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SEPTEMBER 3–9, 2026 I VOLUME 45 I NUMBER 32 I NASHVILLESCENE.COM I FREE

Uncovering the little-known history of Rebecca Higgins, the 19th-century madam who built a small empire

NASHVILLE’S QUEEN OF THE DEMIMONDE BY BETSY PHILLIPS

NEWS: RIVERGATE MALL REDEVELOPMENT WILL KEEP ITS NAME, CHANGE ITS OFFERINGS >> PAGE 7 MUSIC: MUSICIANS, MUSIC-BIZ EXECS, POLITICIANS AND MORE REFLECT ON THE PASSING OF DOLLY PARTON >> PAGE 31

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NASHVILLE SCENE • AUGUST 19 – AUGUST 25, 2023 • nashvillescene.com

CONTENTS NEWS

7 RiverGate Mall Redevelopment Will Keep Its Name, Change Its Offerings Locals remain nostalgic about Goodlettsville site as developer readies yearslong mixed-use project BY HANNAH HERNER

8 Changes Are Coming to the Way Communism Is Taught in Tennessee Schools Teachers will soon have to recognize Nov. 7 as ‘Victims of Communism Day’ BY JULIANNE AKERS

8 Sports Town Talking with Nashville Sports Council CEO Scott Ramsey ahead of a packed Labor Day weekend slate BY LOGAN BUTTS

9 Pith in the Wind This week on the Scene’s news and politics blog

COVER STORY

11 Nashville’s Queen of the Demimonde Uncovering the little-known history of Rebecca Higgins, the 19th-century madam who built a small empire BY BETSY PHILLIPS

17 CRITICS’ PICKS

American Mosaic: A Free Community Concert, Free Fest Feat. Arlo Parks, MORGXN, Nikki Lane, Rayland Baxter & More, Muddy Roots Music Festival, Rachel Gillig Author Event, Harlan Howard 99th Birthday Bash, Andi Marie Tillman & Friends and more

FOOD AND DRINK

25 A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood Wedgewood-Houston’s Sally’s Stay Awhile invites you to do just that

Sally’s Stay Awhile • PHOTO BY ANGELINA CASTILLO

BY KAY WEST

ART

33 Be Here Now

29 Drawing a Crowd

FILM

MUSIC

35 The Ones That Got Away

31 Memories of a Country Queen

Angela Autumn explores the power in a word on Believer BY BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER

Support

A dozen 2026 films that we didn’t review — but are worth the watch

Fans — including fellow musicians, music-biz execs, politicians and more — reflect on the passing of Dolly Parton

32 Quiltwork

Map: “Bird’s-eye view of Nashville, Tenn. in the 1880s,” Wellge, H. (Henry), TSLA Map Collection, Tennessee State Library & Archives

BY BAILEY BRANTINGHAM

BY HANNAH HERNER

BY JULIANNE AKERS

ON THE COVER:

Houston Kendrick uses evolution to spark revolution with Portrait of a Boy on Fire

Meet New Zealand native Wendy Murray — the artist determined to draw every building on Gallatin Pike

BY SCENE STAFF AND CONTRIBUTORS

NEW YORK TIMES CROSSWORD AND THIS MODERN WORLD

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NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

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Dig into a day of hands-on prehistoric discovery and fun! SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 26

EDITOR-IN-CHIEF D. Patrick Rodgers MANAGING EDITOR Alejandro Ramirez SENIOR EDITOR Dana Kopp Franklin ARTS EDITOR Laura Hutson Hunter MUSIC AND LISTINGS EDITOR Stephen Trageser ASSOCIATE EDITOR Logan Butts AUDIENCE EDITOR Annie Parnell CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Jack Silverman STAFF WRITERS Julianne Akers, John Glennon, Hannah Herner, Hamilton Matthew Masters, Eli Motycka, Nicolle Praino, William Williams SENIOR FILM CRITIC Jason Shawhan EDITORIAL INTERN Emma Pickett CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Cat Acree, Sadaf Ahsan, Ken Arnold, Ben Arthur, Radley Balko, Bailey Brantingham, Ashley Brantley, Maria Browning, Steve Cavendish, Chris Chamberlain, Rachel Cholst, Lance Conzett, Hannah Cron, Connor Daryani, Tina Dominguez, Stephen Elliott, Steve Erickson, Jayme Foltz, Adam Gold, Kashif Andrew Graham, Seth Graves, Kim Green, Amanda Haggard, Steven Hale, Edd Hurt, Jennifer Justus, P.J. Kinzer, Janet Kurtz, Craig D. Lindsey, Margaret Littman, Sean L. Maloney, Brittney McKenna, Addie Moore, Marissa R. Moss, Noel Murray, Joe Nolan, Katherine Oung, Betsy Phillips, John Pitcher, Margaret Renkl, Daryl Sanders, Bobbie Jean Sawyer, Nadine Smith, Ashley Spurgeon Shamban, Amy Stumpfl, Cole Villena, Kay West, Nicole Williams, Ron Wynn, Kelsey Young, Charlie Zaillian ART DIRECTOR Kayla Stark PHOTOGRAPHERS Angelina Castillo, Eric England, Matt Masters GRAPHIC DESIGNERS Sandi Harrison, Tracey Starck GRAPHIC DESIGN INTERN Alex Levin PRODUCTION COORDINATOR Christie Passarello MARKETING AND EVENTS DIRECTOR Robin Fomusa EVENTS MANAGER Tristan Maryanski MARKETING AND PROMOTIONS MANAGER Meredith Grantham PUBLISHER Mike Smith ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER Michael Jezewski SENIOR ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS CONSULTANTS Teresa Birdsong, Carla Mathis, Heather Cantrell Mullins, Niki Tyree, Alissa Wetzel ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS CONSULTANTS Kathleen Chandler, Kailey Idziak, Allie Robbins SALES OPERATIONS MANAGER Chelon Hill Hasty ADVERTISING SOLUTIONS ASSOCIATE Audry Houle SPECIAL PROJECTS COORDINATOR Susan Torregrossa PRESIDENT Mike Smith CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER Todd Patton CHIEF REVENUE OFFICER Olivia Britton CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER Elizabeth Jones IT DIRECTOR John Schaeffer DIGITAL DIRECTOR Caroline Prater CIRCULATION AND DISTRIBUTION DIRECTOR Gary Minnis FW PUBLISHING LLC

For advertising information please contact: Mike Smith, msmith@nashvillescene.com or 615-844-9238 National Advertising: Ruxton Media Group www.ruxton.com ©2026, Nashville Scene. 615 Main St., Suite 102, Nashville, TN 37206. Phone: 615-244-7989. The Nashville Scene is published weekly by FW Publishing LLC. The publication is free, one per reader. Removal of more than one paper from any distribution point constitutes theft, and violators are subject to prosecution. Back issues are available at our office. Email: All email addresses consist of the employee’s first initial and last name (no space between) followed by @nashvillescene.com; to reach contributing writers, email editor@nashvillescene.com. Editorial Policy: The Nashville Scene covers news, art and entertainment. In our pages appear divergent views from across the community. Those views do not necessarily represent those of the publishers. Subscriptions: Subscriptions are available at $150 per year for 52 issues. Subscriptions will be posted every Thursday and delivered by third-class mail in usually five to seven days. Please note: Due to the nature of third-class mail and postal regulations, any issue(s) could be delayed by as much as two or three weeks. There will be no refunds issued. Please allow four to six weeks for processing new subscriptions and address changes. Send your check or Visa/MC/AmEx number with expiration date to the above address.

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NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

MKTG_

WITNESS HISTORY This traditional flamenco guitar was hand-crafted by influential singer, songwriter, and luthier Guy Clark in his home workshop in 1998. He stamped his thumbprint, in blood, on the maker’s label inside the instrument, and placed the “Easy Money” bumper sticker beneath the strings. From the exhibit Sing Me Back Home: Folk Roots to the Present artifact photo: Bob Delevante

RESERVE TODAY

NASHVILLE SCENE • AUGUST 19 – AUGUST 25, 2023 • nashvillescene.com

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8/27/26 3:08 PM

OPENING WEEKEND:

An American Celebration

NASHVILLE SYMPHONY & CHORUS

SEPTEMBER 11 TO 13, 2026

Leonard Slatkin Conductor

Sylvia McNair

Suzy Bogguss Storm Large

Kathy Mattea

Baxter Hall

Diverse. Dedicated. Determined. The opening concert of the Nashville Symphony’s 80th season celebrates a kaleidoscope of American musical voices. Don’t miss Leonard Slatkin’s premiere performance as Music Director in a kickoff concert that will be the talk of the town.

Be Moved. Be Amazed. BE. HERE. 6

NashvilleSymphony.org

NASHVILLE SCENE • AUGUST 19 – AUGUST 25, 2023 • nashvillescene.com

Classical Series Presented by

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NEWS

RIVERGATE MALL REDEVELOPMENT WILL KEEP ITS NAME, CHANGE ITS OFFERINGS Locals remain nostalgic about Goodlettsville site as developer readies yearslong mixed-use project BY HANNAH HERNER

CONSTRUCTION AT 1000 RIVERGATE PARKWAY THE COMPANY BEHIND the redevelopment of RiverGate Mall spent a good deal of time and money studying what new name would suit the site best. In the end, the answer was clear: Just keep it “RiverGate.” “We’re giving it a different vision, but the name itself will remain the same, and the project is called RiverGate,” says Patrick Poole, senior vice president and Nashville market leader at Merus, which is developing the site. “It took us a while to get there, but I think we landed in the right space.” The $450 million project will spread across 57 acres on the former site of the Goodlettsville mall, which opened in 1971 and officially closed earlier this year. Cincinnati-based development company Merus plans 710 apartments, 127 townhomes, 80 affordable senior living units, a 120-room hotel and 120,000 square feet of commercial space once completed. (RiverGate Mall covered around 500,000 square feet by the time it closed.) For Old Hickory native Christy Butler, nostalgia runs deep when it comes to RiverGate. “Seeing it go, it took a little piece of my heart with it,” she tells the Scene. “It’s been a big part of my life until here recently.” Butler’s favorite stores at the mall included Sport Seasons and candy shop Mr. Bulky. She remembers scoping out a ’90s leather jacket at Wilsons Leather. Fifty-seven of the mall’s storefronts have closed during the past five years. Butler recalls “going to see Santa Claus, doing all of our Christmas shopping there. I mean, it was so packed you couldn’t even hardly get in and out of the place. Then as I got older, got to be a teenager, we used to cruise the mall.” In June of last year, thousands circled the

decaying mall during one last “cruise.” Keeping the name is relevant to many area businesses that borrow it, including Hooter’s Rivergate — that’s been the restaurant’s title since it opened in 1994. Butler, who’s general manager of the restaurant, says she has seen a drop in business especially around the Christmas rush, but she’s grateful for an uptick in business from construction workers. For Merus — which has developed everything from Aspire apartments in Midtown and the Rock Nashville campus to outpatient centers for Vanderbilt University Medical Center — RiverGate is a unique challenge, logistically and emotionally. “It’s one of the rare opportunities where we have the ability to revitalize a whole market, a whole neighborhood,” Poole says. “We’ve gotten probably more community input and feedback than we ever had on any of our projects, which is sometimes good, sometimes bad, but in this case, pretty meaningful.” District 10 Councilmember Jennifer Frensley Webb, a Goodlettsville native, says she’s gotten one question more than any other: Is there any way the mall could have been saved? “Unfortunately, with Nashville growing, we’re getting rid of so much of the old nostalgia of Nashville, and I hate that,” Webb says. “It was bittersweet, but the only way we could put this together was for the mall to be totally [turned] into something else.” RiverGate Mall was listed for sale in March 2024, and Merus bought the site for $33 million in February of this year — after plans to begin construction in fall 2025 stalled. Metro reported in May 2025 that it had lost more than $10 million in property tax revenue because of the site’s decrease in popularity in recent years.

