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Three years ago, the pandemic temporarily turned Nashville recording studios into miniature ghost towns.
The business looks a whole lot different in 2023.
“Every engineer out of work in 2020 is so slammed now that they can’t take a vacation,” says producer Trent Willmon (Cody Johnson, Granger Smith). “I was talking to somebody — I can’t remember who said it — but booking a session, he said he called seven steel players before he found someone available. That means country music is badass, baby. Four years ago, all the steel players were just like, ‘Hey, man, you got any work?’ And now they’re just all overwhelmed.”
A year or two ago, the bulk of that workload would have been a result of artists bringing new material created during COVID-19 isolation to the studio. But the volume of recording work in Nashville hasn’t subsided since that first postcrisis wave, and it appears that another development from the pandemic era is behind the ongoing studio traffic.
Morgan Wallen’s Dangerous: The Double Album rode 30 tracks to a record-setting run atop Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart, which reflects streaming and sales data compiled by Luminate. Following its success, now albums — which were typically 10 to 12 tracks in the past — have become much more robust. A dozen have hit No. 1 since the beginning of 2021, and only two have fit the historic range: Carrie Underwood’s 11-track holiday album, My Gift, and Luke Combs’ 12-track Growin’ Up, which was later revealed as the lead-in to the 18-track companion Gettin’ Old.
The rest of the No. 1 albums have spanned from Underwood’s 13-track gospel album, My Savior, to Wallen’s 36-track One Thing at a Time. Those larger albums obviously utilize more songs, but that also means they require more hours from the artist, producers, engineers, musicians and other crew members. Thus, the country studio business is booming.
“I’m busier than I’ve ever been in my life in terms of workload, and at the same time, it’s fewer artists,” says guitarist Derek Wells, one of country’s first-call studio players. “The reality is your big, premiere artists kind of gobble up weeks and weeks and weeks of your year. And there’s just no room left for some of the newer stuff. It’s not an unwillingness to do it, or lack of a desire to go be amongst some of those things. It’s just kind of first come, first serve.”
While supersized albums are an aggressive way to compete for chart superiority, they also serve as a digital-era method of satisfying artists’ superfans. The maturation of streaming has given consumers quicker access to music by their favorite artists for a set monthly price, rather than compelling them to buy albums. Artists’ biggest fans have always wanted more music. And with home studios and digital recording techniques providing more flexibility, it’s easier than ever to satisfy that hunger.
While the leading acts are supersizing albums, artists with smaller fan bases are releasing EPs with greater frequency, putting out more music than their predecessors often did at a similar career stage to satisfy their own strongest supporters’ demands. The combination of supersized albums and more frequent EPs is stretching the resources in Nashville.
“Work is definitely surging,” Nashville Musicians Union president Dave Pomeroy says. “We’ve more than gotten back to where we were before the pandemic, in terms of [recording contracts] we see coming through the building,”
That makes booking a recording session something of a Rubik’s cube. A producer’s top musician choices will likely not all be available at the same time for a session that wasn’t booked far in advance. That encourages even more overdubbing, with producers doing bare bones tracking dates and hiring musicians to layer on parts at home.
“A lot of the times I’m not doing a full session on my songs,” says Alana Springsteen, who co-produces her music. “We’ll start [recording] things in the room sometimes the day we write the song, I’ll lay down an acoustic, lay down a vocal, one of my co-writers might play the electric, and we’ll lay down a path. Sometimes it looks a little different than a traditional session.”
While it’s possible to record musicians one at a time, many artists still want to use a larger room with the players all working in unison. Many of the established studios have shuttered since 2000 as home recording increased, so now that recording is in a boom cycle, it’s increasingly difficult to find an available large studio. As a result, many individual tracks are recorded in three or four different locations, and a full album may be pieced together at six or more sites.
“It used to be when we’d do a record, if we did three or four different tracking days, it was all going to be in the same room,” says producer Frank Rogers (Scotty McCreery, Frank Ray). “At the end of the day, I put the players first, because if you have the right players, you can go and set up in a living room and still make a really good record. If you got the greatest studio in the world and C [grade] players, then it’s just not going to be what it needs to be.”
Chris Young found a previously untapped studio when he booked Sony Music Publishing’s upgraded facility for the master tracking session on his new single, “Young Love & Saturday Nights.” At the same time, he also has a home studio, and his output there is using engineer hours beyond the traditional venue. Multiply that phenomenon by dozens of artists, and the ramifications become much more apparent.
