Artist:Nate Fredrick Hometown: Springfield, Missouri Song: “Paducah” Album:Different Shade of Blue Release Date: February 26, 2021 Label: Wanda Recordings/Queue Records
In Their Words: “Since moving to Nashville in 2015, Paducah, Kentucky, has been a point of reference on trips home to Springfield, Missouri. I knew if I could make it to Paducah, I was going to make it home. At times I wasn’t sure where home was for me and had an odd feeling of leaving home from both directions. It felt like a highway purgatory and I began to question where home really was.” — Nate Fredrick
Artist:Aaron Espe Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Take You Home” Album:Rock & Roll Man EP Release Date: February 12, 2021 Label: Nettwerk
In Their Words: “I wish I could tell you this song is about rainbows and butterflies, but unfortunately it’s about a friend’s wife who died suddenly. Honestly, if you were to imagine any scene in Grey’s Anatomy where they’re rushing someone down the hallway on a stretcher, that’s the picture I had in my head while writing it. But thankfully songs can mean a lot of different things to different people. And those meanings are all valid. That’s why we all like songs. Between you and me, I kind of think songwriters sometimes ruin songs for people by telling us their thoughts on it. Just sometimes (and hopefully not this time).” — Aaron Espe
Nashville’s “Music City” nickname has always been broader and more inclusive than the national impression, which largely has been built on two things: the city’s impressive country music legacy and its equal importance as a hub for the general music business, with major emphasis on recording and publishing. But what hasn’t been as well recognized and celebrated, at least by those outside particular communities in Nashville, is its contribution to numerous other idioms and its role in their evolution and development.
Hopefully that’s going to change with the new National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM), now open across the street from the historic Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville. The Fifth and Broadway entrance to NMAAM and its proximity to one of the nation’s music shrines couldn’t be more appropriate, and it is notable that the museum isn’t located in one of the sites better known as a Black music hotbed such as Detroit, New York, Los Angeles or even Memphis. Nashville has always been a major player in the African American music world, from the days of the Fisk Jubilee Singers to radio station WLAC breaking R&B, soul and blues hits, and the Jefferson Street nightclub scene providing both valuable training for emerging artists and a vital showcase for established ones.
However, the museum isn’t focused mainly or wholly on Nashville, nor any single city or musical style. The 56,000-square-foot entity aims to spotlight the entirety of the music made in this nation by Blacks, to demonstrate its impact on the totality of American sounds, and to celebrate its history and multiple influences. As CEO/president Henry Hicks repeatedly told media members who attended tours in January, “We’re showing how music through the prism of the Black experience has played a vital role in the growth of this country and how it’s affected every fabric of the culture.”
The sleek, architecturally striking building has the same visual splendor and attractiveness as the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington D.C. Upon entrance, visitors to NMAAM will be immediately drawn to the central corridor that’s billed as the Rivers of Rhythm. It features touch panel interactive exhibits, something that’s a recurring sight throughout the halls housing exhibits and other items designed to showcase 50 genres and sub-genres of Black music.
The corridor leads into The Roots Theater, which is actually where the museum tour formally begins. There’s an introductory film presentation that provides the African background and heritage of the various exhibits. It also offers a cinematic shorthand of what visitors later see presented in more exacting, visually striking manner: the multiple sounds and styles of notable Black music creators and performers. The theater seats approximately 190, and in later weeks and months will serve as the location for various screenings, lectures, music performances, and concerts.
The different genre exhibitions feature everything from more interactive exhibits with timelines to cases containing such items as one of Louis Armstrong’s trumpets, one of B.B. King’s “Lucille” guitars, or costumes worn on key nights by performers like Billie Holiday, Nat “King” Cole, Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, or Aretha Franklin. The museum doesn’t neglect any area of Black music, going from the earliest spirituals to pre-jazz, traditional and modern jazz, blues, R&B/soul, funk, disco, and into contemporary hip-hop and EDM. There’s also a detailed storyboard for every idiom.