COURTESY OF MERUS

PHOTO: ERIC ENGLAND

RENDERING OF RIVERGATE DEVELOPMENT

Locals will see the site’s first groundbreaking in February or March: 350 units of multifamily housing across three buildings. The retail section and green space will begin soon after, Poole says. Retail offerings will one day include a mix of restaurants, wellness businesses and retail stores, and he says he’d like to see a mix of national and local tenants. By late 2028, the first phase of residential buildings is slated to be completed, with the full project to be completed in phases through 2031. Most of the site appears demolished today, with Dillard’s to remain standing and Guitar Center to remain on site in an upgraded building. The site will be walkable from each of its buildings, Poole says, and Merus is set to donate a portion of the area to WeGo Public Transit. There’s nowhere to go but up from here in Webb’s eyes. She says she hopes for some higher-end restaurants in the area. Right now,

it’s heavy on fast food and chain restaurants, including a recently opened In-N-Out. “The city of Goodlettsville has got nothing,” she says. “It’s just been sitting there because everything’s been empty. I think [the redevelopment is] going to really, really be an economic drive for that area for us.” Bo Lee, manager of RiverGate Wines & Liquors, is hopeful. Housing in the area could mean more customers for his business. The family-owned store is one of a few that have been there as long as the mall was. Nearby, Old Time Pottery is set to close and be converted to a Gabe’s discount store after 15 years in business. “We’re part of that old RiverGate, and we’ll hopefully be part of the new RiverGate,” Lee says. “We made it when nothing else did. That’s what I’m gambling on.” ▼

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

PET OF THE WEEK!

NEWS

CHANGES ARE COMING TO THE WAY COMMUNISM IS TAUGHT IN TENNESSEE SCHOOLS Teachers will soon have to recognize Nov. 7 as ‘Victims of Communism Day’

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HIGH SCHOOL TEACHERS in Tennessee will soon have to alter the way they teach the history of communism, specifically focusing on the dangers of the political ideology. The Tennessee General Assembly passed a bill this year recognizing Nov. 7 (the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution) as “Victims of Communism Day” and requiring public schools in Tennessee to provide high school world history and geography classes with at least 45 minutes of instruction on “how victims suffered under communist regimes, including through poverty, starvation, migration, systemized lethal violence, and suppression of speech,” according to the legislation’s text. The bill — sponsored by state Sen. Ken Yager (R-Kingston) and state Rep. Dennis Powers (R-Jacksboro) — was passed by Tennessee’s Republican supermajority and signed into law by Gov. Bill Lee in April. The law goes into effect this school year, though how exactly it will be implemented is still up in the air at Metro Nashville Public Schools. Rather than enacting statewide curriculum, the legislation allows local school districts to choose how they want to provide the instruction in their schools. MNPS Spokesperson Sean Braisted tells the Scene that because Nov. 7 falls on a weekend this year, the schools will provide the required instruction on Nov. 9 and that sample lesson plans have not been developed or finalized yet. “There is not a set date at this point to supply

NEWS: SPORTS

SPORTS TOWN

Talking with Nashville Sports Council CEO Scott Ramsey ahead of a packed Labor Day weekend slate BY LOGAN BUTTS

with MEG HOOD at PARNASSUS Twig's Traveling Tomes 10:30AM

BY JULIANNE AKERS

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DURING HIS 30-plus-year tenure with the Nashville Sports Council, Scott Ramsey has seen the city transform from a national-sports afterthought to slated host of the 2030 Super Bowl. Alongside the usual suspects — the arrival of the Titans and the Predators, the debuts of Bridgestone Arena and Nissan Stadium — Ramsey cites a few key events that helped the city solidify its reputation as a significant sports destination. “The 2014 women’s [college basketball] Final Four was a huge milestone for us,” says Ramsey, who took over as CEO and president of the council in 2007. “That was the first national championship event we were able to host. The SEC men’s basketball tournament for nearly a 20-year run … then certainly the 2016 NHL All-Star Game kind of changed the way cities stage those events,

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

teachers with the lesson plans, simply prior to the required instruction date,” Braisted says in an email to the Scene. Some MNPS teachers tell the Scene that they only recently heard of the new law, which they say has a potential to throw their classroom schedule off kilter as they often create their lesson plans months in advance. Educators also express that they feel left out of the discussions surrounding legislation that could impact their curriculum. Others see the bill as unnecessary. “I think it’s a solution that is looking for a problem,” says Brett Kmiec, a U.S. history and comparative government teacher at Hume-Fogg Academic High School. Kmiec just began his 26th year of teaching. “If I had to teach a lesson telling kids how bad communism is, I don’t think that there’s going to be anybody walking out of here saying, ‘Thank goodness we learned that, we were just about to go communist.’ I think that people who spend their time thinking a lot about politics kind of think that everybody thinks a lot about politics and don’t get that most people don’t think in terms of ideologies.” Kmiec says there is sometimes a misconception that teachers have plenty of free time and that it’s easy to slot in new curriculum with little notice. Lawmakers also passed a bill that would update education standards to reflect their preferred teachings on the history of communism.

Lee signed the bill into law in April, though no immediate changes have been made as updating education standards is often a yearslong process. That bill was also sponsored by Republicans, state Rep. Jody Barrett of Dickson and state Sen. Janice Bowling of Tullahoma. During committee debate during this year’s legislative session, state Rep. Sam McKenzie (D-Knoxville) called the legislation “troubling” and worried about which historical figures might be referred to as communists. Other Democrats also objected to the bill, arguing the subject is already included in school curriculum. In February, the American Historical Association sent a letter to Tennessee lawmakers urging them to reject the legislation, saying it presents a “highly politicized version of Cold War and modern American history that is based on a misleading interpretation of the American past.” “Tennessee students deserve to be taught a full and accurate history,” the letter reads. Tennessee is one of several Republican states in the U.S. pushing for additional anti-communism instruction in the classroom. Florida education officials voted in 2025 to approve new social studies teaching standards, which includes a focus on a so-called communist “infiltration” of groups advocating for civil rights, as well as instruction on the use of “‘McCarthyism’ as an insult” and other “slander against anti-communists,” such as the term “Red Scare.” ▼

with hockey on the inside of the arena, but a real party, music-style for us, on the outside of the arena. And then ultimately, the 2019 NFL Draft.” The 2019 NFL Draft was a turning point for Nashville as a sports-hosting city. The three-day event generated a $224 million economic impact, with a then-record of 600,000plus fans attending. The city aced its “prove it” exam. For Labor Day weekend, the council has planned an ambitious multisport lineup that includes the second-ever Broadway Block Party — a doubleheader featuring four of the nation’s top-25 women’s college volleyball teams — and the inaugural Music City Kickoff, Nashville’s foray into the lucrative world of neutral-site college football matchups. The late-summer events serve as a precursor to the holiday roster, which will include the annual Music City Bowl and year two of hosting the Football Championship Subdivision national title game. Ahead of the Labor Day slate, the Scene spoke with Ramsey about the Nashville Sports Council’s role in landing and facilitating major sporting events. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. Nashville has been steadily increasing its status as a sports destination for decades. How did that come to be? When I moved here in 1995, we were just

starting the Nashville Sports Council. And if you looked around the country at that time, you saw cities starting to invest in arenas and stadiums and ballparks. They really wanted to encourage using those facilities for more than 41 NBA games or NHL games or 10 NFL games a year, and entities like the Sports Council began popping up in other cities to bid on and recruit events that would come to the city that would use those publicly owned facilities, but also to fill up hotels and restaurants and create a lot of media exposure for the city. That’s kind of what the mission of the Sports Council began as.

SCOTT RAMSEY

I really credit Mayor Bredesen [who led Nashville from 1991 to 1999] with the vision of the downtown campus, and building that out to where you could really use sporting events and/or music events to create a multiday trip to Nashville and compact everything downtown, where it wasn’t so spread out as in other cities. That was the impetus of what we’ve been able to build on. … Once you become trusted with events, you’re able to get more and more of those on a regular basis. … We have the facilities, we have the entertainment, we have the hotels, we have the geographical advantage of being pretty central as far as being able to get here and get home pretty easily. Can you explain the council’s role in the process of recruiting, landing and facilitating a sporting event? Let’s say we’re going to bid on an NCAA national championship event. It doesn’t matter what sport. We’re going to have to look at what year, because typically they’re going to bid out a four- or five-year window. What are the requirements from a facility? [Do we have] the arena, the stadium, the convention center, the hotels, practice facilities, whatever else we might need? We reach out to everybody in the city and make sure they’re available and work through the financial cost of hosting. Some events we pursue. Sometimes it takes a while to have those fall into place by getting what you need to make the event work. For example, we really wanted to go after a high-level collegiate women’s volleyball event. We felt like it was an emerging sport. It took us almost a year in partnership with ESPN, the SEC and the schools to try to get the schedules lined up, to get the availability in the arena, to get the funding necessary to find a sponsor, to find a broadcast partner. There are other events that are totally dictated by the rights holder. Let’s go to the NCAA, for example; that’s dictated on a bid timeline. So sometimes you’re on the receiving side of the timeline and the bid process, and then sometimes you’re just unable to bid because, from a city standpoint, we don’t have the available resources. You have landed the white whale with the Super Bowl coming here. What’s left on the bucket list? It’s been pretty well-publicized that the new stadium with the roof really allowed us to pursue some of the largest sporting events in the country. But the men’s Final Four and the college football national championship, I would say, are the two other ones that we weren’t able to even bid on because of a lack of necessary facility requirements. … I certainly don’t want to speak for the Titans or the city, but it certainly opens up the opportunity now to have events year-round, whether it’s music, sports or conventions. It opens up the opportunity for us to continue to build on the reputation that [Nashville is] a great sports environment, but also one that can utilize the downtown campus and our entertainment components maybe better than any other city in the country. ▼

Broadway Block Party Sunday, Sept. 6, at Bridgestone Arena Louisville vs. Texas at 11 a.m. Indiana vs. Tennessee at 2 p.m. Music City Kickoff Sunday, Sept. 6, at Nissan Stadium Louisville vs. Ole Miss at 6:30 p.m.

PITH IN THE WIND

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GREENS, QUEENS & EVERYTHING IN BETWEEN!

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There’s no simple way to remember Dolly Parton, who passed away last week at 80 and towered over Tennessee as a legendary musician, songwriter and American icon. Fans observed spontaneous vigils last week at Parton’s downtown hotel and her longtime 12South studio and office complex. Parton championed working-class solidarity, feminism and acceptance of all Tennesseans, including gay and trans people, reminds Scene contributor Betsy Phillips in her weekly column. Memorials and praise for Parton have poured in from all major political corners, including a recent pledge from Gov. Bill Lee to support the renaming of Nashville’s airport in Parton’s honor. Mayor Freddie O’Connell also expressed his support, conditioned on the wishes of Parton’s family. The potential renaming unites partisan forces on opposite sides of the political aisle and warring camps locked in an ongoing power struggle for legal authority over BNA. Tennessee will receive $752 million as part of a landmark $17.1 billion settlement with Meta, the tech company behind Instagram and Facebook, following a lawsuit brought in 2023 alleging that the company misled the public regarding its platforms’ mental health risks. Tennessee Attorney General Jonathan Skrmetti, who joined 46 other states in the suit, slammed “Big Tech” for industry-wide recklessness related to social media harms in a statement announcing the settlement. In addition to the payout, Meta will introduce several child protective measures like time limits and stronger content controls. Similar policies were recently imposed in Australia, New Zealand, Britain and France. Meta also called on TikTok and YouTube to impose similar blocks. This year, Tennessee lawmakers set up the Children’s Digital Protection Fund within the state treasury, which will absorb the state’s payout. An estimated 400 businesses and business owners have joined the Nashville Property Tax Coalition, a new advocacy group formed in response to huge property tax bill increases. A countrywide reappraisal in 2025 significantly bumped up land values across Nashville, influenced in part by major price-per-square-foot data from Lower Broadway bars, leaving many property owners with a sudden steep business expense. Nearly 20,000 owners appealed their valuations following the 2025 reappraisal. Christian Paro, the entrepreneur behind coworking spaces Center615 and Studio615, leads NPTC and wants to improve certain aspects of the property tax process. Paro says state lawmakers are sympathetic to Nashville’s tax concerns; in August, House Speaker Cameron Sexton publicly floated the idea of a special session on the topic.