“It’s sort of insane,” Young says, hinting that his next album may be larger than a traditional project. “I have seven songs for my next record already. And part of it is, I try and write all the time when I’m home [from touring]. I usually write, every single year, 100 songs on top of what I find outside… I’m [taxing the system] a little bit.”
The engineering sector may be stretched thinner than every other area of production.
“With the ease of recording, everybody — half the songwriters in town, and every musician, every producer — is an engineer,” Rogers says. “But the ones who know how to track really, really well or know how to mix really, really well, there’s not a whole lot of them that are great. There’s a lot of good, there’s not much great, and so those guys are as busy as they’ve ever been.”
At the other end of the music chain, the increase in the number of tracks is stretching the infrastructure with radio and digital service providers (DSPs), too.
“There’s always too much music — it’s not manageable on any of the platforms,” says artist consultant John Marks, a former programmer for broadcast radio, satellite radio and Spotify. “Wherever you are today, you cannot manage that traffic, the amount of releases, regardless if you have an album of 12 tracks, or 36 tracks, or 50 tracks. Whatever it is, you are treading water in the ocean.”
The DSPs get thousands of new tracks every week, and while they can make educated guesses about what to playlist from new albums and -individual -singles, fans’ choices will ultimately require programming adjustments. Similarly, traditional country radio stations — which have drawn their playlists primarily from major labels — are increasingly auditioning songs from sources they would not have considered in the past, thanks to digital consumption.
“If Zach Bryan’s new song gets streamed 20 million times, why would I think that radio listeners wouldn’t feel the same way about the song if they were exposed to it?” Cumulus vp of country formats Charlie Cook says. “So then it’s incumbent on me to expose it. When you get 20 million streams on Oliver Anthony or 13 million on Tyler Childers, why am I smarter than them? I’m not.”
Traditional radio still plays one song at a time, no skips, so instead of trying to satisfy every artist’s superfans, its business still requires identifying the songs that fit the widest number of individual tastes. Even if it means sifting through more music to play the same number of songs.
“It’s radio’s opportunity to find the strongest songs and play the heck out of them,” Cook says. “We had a liner for a while that said, ‘We’ll cut through everything that’s out there and find the best music for you.’ And I think that has now become radio’s position.”
The new, longer albums are likely to continue as the artists, and the media that exposes their music, attempt to superserve their most ardent fan base.
“I think it will last, and it will permeate the lower rungs of artistry,” Marks says. “Really, the only way to get to your fans these days is a continual release pattern, keeping in front of your audience and not letting them rest. Listeners and fans want more of whatever they’re finding, and they want it now.”
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Through his Morgan Wallen Foundation, the “Last Night” hitmaker — along with the Major League Baseball & MLB Players Association Youth Development Foundation and other local donors — teamed with Habitat for Humanity of Greater Nashville to help revitalize the Parkwood Community Club baseball and softball complex in North Nashville.
The Morgan Wallen Foundation has donated $500,000, with the MLB-MLBPA YDF donating the same amount, for a total of $1 million donated toward revitalization efforts. Other donors include the Speer Foundation, Airbnb, Nashville Sounds baseball and Wallen’s booking agency, the Neal Agency.
Wallen grew up playing baseball as a child and had hoped to pursue a career in baseball, until an injury sidelined those aspirations and he set his sights on a music career instead.
“I started the Morgan Wallen Foundation to support youth in two areas – sports and music,” Wallen said via a statement. “When I heard about Parkwood, right here in Nashville, I knew I wanted to help. Every child deserves a chance to play ball and be part of a team, and I truly appreciate this opportunity to be part of Parkwood’s next inning. I can’t wait to come back out here and see the park once it has been renovated.”
“In visiting the historic fields, I instantly felt the significance of Parkwood to Nashville’s baseball and softball community,” said Jean Lee Batrus, Executive Director, MLB-MLBPA Youth Development Foundation, via statement. “These sports have the power to strengthen lives and communities. YDF is thrilled to team up with Habitat for Humanity and other partnering organizations who are equally passionate about empowering youth access to baseball and softball.”
“The Nashville Sounds utilize the power of baseball to positively impact our community,” added Adam English, General Manager, Nashville Sounds. “Through our participation in “The Nine” program, this project is a great way for us to make an impact in giving all kids access to the best baseball facilities possible. My hope is that renovating these fields will yield a new generation of great ball players in Nashville, just like six-time MLB All-Star Mookie Betts.”