The greatest examples of Black music influencing other idioms that are sometimes mistakenly assumed not to have any links with African Americans can be seen in the Crossroads section. It includes an essay that traces how country founding fathers like Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams were influenced by the blues, and how the acoustic guitar playing of people like Sister Rosetta Tharpe and the gospel-tinged shouting of Odetta in turn influenced white folkies like Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.
One of Chuck Berry’s biggest hits, “Maybellene,” was a reworked version of Bob Wills’ “Ida Red” with new lyrics, while certainly Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and other white rock ‘n’ roll and rockabilly types were performing a hybrid of country, blues, and R&B. In both cases, as well as early string band music played by white and Black performers, these artists were hearing and creating a fresh sound based on their love of multiple genres, which the Crossroads section reflects in text and exhibits.
Along the way, depending on your musical preferences, you’re able to become an active part of the experience. There’s a disco dance room that inserts a neon silhouette onto the wall. You can construct your own blues song, improvise within a personal jazz composition, become part of a gospel choir, or craft your own freestyle raps. Any or all of this activity is recorded on a personal RFID wristband and automatically uploaded so that it can be shared online with friends, assuming you really want those efforts heard by others.
But most importantly, the mission, one frequently cited by tour guides and reinforced through the various exhibits, displays, and films, is Black music’s cross-generational links and the way it’s been both a voice of protest and a force for unity across diverse backgrounds. The role music played both in rallying Blacks into the World War II effort and helping inspire and fortify the Civil Rights Movement are just two parts of that underlying joint theme.
Whether it’s “One Nation Under a Groove” or “A Love Supreme,” regardless of spiritual or secular content, Black music has been at the core and forefront of American culture. No single building better exemplifies and reveals that than the National Museum of African American Music. No matter what kind of music you love, or even if you’re tone deaf, this museum will have something of value for you to see, hear and enjoy, as well as valuable lessons to learn and history to remember.
Not every songwriter can get away with an opening line like: “The world outside my window / looks like Nintendo / but I’m not playing games anymore.” Leave it to Aaron Lee Tasjan, who guides us past those lyrics into “Not That Bad,” a subtle and sincere song about confidence and capability that showcases the Nashville-based musician’s gift as an acoustic instrumentalist as well.
Tasjan wrote the song just after suggesting to his longtime label that he wanted to produce the next album — an idea that the executives weren’t sure about. So, Tasjan went ahead and did it anyway, working with co-producer Gregory Lattimer. The result is Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!, likely his most revealing album yet, and one that embraces his fondness of guitar, video games, and his own self-proclaimed dumb songs. He chatted with BGS by phone leading up to the release.
BGS: “Up All Night” sounds like a pop song, but it’s also very personal. What was on your mind as you were writing that song?
Tasjan: A couple of things. I love songs that I would call silly little pop songs. Something as simple as “Sugar” by the Archies. I just love simple, but with a good hook. I’ve been listening to music like that for a long time. As far as the lyrical content, all that stuff came directly out of my life. There’s not one thing that I’m singing about in that song that isn’t 100 percent me, really. And honestly, if I could say there was a mission statement for the record, it was to just be as unabashedly me as I possibly could. So, “Up All Night” became a front-runner early on, a cool blueprint of anything else that I wanted to do.
To me, that song is about the things in life that come and go — you mention money and love and health. And then you’re ultimately realizing that’s just how life is. Is that a fair assessment?
Exactly. I’ve been a very analytical person in my life. And there are some things that you don’t have to analyze. Like, if you are analyzing it, you’re spinning your wheels, or in some cases, creating scenarios that wouldn’t even exist otherwise. It’s kind of a mental health tip for myself to realize, “Look, man, that’s just the way it is, dude.” [Laughs]
It’s refreshing when you come to that realization and you just go on and live your life.
Right! I think that’s true. Control is part of it — you want to feel like you’re in control. But all of that is an illusion. Certainly we have been witness to several moments recently where it feels like reality is coming undone, so we’ve had to reckon with how little control we have over everything. But at the same time, for a guy like me, it’s helped me to reassert the parts of what I can do, of being seen, asking to be seen, and seeing others. That’s not something that I’ve always been that comfortable with — the asking to be seen part. It’s been hard for me, but on this record, I felt more called to do that.