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NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

NASHVILLE’S QUEEN OF THE DEMIMONDE —Daily Nashville Patriot, Sept. 4, 1855

ebecca Higgins may have at one point been Nashville’s most infamous woman, though you’ve likely never heard of her. She left quite a trail, though no one’s bothered to follow it. She was nearly blown up by a locomotive and nearly killed by Nathan Shivers. She was an integral part of the Union’s Civil War victory. And after the war, she was one of a small group of people who kept the city funded and functioning while the local economy was in the crater. I’ll give you three guesses as to why you don’t know about a woman who, when she gets shot at, “sundry other women” get shot — and your first two don’t count. For nearly four decades, Rebecca Higgins ran a “house of ill fame.” She was the madam of a brothel here in Nashville. For a few years during the Civil War, prostitution was legal in Nashville. In a July 2013 article for Smithsonian magazine titled “The Curious Case of Nashville’s Frail Sisterhood,” writer Angela Serratore lays out what historians believe was the situation here, before the Union started licensing sex workers: “According to the 1860 U.S. Census, Nashville was home to 198 white prostitutes and nine referred to as ‘mulatto.’ The city’s red-light district was a two-block area known as ‘Smoky Row,’ where women engaged in the sex trade entertained farmers and merchants in town on business. By 1862, though, the number of ‘public women’ in Nashville had increased to nearly 1,500, and they were always busy.” Smoky Row was Church Street from the Cumberland River to roughly Fourth Avenue. But there were sex workers all over town. You’ll see those aforementioned numbers — 198 and nine — thrown around a lot for the total of said sex workers. But that just can’t be true. Rebecca Higgins lived in the Second Ward, far from

Smoky Row, and in the Second Ward there were 62 self-identified prostitutes and seven washers or chambermaids who were living together. Back in the day, there were certain professions — like chambermaid or washer or laundress or seamstress or dressmaker — in which some women actually held those jobs and only those jobs. But often they were polite euphemisms for sex workers. (Sex workers who also might have had those jobs, to be clear.) In those days, if you were to see, say, four 20-something women living together, you’re likely looking at sex workers. Not in all cases, I’m sure, but often enough that, if you’re going to try to come up with a number for how many sex workers were working in Nashville in 1860, you’d need to come up with some estimate for the euphemistic professions. And I didn’t even bother to count the number of households where a middle-aged woman and a handful or two of young unrelated women all declined to provide the census with any profession. But come on. Nashville wasn’t filled to the brim with boarding schools for girls. Sex work is how a lot of women in town supported themselves. I’ve never heard anyone talk about the tremendous economic impact sex work had on Nashville, but if a woman had a job and no male relatives in her household, there’s a good chance she was a sex worker. This is before, during and after the Civil War. And after the war — talk about something we never acknowledge as a city — these women’s economic power kept the city functioning. On Jan. 9, 1868, the Republican Banner reported on a roundup of the city’s most prominent madams and explained that “the queens of the demi-monde had been thus ignominiously compelled to open their purses for the relief of an insolvent corporation.” In other words, the

BY BETSY PHILLIPS

city was broke and kept itself functioning by fining the city’s wealthiest madams for committing an act that had been legal a short while before. This makes a kind of sense. Who has money in the wake of a war? And in the wake of this particular war, who had U.S. dollars and not Confederate? If the city needs money to pay its bills, it has to get it from the people in town who have money in legal tender — i.e., the sex workers who serviced all the Union troops. And to think, we have all these monuments dedicated to the great heroes who saved the city during the war, and not a single solitary statue for the women who saved the city after the war.

The women named in the 1868 Republican Banner article were Sue Bell, Mattie Frazier, Mattie Barber, Kate Chambers, Mary Hooten, Bell Evans, Mary Coombs, Rose Howard, Rebecca Higgins, Emma Hynes, Mag Seate, Jennie Rodgers, Dora Puckett and Eliza Smith. These were all women who had been around a while. Mag Seate and Mary Coombs had been working for Rebecca Higgins back in 1850.

In the 1860 census, Rebecca Higgins is the 41-year-old proprietor of a house of ill fame and has real estate worth $24,000 and personal wealth of $1,500. Living with her are her sister, 36-year-old prostitute Eliza Higgins, and her brother, 28-year-old carpenter Barnard Higgins. She has 15 women living in the house, working for her, and there are eight children. In Nashville in 1860, $25,500 is so much money for a woman to have. Granted, it’s not the level of money that that famed 19th-century Nashvillian Adelicia Acklen, Mistress of Belmont, had. But it is “I do as I please” money. Rebecca had the same wealth as her neighbors who were doctors and merchants and lawyers. And for at least 30 years, she ran a notorious brothel at the corner of Market and Locust, now Jo Johnston and Second — kitty-corner from where the Strobel House is now. When Rebecca’s brother Barnard Higgins died in 1878, the newspaper now known as The Tennessean reported that “he had no family” and “took an active part in local politics thirty years ago. By trade he was both a painter and a carpenter, was much liked by all who knew him and had few or no enemies.” You’d think that living in a brothel, even one that his sister owned,

TENNESSEE STATE LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES

Police Court—Nathan Shivers, an old acquaintance of the officers, was arrested yesterday for an assault on some women in the lower part of the town. … He was committed to jail for contempt of Court. When he gets out he will be tried for shooting at Rebecca Higgins, and striking sundry other women.

Uncovering the little-known history of Rebecca Higgins, the 19th-century madam who built a small empire

CIVIL WAR PROSTITUTE HOSPITAL

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

would be scandalous. Apparently not. That isn’t to say there was no social shame in consorting with sex workers. On Oct. 1, 1859, The Tennessean reported that Alderman Richard Boone Cheatham said Rebecca wanted the city to prevent the Louisville and Nashville Railroad company and the Edgefield and Kentucky Railroad company from putting up a depot by her house. She believed such a depot would “endanger the safety of her property.” We can tell Cheatham was teased about this, because two weeks later he was back before the Board of Aldermen explaining that he had brought her concerns to them because “she lived in the Ward he represented and had asked him to present it. He should perform a like service for any constituent of his.” Fair. And even if people teased him, no one held it against him. In 1860, Cheatham was elected mayor of Nashville. That same year, a locomotive at the depot blew up and Rebecca’s house was damaged. The Banner reported that, though no one was hurt,

ALDERMAN RICHARD CHEATHAM

“a portion of the roof of the house was torn off and several windows sashes shattered. The side of the boiler to the North was blown out, otherwise if the engine had been reversed, the loss of life and property at Mrs. Higgins’ might have been considerable.” In other words, Rebecca was right about the dangers of the depot. Rebecca drops from the public record during the war. But the available logs of the “public women” who reported for medical inspection so they could be cleared to work while prostitution was legal in Nashville include women who worked for the Higginses as recorded in the 1860 census: Olive Barber (and possibly, if the woman she came in with is actually Molly Barber rather than Barker, her too), Mary Coombs, possibly Molly Reeves (if she’s the same woman as Mary Rieves) and Eliza Brown. If these women were still working for Rebecca, then the other women listed as living on that same stretch of College Street presumably did too. The immediate aftermath of the war was brutal for everyone. Rebecca Higgins was robbed in 1867, and a man passed her a counterfeit bill in 1868. She continued to get shaken down by the city every time it needed money. And then, in the spring of 1881, she died.

On March 23, 1881, a notice ran in The Tennessean: “James Higgins, John K. Sloan and wife, Alice Sloan; John F. Lacken and wife, Eliza A. Lacken; William B. Thompson and John Thompson to Eliza Higgins, deed of gift to their interest in the estate of Rebecca Higgins.”

REBECCA HIGGINS’ HOUSE (IN RED) TENNESSEE STATE LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

The city was broke and kept itself functioning by fining the city’s wealthiest madams for committing an act that had been legal a short while before. This makes a kind of sense. Who has money in the wake of a war? James Higgins was the second-oldest Higgins sibling after Rebecca, and after spending some time in Texas, he had settled out in Cheatham County. Alice Sloan and Eliza Lacken were sisters, Bledsoes from a lesser-known — and less-prone-to-being-killed-by-Native Americans — branch of the Sumner County Bledsoe family. And their mom was Harriett Armstrong. She was Harriett Armstrong in North America, Family Histories, 1500-2000. She was Harriett Armstrong on the death certificate of the aforementioned Eliza Locken, and she was Harriett Armstrong on the death certificate of William Thompson, who — it turns out — was the brother of John and a half-sibling to the sisters. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. One mystery at a time. Harriett Armstrong married James Bledsoe in 1836, when she was 14. Her first son, Thomas, was born the next year, followed by William (yes, she had two Williams), James, Lydia, Eliza in 1848, Alice in 1854, and Robert in 1857. After Bledsoe died, she married John Thompson and had the second William and John. Every single record that exists calls her

by one of those three last names: Armstrong, Bledsoe or Thompson. Every record except one. When Harriett Armstrong and James Bledsoe got married, the Sumner County marriage certificate recorded her name as Harriett Higgins. There is no Armstrong. She was Harriett Higgins when she married Bledsoe, and after Bledsoe died in 1849 she stayed Harriett Bledsoe until she married John Thompson, and she was Harriett Thompson when she died. Armstrong is a name her kids put on paperwork, but it doesn’t ever seem to be a name she used. It makes a certain kind of sense. Maybe her kids didn’t want to be linked to the Higgins name, considering its notorious link to sex work of the era. But I’m not convinced that Harriett was distancing herself from her sisters. Take another look at the year Bledsoe died: 1849. Now revisit his youngest kids’ birth years. It’s not easy for a dead man to father children, and yet James Bledsoe seems to have done so twice. When James and Harriett were married, they were traveling constantly between Tennessee

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NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

and Louisiana. Most of the children born during Bledsoe’s life are listed in various places as having been born in both Louisiana and Tennessee, as if they just put down whichever of the two states struck their fancy at the time. Imagine how easy it would have been for Harriett to show up in either place with another child. There doesn’t need to be any explanation. No one could prove she was pregnant or not pregnant before the baby appeared, because maybe she was away and the baby was born elsewhere. If one of her sex worker sisters needed a way to give a child legitimacy, Harriett could pretty easily make it seem as if the child was hers. Aside from the timing of their births, there’s one more major indication that at least one of the youngest children was actually the child of Rebecca or Eliza — in the 1860 census, 3-year-old Robert Bledsoe is listed as living in Rebecca’s brothel. If he was Harriett’s child, why wasn’t he living with her? The youngest two girls were. Robert died when he was 10 of “brain fever.” The interment records at the Nashville City Cemetery show that he was buried on Cherry “on Becky Hegin [sic] Lot.” I found the deed for the lot — a 30-by-16-foot area she paid $24 in full for on April 25, 1855. Bryan Gilley, the current site manager of Nashville City Cemetery, has an old map of interments in the cemetery and Rebecca’s lot is right there — along with the names of everyone buried in it:

Sarah Williams Barnard Higgins Harriett Thompson James Bledsoe and his son James Lydia Bledsoe Robert Bledsoe Rebecca Higgins

Sarah Williams had worked for Rebecca for a long time. She was in the house in 1850 and 1860. She died in 1861 of typhoid fever. Everyone else in Rebecca’s lot is someone we know: brother Barnard, Harriett and her first husband and the two children they lost young, and Robert — who belongs in the family, but how is not clear. But there’s no sign of Eliza. When their brother, Robert Higgins, died in 1881 down in Alabama, he left his watch and chain to his sister, Eliza McIntire of Nashville. I thought maybe this was a lead on what had become of her. In the Dec. 17, 1871, issue of the Republican Banner, I found that a John McIntire had transferred a “reversionary interest in house and lot in North Nashville, $5 and other considerations” to Eliza. The language made me think that maybe they had history together.

I found a marriage record for a John McIntire in Nashville in 1850. He married Eliza Kinnear. Kinnear is not actually a name anyone had in Nashville in 1850, and there is no trace of Eliza Kinnear before this or Eliza McIntire after this. Was this actually Eliza Higgins under an assumed name? Or did she feed her brother Robert a story about a husband so he would not be scandalized if any children showed up? The other important thing to note: The only nieces or nephews mentioned in Robert Higgins’ will were Eliza Lacken and Alice Sloan — Harriett’s daughters. The only sister mentioned was Eliza. When you see how property moved around the family or who lived where when, I think it’s obvious that Rebecca and Eliza’s money kept the whole family afloat, and that in return, the family intended for Eliza Lacken and Alice Sloan to have some kind of financial safety net. Rebecca died in January 1881. Her brother Robert died in early February. In March 1881, Eliza ran that notice in The Tennessean, which we now know was Rebecca’s family giving Eliza their share of Rebecca’s estate. The Higginses, as we know them, were Rebecca (dead), James, Harriet (dead, but with heirs), Eliza (alive), and Barnard (dead with no heirs). James, Harriett’s kids and Eliza should have split the estate equally in three. But everyone gave their stake back to Eliza. In November, we see the first indication of why they might have done that. Someone named Dovie Ragsdale is in the County Court at Nashville and putting notices in the paper for all the Higgins relatives she wants to take to court. I mention which family members Robert named in his will and how Rebecca’s estate appears to have been split before the family gave it all to Eliza, because I deeply suspect that they did not know that this woman, Dovie, who it turns out was their oldest sister, was still alive. Which, fair. Once she landed down in Decherd, Tenn., south of Tullahoma, she seems to have stayed there. And until the railroad went through, that might as well have been the other side of the world. But here she is, now, after all the hard work is done, suing for her quarter of the estate. The problem — and this dragged on for years, mind you — was that the grand brick house by the train depot had fallen into disrepair, and the court simply couldn’t find a buyer for it. Then, late one night in February 1884, someone burned the house. As The Tennessean reported: “About 12:45 o’clock this morning a fire broke out in the large brick house on North Market street, five doors below the Louisville depot, that until within the past two weeks was occupied by Eliza Higgins as a house of ill fame. The house has for many years been known as

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

‘Becky Higgins.’ No one was in the house at the time of the breaking out of the fire and the police believe it was the work of an incendiary.” Knowing how much trouble settling the estate — with this house at the center of it — was, we might suspect that Eliza set fire to the house herself. But if there was an investigation into the fire, the papers didn’t report on it. As far as we know, Eliza was already two weeks gone before the fire started. And there is no trace of her after this. She buried her sister, settled Rebecca’s estate, and then vanished.