The contributions will support a larger fundraising goal aimed at creating a 59-acre park, as well as providing homes for 26 Habitat for Humanity homes in District 2.
The MLB-MLBPA YDF is a joint initiative by Major League Baseball and the Players Association to support efforts that aid in improving the caliber, effectiveness and availability of amateur baseball and softball programs across the United States and globally.
On July 16, Gabe Lee will step into the Grand Ole Opry circle for the first time, just days after releasing his latest album, Drink the River, out July 14.
For the Nashville-raised Lee, the Grand Ole Opry—which in its nearly century-long tenure has served as a bedrock for country music but also hosted blues, rock and Americana artists, and at its former Ryman home, served as a foil for the birth of bluegrass—offers a parallel for Lee’s own distinctive blend of country, rock, bluegrass and Americana.
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“The Opry represents the dream, the community,” Gabe says. “The Opry and its stage and history are not only a tradition, but a beacon for all future musicians. It’s just a great honor to perform there.”
The son of Taiwanese immigrants, Lee grew up immersed in classical and church music, as his mother played piano and his father played guitar. “They sacrificed so much, just working hard and saving and believing in me and my music,” he recalls. Absorbing their work ethic and learning in proximity to the ever-heightening stakes of the music industry also gave Lee a clear-eyed perspective on the truths of a music career.
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“A lot of my friends who grew up with musician parents got the hell outta dodge,” he recalls with a chuckle. “They were like, ‘The last thing we wanna be is in music.’ And it’s a joke among players and music people in music, like, ‘If my kids want to play music, I’d let them but I wouldn’t wish it on ‘em,’ because it is a gamble…folks get their dreams made and their dreams broken every day.”
His previous album, 2022’s The Hometown Kid, embodied Lee’s own relentless tugs of both adventure and familiar comforts. He spent a year attending Nashville’s Belmont University, bartending on the side and performing at writers rounds at Bobby’s Idle Hour Tavern, the Listening Room and Whiskey Jam. He then decamped to Indiana University to study literature and journalism, before returning to Music City to continue pursuing his craft.
But where scores of singer-songwriters spend days cranking out radio-friendly songs and seeking major label country deals, and nights networking at any number of guitar pulls and industry events, Lee draws more from cult favorite touchstones such as John Prine and Jason Isbell. Lee is the sole writer on many of his songs, and like his musical heroes, he excels in excavating from everyday moments the raw materials from which he crafts his vivid musical narratives. Drink the River showcases Lee as a troubadour filling his songs with keen observations gleaned from other people’s stories.
The album’s folk-country, acoustic flavor takes cues from Old Crow Medicine Show’s first record, while songs like “Property Line” tip the hat to Prine’s clear-eyed, light-hearted style. “It’s a bit of how John [Prine] was always a master at infusing humor in his songs. A little bit of humor goes a long way,” Lee says.
“Even Jesus Got the Blues,” which Lee began writing nearly four years ago, revels in an early SteelDrivers, blues-meets-bluegrass feel, and was inspired by a friend who succumbed to addiction. The two-year-old “Lidocaine” stems from an Uber ride, as a driver confided in Lee his story of being diagnosed with dementia at 40 years old. He also revisits “Eveline,” from his 2019 debut project farmland.
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Meanwhile, the lyrics and instrumentation of album closer “Property Line” evoke the feel of the popular series Yellowstone; the song is an ode to Lee’s girlfriend’s father Jason, who owns a large plot of land in Alabama.
“I started hanging out down there and what I quickly realized is I may be from the South, but those guys are country,” he says with a laugh. “I’ve learned a lot from them and I really admire their sensibilities and the way they look at the world.”
Lee and his manager, Alex Torrez, founded the indie label Torrez Music Group, under which Lee has issued three albums (with Drink the River to be his fourth) in approximately as many years, including his breakthrough, 2020 roots-rock project Honky Tonk Hell, and last year’s The Hometown Kid. He’s kept a marathon runner’s pace — steady and relentless — as he balances studio time and writing with ever-more prominent performance slots, having shared stages with artists including Isbell, American Aquarium and Molly Tuttle. To date, Lee’s songs have registered 10.5 million official U.S. on-demand streams, according to Luminate.
He is also slated to perform during the Americana Music Association’s annual AMERICANAFEST in September, and was recently added to Tidal’s “Tidal Rising” new artist program, which also includes Sunny War, Kara Jackson and Kassa Overall.
