed it on my dining table — until my kids suggested the flock might go well in the basement, with other dubious heirlooms from their grandmother’s move.

A month later, Mom’s house was empty. She was settling into a beautiful apartment, and I was settling under the albatross of so many porcelain songbirds. That’s when I went back to an estate sale.

It was exactly the kind of sale I love — a time capsule of a beautiful life, a reminder that humans accrue similar stuff and no one can take it with them. I spoke to a woman about my age who was wearing an official-looking apron. It was her mother’s house. I felt a sense of lightness as I perused a Lucite chip-and-dip and electric s’mores maker that were not my burden. I hoped this immersion therapy might help me slough off Mom’s things still stashed in my basement.

Then I saw the porcelain songbirds. Robins and a fledgling cardinal. Six inches tall, pure Hitchcockian horror.

“Nice birds,” I told the apron.

“My grandmother loved them,” she said. Pointing to a $4 sticker on the juvenile red bird’s stubby crest, she apologized: “They’re not real Boehm birds.”

I showed her the goosebumps on my arm and told her about my own faux-and-flightless birthright. Strangers no more, we were sisters in daughterly duty of deaccessioning.

And wouldn’t it be tidy if that’s where the day ended, with a new friendship reaffirming my belief that I need people, not things?

But no. Humans are ultimately unpredictable. I bought her wannabe Boehm birds.

Baby Cardinal and the Robins have joined Warbler & Co. in my subterranean aviary, to plague the next generation whose grandmother loves them. ▼

This week at...

THURSDAY 5/14 Closed for a

FRIDAY

5/15

SATURDAY

5/16

GRACE

IVES

with HOLLIS HOWARD

EARTH

TONGUE & PINK FUZZ with MAANTA RAAY

BEARING WITNESS

Speaking with photographer Tamara Reynolds about her series Melungeon

BY KATHLEEN HARRINGTON

of meeting her now-husband, photographer Tamara Reynolds learned something that would shape five years of her work — he told her he was Melungeon.

She knew the term from the stigma associated with the community, but had never personally met a descendant of the lineage.

The term “Melungeon” defies easy definition. Often described as a mix of African, Native American and European ancestry, it’s an identity shaped as much by discrimination and folklore as genealogy. For Reynolds, this ambiguity became less a question to answer than a reality to photograph.

“The United States is known as a melting pot,” Reynolds tells the Scene. “Coming off the first term of Trump, a lot of nationalism and white supremacy was being discussed. I thought it would be a worthy project to reevaluate what this country is really made of.”

What began as a quest to document any remaining Melungeon people in Sneedville, Tenn. — a small town in northeast Tennessee that’s often considered the epicenter of the group — gradually shifted to a personal focus. Living intermittently in Sneedville with a camera and a camper purchased with Guggenheim Fellowship funds, Reynolds shifted her perspective to an exploration of loss, belonging and the humanity of a group of people who resist labels of Black, white or anything in between.

Her five-year project, Melungeon, is on view through June 26 at Vanderbilt University’s Begonia Labs.

Nestled in the valley below the slopes of Newman’s Ridge, Sneedville sits at the end of winding roads through hilltops and hollows along the isolated Appalachian Mountains, an environment shaped by rugged terrain and a complex history.

Today, the exact number of Melungeons living in Sneedville remains uncertain. Because Melungeon isn’t a recognized race or ethnic

category in the U.S. Census, determining the group’s ancestry often relies on surnames and generations of inconsistent racial classification.

When white settlers arrived in the late 1700s, people believed to be of mixed ancestry fell under the broad label “free persons of color,” a designation contributing to their marginalization and geographic isolation along Newman’s Ridge. Over time, isolation gave rise to speculation and myth surrounding the community.

History’s scars are present in Reynolds’ photographs. Her subjects linger in doorways, their eyes not quite meeting the camera. From conversations with her husband, Reynolds knew long before arriving in Sneedville that her identity as an outsider with a camera would complicate her documentation.

“I was glad she wanted to do it, but I had a little apprehension,” says Mike Goins, Reynolds’ husband, who grew up near Sneedville. “I didn’t want her to piss them people off down there,” he adds wryly.

As she built trust with the locals over the years, Reynolds gained access to private moments. That intimacy appears most clearly in photographs of Aibrianna, a young girl who “became the protagonist of the body of work,” Reynolds says.