Speaking of that, there’s a lyric in “Up All Night” about breaking up with your boyfriend to go out with your girlfriend. Is that the first time you’ve addressed that topic on a record?
I think so, yeah. Well… on the Silver Tears album, there’s a song called “Hard Life,” and a verse in that where I sang, “There’s a redneck bummer in an H2 Hummer and he sure does hate the queers.” That was true. That happened to me. I got stuck in a drive-through at Taco Bell one time in small-town Ohio with some football team kids who, in their mind, had me pegged. They were yelling all kinds of stuff. I parked my car later to eat the food I’d gotten in the drive-through and they came over and were banging on the windows, calling me names. It was scary, man.
I didn’t know that happened to you. That’s frightening.
But at the same time, that is a tiny part of what someone who is transgender encounters. You kind of put in perspective. What’s it like for somebody who has to deal with that every day? It’s heartbreaking. In a lot of ways, I’m trying to show this side of myself because I feel like, especially if I’m going to be the most “me” that I’ve ever been on a record, it’s imperative to stand in that truth.
The videos for “Up All Night” and a few other songs resemble really cool arcade games. What is it about that visual presentation that grabbed you?
I think a lot of it is in because of the time I grew up in, which was the late ‘80s and the ‘90s. Video games were just huge! And something to do was to go over to the arcade for the whole day. [Laughs] Like, drop me off at 11 in the morning and come pick me up at 8 p.m., and I’ll have the time of my life! I thought with the music, sonically, I wanted to create sounds that were almost like a Polaroid picture, colors that didn’t quite exist in real life. There’s a lot of guitars on the record that sound like synthesizers almost. They’re sort of this weird hybrid combination somewhere between a guitar and a synthesizer, which was very intentional.
When did you get interested in guitar?
I was really young! In fact, I remember when it was. I was 8 or 9 years and my family took a summer vacation and my parents hired a girl who went to the local high school to watch me and my sister, because we were so young. And this girl was obsessed with MTV, of course! So, that’s what we watched all summer long.
My two favorite music videos were “Runaway Train” by Soul Asylum — because I loved that driving, strumming, acoustic guitar, which has become something I use in my own music all the time — and the other one that I really, really loved was the Black Crowes’ cover of “Hard to Handle.” I loved how Chris Robinson looked and I loved how the song sounded. It made me turn every single thing that I had in my possession that could be a guitar, into a guitar. So, my tennis racket became a guitar. My baseball bat became a guitar.
The place where we staying that summer at the beach, somebody who played guitar must have stayed there before, because I actually found a tortoise-shell guitar pick in that house. I didn’t play guitar for years after that, but I carried that pick with me EVERYWHERE. It was my most prized possession. So, when my family moved to Southern California a few years later, there wasn’t a lot to do when I first got there, and I was able to talk my parents into letting me get a guitar and start trying to go for it. I was 11 or 12 by that point.
Were you listening to any bluegrass or country at that time?
The first thing I heard that set me off in that direction was played for me by my mom, and that was early Bob Dylan stuff. That got me into acoustic music, and I remembered the “Runaway Train” video, and I thought, “Let me find some more stuff like that.” I actually started writing songs almost right away. I was a really funny kid, you know what I mean? I was like the class clown, so making my songs kind of humorous felt natural to me. I was only 13 or 14 years old when I played a song I had written to an older guy, and he said, “Man, let me help you out. It sounds like what you’re trying to do, is something like what this guy does.”
And he gave me a cassette tape of Prime Prine, which was a John Prine greatest hits collection. And that was the day I decided that I wanted to be a songwriter. [Laughs] Not only was he doing what I had been trying to do, he was doing it in this way where it was like I’d only ever seen Clark Kent – this super-nice guy, mild-mannered, kind of plain. Then you press play and you hear “Please don’t bury me down in the cold cold ground…” and Superman showed up! That was everything, you know? I got obsessed with that.
Listening to your new album on the whole now, what do you like most about it?