“We’ve been in a double-down mentality for the past few years,” he says. “You get a little momentum, and you don’t want to lose it for a second. As a small label, we work within our means and try to roll most of our revenue from merch and streaming right back into the label in the next project.”
While many of his Nashville counterparts dream of selling out stadiums and dozens of No. 1 hits, Lee’s immediate goals are more economical. “That’s the basic dream for so many artists and writers, just getting to the point where it’s sustainable. Some of my favorite songwriters are those that play the Texas circuit. They make it work, they aren’t living in mansions, but they’ve got a roof over their heads, they keep their businesses alive and their families fed by playing music. We’re just trying to make records, tour, and not go bankrupt. We’re just out here doing the work and hopefully, the work will speak for itself.”
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Patrick Moore has been named as CEO of Opry Entertainment Group (OEG), a division of Ryman Hospitality Properties. His new role includes oversight of OEG’s growth plan, day-to-day operations and business development activities at the company, which has a portfolio that includes the Grand Ole Opry and the Ryman Auditorium. Moore replaces former OEG CEO […]
The Nashville music industry gathered Tuesday (June 6) to celebrate its most influential members and several of its brightest stars.
Hosted by Billboard to celebrate the recently published 2023 Country Power Players list, the event took place at Nashville’s Marathon Music Works, with execs, artists, agents and others mingling in the chic, industrial space.
Billboard’s executive editor, West Coast and Nashville Melinda Newman opened the evening’s awards presentation, first acknowledging Seth England of Big Loud, the recipient of the first ever Billboard Country Power Players Choice Award. Newman then introduced Ernest, who recounted the story of his first time meeting Jelly Roll when a mutual friend of his was selling the singer a truck. “Not long later,” said Ernest said, “he was charting on Billboard.”
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Jelly Roll then took the stage, noting in a funny, impassioned speech that “there’s a story my daddy used to tell that you could work harder than everybody, you can put in more hours than everybody, you can be more talented than everybody, you could be nicer than everybody, you could care more than everybody, but if a little luck don’t show up with you, you are screwed in this world, and I can tell you that God blessed me to be lucky to have friends like Ernest and Hardy and Ashley and these people that have came through and helped me put out my first debut country album that was commemorated by my cover on Billboard.”
Next up was Hardy, who presented the Rookie Of The Year award to Bailey Zimmerman. “I tried singing two and a half years ago and my life completely switched,” Zimmerman said in his speech. “I went from digging ditches and building pipelines to being an artist…Enjoying the moment is something I’ve really been focusing on, and I’ve never had a moment like this.”
Terri Clark then took the stage to present the Groundbreaker award to her friend, Ashley McBryde. “I’ve had the privilege of watching her build a career that will stand the test of time. She came up to me [once] and said, ‘You know when I was a teenager I was looking to women in country music who I felt like i could relate to, people who were a little bit different, and when I looked to you, I saw that. And now Ashley’s doing that very thing to many little girls and girls with a dream all over the place who want to be country singers.”
McBryde then gave an emotional speech about how when she first moved to Nashville, she was told her hair was too curly, that she had too many tattoos, that she needed to lose weight and that she should be writing different kinds of songs. “It means a lot to receive this,” she said with tears streaming down her face, “because it means betting on yourself is the right thing to do.”
Finally, Newman presented the Executive of the Year award to Rusty Gaston of Sony Music Publishing Nashville, which has earned the top spot on Billboard’s Country Radio Airplay Publishers list for the last three quarters.
“I love this community,” Gaston said in his speech, “and what I love most about country music is that we are a community — we are a group of friends who get to work together to help each other succeed, but we aren’t work friends, we’re life friends.”
When Lainey Wilson played Nashville’s weekly Song Suffragettes show for the first time in December 2014, the experience was enlightening.
She had moved to Nashville over three years prior, just in time to watch country music shift into the bro-country age, when guys singing about beer parties and bonfires in rural fields made it even more difficult for women to find a place on country radio. Song Suffragettes, a songwriter round specifically for female writer-artists, helped Wilson find a sense of community in a heartbreak town.
“For me, it made me feel like I wasn’t alone in Nashville, and it made me feel like there’s an army of women who all want the same thing,” she recalls. “It’s important for us to hold hands and run to the finish line together. That’s what it’s about. It’s about lifting each other up and encouraging each other and telling each other the truth.”