Aibrianna was the first Sneedville resident Reynolds met — it was shortly after the girl and her sisters lost their mother, who died of an opioid overdose. Reynolds found her during her own period of grieving for her sister, who had also recently died.

“In a sense, she’s a stand-in for me,” Reynolds says. “There was this sense of loss of witnesses to my life. Maybe I was finding a kind of surrogate family, and she was my surrogate.”

Aibrianna’s family does not identify as Melungeon, though surnames in her family history suggest possible ties to Melungeon lineage.

In one photo, Aibrianna slips underwater. She stretches out her arms, one eye winking as she

struggles to keep the other open. Her mouth parts in a half-smile, and her pale skin glistens against the deep blackness of the water.

Next, she’s on dry land, covered in water droplets. She clutches her stomach for warmth and looks into the camera sideways with an uncertain expression.

These images hold Aibrianna in a space between states of childhood innocence and loss, belonging and isolation, reflecting uncertainty surrounding identity in a place where it cannot be named in easy terms.

“My work may be considered documentary, but there is so much of the personal that is tucked in there,” says Reynolds. “I am just moving through the world like this. I happen to be taking people along with me.”

The exhibition gives voice to a place whose loss, exploitation and resilience often go untold to outsiders. For Reynolds, this lack of testimony brought urgency to her photos, both on and off view.

“There is one photo I would love to use,” she says. “I don’t know if it’ll ever be used, but it’s a letter Aibrianna’s mother wrote to them when she was in prison and they had it pasted to the wall, and I had to photograph it.

“I think sometimes I photograph things so they won’t go away,” she continues. “I’ve photographed a lot of things people will never see, but it’s been photographed,” she says, her voice catching slightly.

She steadies herself and adds: “Anyway, that’s why I’m a photographer. I photograph because I feel.” ▼

Tamara Reynolds: Melungeon Through June 26 at Begonia Labs

2805 West End Ave.

Pearson

Barrow with The Steepwater Band

Bluebird on 3rd featuring Ryan Larkins, Jamie Floyd & Marla Cannon-Goodman with Callie McCullough & Allison Clarke

The Time Jumpers

WRITERS for COOL CHARITIES featuring Matraca Berg, Craig Campbell, Marla Cannon-Goodman, Craig Hendricks, Jeff Batson and Mark Lynn Young Jonell Mosser & Friends featuring Charles Wigg Walker Bluegrass on 3rd: An Evening with Tim O'Brien Songbook Release Show

SHINE ON

Peter Frampton stands strong on Carry the Light

BY DARYL SANDERS

THE SEEDS FOR singer-songwriter-guitarist Peter Frampton’s inspired new album Carry the Light, which hits stores and streaming services Friday, were sown during the pandemic years. At that time, the Rock and Roll Hall of Famer was living in a high-rise in downtown Nashville.

“I loved living downtown because I would get up, make my coffee, and I had a 280-degree view of downtown,” recalls Frampton, who now lives just outside the city. “I was on the ninth floor, just looking down and seeing it all going on and realizing that things were going from bad to worse. So that was the start of my being realistic about where we were each time I sat down to write lyrics.”

In the ensuing years, Frampton worked on a number of new songs, and by 2025, he had more than enough compositions in the works for his first album of original material since 2010’s Thank You Mr Churchill. He and his son Julian Frampton, a well-regarded singer, songwriter and musician in his own right, went through all the songs and selected some for further development.

“Last year, my son came here every month from L.A. for two to three weeks, and we would spend that time finishing [songs] or writing something new, or whatever we needed to do for the record,” Frampton explains. “Our motto was, ‘We are not going to settle for anything.’”

As the title suggests, Carry the Light is an uplifting record — a counterpoint to what Frampton was seeing outside his window. The album opens with the title track.

“It’s about, ‘Carry the light, and let’s not forget the past,’” he says. “That’s why we have a memory — don’t leave your wisdom behind.”

The song begins with stomp dance chants provided by members of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. Frampton’s guitar tech Nick Gibson is a member of the tribe and recorded the chants during a visit to Oklahoma for a celebration.

“Nick said, ‘I’m going back to see the elders,’ and my brain went, ‘Gong!’” Frampton recalls.

“I said, ‘I really want this to have a Native American feel at the beginning,’ and he told us about the stomp dance.”