REBECCA HIGGINS’ TOMBSTONE

The brick vault in the Nashville City Cemetery, beneath the worn marble headstone that used to say Rebecca Higgins on it, is empty — except for a few bits of the coffin that once held her, along with some small animal bones. We know this because the vault collapsed recently and Bryan Gilley, the site manager, had to get into the grave and restack the bricks. Rebecca is gone, returned to dirt. The woman who came from nothing, built an empire, and saved the city slipped out of history as easily as she might have slipped out of her dress. ▼

UPCOMING SHOWS AT THE MUSEUM’S CMA THEATER

OCTOBER 1

SARAH JAROSZ

10 YEARS OF ‘UNDERCURRENT’

OCTOBER 27

JAKE SHIMABUKURO

NOVEMBER 1

BRUCE COCKBURN

WITH SPECIAL GUEST LIVINGSTON TAYLOR

NOVEMBER 13

THE JAYHAWKS

SANCTUARY PARK TOUR CELEBRATING 40 YEARS OF THE JAYHAWKS

NOVEMBER 14

SHAUN CASSIDY

UNWRAPPED SONGS & STORIES FOR THE HOLIDAYS

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NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

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ANGELA AUTUMN BITCHIN BAJAS MARGARET GLASPY HAUTE & FREDDY'S BIGDISGRACE TOUR GYEDU-BLAY AMBOLLEY WITH MAISY OWEN

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RAYLAND BAXTER NIKKI LANE ARLO PARKS VLAD HOLIDAY PAUL MCDONALD & MORGXN THE MOURNING DOVES VERYGENTLY MOODY JOODY LANEY JONES CREAMER ELKE AND THE SPIRITS EVA CASSEL MADDIE ETTRICH MARBLE JETS WOLF TWIN and continuing fridays in september IN PARTNERSHIP WITH

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BUDDY MILLER ABIGAIL ROSE CHAPPY MILLY ROZE

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CRITICS’ PICKS: WEEKLY ROUNDUP OF THINGS TO DO

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[UNDER THE STARS]

AMERICAN MOSAIC: A FREE COMMUNITY CONCERT

As much as I appreciate the grandeur and acoustics of the Schermerhorn Symphony Center, there’s something quite special about experiencing an evening of world-class music out under the stars. Local audiences can do just that this weekend, as the Nashville Symphony presents American Mosaic at Walk of Fame Park. Music Director Leonard Slatkin leads this unique multimedia concert event, which is billed as “a bold new composition honoring the people, places and spirit of the United States.” Created by composer Peter Boyer and photographer Joe Sohm (and co-commissioned by the Nashville Symphony), American Mosaic combines rich orchestral music with vivid 4K video featuring scenery from all 50 states, plus live narration from esteemed actor and humanitarian Gary Sinise. The evening’s program also includes all-American works by Aaron Copland, Duke Ellington, Joan Tower, Charles Ives and more. American Mosaic is free and open to the public, and guests are welcome to pack a picnic and bring the family. It’s a perfect way to enjoy your Labor Day weekend while honoring our nation’s unique beauty and musical identity. AMY STUMPFL 7:30 P.M. AT WALK OF FAME PARK 121 FOURTH AVE. S.

FREE FEST FEAT. ARLO PARKS, MORGXN, NIKKI LANE, RAYLAND BAXTER & MORE PAGE 18

IAN EDWARD WHITE: TOWNES FERRY PIKE PAGE 18

THURSDAY / 9.3 FILM

MUSIC

SATURDAY, SEPT. 5

[I’M A FIEND FOR MOJITOS]

STAFF PICKS: MIAMI VICE

People weren’t ready. The film industry was smack in the middle of the Gritty Reboot Era, and Universal Pictures decided to revive the long-dead Miami Vice property. Crime auteur Michael Mann was the executive producer of the uber-influential ’80s TV show, so he was a natural fit for an updated film version. Jamie Foxx was hot off a rare double-Oscarnomination year, and Hollywood was putting Colin Farrell in everything; it seemed like a slam dunk. But critics, fans of the show and the moviegoing public did not respond well

RENÉE FLEMING WITH BÉLA FLECK:

THE FIDDLE AND THE DRUM

FEATURING MY BLUEGRASS HEART WITH SIERRA HULL

RACHEL GILLIG AUTHOR EVENT PAGE 20

to what ended up being an ethereal, digitalpink tone poem rather than a traditional cop drama. Thankfully, 20 years later, people have come around. There’s a downright fervent cult of dedicated film bros (including myself) out there praising this movie every day. Luckily, Conner at the Belcourt is among our brethren, and he programmed Miami Vice as a Staff Pick this week. I’m practically giddy at the thought of sipping on a mojito while watching Foxx, Farrell and Naomie Harris navigate a Miami nightclub as the iconic Jay-Z/Linkin Park mash-up “Numb/ Encore” plays. Somebody get me on a speedboat to Cuba! LOGAN BUTTS 8 P.M. AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE.

AN AMERICANAFEST SPECIAL EVENT

SEP 15 | 7:30 PM SCHERMHORN SYMPHONY CENTER

Be Moved. Be Amazed. BE. HERE.

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NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

KING MALA

W/ JAYDEN HAMMER

9/23 world famous pets

9/24

9/26

10/16

the gringos

W/ John wood band

ft. edie brickell of new bohemians!

9/25 post sex nachos

damien jurado

W/ St. Yuma and Adam Voith

w/ the foxies and fetch tiger

just announced

The Renaissance Room

Upcoming shows sep 3 Ben Quad x Macseal w/ Aren't We Amphibians sep 4 The Emo night tour sep 5 nashville indie night

sep 26 damien jurado w/ st. yuma and adam voith sep 29 rebecca black sep 30 the bros. landreth w/ Madeleine Roger ft. Crumbsnatchers, Jettee, Rohna, and Savanna Leigh oct 1 juice sep 6 The Suicide machines w/ Mugger Oct 2 hot in herre: 2000s dance party sep 8 ugly kid joe w/ platinum moon oct 7 willi carlisle w/ dylan earl sep 12 an evening with jed harrelson ft. abigail rose oct 8 finn wolfhard w/ malcy Sold out! sep 14 ben harper & the innocent criminals low tickets! oct 11 golden: a k-pop kids party! sep 15 ben harper & the innocent criminals Sold out! oct 12 russian circles w/ pelican sep 16 scene queen w/ Wargasm & Bailey Spinn oct 13 mind enterprises sep 17 americanafest: houndmouth, the brook & the oct 14 olivia o'brien bluff, & more oct 15 ax and the hatchetmen w/ the hails sep 18 americanafest: Wyonna Judd & Avi Kaplan oct 16 the renaissance Room sep 19 americanafest: Parker Millsap & more oct 18 After sep 19 FREE SHOW! Eddie Slide & His Cowtown Dozen oct 19 The linda lindas w/ grace bowers sep 21 Adéla Sold out! oct 21 aaron lee tasjan w/ madeleine kelson sep 22 king mala w/ jayden hammer oct 22 chasing abbey sep 23 world famous pets ft. Edie Brickell of New Bohemians! oct 23 Michigander w/ chapel sep 24 the gringos w/ john wood band oct 25 edgehill w/ palmer sep 25 post sex nachos w/ The Foxies and Fetch Tiger oct 26 wednesday 13 w/ dead on a sunday and above snakes Stop by Lowbar located underneath the basement east for drinks, pool, darts, karaoke and more! Open 5pm-late

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9/12

FRIDAY / 9.4 [FREE FESTIN’]

FREE FEST FEAT. ARLO PARKS, MORGXN, NIKKI LANE, RAYLAND BAXTER & MORE

The fall run of Musicians Corner — Nashville’s annual series of free outdoor concerts at Centennial Park — usually peaks with the threeday Labor Day weekend celebration Free Fest, and this year’s lineup doesn’t disappoint. Bon Aqua-born Americana artist Rayland Baxter will headline Friday night, country-rock singersongwriter Nikki Lane takes the headlining spot on Saturday evening, and the one-two punch of indie-pop singer Arlo Parks and Nashville native MORGXN will close things out on Sunday. Musicians Corner will also be taking place on Sept. 11, Sept. 18 (as part of AmericanaFest) and

9/14

neil hamburger

everything yes

Upcoming shows SEP 3 lb beistad w/ claire vandiver [7pm] SEP 3 jacoozy w/ Great outdoors [9pm] SEP 4 vinje w/ victoria camp [7pm] SEP 4 crazier w/ sophie the stray and ol blue [9pm] SEP 6 j isaiah evans & the boss tweed w/ volk [7pm] sep 7 chloe alexander [7pm] SEP 9 schur w/ fai laci [7pm] SEP 10 joe kaplow w/ mild windigo [7pm] sep 10 grady spencer and the vegabonds [9pm]

SEP 11 pump action w/ under high street [8pm] SEP 12 neil hamburger [7pm] SEP 13 biird [7pm] SEP 14 everything yes [7pm] SEP 14 chandler w/ tuffLuckkid and zac chase [9pm] sep 16 americanafest ft. max alan & more [7pm] SEP 17 americanafest ft. river shook & more [7pm] SEP 18 americamafest ft. jackson and the janks [7pm] sep 19 commomwealth of Kentucky party [12pm]

Don't miss new faces Night every tuesday at 7pm!

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

PERFECT BLUE

MUSIC

Sept. 25. You might see some of those slates discussed in future Critics’ Picks sections. For the full lineup, schedule, event info and more, visit musicianscorner.com. LOGAN BUTTS SEPT. 4-6 AT CENTENNIAL PARK 2500 WEST END AVE. [BEST THING]

RAY LAMONTAGNE W/THE WEATHER STATION

Like Bob Dylan’s post-1965 music, the first two albums by The Band changed the trajectory of folk music. Throw Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Van Morrison into the mix along with The Band, and you might arrive at a short list of the music that influenced New Hampshire-born singer and songwriter Ray LaMontagne. His 2004 debut album Trouble established him as a singer with a smooth delivery and an ear for hooks. LaMontagne scored a hit with his 2008 song “You Are the Best Thing,” which he wrote with Danny Holland. “You Are the Best Thing” is exemplary pop-soul-Americana, complete with catchy horns and LaMontagne’s soulmeets-folk vocals. Over the years, I’ve liked all of his albums, which continue to define one aspect of Americana. On his 2024 release Long Way Home, he sings like Morrison or one of his avowed influences, Stephen Stills, and at its best — as on the title track — LaMontagne takes folk-rock-soul into directions undreamed of in Robbie Robertson’s philosophy. Supporting LaMontagne Friday and Saturday at the Ryman will be The Weather Station, which is led by singer and songwriter Tamara Lindeman. The band’s 2025 album Humanhood sounds like Lindeman was listening to, say, Joni Mitchell and Stereolab for inspiration, and it’s a compelling — and catchy — reworking of classic folk music. EDD HURT 7:30 P.M. SEPT. 4-5 AT THE RYMAN 116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N.

FILM

ART

9/22 8/25

IAN EDWARD WHITE: TOWNES FERRY PIKE

Nashville-based photographer Ian Edward White will join the ranks of legends William Eggleston and William Christenberry when his solo show, Townes Ferry Pike, opens this weekend at David Lusk Gallery. The gallery has hosted exhibitions of Eggleston and Christenberry on several occasions, but even without that pedigree, a solo show in a commercial gallery is a big deal for a photographer. White is a photo teacher at MTSU, and this body of work was made over the past four years during trips through Murfreesboro, Shelbyville, McMinnville and Columbia. “Rather than documenting the region through its familiar landmarks,” reads the exhibition statement, “he turns his attention to the quieter moments of its inhabitants and geography: chance encounters, overlooked spaces, changing weather, and the subtle exchanges that reveal the complexities of everyday life.” White will discuss his work with Frist Art Museum executive director Seth Feman at 6 p.m. on Sept. 24, and the gallery will host a closing reception to coincide with the October art crawl on Oct. 3. LAURA HUTSON HUNTER THROUGH OCT. 3 AT DAVID LUSK GALLERY 516 HAGAN ST.