I just love how dumb it is. [Laughs] I love how simple it is! I know that sounds silly, but it forces you to consider how much of what’s there really needs to be there. I really do like hearing people sing about their stories, so the more that’s in the way of that, the less enchanted I am. I just wanted to make these songs kind of simple and plain spoken. To have some poetry, certainly, if it’s possible for me to do that, but also to really lay it out there in this dumb but hopefully sweet way. I don’t look at it as though I’ve made some sort of amazing artistic statement or whatever. I just got really got down to it and said what I wanted to say, how I wanted to say it.
In Their Words: “My hometown of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, is a four-and-a-half hour drive from Nashville. My pilgrimages there were always made more romantic by snaking alone in a car down the country roads along the Mississippi. A winter or two ago, I had the radio off listening to the wind rush around with my left hand hanging out of my open window like a wing and this song came to me. I fumbled between the seats and found a broken pen and a crumbled gas receipt. I pressed both firm to my steering wheel and wrote the bulk of this song at 55 mph nearing Paducah.” — Ian Fisher
Artist:Jillette Johnson Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Latest Album:It’s a Beautiful Day and I Love You Personal nicknames: JJ
Which artist has influenced you the most … and how?
It’s so hard to pick one, but Randy Newman has greatly impacted me as a songwriter and performer. I heard my first Randy Newman song when I was a toddler, watching the movie Beaches with my parents. Bette Midler sings his song, “I Think It’s Going to Rain Today,” at the end of the movie, and it cut right into me. I didn’t know he wrote that song until by accident, I got to see him play and essentially lead a lecture in Los Angeles when I was 16. He completely transfixed me.
His musical sophistication and ear for beauty, coupled with his cutting, hilarious, and deeply empathetic storytelling was like nothing else I had ever heard. He’s so prolific, and so unchained to whatever the world expects of a singer-songwriter. He takes risks, tells the truth, and lets his humanity lead the charge in every song. And he’s still doing it, to the highest level, which inspires the hell out of me. I’ve said often that I want to be Randy Newman when I grow up, meaning that I want to keep making exciting music that matters for the rest of my life, just like him.
What’s your favorite memory from being on stage?
This wasn’t exactly a stage, but it sure felt like one. When I was 17, I was invited to go to Liza Minnelli’s apartment on the Upper East Side in Manhattan to play songs for her on her beautiful grand piano overlooking Central Park. She greeted me at the door with those big bright eyes, no makeup, wearing sweatpants and a giant smile. Her apartment was under construction, but the “piano room,” was perfectly intact — a room of only mirrors, windows, one couch, and the piano where I played. We sat there for hours while I performed songs I had written, and she sat next to me, asking me to replay certain parts of each song so she could really let them sink it.
She made me feel like what I was making mattered, and like I belonged. I’ll never forget that feeling, or her kindness. Towards the end of the visit, she told me I reminded her of Laura Nyro, whom I’d never heard before then, and she insisted I go to her bedroom with her while she crawled on the floor of her closet looking for a Laura Nyro record to give me. She never found the record, but I still relish the image in my mind of her in a pile of clothes scouring for it and swearing under her breath.
What was the first moment that you knew you wanted to be a musician?
It happened before I can remember. In fact, I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know that I wanted to be a musician. I was the kid wandering around the edge of the sandbox making up songs and singing them to myself out loud. My grandmother asked me when I was like 4 or 5 what I wanted to be when I grew up, and I said a rock star. She asked what my second choice would be, and I said I didn’t have one. And I still feel that way. Music has been with me before everything. I’d be an entirely different person without it.
What rituals do you have, either in the studio or before a show?
It’s really helpful for me to find some time to be quiet and center before a show. I always warm up my voice first, usually an hour or so before I go on, while I get changed and do my hair and makeup. But then, in that half hour before I go on, I really like to be alone. I’ll often take that time to meditate first, and then move my body in ways that energize me and make me feel powerful. The sweet spot for me is to go on stage feeling calm and in control, but still full of vigor and excitement. It’s a hard line to walk sometimes, and my nerves have been getting harder to control as I’ve gotten older. That’s why the meditation part is so important.
How often do you hide behind a character in a song or use “you” when it’s actually “me”?