So Frampton and his son made a percussion loop for a guide, and Gibson recorded the chants heard on the song during his trip.

“When he brought it back — with the crickets at the beginning and everything because it was done outside — it was like the perfect album starter,” Frampton says. “It fit right in, and if you notice, it kind of comes back in the background every now and again.”

Working with his son and Chuck Ainlay as co-producers, Frampton cut the album’s basic rhythm tracks at his Berry Hill recording facil-

ity The Studio Phenix with bassist Glenn Worf and drummer Chad Cromwell, whom he had worked with previously, as well as keyboardist Michael Rojas. Frampton tracked some guitar during those sessions, but the bulk of his rhythm guitars, guitar solos and vocals were recorded at his home studio.

In addition to the all-star rhythm section, Carry the Light includes contributions from guitarist Pat Bergeson, percussionist Eric Darken and vocalists Vicki Hampton, Angela Primm and Gale Mayes. It also features the Kristin Wilkinson Strings and a children’s choir conducted by David Wise and Laura Cooksey.

A number of special guests make appearances on the album as well. Former Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers keyboardist Benmont Tench adds his exquisite work to “Buried Treasure,” a tribute to Petty’s SiriusXM radio show of the same name. Graham Nash adds poignant harmonies to “I’m Sorry Elle,” Frampton’s lament about not being able to visit his new granddaughter in person because of COVID. Sheryl Crow duets on the midtempo rocker “Breaking the Mold.” Tom Morello contributes some explosive guitar to the angry protest song “Lions at the Gate.” Bill Evans, the saxophonist who played with Miles Davis in the 1980s, adds his artistry to the spacey, jazzy “Can You Take Me There,” as well as “Tinderbox,” a piece

Carry the Light out Friday, May 15, via UMG

inspired by Marvin Gaye that unfolds over several movements. And H.E.R., aka Gabriella Sarmiento Wilson, trades guitar licks with Frampton on the beautiful instrumental “Islamorada.”

When Frampton began work on the record, he knew how he wanted it to begin and how he wanted it to conclude. “We knew we had a starting point with ‘Carry the Light,’ and we knew we had the end with ‘At the End of the Day,’” he says.

“At the End of the Day” is the second instrumental in the collection. It’s an inspiring track recorded at Blackbird Studios whose message is that, in spite of all the turmoil, everything is going to be all right.

Julian Frampton considers the album a reflection of the here and now. “It captures how my dad feels about the world,” says Julian, “the changes happening around him and the way he’s evolving with it.”

To Ainlay, who has worked with Frampton for more than two decades, Carry the Light may be the best album the legendary British rocker has ever made. Frampton agrees.

“As far as a studio record, yes, I believe it is,” Frampton says. “Because we didn’t settle. … I didn’t care how long it took, we weren’t going to put anything out there that wasn’t absolutely 110 percent.” ▼

Morton Plumbing

MORE THAN WORDS

Renée Fleming and Rod Gilfry illuminate Georgia O’Keeffe and Alfred Stieglitz

in The Brightness of Light

BY AMY STUMPFL

WITH A CAREER spanning seven decades, Georgia O’Keeffe revolutionized the American art world with her vibrant floral studies and evocative desert landscapes. Often called the “mother of American Modernism,” she came to view abstraction as a way to express elusive feelings and ideas.

“I found that I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn’t say any other way — things I had no words for,” O’Keeffe once said.

And yet it is the painter’s own words that enliven The Brightness of Light, a powerful concert work from Pulitzer Prize- and Grammy-winning composer Kevin Puts, whose well-known compositions include Silent Night and The Hours Inspired by the deeply personal correspondence between O’Keeffe and her husband, photographer Alfred Stieglitz, The Brightness of Light reveals a passionate if often turbulent relationship between two of the 20th century’s most influential figures.

That relationship has a special connection to Nashville: Fisk University is one of the institutions to which O’Keeffe donated a portion of Stieglitz’s extensive art collection after his death in 1946. The group of 101 pieces — ranging from paintings and photographs to drawings, prints, sculptures and African artifacts — is now owned in part by the Crystal Bridges Museum of Art in Bentonville, Ark., and will next be on display there in June per the terms of a sharing agreement.