The truth is times are still tough for women in music now that bro country is no longer the genre’s hot trend. Song Suffragettes, however, is in expansion mode as it celebrates its 10th year as a focused Music City talent showcase. The show launched a monthly London edition in November and will also open a monthly New York version on June 13 at City Winery.
“There has been very little movement in the artistic progress of women in this genre,” says Suffragettes president/founder Todd Cassetty. “But you just keep getting up and fighting the fight. I’m always looking for other avenues to expand or to provide opportunities. It’s like, can we just grow this so that there are more opportunities [for women], even if the industry is not going to provide them itself?”
It’s not like the opportunities are undeserved. Nashville is a magnet for musical talent, and the latest installment — May 22 at The Listening Room, which recently added a second Suffragettes show every Monday night — demonstrated the depth of quality. Six women conveyed their artistic individuality when they performed, with most playing three songs apiece. Grace Tyler led with a knife-like tone on “Jesus in a Bar,” Ash Ruder consistently served up original songs with craftsman-like vulnerability — particularly her smart treatment of hand-me-down traits, “Blue Genes” — and first-timer Audra McLaughlin impressed even her fellow performers with her Trisha Yearwood-like power.
To date, the show has featured over 400 women from among 3,000 applicants. Cassetty says 34 Suffragettes alumna have received recording contracts — including Carly Pearce, Megan Moroney, Kelsea Ballerini and pop artist GAYLE — while over 60 have secured publishing deals. Those numbers demonstrate the Suffragettes’ value as a launching pad for women.
“It was one of the first things that I did when I came to town,” Tenille Arts notes. “It kind of opened up some doors for me to be able to play. It was really awesome.”
Cassetty’s motivations for starting the Suffragettes are personal. Growing up with ’90s country, he was drawn to the viewpoints expressed by country’s female acts, including Patty Loveless, The Chicks and Martina McBride, and through his production company, HiFi Fusion, he has worked with the likes of Taylor Swift, Carrie Underwood and Reba McEntire. Additionally, he has two daughters and wishes country had a larger swath of feminine role models.
“I don’t feel like they get the same country music female perspective that they would have had and that I enjoyed from the ’90s,” he says. “That’s always been a point of frustration — to see it evolve from songs with real substance to too many beers and trucks.”
Nashville’s music business has taken the issue seriously. CMT celebrates female acts through its Next Women of Country program, and songwriter Nicolle Galyon (“Thought You Should Know,” “Beers on Me”) established the female-focused Songs & Daughters label in partnership with Big Loud. Galyon actually signed the first writer to her publishing company, Tiera Kennedy, after checking out her performance at Song Suffragettes.
But some old tropes — including the suggestion that female fans don’t want to hear female artists — continue to dog the discussion, even though women were at least as prevalent as men in the Suffragettes audience.
“That’s what the Song Suffragettes are still are trying to prove, is that women want to hear women,” says Arts. “I know that they do. I see it at concerts. I see it in my fans. I see it everywhere. We love it. I mean, men can’t talk about the things that women want to hear about.”
But radio stations still give women short shrift. A new study of 29 country stations by Jan Diehm, of The Pudding, and Dr. Jada Watson, found that women were played back-to-back a mere 0.5% of the time.
“I naively thought that if we could curate the best and brightest female singer-songwriters in Nashville that that would bring enough awareness to the level of talent that we have in this town that is female and call the labels, radio and streamers to all embrace more women and do better at the disparity that exists,” Cassetty says.
That leaves an underappreciated talent pool available for other avenues. It’s why Cassetty has established the satellite Suffragettes shows in London and New York, and why he has been in talks to possibly bring the show to cable. There’s a steady current of accomplished songwriters with strong voices ready for a marketplace that simply doesn’t know they exist. And it can be argued that Suffragettes has enabled some of those women to become even stronger at their craft by simply experiencing their competition.
“Song Suffragettes has been a really good metric for girls to get up and go, ‘OK, where do I fit in all of this? How do I see my artistry or my writing sensibilities fitting within all my peers?’ ” Galyon says. “Getting up onstage and playing a round is a really good way to learn.”
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Veteran artist managers Cliff Burnstein and Peter Mensch are joining forces with Aaron Frank for a new venture — Q Prime AF.
Announced today (May 3), the fresh division will sit under the umbrella of Burnstein and Mensch’s Q Prime, the artist management company through which they guide the careers of Metallica, Muse, Foals, Disturbed, Cage The Elephant, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, Three Days Grace and more.