Often! It’s a fun way to have a little therapy session without having to leave my house or pay anybody. And in writing land, it can lead to songs that speak more clearly and feel more inclusive. When I need guidance or am feeling insecure, I like to ask myself what I would tell someone that I loved if they came to me for help with the same issues. And when I’m writing a song that starts to sound like a pity party, or I get lost in what I’m trying to say, I often do the same thing. It’s so much easier to find clarity and compassion for others than it is for yourself, at least in my experience. Flipping the “I” to “you” or “her” is a tool I like to use in both art and life.
Artist:Lindsay Lou Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Songs: “Bell Suite” & “Alright Sweet” Album:The Suite Sweets Release Date: February 12, 2021 Label: Alright Sweet Records
In Their Words: “I wrote all the elements of The Suite Sweets during a time when I was practicing with a lot of Immersion Composition Society (ICS) writing lodges. I was dedicating hours to the practice of writing as uninhibitedly as possible, and sometimes I would come out with partial songs that I would go back later to finish. I noticed that there were common themes among them, so I decided to try a smash-up of the two songs that mentioned bells into one song, and a smash-up of the two songs that mentioned being alright into another song, and I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome. It seemed that the Suites had a sort of emergent property, which was greater than the sum of their parts. I made these particular tracks as demos, but loved the raw energy so much I knew I wanted to share them with the world when the time was right. There is the deep thread of my personal journey with mental health in ‘Alright Sweet’ and of the complexities of love in ‘Bell Suite,’ so I can’t imagine a better way to bring them to you than with the benefit show I’ve put together for Valentine’s Day weekend in support of Backline: a music industry-specific resource for mental health and well-being.” — Lindsay Lou
The humble appearance of the Station Inn could never give away the enormity of its legacy and importance to bluegrass music. Nestled between skyscrapers in an ever-growing city, a single story cinder-block building with its windows painted shut sticks out as a relic from the past — when the Urban Outfitters across the street used to be an empty field of waist-high grass.
For nearly 50 years “the World Famous” Station Inn has played a pivotal role in bluegrass as both a venue and community hub, drawing people to Nashville and making connections that had a major impact on the music. Through the rest of 2021, The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will honor and present the history and legacy of the venue in their exhibit The Station Inn: Bluegrass Beacon.
“The main reason that we wanted to do this exhibit is because the Station is such a vital and important part of not just Nashville music history, but of American music history,” says Peter Cooper, one of the curators of the new exhibit. The Station Inn has a larger-than-life reputation in the bluegrass community, but this new exhibit endeavors to highlight both the importance of the venue’s history and its welcoming atmosphere.
During the mid-1980s, adventurous singer-songwriter and musician Peter Rowan assembled all-star groups he dubbed “Crucial Country” for a series of shows that created a buzz amongst progressive roots music fans and players. In this photo, Rowan (right) is joined by Mark O’Connor on guitar and Sam Bush on mandolin. Photo: Charmaine Latham
It was founded in 1974 by a group of bluegrass musicians and singers — Bob and Ingrid Fowler, Marty and Charmaine Lanham, Jim Bornstein, and Red and Bird Lee Smith — who wanted to provide their fellow musicians and fans with a venue where they could play and hear bluegrass music. At that time the Station was more of a clubhouse where the owners functioned as the house band and guests would come up to jam. They moved to the current location in 1978; three years later, the club was bought by J.T. Gray, who at the time was driving Jimmy Martin’s tour bus.
Gray, who would go on to be inducted into the Bluegrass Hall of Fame in 2020 and was given a lifetime achievement award by the Southeast Regional Folk Alliance, began booking national touring acts to perform. It would be easy and accurate to show why the Inn is significant by pointing to the artists who have played there, including Bill Monroe, the Stanley Brothers, Vince Gill, Alison Krauss, and essentially any other important name in bluegrass. But the clubhouse atmosphere always remained. Countless (as in absolutely too many to count) threads of bluegrass history, both well-known and overlooked, can all be traced back to chance meetings at the Station Inn. J.T. Gray fostered a welcoming atmosphere that led to many locals and visitors from out of town to meet there, including mandolinist Mike Compton.