FESTIVAL

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[EVERYDAY PEOPLE]

[THE COLOR OF ILLUSION]

MIDNIGHT MOVIES: PERFECT BLUE

In an age when it feels like anyone can become a minor celebrity or gain a following, Perfect Blue is the film that keeps becoming more and more relevant as the years roll on. From acclaimed anime director Satoshi Kon, the 1997 film follows Mima, a pop star on the

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MORE INFO AT PUPSANDPINTS.COM NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

SEPTEMBER 9

WITH MAGGIE ROSE SEPTEMBER 11

PAUL CAUTHEN

WITH CHAPARELLE AND COLTON BOWLIN SEPTEMBER 13

THE WAR AND TREATY

WITH AVERY*SUNSHINE AND BUDDY MILLER SEPTEMBER 30

INDIGO GIRLS WITH LINDA PERRY OCTOBER 11

THE BEACH BOYS NOVEMBER 18

THE STRAY CATS WITH THE CHIN CHINS

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

rise who decides to split from her idol group and pursue a solo career — including acting in risqué television shows. However, she soon discovers a website where someone posing as her seemingly posts her inner thoughts. If that wasn’t enough, an obsessed stalker has been trailing her every move, and people working close to her are viciously murdered. Kon bends reality to its limits, constantly keeping his audience questioning what’s going on. As Mima’s professional and personal lives blur together, the world collapses in on itself, leading to some truly horrifying moments. Don’t let the animation fool you — this is an unsettling ride that’ll leave you gasping for air amid its tightly wound tension. The images Kon creates are so iconic that they’ve seemingly influenced many Hollywood films, including Black Swan. The Belcourt will show the film Friday at midnight. Don’t miss seeing an all-time paranoid thriller on the big screen. IAN MATTHEWS MIDNIGHT AT THE BELCOURT 2102 BELCOURT AVE. [GET DIRTY]

MUDDY ROOTS MUSIC FESTIVAL

Festival season in Tennessee rolls on with Muddy Roots, the do-it-yourself gig that doubles as an overnight playground for fans of punk bands, folk storytellers, metal howlers and rockabilly cats — all people who play rowdy songs about real-life shit. The three-night event takes place on JuneBug Boogie Ranch in rural Cookeville, where festivalgoers can set up camp for the extended weekend. Founded in 2010 and dubbed “the biggest little D.I.Y. fest in Tennessee,” this year’s festival features an eclectic lineup spanning three stages, with sets from punk staples Circle Jerks, garage band Shannon and the Clams, rockabilly singer Bloodshot Bill, sludge-metal band Monolord, McDonald’s-themed Black Sabbath tribute Mac Sabbath, and folk band The Builder and the Butchers, among dozens of other acts. See the full lineup and find more information at muddyroots.com. MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER SEPT. 4-6 AT JUNEBUG BOOGIE RANCH 115 WATERLOO ROAD, COOKEVILLE

BOOKS

LITTLE FEAT

CROWD AT MUDDY ROOTS MUSIC FESTIVAL 2025 [DIVINE]

RACHEL GILLIG AUTHOR EVENT

The long-awaited sequel to The Knight and the Moth was released on Sept. 1, and Nashville is one of the cities hosting author Rachel Gillig on her book tour. The Knave and the Moon brings us back to the Stonewater Kingdom and the story of a Diviner named Sybil Delling, who is able to see visions from creatures named the Omens through her dreams. While book one focused on Delling’s quest to find out why her fellow Diviners were being kidnapped, book two focuses on how Delling challenges the new king, Benji, who is using the powers for his political gain. To celebrate the launch, Parnassus Books is hosting an evening with Gillig on Friday at Vanderbilt University’s Langford Auditorium. Hannah Whitten, author of For the Wolf and the Nightshade Crown trilogy, will be leading the discussion. Each event ticket includes a presigned copy of The Knave and the Moon. TINA DOMINGUEZ 6:30 P.M. AT VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY’S LANGFORD AUDITORIUM 2209 GARLAND AVE.

MONDAY / 9.7 [BLUES BOYS]

BLUE MONDAY FEAT. KEVIN MCKENDREE, YATES MCKENDREE, GEORGE SLUPPICK & STEVE MACKEY MUSIC

SEPTEMBER 10

FESTIVAL

WITH LESLIE MENDELSON

PHOTO: @VONRPHOTO

ROGER DALTREY

While The Bluebird Cafe is best-known as a mecca for songwriters, it has also been home to a weekly blues institution for more than 40 years. Blue Monday has been running continuously at the venerable Green Hills nightclub since 1984. For most of that time, the series featured a number of bands fronted by the late guitarist and songwriter Mike Henderson. But since Henderson’s passing in 2023, keyboardist Kevin McKendree, who played in Henderson’s band for more than two decades, has led the blues outfit that appears at the venue every Monday evening. “We really try to respect the tradition of it, and especially Mike Henderson, and we play some of his songs every Monday,” McKendree tells the Scene. “There are

2ND & BROADWAY NASHVILLE, TN

Live Music at ON BROADWAY

9.12 Kylie Morgan

The

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9/4 THE WELL 9/10 MILES JENA 9/11 DOGPILE ‘ALL DOGS GO TO HEAVEN’ RELEASE SHOW 9/12 SMOKIN’ PEAS 90’S TRIBUTE 9/14 WHICH SIDE? NASHVILLE - A PROTEST MUSIC TEACH-OUT 9/15 AMERICANA FEST SHOWCASE 9/16 GREASY CHICKEN REVIEW PERFORMS TOM PETTY 9/17 NATE VICKERS 9/18 DEATH LENS 9/19 200 STAB WOUNDS 9/21 UNPUBLISHED 9/26 CELEBRATING PINKERTON: 30 YEARS OF WEEZER 9/28 UNPUBLISHED 9/29 MESSER CHUPS 9/30 HOT ROD CIRCUIT 10/1 THE BLACK QUEEN 10/2 THE FAMILY

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9/3 A LOAD OF RUBBISH 6 PM MAYNARD & THE MUSTIES 8:30 PM 9/4 THE SUGAR PILLS 7 PM

9.19 Keith Anderson

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From Fr om platinum-selling pla pl a chart-toppers cha to underground icons, ic on s, household names to s, icon ons ons, t undiscovered gems, hi f’ N c co ommitte mmi eeple is h commi o ommi to bringing the very Chief’s Neon Steeple committed best national and regional talent alentt back to Broadway.

SEPTEMBER LINEUP 9.5 Sammy Arriaga 9.12 Kylie Morgan - Healed Cowgirl World Tour 9.16 Jamie O’Neal & Andy Griggs 9.18 Tristan Roberson FREE SHOW 9.19 Keith Anderson 9.20 Bryan White, Special Guest Rich O’Toole 9.21 Buddy’s Place Writer’s Round w/ Sam Palladio, Striking Matches, Gina Venier 9.23 Uncle B’s Damned Ole Opry 2nd Annual Songwriter Spectacular featuring Ashley Gorley, Jim Beavers, Shy Carter, Josh Osborne, Kat Higgins & Special Guests

WRITERS’ ROUNDS AT CHIEF’S

9.24 Audrey Spillman & Friends - Nightingale Album Release Show 9.26 Britnee Kellogg 9.27 Lawrence Rothman Here Lies Love/Sawdust Into Stardust Album Release 9.28 Tim Montana & Friends American Thread Benefit Concert, Benefiting Special Ops Xcursions

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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.

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NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

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CHEEKFACE things about it that we’ve kept the same, and the main thing really is just the spirit of it, which is to have fun.” In addition to McKendree, the current Blue Monday band features his son Yates McKendree on guitar and lead vocals, Steve Mackey on bass and George Sluppick on drums. Occasionally, the band will have special guests sit in with them, such as guitarist Billy Gibbons, keyboardist Reese Wynans, guitarist Sean McDonald or vocalist Jonell Mosser. DARYL SANDERS 9 P.M. AT THE BLUEBIRD CAFE 4104 HILLSBORO PIKE [CHEEKY]

CHEEKFACE

As referential to Tom Tom Club and The B-52s as they are to Pavement, L.A. indierock group Cheekface is tongue-in-cheek but never mean-spirited. With vocalist Greg Katz’s trademark sprechgesang, “America’s local band” makes danceable numbers that offer clever commentary on the decaying state of the world but still make you want to groove. On Podium, their July release, Katz asks, “What if we kissed and held hands on the hostile street furniture?” on one song, before slant-rhyming “Erewhon” with “There is a God” on the next. On “Best Life,” from 2021’s Emphatically No., he coolly declares: “Due to personal reasons, I said nothing in therapy.” This kind of memetic songwriting might be grating in lesser hands — but in Cheekface’s, it’s cathartic fun. Philly ska band Catbite opens. ANNIE PARNELL 8 P.M. AT THE END 2219 ELLISTON PLACE

HARLAN HOWARD Howard described Nashville’s famed cultural export as nothin’ but “three chords and the truth” — and it stuck. And if you remove the grifters and ignore the naysayers, Howard’s words today remain, well, true. Those who head to 3rd and Lindsley on Sept. 7 can expect a whole lot of truth at a night celebrating what would’ve been Howard’s 99th birthday. Hosted by Jim Lauderdale, the event will feature a formidable crew of singers and songwriters who will come together for a one-night celebration of the man who helped create country classics like “I Fall to Pieces,” “I’ve Got a Tiger by the Tail” and many others. Slated performers include Mandy Barnett, Lee Ann Womack, Waylon Payne and Radney Foster, among others. MATTHEW LEIMKUEHLER 7 P.M. AT 3RD AND LINDSLEY 818 THIRD AVE. S. [LIVE A&R COMBAT]

HOOKED

Every Tuesday at The Eighth Room, aspiring songwriter-artists test their musical mettle at Hooked, a live talent competition. Hooked is the brainchild of club owner Jason Hollis, who spent more than two decades in artist development prior to purchasing the venue formerly known as Douglas Corner in 2022. The idea for Hooked grew out of a book Hollis wrote that turned what he had learned about developing artists into actionable lessons. “It was really about trying to have a platform that was more or less A&R combat in

[THREE CHORDS]

HARLAN HOWARD 99TH BIRTHDAY BASH

Have you ever heard that li’l pearl of wisdom about country music, three chords and the truth? Oh, you know what we’re talking about! It’s the phrase that gets printed on T-shirts, quoted onstage and — because this is Nashville, after all — provides inspiration for the name of a new concert hall in Wedgewood-Houston? Well, decades ago, a beloved singer-songwriter named Harlan

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

PHOTO: PRESTON EGGERT

MUSIC

TUESDAY / 9.8

HOOKED, LIVE TALENT COMPETITION

real time,” Hollis tells the Scene. “It was looking at how I could bring A&R to a stage and have an open dialogue with an artist with hitmakers right next to me, so everybody’s giving immediate feedback.” Each week, around seven artists with just a guitar or keyboard and backing from the house band have 60 seconds to play their best hook for host Hollis and a rotating panel of A&R professionals. Artists who survive get two to four minutes to make their case to the panel. Winners earn a regular spot on future episodes and pre- and post-show access to Hollis, the panelists and their industry networks. More information is available at hookedsessions.com. DARYL SANDERS 6:30 P.M. AT THE EIGHTH ROOM 2106 EIGHTH AVE. S.