Through the alliance, Frank will bring his Nashville-based team, plus an artist roster that includes Greta Van Fleet, Marcus King, St. Paul and the Broken Bones, Houndmouth and All Them Witches.
“Cliff and Peter are the reason I became a manager,” comments Frank. “They have always been the gold standard of managers in my eyes, and their independent spirit and savviness is unmatched. I’m so excited to join their amazing team to elevate our work, and excited for what we can build together at Q Prime AF.”
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The partnership is at least eight months in the making. Over lunch, “Cliff and I decided that we needed to move Q Prime past the normal standard of management company rating: Gold, platinum standard just wasn’t enough,” explains Mensch in a statement. “We wanted to establish a new standard. Tantalum, a rare earth precious metal found in eight countries and an absolute necessity in the digital world, totally fit the bill.”
Frank, with his group of “amazing artists, had a similar vision and, under the theory that the modern age needed a new standard of excellence, agreed to create the Tantalum standard of management companies.”
Frank cut his teeth in 2009 working for the Trans-Siberian Orchestra’s management company, Night Castle Management, in New York. In 2014, he relocated to Nashville where he co-founded ABI Management, and subsequently forming AMFM — nabbing GVF as his first client.
Q Prime also houses Q Prime South, founded 2001 in Nashville by John Peets; and Q Prime U.K., established 2007 in London and run by Steve Matthews and Tara Richardson.
Tyler Hubbard, Trisha Yearwood, Lauren Daigle and CeCe Winans will take part in an upcoming free event set for May 1 in Nashville, aimed at providing home and comfort to Nashville-area teachers and staffers in public and private K-12 schools, as well as universities.
“Hope and Healing for Heroes” will be hosted by the Onsite Foundation and will take place at Belmont University’s The Fisher Center. Tickets will be free and open to educators and staff across Metro Nashville public schools, private schools and universities on a first-come, first-serve basis.
In addition to the performers, the evening’s programming will also include a panel of experts and speakers who will discuss mental health and working through trauma, grief, and fear, in light of the recent school shooting at Nashville-area private school The Covenant School on March 27. Three children and three staffers were killed during the incident, as was the shooter.
Onsite chairman Miles Adcox will emcee the May 1 event, while teachers from the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High school mass shooting in Parkland, Fla. will offer their stories and encouragement, as well as Brittney Thomas, a survivor of the 1997 Heath High School mass shooting in Paducah, Ky., and Crystal Woodman Miller, a survivor of the 1999 mass shooting in Columbine High School in Columbine, Colo.
“The dramatic increase in the number of school shootings–and now having one in our hometown—has taken its toll on each of us. As a father and mental health professional who has been part of initiatives directly supporting hundreds of mass shooting survivors around the country, now is the time to come together in support of our community as we start the healing process,” Adcox said via a statement. “We must acknowledge the unique stress and pressure our teachers and educators are carrying. We created this event in hopes of coming alongside them with support and resources while celebrating their vital role in leading the next generation.”
Other guest speakers include:
Sissy Goff, M.Ed, LPC-MHSP, CCATP – Director of Child and Adolescent Counseling, author of twelve books including a book on anxiety, and co-host of the popular podcast “Raising Boys and Girls”
David Thomas, L.M.S.W. – Director of Family Counseling at Daystar, author of ten books including the best-selling Wild Things: The Art of Nurturing Boys and Raising Emotionally Strong Boys: Tools Your Son can Build on for Life and co-host of the “Raising Boys & Girls” podcast
Madison Lawn, MSCMHC, CET-II – Group leader at Onsite, crisis counselor with experience facilitating groups for grieving children and providing weekly therapy to students in a university counseling center
Carlos Martinez, M.Div., MSMHC, LPC, ACS, CET-II – Lead Clinician at Onsite and Onsite Foundation’s Triumph Over Tragedy workshop, the nation’s first trauma-informed program for survivors of mass shootings
Carlos Whittaker – Author, speaker, host of the Human Hope podcast as well as People’s Choice Award winner & social media storyteller
The event has been organized and produced by Nashville-area entertainment marketing agency FlyteVu, with a donation from Tyler and Hayley Hubbard.
“As someone who has lost a loved one due to trauma from a mass shooting, I know firsthand the long-lasting effects of these school tragedies,” said Laura Hutfless, CEO of FlyteVu and former Board President of The Onsite Foundation, via a statement. “As a new mom, I want to equip the teachers in our community who are leading our children through an unprecedented time with tools, hope, and confidence to step back into the classrooms and thrive.”