Best known for his work in the opera world, Puts created The Brightness of Light specifically for internationally acclaimed soprano Renée Fleming as part of a 2015 commission from his alma mater, the Eastman School of Music. Fleming — who’s also an Eastman alumna — helped shape the piece from the very beginning, at one point suggesting that Puts should expand the initial work to include a role for Stieglitz, which was then written for esteemed baritone Rod Gilfry.

The result is a rather dazzling orchestral song cycle, made up of 12 movements connected by musical ideas that move between instrumental passages as well as vocal solos and duets. Covering roughly 30 years, it follows the relationship between O’Keeffe and Stieglitz from their earliest meetings to Stieglitz’s passing — and even beyond. In its final moments, the piece imagines O’Keeffe reflecting on her life, and the loss of her great love.

Puts’ music effectively defines and reflects his characters’ distinctive personalities, all within a phenomenally rich harmonic environment.

The Brightness of Light also incorporates striking visuals — vivid projections that depict the

couple’s art, photos and letters — delivering a wholly engaging multimedia experience.

It’s a fascinating work. And local audiences can look forward to seeing both Fleming and Gilfry in their original roles as they join the Nashville Symphony on May 20 for a special onenight-only performance, with music director laureate Giancarlo Guerrero conducting. The second half of the evening offers a lovely selection of Broadway standards, including favorite tunes from Rodgers and Hammerstein, Kander and Ebb, Lerner and Loewe, and more.

Devoted Fleming fans also will want to check out a free program titled Music and Mind: Healing, Social Connection and the Power of Song, set for May 18 at the Schermerhorn. Part of Fleming’s ongoing advocacy efforts, the inspiring

event promises a mix of musical presentations and a lively panel discussion, all designed to explore the ways music can contribute to both individual wellness and communal well-being.

Music and Mind: Healing, Social Connection and the Power of Song, 7 p.m. Monday, May 18, at the Schermerhorn

The Brightness of Light, 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 20, at the Schermerhorn

SIT AND THINK

BY H.N. JAMES

EXPECTATIONS CAN BE funny things, and I try to leave them at home. Sometimes they hitch a ride anyway, like they did to a rainy Tuesday night show at the Ryman with Australian songwriter Courtney Barnett and Los Angeles-residing opener Truman Sinclair. Before the show — my first time seeing Barnett — I refreshed myself on her first two LPs as well as Sinclair’s new EP Rivers of Sugar and Blood. But I was not prepared for early-20-something Sinclair to begin his set with a sad ballad about a coal miner or bust out a harmonica in his folk-Americana tunes. Nor was I prepared for the absolutely scorching performance that Barnett threw down, befitting the songs from her latest LP Creature of Habit Sinclair and his band — including electric guitar, bass and drums along with his acoustic guitar — played a half-hour set of short songs, and he earnestly thanked the then-sparse crowd for coming early to hear him. Lit only by spotlights, Sinclair and company performed plaintive tunes, and the acoustic-guitar-and-harmonica setup seemed deceptively simple. But the songsmith showed he can also easily switch over to electric guitar for a blistering solo. Sinclair sang a few songs from the new EP, including the song “Dust to Dust,” but also included several from his full-length American Recordings, notably “Joel Roberts,” “Bloodline” and his ode to rock ’n’ roll, “Sit by My Fire.” He also sprinkled in a few songs from his earlier EP Pale Moon Pale Horse, including “Pale Horse” and “Stuck.” He ended his set entreating the growing audience to dance in the Ryman’s pews to a song that he’s teased will be on a forthcoming album about dancing all day and night. If you put equal measures of The Wallflowers, Modest Mouse, John Mellencamp and Paul Westerberg in a blender, the result might be a smoothie base for what you’ll hear when you listen to Sinclair. Courtney Barnett and her band walked onstage to a Lou Reed song and proceeded to rock the Ryman. That was literally at times, since Zach Dawes’ bass seemed a bit overly loud and shook

the building along with the powerful drumming of Stella Mozgawa (whose other projects include independent production work, including co-producing Creature of Habit with Barnett, and playing drums in indie-rock outfit Warpaint).

Barnett didn’t have a lot to say to the crowd between songs, seemingly intent on pushing through the hour-and-a-half set, but that is not a complaint. The audience was treated to almost the entirety of the new album, signaled by the projection of the album’s cover image of a huge praying mantis behind the band. Barnett played “Site Unseen” (whose album version features Waxahatchee) and “Wonder” (which reminds me a bit of The Cure’s “In Between Days”), as well as “Sugar Plum,” “Great Advice,” “Same” and “One Thing at a Time.”