WEDNESDAY / 9.9 MUSIC

2.4 5pm WRITERS AT THE WATER FREE! WED 9.9 SAT 9pm 4PMTHE KEVIN WOLF FREE HAPPENING HIP HOP CYPHER $10 2.3 WED 95PMPMCW RITERS @ ,THE WATER OPEN MIC ROCTOPUSS PUMP ACTION 2.7

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PHOTO: @MIRIAMBRUMMEL

6PM WHITE ANIMALS FREE 8pm FLIPSVILLE

MUSIC

FRI

FRI 2.2 9/4

[ONE OF THE BOYS]

ROGER DALTREY

Sir Roger Daltrey, one of the most dynamic frontmen in the history of popular music as lead vocalist of The Who, will bring his A Great Night Out! tour to the Ryman Auditorium Sept. 9. The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer will perform selections from his 10 solo albums, as well as reimagined covers and rarities from The Who catalog. He’ll also share stories from his legendary career. “Well it’s one more for the road,” Daltrey says in a release for the tour. “After finishing The Who’s final tour of the

U.S., it’s time for me as a solo artist to possibly do the same.” There’s not much left for the recently knighted Daltrey to accomplish. He’s received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Grammy Foundation and also Kennedy Center Honors. He’s starred in a number of films, most notably playing the lead in Tommy and Lisztomania. He also authored the acclaimed autobiography Thanks a Lot Mr. Kibblewhite. Daltrey is backed on the tour by guitarists Simon Townshend and Doug Boyle, keyboardist Geraint Watkins, mandolinist Billy Nicholls, violinist Katie Jacoby, harmonica player Steve Weston, bassist John Hogg, drummer Scott Devours and percussionist Jody Linscott. Grammy-nominated singersongwriter Leslie Mendelson opens the show. DARYL SANDERS

COMEDY

7:30 P.M. AT THE RYMAN 116 REP. JOHN LEWIS WAY N. [COUNT-RY MUSIC]

ANDI MARIE TILLMAN & FRIENDS

I won’t bury the lede here: This upcoming show from local comedian and character performer extraordinaire Andi Marie Tillman is sold out. In fact, it sold out a month ago, not

PHOTO: FABRICE DEMESSENCE

ROGER DALTREY long after it was announced — a testament to how beloved the East Tennessee native has become here in her adopted hometown. With a combined 1.6 million followers on TikTok and Instagram, Tillman has developed an audience that stretches well outside the Volunteer State, though she makes a great ambassador. “At 4 years old, I put on an entire one-woman Passion Play for my family,” she told the Scene in 2025. “I was Mary, the Roman soldier, Jesus, Pontius Pilate, the angel that announced the resurrection — I was all the characters.” These days, her characters skew less biblical but are nevertheless memorable, from ornery Appalachian Papaw to vampireslash-country-musician Nashveratu. If you weren’t among those who snagged tickets for this one in time, consider this Critic’s Pick your heads-up: Tillman, who’s been honing her live shows more and more lately, will return to Zanies in November. Get your tickets now. D. PATRICK RODGERS

7 P.M. AT ZANIES 2025 EIGHTH AVE. S.

ANDI MARIE TILLMAN

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

FOOD & DRINK

A BEAUTIFUL DAY IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD Wedgewood-Houston’s Sally’s Stay Awhile invites you to do just that

PHOTOS: ANGELINA CASTILLO

BY KAY WEST

SALLY’S STAY AWHILE EXTERIOR IN THE EARLY 2000S, I was often asked to be the speaker for Leadership Nashville’s Quality of Life Day dinner, the tail end of participants’ long day engaging with leaders on serious issues like healthcare, housing, hunger, education and public transportation. After all that it was me — restaurant critic. I know. I did my best to lighten their load. I offered my point of view on how restaurants impact a city’s quality of life, pointing out how generic and same-same the contributions of national chains like Cheesecake Factory and Olive Garden were, compared to the excitement of the emerging wave of chef-owned, independent neighborhood restaurants that expressed the heart, soul and personality of their owners. I urged them to visit Margot, Caffé Nonna, Mirror, Mad Platter, Germantown Café, Eastland Café and Park Cafe, pioneers in pockets of Nashville with one foot in the old and one foot stepping into the new. This is the path laid more than two decades ago that leads us to the door of Sally’s Stay Awhile, a new restaurant in an old building within walking distance of old (The Fairgrounds Nashville and the Nashville Fairgrounds Speedway), new (the 30,000-seat Geodis Park) and exploding (Wedgewood-Houston, turned WeHo for branding purposes). Speaking of branding, when 12South was still known as The Bad Side of Belmont, the diverse residential tract was a fertile field for scrappy upstarts like Mirror, Rumours, Portland Brew, Frothy Monkey and Mafiaoza’s. Chef Andy Little and his wife and partner Karen Van Guilder Little arrived from Lancaster, Pa., in 2013 (pre the Bartaco shark-jump), oblivious to the prolonged and heated battle between residents and developers that preceded the construction of the building — 12South Flats — where their restaurant Josephine would claim part of the ground floor. Little recalls, “Karen

and I weren’t there for that fight, but we learned about it, so we doubled down on hospitality and being there for the neighborhood.” Ten years later, when Josephine couldn’t make the numbers work to sign a new lease in the linear luxury mall 12South has become, residents mourned their departure. Chef Little segued into a position as director of culinary operations for Strategic Hospitality, creators of multiple hometown restaurants that cover culinary and socioeconomic bases from The Catbird Seat and Bastion to Babychan and The Band Box. Sally’s Stay Awhile lands in the happy middle of that spectrum. The building from which it emerged was Smokin’ Thighs, an endearing and enduring neighborhood favorite run for a decade by Matthew Carney, tragically killed in a hit-and-run in the summer of 2024. Ben Goldberg, co-owner of Strategic Hospitality with brother Max and chef Josh Habiger, lived nearby, knew Carney and patronized his place. When it closed, he felt called to preserve its spirit and shepherd its next iteration. “Often a restaurant opens and the owners call it a neighborhood restaurant, but it’s not,” Little says. “It’s in a neighborhood but not for the neighborhood. The golf carts in our parking lot, the strollers, the repeat business all day, tells us we are truly a neighborhood restaurant.” However you travel to Sally’s, you can’t miss the large retro sign looming over the parking lot, the restaurant’s name neon-lit. Painted clean, crisp white with hunter-green accents, the squat cinder-block building offers two outdoor seating areas. Inside, the two dining rooms lean into a family-restaurant, midcentury-diner aesthetic, banquettes lining walls and forming half-moons, stand-alone tables with sleek tops and sturdy chairs. Artist Jeff Stamper’s framed pencil drawings of present and departed local luminaries like

A SELECTION OF MENU ITEMS Jody Faison, Eddie George, Pat Martin, Sunset Grill, Family Wash, F. Scott’s, Filip Forsberg, Knife & Fork and, yes, Dolly, are a nice touch on one wall — one hopes they’ll keep adding to it. Sally’s indeed invites guests to stick around — breakfast through lunch, happy hour (Hot Dog Du Jour from 3 to 6 p.m. is an irresistible lure) and dinner if so inclined. The restaurant is open seven days a week from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. Little says the large kitchen is dark only about three hours in a 24-hour cycle. Ace pastry chef (and Josephine alum) Zach Winchester arrives about 3:30 a.m. All baked goods are produced on site — breakfast doughnuts and croissants to brown-butter brioche pull-aparts at lunch and

dinner and chocolate layer cake with peanut butter frosting for dessert. Breakfast covers baked goods, eggs, griddle classics and meat and potatoes. The lunch and dinner menus are similar, though the former triples the sandwich board. At a recent visit, the spread of appetizers on our table shot me back to the Saturday night parties my parents used to host in the ’60s — in our basement rec room, albeit with more elevated techniques and presentation than my mother-of-five managed. They hit the memory button: tangy sour cream and onion dip with housemade chips as good as the Charles Chips I remember; smoky mini hot dogs in puff pastry;

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

SALLY’S STAY AWHILE INTERIOR a bowl of warm Gruyère cheese dip that evoked the fondue pot we found so exotic. Mozzarella schnitzel — planks of cheese dredged in herbed breadcrumbs, pan-fried and served with a ramekin of marinara — won the hearts of my cheese-loving companions. Nostalgia, comfort, simplicity and authenticity inform and guide Sally’s menu, a team project led by Little, for a busy kitchen run by chef de cuisine Brandon Mook (also from Josephine). It’s all about relatable dishes and familiar food done extremely well: steak and fries, wedge salad, burgers, pasta, rotisserie chicken and macaroni-and-cheese deliver something for everyone. Simple doesn’t mean easy — the chicken is a three-day process, starting with a 24-hour brine. A pan lined with sliced onion, garlic and cream under the poulets spinning on the French rotisserie catches the savory drippings. That is cooled, pureed and turned into the soon-to-befamous Sally’s chicken sauce. I’ve had the pan-roasted salmon as an entrée with fingerling potatoes and leeks and added to the kale salad with mandarin orange segments, shaved mimolette cheese, toasted almonds and date vinaigrette. Not in a million years would I expect to say I’d order it again on the salad, but it was an impeccable composition of texture and flavor. I wasn’t the only person at the table to remark about how the shoestring fries had improved since earlier visits, notably in the change from room temp and limp to hot and crispy the way the gods intended. They’re offered as an appetizer, side or piled high on some of the main plates. (Well done on the diner-style tableware and cutlery!) Whatever your frame of reference for macaroni-and-cheese, Sally’s creamy, cheesy, dreamy, lightly browned version might knock your grandma off the throne. We won’t tell. The only disappointment was the French dip; gristly slices of beef were not worthy of the crusty roll and delicious horseradish sauce. I’m sure that, had I asked, it would have been corrected. I longingly eyed the double-smashed-patties cheeseburger on several nearby tables. Little says some items will seasonally change out — goodbye BLT and zucchini sauce

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

PINKY SWEAR (LEFT) AND LONESOME GLORY on the excellent radiatori — but Sally’s rice pudding must never, ever leave. Rice pudding goes to Le Cordon Bleu, stirred with caramel cream and crowned with tart dried cherries and pistachio crumble. During our two-plus hour occupation of a primo corner table, we saw parties come and go — parents with young children, couples, groups of four and six, singles at the bar. We never felt rushed but were encouraged to relax and enjoy. In this time of complicated menus, skyrocketing prices, strained service and rapidly changing neighborhoods that make even longtime Nashvillians feel fully unmoored, Sally’s Stay Awhile is a comfort zone, a haven from the noise and razzle dazzle, an anchor for this neighborhood and a welcome respite for all. Come hungry, leave happy. It’s the Sally’s way. ▼

Sally’s Stay Awhile 611 Wedgewood Ave. sallysnashville.com

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BENEFITING

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

An unforgettable afternoon of songwriters, stories, and community benefiting Friends of Radnor Lake. Hosted by Friends of Radnor Lake and Will Robinson with Phil Vassar and Friends.

CAR PASSES AVAILABLE AT RADNORLAKE.ORG Nan Adams Feemster Family Loren Chumley & Scott Peterson Will & Kellie Robinson

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THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 12 | HARKEN HALL

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FOUR CHEFS. ONE SECRET INGREDIENT. INTRODUCING YOUR 2026 COMPETING CHEFS

Four of Nashville’s top chefs will throw down in a head-to-head cooking competition featuring a secret ingredient to vie for the coveted Iron Fork trophy! Catch all the action while you enjoy unlimited sips and bites from 25+ restaurants, spirits, beers and more!

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NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

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ART

DRAWING A CROWD

Meet New Zealand native Wendy Murray — the artist determined to draw every building on Gallatin Pike

WENDY MURRAY

OPENS FRI, SEPTEMBER 4 www.belcourt.org 2102 Belcourt Avenue Nashville, TN 37212

can walk down the middle. She did a truncated version of this in November of last year inside a box truck. Murray also intends to produce an accordion book of her art, as well as a coffee table book complete with more history about the Gallatin Pike — or Gallatin Road, as locals tend to call it. Murray says something she often hears is, “You call it Gallatin Pike, so you’re obviously not from here.” And certainly not “the” Gallatin Pike. She takes it in stride. “And I’m like, ‘Well dang, I am not from here,’” she says. “I’m totally embracing that. I’m fine to be an outsider, it’s cool.” She loves when longtime Nashvillians tell her their personal histories with the buildings she’s drawn. She also asks people to “toot” their horn when they drive past and see her drawing. “It can feel more lonely out there when there’s lots of traffic,” she says. “I just feel like this tiny, insignificant blob on the side of the street.” As evidenced by Owen the car and Jeremy Coney the traffic cone, Murray tends to anthropomorphize things. But she says that’s not something she thinks about consciously. She gestures to a nearby building from her perch. “That building,” she says. “There’s so much history in that. That building’s had a crazy life.” ▼