Nashville-area educators and staff members can claim a free general admission ticket beginning Friday, April 21 at 10 a.m. CT at hopeforheroes.com. Event doors will open at 5 p.m. CT on May 1, with programming beginning at 6 p.m. CT.
Just over two weeks after the Nashville community was shaken by a school shooting at The Covenant School that took the lives of three children and three school staff members, several from Nashville’s music community gathered for an evening of healing through music at “A Night of Joy: Celebrating The Covenant School”
Hosted by author Annie F. Downs, the event was held on Wednesday (April 12) at Belmont University’s The Fisher Center, with all proceeds benefitting The Covenant School’s staff, students and families.
Carrie Underwood was one of many artists who gathered that night to support and love The Covenant School community, and contributed a pitch-perfect rendition of her Grammy-winning hit “Something in the Water.”
“I’m Carrie and I had no idea what I was going to sing tonight, but it is a night of joy and I wanted [one of the] most joyful songs I had,” Underwood told the crowd. “If you know it, sing along, and if you don’t, sing something and make a joyful noise.”
Belmont University alumnus Tyler Hubbard performed “Real Life Heroes,” a song he had written three weeks ago, just days prior to the school shooting. The song is a tribute to all kinds of everyday heroes, from military members to farmers to teachers. As soon as Hubbard finished the first chorus with the line, “There are some real-life heroes in this town,” the crowd became fervent in its agreement.
Hubbard dedicated the song to “staff, teachers, first responders, parents, friends, family — anyone who has played a part in healing. There are a lot of heroes in this room tonight.”
Husband and wife duo The War and Treaty earned the first standing ovation of the evening. With only the accompaniment of a piano, Michael and Tanya Trotter wowed the crowd with their superb vocals on “Up Yonder,” while Tanya’s powerful, elegant rendering of “His Eye Is on the Sparrow” ushered the crowd to their feet.
Another thunderous standing ovation quickly followed when Downs told the crowd that there were first responders in attendance.
During their performance, Caleb and Will Chapman of Nashville-based rock band Colony House revealed that they were both former students of the late Katherine Koonce, Covenant’s head of school who was one of the six victims killed in the shooting.
“She encouraged us to tell our story,” said lead singer Caleb, before introducing the song “Moving Forward.” “This was written during a heavy time for our family,” he said. He soon welcomed the brothers’ father, CCM luminary Steven Curtis Chapman, to the stage. As Chapman acknowledged the evening as “a night we wish was not happening,” he also spoke of Koonce’s kindness, courage and love, before performing his 1997 release, “Not Home Yet.”
Also among the performers were country trio Lady A (performing “I Run to You”), Matt Maher (“The Lord’s Prayer (It’s Yours)” and “Lord I Need You”), Thomas Rhett (“Be a Light”), Sixpence None the Richer (“Kiss Me”), Mat Kearney (“Nothing Left to Lose”), Ben Rector (“Thank You”), Dave Barnes (“God Gave Me You”), The Warren Brothers (a rendition of “Anyway,” a hit for Martina McBride) and Chris Tomlin (“Good, Good Father”). Also on the bill were songwriters Sandra McCracken, Luke Laird and Brett Taylor, as well as a performance from Dwan Hill, Jasmine Mullen and Sarah Kroger.
The audience also featured few surprise guests; rock singer Alice Cooper and his wife Sheryl took to the stage, offering their support to the Covenant School community, and introduced a performance from Thomas Rhett.
Before Old Crow Medicine Show’s Ketch Secor performed the group’s 2004 hit “Wagon Wheel,” he told the crowd how Country Music Hall of Fame member Roy Acuff’s name was scratched into his violin. He told the crowd that after March 27, he took a pin and scratched in additional names—the names of the Covenant School shooting victims, including Evelyn Dieckhaus, Mike Hill, William Kinney, Koonce, Cynthia Peak and Hallie Scruggs. He then dedicated the song’s third verse to each of the victims and for a few moments, the crowd joined in with a lighthearted, wall-to-wall singalong inside The Fisher Center.
Drew Holcomb and Ellie Holcomb also performed “Family,” as Ellie offered “a reminder that the light is always stronger than the darkness.” Drew added, “We have all been so inspired by how much you love each other and let others into your grief and your story. I’ve never ben so proud to be from Nashville than the past two weeks.”