Barnett didn’t neglect her back catalog either. She ruefully noted that “Avant Gardener” was “from her first EP 12 years ago,” and the crowd was wild-ish when she played “Elevator Operator” and the masterful “Depreston.” Listening to her records didn’t prepare me for Barnett’s live show or how good a guitarist the Aussie southpaw is — she can and does shred powerfully and often (and here seemed to favor a Fender Jaguar with dual humbuckers). When I checked out what others have to say about Barnett, most of the online clippings I ran across mention her deadpan vocal delivery and clever, insightful lyrics — but less about her musical chops. I can understand why her clever songwriting appeals to the indie-rock crowd and made her a critically acclaimed artist. She’s also a terrific musician, and she rocks hard. Barnett doesn’t sound like anyone else I can think of, but I can think of a few artists (including some locals) who take cues from her.

After the main set, she came back out alone with her electric guitar to start the three-song encore with “Mostly Patient.” The band then joined in and raged through fan favorites “Pedestrian at Best” and “Nobody Really Cares if You Don’t Go to the Party.” One might not expect that Sinclair and Barnett would make a good pairing, but a common thread tied the show together: the power of music in general and rock in particular, and the benefits of sharing that power with others. On rainy nights and uncertain days, we need that more than ever. ▼

Saturday, May 16

SONGWRITER SESSION

Jack Schneider

NOON · FORD THEATER

Saturday, May 16

NASHVILLE CATS

Salute to Musician

Wendy Moten

2:30 pm · FORD THEATER

Sunday, May 17

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT Red Camel Collective

1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Thursday, May 21

OPENING RECEPTION

Tim Biskup

Drifting Agency

5:00 pm · HALEY GALLERY

Saturday, May 23

SONGWRITER SESSION Ray Fulcher

NOON · FORD THEATER

WITNESS HISTORY

Locals Kids Always Visit Free

Saturday, May 23 IN CONVERSATION WITH Clint Black

Killin’ Time: My Life and Music 6:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Sunday, May 24

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Chuck Mead 1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Saturday, May 30

SONGWRITER SESSION

Chris Wallin

NOON · FORD THEATER

Saturday, May 30

POETS AND PROPHETS

Salute to Songwriter

Ashley Gorley 2:30 pm · FORD THEATER

Sunday, May 31

MUSICIAN SPOTLIGHT

Dean Berner 1:00 pm · FORD THEATER

Plan a trip to the Museum! Local youth 18 and under who are residents of Nashville-Davidson and bordering counties always visit free, plus 25% off admission for up to two accompanying adults.

SPLICES

The Belcourt’s Milestones of the Last Quarter Century series anchors the theater’s upcoming film slate BY LOGAN BUTTS

AFTER A YEAR of special programming and lectures, the Belcourt’s centennial celebration is coming to an end with one final series showcasing some of the arthouse’s most notable releases of the past quarter-century.

Milestones of the Last Quarter Century kicks off Friday and runs through June 2. The series will feature 40 total screenings of 16 films, each representing a watershed 21st-century moment for the Belcourt — from record-breaking attendance to local connections and more. “There’s a story for all of them,” Belcourt programmer Toby Leonard tells the Scene

The series begins with Morgan Neville’s tearjerking Mr. Rogers documentary Won’t You Be My Neighbor? (May 15 and 18), the theater’s highest-attended run of the past 26 years. On Saturday, catch one of the weirdest doubleheaders in Belcourt history with Wes Anderson’s sweet summer camp tale Moonrise Kingdom and Mikhail Kalatozov’s electric revolutionary text I Am Cuba (both May 16 and 19).

On May 17 or 20, carve out some time for a true slow-cinema outing with Terrence Malick’s tone poem The Tree of Life (check out late Scene editor-in-chief Jim Ridley’s lovely 2011 review) and Robert Bresson’s tragic donkey drama Au Hasard Balthazar

The Belcourt’s long-running Music City Mondays series will be part of Milestones with the acclaimed rockumentary Anvil! the Story of Anvil

KIND OF BLUE

Sophy Romvari’s debut feature Blue Heron is a refreshing take on the mental health family drama

BY ANNIE PARNELL

BLUE HERON MIGHT feature one of the world’s most genuinely compelling instances of a very specific 2010s Instagram trend: taking a photo of someone taking an iPhone photo. The new film opens on Sasha, a young woman holding up a phone to capture the rocks of Vancouver Island. As she finds a point of focus, voiceover reflects on her childhood: “Thank you for those memories. They’re all I have now.”