NASHVILLE’S NONPROFIT FILM CENTER

LOCAL INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

WHEN NEW ZEALAND native Wendy Murray set out ILLUSTRATIONS OF BUILDINGS ON to draw every building on GALLATIN PIKE both sides of a 6-mile stretch of Nashville’s Gallatin Pike, she wasn’t super clear on the conversion from miles can with her 0.2-millimeter pen, keeping any to kilometers. In recent weeks, she was informed errors as part of the drawing’s charm. She then about just how long that is. uses gouache, a water-based paint, to fill in the “In my head, I can achieve 6,” Murray tells the colors at home, working off of a reference photo Scene, describing her thought process. “But a she took while drawing. Each drawing takes 10K run on both sides? Are you crazy?” four to five hours, and she aims to complete four Murray has completed drawings of 266 buildto five drawings per week — working around ings as of this writing. She says she’d rather not the hours of her day job. count how many are left. Murray finds a soft, shaded perch directly She fell in love with Gallatin Pike even before across the street from her subject of the day. she officially moved to Nashville. She says she’d If she can’t find a cozy spot, she sits on a few take the WeGo Route 56 bus up and down the tattered copies of the Scene directly on the corridor to legendary print shop Hatch Show sidewalk. She wears highly visible clothing, inPrint downtown for a 2024 internship; she officluding a custom neon hat made for her by local cially moved here in 2025. She says she’s never chain-stitch shop RangerStitch, from which been a car person, but her car — which she calls she’s hung tiny safety cone earrings. Owen — has helped speed up the project. A cone, which she has affectionately named Murray started drawing some of the buildings Jeremy Coney after a New Zealand cricket simply because she draws wherever she goes. player, stands watch. For her as an artist, Gallatin Pike became a way “We had a tree fall down over our street to tell a deeper story. during the ice storm, and they put these cones With her Every Building on the Gallatin Pike out,” says Murray. “And then they cleaned up project — which was inspired in part by Every the tree eventually, and they took all the cones Building on the Sunset Strip, a 1966 project by artexcept for one. And I was like, ‘That little cone is ist Edward Ruscha, and spans from Main Street just out there by himself.’” to Briley Parkway — Murray observes the creep After she packs up for the day, Murray drops of gentrification. The Briley end to the north is a postcard about her project in the mailbox of the old Gallatin Pike, and the Five Points end to the building she’s drawing. There’s no profit inthe south is the new Gallatin Pike, she observes. volved, Murray says, but she does produce some When buildings see change, she can’t go back to postcards and prints of her drawings to support update her pieces. If she did that, she says, she’d the project — and those can be purchased via be drawing forever. her website. “Gallatin [Pike] is an important road in NashMurray is versed in a variety of mediums, ville,” she says. “Doing this project, I’m learning including zines, pottery and various types of how important it is to the whole community. printmaking. But her latest work is in support People kind of hate on it, but there’s so many of a vision she has of one day lining up all of awesome things about it.” the buildings in a row in an art museum. She’ll Murray’s process is simple: She draws the position the east side of Gallatin Pike on one outline of the building of the day as fast as she wall and the west side on the other, so people

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MEMORIES OF A COUNTRY QUEEN

Fans — including fellow musicians, music-biz execs, politicians and more — reflect on the passing of Dolly Parton

PHOTO: MICHAEL W. BUNCH

BY JULIANNE AKERS

Read more about Dolly Parton at nashvillescene.com/music

DOLLY PARTON AT THE RYMAN IN 2015

YOU DON’T HAVE to be a fan of country music to love Dolly Parton. That’s the sentiment being echoed across Nashville by fans, music industry executives, politicians and more as they mourn the Tennessee icon known for her kindness, philanthropy and humanitarianism just as equally she was known for hits like “9 to 5” and “Jolene,” among dozens of others. Parton died of cancer Aug. 25 at age 80. In Nashville, flags flew at half staff while the Metro Courthouse and Korean War Veterans Bridge lit up pink the night of Aug. 25 in remembrance of Parton, who was born into poverty in East Tennessee’s portion of Appalachia before rising to fame as a country singer-songwriter. The Grand Ole Opry announced the dedication of its Aug. 29 show to Parton, who first played on the venerable program at 13 years old. “Every member of the Grand Ole Opry family has a Dolly story, as does everyone around the world who was ever in her orbit,” Dan Rogers, senior vice president and executive producer at the Opry, says in a statement. “That’s just one of the things that made her so special. For more than 50 years as an Opry member, she used her talent and success to bring sheer joy to millions. To every artist, she provided inspiration beyond measure. To every fan, she connected in a way that made each of us feel like the most important person in the room. Her impact will live on forever as we all carry forward the kindness, compassion and generosity she shared throughout her life. Dolly always knew exactly what to say. I’m afraid the best I have on this terribly sad

day is a genuine, heartfelt, ‘Thank you for everything, Dolly. We sure do love you.’” Sarah Trahern, outgoing CEO of the Country Music Association, remembers Parton for both her music and philanthropic endeavors. Among the best known is Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library, which has provided more than 332 million free books to children across the globe. “At the end of the day, few artists define Country Music better,” Trahern says in a statement. “Over her decades-long career, I worked with her on a number of programs. She was always the most professional in every setting, often walking off the bus in heels and hair and makeup ready to go, before expected and before the cast and crew. However, along with the music, our biggest loss today is her work as a philanthropist and the genuine difference she has made in people’s lives throughout the world. There will only ever be one Dolly.” “Dolly Parton’s legacy is not celebrity, but humanity,” concurs Kyle Young, CEO of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, in his statement. “She was a champion of equality and literacy. She was a picture of dignity, even when dressed outrageously. Anyone who seeks to be more like Dolly is on the right track, but they’ll never get to the finish line. She came from poverty to become the most important native of Tennessee. She shared her fortunes for the good of all of us, and shared her soul in every note she sang.” Gary and Cameron Simms and Shawn Carney — all of Columbia, Tenn. — gathered at Parton’s star outside Nashville’s Country Music Hall of Fame on Aug. 25, hours after her death, to place

flowers at a growing makeshift memorial. “I’ve been collecting Dolly Parton for 43 years,” Carney said, sporting a Dolly shirt, hat, purse and leg tattoo. “I’ve followed her around and seen her 56 times in concert. I’ve been a lifelong fan, and it’s just devastating.” Nashvillians have also flocked to several murals across the city featuring Parton to remember the star’s life and legacy. One of those murals adorns an outer wall of Five Points music venue The 5 Spot. Visible from the counter at neighboring vintage clothing store Hip Zipper, the mural is now decorated with dozens of flowers and candles honoring Parton. When the Scene stopped by on Aug. 26, Evelynn Douglas was on duty at Hip Zipper. She was wearing a Dolly Parton T-shirt. “It’s been both unifying and painful,” says Douglas. “Everybody’s kind of feeling it, but in a weird way, it’s brought a lot of people together.” Douglas is from East Tennessee and says she has always looked up to Parton. “She’s just always been an idol to me,” she says. “Growing up in East Tennessee especially, you just see her fingerprints everywhere. She’s changed that area for the better in so many ways, and really helped the community. She grew up in such poverty, and she’s trying her best to make sure nobody else goes through what she went through. … There’s just so many people who have reached her level of success that forgot what it feels like, but she’s never forgotten.” Parton’s commitment to community may be one of the reasons behind the unusually unifying nature of grief for her passing that Douglas

mentions. Politicians from across the spectrum have paid tribute to Parton. Republican Gov. Bill Lee made the call to fly flags at half staff in honor of “Tennessee’s favorite daughter.” State Sen. Jessie Seal (R-New Tazewell) is proposing legislation to make Sept. 25 “9 to 5 Day” in Parton’s honor. Former Democratic Gov. Phil Bredesen’s statement praises her legacy, especially the Imagination Library: “Her songs will be played and loved for a very long time, but the legacy of her life I most admire is the millions of children who will learn to love books because of Dolly’s vision and generosity.” Noting that “9 to 5” is one of the first songs he can remember memorizing the lyrics to, Nashville Mayor Freddie O’Connell points out the huge variety of ways Parton touched lives. He mentions the impact of both her Dollywood theme park in Pigeon Forge and the Imagination Library on his own daughters: “For each of the girls, there was a tearful moment upon receiving what we knew would be the last book from Dolly, letting each of them know they were ready for kindergarten.” As one might expect, heaps of musicians are paying tribute to Parton. Not only has her extraordinary songwriting and singing been a profound influence, but her kindness and generosity of spirit outside the limelight are themes repeated again and again. “Her voice could cut through the room like the crack of a whip and demand attention — just take a listen to her ball-busting rendition of Jimmie Rodgers’ ‘Mule Skinner Blues,’” observes Margo Price in her Substack newsletter Rawdoggin’ Reality, alongside an account of her dress getting stuck to Parton’s during a photo session. “But Dolly’s voice could also be as soft and tender as the gentle kiss of a butterfly. Take a listen to ‘A Few Old Memories’ from her album The Grass Is Blue and let her carry you away from this world of pain for a moment on her wings.” Gillian Welch writes on Instagram about a brush with Parton from well before she became famous herself. The star gave Welch some much-needed kind words after a stomach bug absolutely wrecked her 10th birthday party: “She stood in the open doorway with the full force of the Southern California sun blazing behind her, making a radiant halo of her platinum hair. She looked like an angelic visitation in casual denim. She had come over to rehearse a musical number for a TV show she was doing with my parents. With the utmost tenderness and understanding she said, ‘Oh honey, I heard you were sick and your party was all ruined. I’m so sorry.’” Allison Russell wrote a poem in Parton’s memory that serves as a fitting epitaph: “You cherished ALL Wildflowers / Of every shape and stripe and hue / You loved us all as Equals,” it reads in part. “In these Days of Violent Fracture / In this Season of Our Discontent / We stand at last United, at least on this one Truth / Dolly Parton, we will always, always, love you too.” Hamilton Matthew Masters and Annie Parnell contributed reporting to this story. ▼

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

MUSIC

QUILTWORK

Angela Autumn explores the power in a word on Believer

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LOCAL INDEPENDENT JOURNALISM

BY BOBBIE JEAN SAWYER

ANGELA AUTUMN WHEN NASHVILLE singer-songwriter Angela Autumn met her hero, indie-rock legend Cat Power, her reputation as a banjo-toting raconteur preceded her. “She said ‘Oh, I know you — I know you from being the Rose of Appalachia,’” Autumn tells the Scene. “There’s a lot of power in claiming your space. I’ve been all over the country toting my banjo around and meeting other people. I’m from Appalachia and I’m here now.” When people think of Western Pennsylvania, the first thing that comes to mind is probably Pittsburgh and the steel mills that dominated regional industry until the 1980s. However, the Appalachian Mountains run southwest to northeast through the state just east of Pittsburgh, including part of a 300-mile subsection called the Allegheny Mountains, and the area is home to many small rural and semi-rural towns. Autumn, who was given the “Rose of Appalachia” moniker by fans, was raised in one. Her hometown was also involved in the steel industry until production shifted overseas toward the end of the 20th century. “The Pennsylvania part of Appalachia — that whole culture has kind of been lost and forgotten,” Autumn says. “[I’m] just honoring the history in myself and the fact that very few of us are speaking about this from my region.”

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

Believer out Friday, Sept. 11, via Gar Hole Records Playing 8 p.m. Sept. 11 at The Blue Room at Third Man Records

Autumn’s second album Believer, out Sept. 11 via Gar Hole Records, nods to the places that shaped her, starting with the Allegheny Mountains. There she was immersed in creativity and nature through the teachings of her mom, who played the didgeridoo and made instruments out of gourds. After getting her musical start busking with the DIY street folk band The Hills and the Rivers, Autumn made her way to Asheville, N.C., with a banjo her dad bought for her in tow. From the beginning, the instrument represented the promise of community. “Here’s this really amazing, beautiful artifact I can carry around and sling around on my back, and take with me to North Carolina, and then meet people and play on the street,” Autumn says. The music community in Asheville deepened Autumn’s love for old-time music and her passion for the clawhammer banjo style she’s become known for. Along the way — inspired by artists such as Rhiannon Giddens, Allison Russell and Gillian Welch — Autumn decided to make the move to Nashville. On Believer, the follow-up to her 2021 full length debut Frontiers Woman, Autumn reunited with multi-instrumentalist and producer Baerd (aka Isaiah Beard). He co-produced her 2023 breakout single “Electric Lizard,” a heady exploration of identity and shame.