Singer-songwriter and The Highwomen member Natalie Hemby was joined by fellow singer-songwriter Trent Dabbs. Downs noted that Hemby was among those who organized the “A Night of Joy” event. “She was one of the first ones asking, ‘How can we help?’ Downs said.
Hemby, with Dabbs’ guitar accompaniment, performed a rendition of “Rainbow,” a song recorded by Kacey Musgraves, which Hemby co-wrote with Shane McAnally and Musgraves.
Meanwhile, Hemby spoke of her relationship with Peak, whom Hemby recalled had given her swimming lessons as a child and was also a math tutor. “Cynthia was such an amazing human being…I remember swimming with her and I did the backstroke more than the frontstroke, because I could look up at the sky. I remember her having her hand underneath me, guiding me along and I feel like she was that kind of person, always.”
Hemby added, “When we found out she was gone, I immediately felt sad. But I also felt this incredible peace, because I know where that woman is.”
Reigning CMA entertainer of the year winner Luke Combs and Ryman Hospitality Properties’ Opry Entertainment Group have joined forces to reimagine Nashville’s Wildhorse Saloon, located at 120 2nd Ave. N., as a Combs-inspired multi-level entertainment venue; it’s set to open in 2024.
The yet-to-be-named complex will total 69,000 square feet, including an outdoor-indoor capacity of nearly 3,200 people, and will reflect Combs’ passions for music, songwriting, whiskey and sports. Specifically, the venue will take inspiration from Combs’ debut hit “Hurricane,” which went 8x multi-Platinum and spent two weeks at the pinnacle of Billboard‘s Country Airplay chart in 2017.
Speaking with Billboard at the Wildhorse Saloon in downtown Nashville, Combs said that watching Opry Entertainment’s work on Blake Shelton’s Ole Red venues was inspiring.
“I’ve had other offers for venues, but I always thought if I had the chance one day to do a venue, I would want to work with them. Working in hospitality the way they do, they bring something unique to the table.”
Combs added, “I talked with Blake about it this January, when we were talking about working with the Opry folks. He had so many great things to say about them and was like, ‘You should absolutely do this,’ and he was excited for me. It was great to get that affirmation.”
The entertainment complex will include a 1,500-person capacity concert venue for ticketed events. Meanwhile, a proposed rooftop bar (720-person capacity) with views of the Cumberland River and Nissan Stadium will add 9,000 square feet of entertainment space to the existing 60,000-square-foot venue.
The three interior levels will convey Combs’ songs, lifestyle and connection to his Bootlegger fans.
Colin Reed, Ryman Hospitality Properties’ executive chairman, told Billboard that he estimates the project will cost in the “tens of millions,” though he declined to offer specific financials.
Reed described the venue as containing a “250-seater honky-tonk at the front that can open up into the concert hall behind it.” He adds that the concert hall will include a “Beautiful Crazy” area designed for groups and bachelorette parties, as well as a bourbon bar and an area dedicated and inspired by Combs’ Bootleggers fanclub.
“We’ve definitely tried to prove over the years that we always think about the fans first,” Combs told Billboard. “I wanted to continue to do that with this spot, too. I didn’t just want to slap y name on something and wash my hands of it. I’ve been very hands-on with this. I wanted it to be something where my fans felt like they could come to. Obviously, if they are in the fanclub, there will be special things and special places for them to come to and unique opportunities.”
“With the honky-tonk, when I say 250 people, it will be two stories,” Reed tells Billboard. “It will be a small, intimate 250-capacity, where people will be on the second floor, looking down onto a stage and on the ground floor it will have a great bar behind it.”
Reed adds that the third floor is include a “new-generation sorts bar, to provide people who come to Nashville, who want not only to drink good bourbon, good beer, but also listen to music and watch their favorite sports team play.”
In the meantime, the venue will continue to operate as the Wildhorse Saloon until the new venue opens in 2024.
The Wildhorse Saloon opened in downtown Nashville in 1994 and has since been home to more than 4,000 television show episodes and tapings, as well as a destination for corporate events. The venue previously hosted The Wildhorse Saloon Dance Show on The Nashville Network in the 1990s and served as a base for the CMT show Can You Duet.
Combs says fans can absolutely expect to see some surprise appearances and performances from him at the venue.
“Any opportunity or any time I do something in town, I can do it here, because this is a spot that is large and versatile. It will be a really unique spot,” Combs says.
Combs is currently on his world tour, will will visit Nashville this weekend, for two shows at Nissan Stadium.