Blue Heron — which is now playing at AMC Thoroughbred 20 and expands to the Belcourt Friday — sits somewhere between We Need to Talk About Kevin, Short Term 12 and The Florida Project The film follows Sasha as she excavates her childhood to understand what happened to her older brother Jeremy, who she calls “as sweet as he was unpredictable.” Her past is based on that of director Sophy Romvari, who in a personal essay for the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. called the debut full-length film her “most significant attempt to capture just how fallible memory is.”

In Sasha’s refracted memories, Jeremy terrorizes the

(May 18) and Jonathan Demme’s iconic Talking Heads concert film Stop Making Sense (May 25), another Ridley favorite.

An entire spectrum of the male experience will be on display May 23 as Richard Linklater’s painstaking coming-of-age story Boyhood (May 23 and 25) and Sam Peckinpah’s bleak revisionist Western The Wild Bunch (May 23 and 24) slot in. The latter, which will be shown on 35 mm, was part of the Belcourt’s excellent Essential Westerns series in 2018.

Raoul Peck’s uncompromising James Baldwin documentary I Am Not Your Negro (May 24 and 26) and Bong Joon Ho’s twisty Best Picture winner Parasite (May 26 and 29) should be must-sees for anyone who missed out on their original runs. Speaking of which, Parasite owns the record for longest continuous run at the Belcourt, lasting 20 weeks (almost five months!) from October 2019 until March 2020.

The Wild Bunch won’t be the only 35 mm offering on the docket. Though it isn’t showing at midnight this time, Nobuhiko Obayashi’s bonkers haunted-house trip House (May 28 and 30) is a perfect representative of the Belcourt’s ongoing Midnight Movies series, while sleek gambling thriller Croupier (June 2) will close out the Milestones slate.

Elia Kazan’s underseen Wild River (May 30 and June 1), a TVA-centered drama starring Montgomery Clift and Lee Remick, stands in for

family with erratic behavior, but he’s also a caring older brother. In one early transgression, he shoplifts a blue heron keychain, which he gives to Sasha. As Jeremy’s rebellion escalates to police encounters and threats of harm to himself and others, the family’s crisis contrasts with the film’s bucolic setting, their latest home in a series of moves after emigrating to Canada from Hungary. This sense of place creates a dreamy, summertime feel, as well as more lingering tension. What emerges is a warm but frank look at family and mental health, never maudlin as it strikes an understated emotional chord.

There’s no melodrama, for instance, when the parents accept a life-altering offer from social services related to Jeremy’s care — but the scene is no less heartbreaking. Instead, the children’s mother simply confesses their decision into a phone, shell-shocked. Next to her, Sasha’s father intently films the kids playing in the backyard. It’s as if he needs proof that they were happy, to establish some formal record of a complicated emotional truth — a compulsion his daughter inherits. When we meet Sasha as an adult, she’s become a filmmaker, interviewing a care team about how her brother’s case might have been handled differently. Later she steps directly into her childhood while recording, this time in the role of the social worker.

In sequences like these, Romvari doesn’t just explore Jeremy’s behavior, but also how the rest of the

the Belcourt’s monumental 22-film 2011 series Visions of the South.

You’ll need to block out your entire afternoon on May 31 to witness Béla Tarr’s epic, 439-minute Hungarian drama Sátántangó. (There is — naturally — a brilliant 2006 Ridley essay on the film.)

More than five hours shorter, but no less affecting, is Kelly Reichardt’s two-hander First Cow (June 1). First Cow will have a special intro from local musician William Tyler, who composed the score for the acclaimed gentle drama concerning stolen milk in the Pacific Northwest. Other, non-Milestone (but just as interesting) films on the Belcourt’s upcoming schedule include Midnight Movie screenings of cult favorites Zardoz (May 15), Beyond the Black Rainbow (May 16), Masters of the Universe (May 29, on 35 mm) and the non-cult-but-certainly-weird Barbie (May 30). The Secret World of Arrietty (opening May 22) and Trainspotting (June 4 and 7) are also in the rep screening future. Upcoming new releases at the Belcourt in-

clude celebrated Canadian drama Blue Heron (opening May 15, already screening at AMC Thoroughbred 20), Boots Riley’s raucous anti-capitalist I Love Boosters (opening May 21) and heist picture Tuner (opening May 28). At the megaplexes, you can find freaky horror offerings Obsession (opening May 15) and Backrooms (opening May 29), big-time blockbusters like the latest Star Wars entry The Mandalorian and Grogu (opening May 22) and Steven Spielberg’s return to the world of UFOs Disclosure Day (opens June 12), and hometown boy Nate Bargatze’s upcoming comedy The Breadwinner (opens May 29). ▼