“‘[Electric Lizard] is about my identity and other people’s identities colliding and how I perceive that, and what I feel when I meet somebody else who has a very visible identity or even a big persona,” Autumn says. “People kind of form to [identities or personas] — like catching flies.” The album is a sonic exploration of indie folk (“I Don’t Think About You (At All)”), psych rock (“Heavy Tobacco”) and alt-country (“In the South”). It’s all tied together by Autumn’s irresistible mountain twang. “Mountain Stream,” anchored by a driving bass and a banjo groove, is a Southern gothic ode to the healing power of nature. “I was contemplating some really heavy stuff, doing a lot of shadow work, and I think I invited that into my songwriting,” says Autumn. “Because I picked up my guitar and put it in an open tuning and this voice just came out of me that was very low, and the first words of ‘Mountain Stream’ came out. It was somebody who had escaped and was like ‘Good luck finding me again, because I have the mountains.’” The title track explores how belief can act as a form of self-preservation. “Just saying ‘I’m a believer’ can mean anything,” she says. “Because it’s vague, it’s also really cheeky. There’s sarcasm in it because in [‘Believer’] I say, ‘I’ve got to be a believer to take a ride.’ … Whether it’s someone you’re dating and you believe that they’re your person, or it’s a priest and you believe that he’s going to get you to heaven, you have to believe to take the ride of getting to heaven. … If belief is the vehicle that gets us places, then the word itself has power.” The album is a tapestry of the past few years of Autumn’s life, written in some of her favorite places — a treehouse in Asheville, the woods of Tennessee and a friend’s warehouse in Chattanooga — and recorded at Nashville’s Club Roar. The result is an album that feels not only cohesive, but lovingly stitched together like an Appalachian quilt. “I still feel like I kind of collaged it together. I was calling people [asking], ‘Hey, do you still have that recording we did? Did you delete it? Can I have it to go on my album?’ … I’m nervous about making another record because I kind of like to do it like an insane person — just pulling all the recordings from everywhere.” ▼

This week, our live-review column The Spin covers Brandi Carlile at Bridgestone Arena. Read our full review at nashvillescene.com/music

MUSIC

BE HERE NOW

Houston Kendrick uses evolution to spark revolution with Portrait of a Boy on Fire BY BAILEY BRANTINGHAM

Portrait of a Boy on Fire out now Playing Saturday, Sept. 5, at an East Nashville location to be announced only to ticketholders

HOUSTON KENDRICK “I, HOUSTON KENDRICK, am here to make a massive change in the way we listen to R&B music, the way we look at Black and queer people and the way that we consume Blackness and queerness.” It’s a lofty declaration, but Kendrick isn’t shying away from it, nor is he asking for permission. The Nashville R&B artist is making good on his promise with his LP Portrait of a Boy on Fire. Released Aug. 21, the album is a natural evolution for Kendrick: a maximalist marriage of R&B, Blackness, queerness and Southern identity. It all sprouted from one seed — metaphorically, but in a more concrete way than you might expect. Kendrick began assembling the bones of Portrait of a Boy on Fire around the time he released his previous album Small Infinity in 2021. Slowly and without conscious intent, his ideas began to coalesce into songs. In 2023, he experienced an intense hyperfixation on plants and learned about a type of resin-coated seed that won’t crack open, germinate and grow without the heat of a wildfire. (For the botanically curious: Plants that have evolved this adaptation, like sequoias and eucalyptus, are called pyrophytes.) The image resonated with him deeply, and it eventually formed the idea for an album title in his head. “I’m like that seed,” Kendrick tells the Scene. “I’m going through this process of being cracked open by intense heat, by pressure, by intensity in general. So when I was thinking about Portrait

of a Boy on Fire, I was thinking of a snapshot of a moment of transformation.” On the album, Kendrick navigates meaningful personal themes of self-examination and unrequited love with his trademark bombastic flamboyance — what he calls “art&B.” It’s R&B with a deeply ingrained flair: lavish, theatrical and intentionally excessive. “These things sort of happen simultaneously, and they weren’t conscious,” Kendrick says, reflecting on the inspiration for the album. “Life just started to really force me to grow up in ways that I thought I already had grown up. In love, in the way I create, in my physical body, in the way I conduct myself in friendships.” Each song is a simmering pot of his unabashed queer, Black and Southern influences. In “American Trash,” Kendrick wraps up uncomfortable experiences in beautiful lyrics that nonetheless don’t sugarcoat the pain, with trippy beats and soaring, soulful vocals that come across proud and confident. On songs like “Paper Doll” and “I’m a Pisces,” Kendrick uses hypnotic falsetto and head-bobbing rhythms to detail his love life and tendencies to be unapologetically too much in relationships. That same sense of defiant extravagance and larger-than-life energy has allowed Kendrick to kick open industry doors and break through the barriers that have historically marginalized Black and queer artists around Nashville. Simply stepping through those openings isn’t

enough. He’s making a spectacle of his entrance. “This city has forced me to really be OK with who I am,” he says. “And as an extension of that, the music is what it is.” Though he’s making waves throughout the South with his own projects, Kendrick hopes to make sure those doors stay open for those who come after him. For him, a cultural rebirth isn’t a far-off fantasy. It’s happening now, and he’s dressed and ready to go. “We are in a completely new era,” says Kendrick. “A sort of new renaissance is dawning, and I think that I’m evidence of that. I think that so many artists and queer people who are creating right now are evidence of that.” Kendrick plans to bring Portrait of a Boy on Fire with him to stages around the country. Saturday, he’s set to play a Sofar Sounds show at an East Nashville location that will be disclosed only to ticketholders. He’ll also be opening a few shows for Joy Oladokun on her The Heavy Things Tour, including a stop at the Ryman on Nov. 19. Even with a new album out and stages waiting, Kendrick’s ambitions remain larger than a release cycle. “It’s bigger than just this album, it’s bigger than just a single, it’s bigger than a show. Me, as I’m talking to you right now — get used to me.” ▼

Because Nashville is so much more than honky-tonks and bachelorettes...

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FILM

THE ONES THAT GOT AWAY A dozen 2026 films that we didn’t review — but are worth the watch BY SCENE STAFF AND CONTRIBUTORS

SHE’S THE HE AS SUMMER NEARS its end, our film scribes are taking a look back at some of the movies NORMAL we missed over the past few months. These pictures — ranging from box-office smashes to festival darlings — might have slipped through the cracks of our film reviews, but they’re all worth a watch. And almost all of them are available to stream or still catch in theaters (with the rest coming soon to streaming). The Drama, now streaming on HBO Max Following 2023’s deeply awkward-by-design Nicolas Cage-starring satire Dream Scenario, Norwegian director Kristoffer Borgli returned this year with April’s The Drama. Powered by the megawatt star power of Robert Pattinson and Zendaya, the dark comedy gets in its jabs at millennial culture and the American wedding-industrial complex. But more than that, it presents the ultimate game of Would You Rather: Would you rather marry someone who was once a deeply troubled teen, rescued from her own unthinkable acts by violence intervention and positive socialization — or a narcissistic, elitist academic with no spine but great bone structure? D. PATRICK RODGERS Obsession, now streaming on Peacock Yes, we failed to review one of the biggest movies of the year during its wide release in May. You can’t win ’em all. But someone who just keeps winning is Obsession writer-directoreditor Curry Barker, who at this time last year was best known for YouTube sketch comedy shorts. After $500 million at the box office, critical acclaim and a deal to direct the Texas Chain Saw Massacre reboot, Barker seems headed down the Jordan Peele and Zach Cregger sketch-comedy-to-horror-auteur path. This movie isn’t quite as buttoned-up as the debuts from those two filmmakers

(Get Out and Barbarian, respectively). But the world-building and an all-timer breakthrough performance from Inde Navarrette make up for any seams that show. LOGAN BUTTS Colony, now showing at Regal Hollywood and AMC Thoroughbred Colony — the latest from our finest modern zombie filmmaker Yeon Sang-ho — finds a fresh angle on the nearly exhausted subgenre. The director behind 2016’s excellent Train to Busan expands on that thrill ride’s confined action-horror set pieces with the gloopiest zombie movie since Braindead. Colony isn’t as tight as Train to Busan, and the characters aren’t as fully realized, but the film’s hivemind approach to fast zombies is innovative enough to keep you rapt throughout the familiar trapped-in-amall setting. LOGAN BUTTS Is God Is, now streaming on Amazon Prime One of the more criminally underlooked films of the past summer, Is God Is is a fresh directorial debut from Aleshea Harris. Adapted from her play of the same name, the movie follows scarred twin sisters Racine and Anaia, who seek revenge against their father at the behest of their mother on her deathbed. Harris embraces the pulp roots of her story with blood-soaked violence and incredible needle-drops, all buoyed by tremendous performances from Kara Young and Mallori Johnson. If you’re looking for a stylish twist on the revenge-thriller genre, check this one out. IAN MATTHEWS Normal, now streaming on HBO Max Bob Odenkirk continues to stake his claim in the unlikely-old-man action movie space with Normal. The film follows Ulysses, an interim sheriff in Normal, Minn., filling the role after the previous sheriff’s unexpected death. He just wants to keep his head down, but a run-in with a pair of bank robbers uncovers a conspiracy that forces Ulysses to question everything he

knows about his quaint little town. Gunfights, explosions and Minnesotan accents abound in this quirky crime flick that delivers lots of bloody fun. IAN MATTHEWS Maa Inti Bangaaram, now streaming on Hulu Samantha Ruth Prabhu serves up one of the best lead action performances of the year in this Telugu-language epic from director B.V. Nandini Reddy, which follows the plucky Swarna as she infiltrates her husband’s family, the Rajus, to win them over, and also uses her skills as a former revolutionary commando to protect them from a whole lot of unfortunate and corrupt tendrils being drawn taut around them. Maa Inti Bangaaram was a massive international hit, and is also notable for being a female-led action film that was directed by a woman. The first two-and-a-half hours deliver comedy, action, intrigue and some great musical numbers. But in the end credits, there is a reference to an AI sequence, and that shifts the mood. I didn’t recognize it. But knowing this retroactively throws everything into disarray — and I worry this is just going to keep happening. JASON SHAWHAN The Wrong Girls, now available to rent or purchase The kind of scraggly, quotable stoner picaresque that usually only boys get to play in, this caper encompasses espionage, psychic cats, buffet antics, confronting the legacy of others’ expectations, and the majesty and mystery of the giant squid. Kristen Stewart and Alia Shawkat delight as unconventionally motivated women with strong senses of justice and liberation (I would totally watch the excellent Robin Byrd documentary with them, if invited), and the film (from writer-director Dylan Meyer) feels like a true-to-life hangout with good friends. Not every moment is eternal, but you keep the memories close and can’t wait to hang again. JASON SHAWHAN Everybody to Kenmure Street, coming soon to streaming Originally appearing on these shores in May (though it hasn’t screened around these parts yet), Felipe Bustos Sierra’s inspiring power-to-the-people documentary Everybody to Kenmure Street covers a 2021 incident in which a Glasgow neighborhood instinctively, immediately banded together to stop a U.K. Home Office immigration raid on two Sikh residents. Sierra rounds up first-person accounts as well as footage captured by spectators and news crews. Even executive producer Emma Thompson appears in a re-creation as “Van Guy,” the anonymous activist who set off the protest by sliding under the police van. With ICE planning to further embed themselves in Nashville, this film is an invigorating how-to guide for those looking to properly fight back. CRAIG D. LINDSEY

American Pachuco: The Legend of Luis Valdez, coming soon to streaming Chicano playwright, filmmaker and “social arsonist” Luis Valdez gets his long-overdue flowers in David Alvarado’s celebratory doc, which has been touring the country ever since it hit select theaters in July. (A screening is scheduled for Nov. 14 at Nashville’s Global Education Center.) Alvarado talks to Valdez and many of his collaborators and loved ones as he chronicles Valdez’s life and career, from his days doing guerrilla theater during Cesar Chavez’s grape strike protests to hitting Broadway with his Chicano salute Zoot Suit and helming La Bamba, the hit biopic on late Chicano rocker Ritchie Valens. CRAIG D. LINDSEY Forbidden Fruits, now streaming on Shudder Along with Backrooms, Forbidden Fruits might signal a mall-horror renaissance in the grand tradition of Chopping Mall and Dawn of the Dead. Set at a Free People stand-in called Free Eden in Texas, this B-movie follows a clique of gorgeous employees named after fruits who share a hobby of conducting arcane rituals in the dressing room after hours. When Pumpkin (Lola Tung) joins the coven, tensions begin to bubble up from under the surface — leading to a gory denouement, an intriguing perspective on femininity and nightmare-fuel applications of escalators and skywalks. ANNIE PARNELL She’s the He, now available to rent or purchase A teen comedy with camp sensibilities and a heart of gold, She’s the He has a premise that might raise eyebrows at first: Two teens, Alex (Nico Carney) and Ethan (Misha Osherovich), try to shake rumors that they’re gay by posing as trans women. The twist is that both lead actors, along with filmmaker Siobhan McCarthy and much of the supporting cast, are trans — and the funniest possible thing happens when Ethan realizes she is too. It’s a clever, loving homage to self-discovery, and a thumbed nose toward conservative hand-wringing. It’s also a reminder of the real danger to women’s locker rooms: the Enes Kanter Freedoms of the world who make it weird for everyone else. ANNIE PARNELL The Sheep Detectives, now streaming on Amazon Prime Having a baaaaad day? The Sheep Detectives just might fix it. The hybrid animation/live-action dramedy plays like a PG Knives Out, suitable for the whole family but with plenty of appeal for the more weathered cinephile. When their shepherd is murdered, a flock of unassuming sheep resolve to solve his murder themselves, taking inspiration from the murder-mystery novels the shepherd read them each night. With a delightful ensemble cast including Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Nicholas Braun and Emma Thompson, this ovine whodunnit tackles grief and greed with wit and wisdom. HANNAH CRON ▼

NASHVILLE SCENE • SEPTEMBER 3 – SEPTEMBER 9, 2026 • nashvillescene.com

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