Milestones of the Last Quarter Century May 15-June 2 at the Belcourt Visit belcourt.org for tickets and showtimes

characters relate to it: the things that children do and don’t understand, and the adults’ projections of what his actions say about them. Sasha’s mother in particular carries guilt not just over failing Jeremy but for what others might think of them. “People are talking about it,” she warns Sasha as a child, refusing to let her invite a friend over. When Sasha is an adult, a vision of her brother gently pushes back on her own narrative of their childhood, telling her, “I think there’s a lot you don’t remember.”

It’s a compelling zoom-out, and a refreshing take on the mental health drama, a genre that can tend to grant one-sided dignity to the people in a struggling charac-

ter’s orbit. Instead the family members at the heart of Blue Heron are all complicated and flawed, muddling through a complicated situation. In short, they feel real — and this striking, honest debut signals the arrival of a director to watch. ▼

Blue Heron NR, 90 minutes Now playing at AMC Thoroughbred 20; opening Friday, May 15, at the Belcourt

ACROSS

1 Start issuing stock, in Wall Street lingo

6 Live the single man’s life, slangily

12 Part of some box sets

15 Pungent

16 Stick (to)

17 Joey of kid-lit

18 One with thick skin, notably

19 Customizable Asianfusion dish

21 Charlatan

22 Ex-Yankee with appearances on “Shark Tank,” familiarly

23 “Stay” singer Lisa

24 In unison

26 To an extreme degree

29 [Oh no!]

32 Stone that’s often carved

34 “And you ___ …?”

35 “No, thanks”

37 Tiny pieces of technology

42 Amundsen who went to the South Pole 15 years before he flew over the North Pole

43 Sound of a stone landing in a pool

45 Tone used to create an antique vibe

46 So darling

48 Scare the bejesus out of

50 Lead-in to Pen

51 Speck in the sea

53 Zebras in the field?

54 Article of summer wear

58 On which to watch the Beeb

60 Retail giant with a three-syllable name in four letters

61 Bring home

63 In base eight

67 Oil bigwig?

70 Cease-fire

71 Bit of ticket info

72 Community traversed by the Pacific Coast Highway

73 Shadow

74 ___-Man

75 Lines 9 through 14 of a classic sonnet

76 Aerodynamic, maybe DOWN

1 John Irving’s “The World According to ___”

2 Número that’s half of dieciséis

3 Anatomical ring

4 Dessert with rings on top, literally

5 Features of leftovers, at times

6 Dessert in a boat, literally

7 Found darling

8 Jimmy known for shoes

9 “___ Gabler” (Ibsen play)

10 Opposite of virtually, to texters

11 Ball bearer

12 [That looks so delicious!]

13 “Wheel of Fortune” purchase

14 Big name in surround sound

20 Dessert with a streusellike topping, literally

25 Drinks with or without pulp, for short

27 Peaked

28 Cold-weather coat

29 Follower of “Gossip” or “Gone”

30 Potatoes, in some Asian cuisines

31 Pole, e.g.

33 Music producer Brian

36 “Intelligence is the ability to ___ to change”: Stephen Hawking

38 Triangular dessert, literally

39 Early Ron Howard TV role

40 Small squabble

41 Comments

44 Aromatic bit of attire

47 Some text beneath a headshot, in brief

49 Fish that may return to the ocean to spawn

52 Flashing light

54 Accessory on “Downton Abbey” or “Bridgerton”

55 So-called “Rubber City,” home of Goodyear

56 Cereal box abbr.

57 Sounds of laughter

59 Pose for which you must plant your body on the mat?

62 Working hard

64 Lipstick unit

65 It’s a lot!

66 Damage caused by a mole, maybe

68 Syllables of hesitation

69 “Norma ___”

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