The venue’s sound-mixing console described by Gray as “the first piece of modern sound equipment we ever bought”
“I rode up [to Nashville] with Raymond Huffmaster, a bluegrass guy from Meridian, Mississippi, where I’m from, because I’d been hanging around him trying to learn how to play,” Compton says. They visited the bluegrass spots in town including the Station Inn, and Compton recalls after heading home, “Pat Enright got in touch with me and said they were starting a band and asked if I wanted to join. So I moved [to Nashville] in 1977 and moved in with J.T. Gray.”
Mike and Pat would continue playing together and later go on to form the legendary Nashville Bluegrass Band, which became a staple act at the Station Inn. A predecessor to that award-winning band was performing at the Station the first time future bluegrass star, Kathy Chiavola, came to town in 1979.
“When that door opened, the room was packed and I saw a vision of heaven,” she says, recalling that first night. “I heard these two voices, Alan [O’Bryant] and Pat [Enright], in their prime. And I lost it. I said, ‘OK. I’m moving here.’ There was a notice on the Station Inn bulletin board that a band of women playing bluegrass were looking for a roommate.” That band turned out to be the Bushwhackers, which featured bluegrass pioneers Susie Monick and Ginger Boatwright. Chiavola eventually joined the Bushwhackers playing bass and singing lead and harmony until Doug Dillard moved to Nashville. As the banjo player from the Dillards (who were famous for playing the Darlings on The Andy Griffith Show), Dillard put a band together and asked Ginger Boatwright to join, and about a year later asked Chiavola, too. Both the Bushwhackers and the Doug Dillard Band would frequently perform at the Station.
Vocalist, bones player, and madcap entertainer Ed Dye (far right) was a colorful presence at the Station Inn during the 1980s and early 90s. He assembled the Nashville Jug Band with a cast of stellar Nashville musicians from rock, jazz, and bluegrass backgrounds, and hosted wildly unpredictable shows. In this photo, he takes the stage with (from left): Sam Bush, Mark Schatz, Tim O’Brien, Alan O’Bryant, David Grier, and Jerry Douglas. Photo: Charmaine Lanham
Chiavola eventually moved into a duplex next to bluegrass bassist Mark Schatz. Together, they would often play the Station Inn with Charlie Cushman, Stuart Duncan, and Bobby Clark as part of a band called The Satellites. Other times, Chiavola would perform at the Inn with an ensemble called the Lucky Dogs which featured Jerry Douglas, Béla Fleck, Edgar Meyer (who had just moved to town), and sometimes Sam Bush or Mark O’Connor.
“It was beyond belief,” she says. “Sometimes I remember being on stage at the Station and listening to those guys play. I thought it was the most heavenly sound — I can’t even describe it to you. It was perfect music with so much feeling. You could hear a pin drop. It was so beautiful.”
Schatz, on the other hand, often performed at the Station with Mike Compton as part of John Hartford’s band. Hartford had moved back to Nashville to form a string band after a successful songwriting career in L.A. That California connection later landed him the contract to help with the music for the Coen Brothers’ massively successful O Brother, Where Art Thou? Compton’s 1927 Gibson A-Jr. model mandolin, which he played with the Nashville Bluegrass Band, in John Hartford’s string band, and on the O Brother soundtrack, is included in the new exhibit.
A cigar box used for many years to collect admission fees at the club entrance
Also on display is a small wooden box that was used to collect admission for years, along with some history about former Station Inn employee and local folk icon, Ann Soyars. “Ann embodied what the Station is about,” Cooper says. Soyars worked the door and was “small but fierce.” She was known to throw out rowdy college football players for being too loud, but also welcome regulars and newcomers alike. “Ann’s inclusion in the exhibit is indicative of what we’re trying to do, which is to help people understand not just the facts of the matter, but the spirit of the matter. The Station Inn is an example of musical community building in the most positive way. It’s like Cheers for ‘grassers.”
In addition, the exhibit features other artifacts from both the building and the musicians who have performed there including a fiddle played extensively by Tammy Rogers with the SteelDrivers, Mike Bub’s Kay M-1 double bass, which he played with many groups at The Station Inn — including Weary Hearts (Chris Jones, Butch Baldassari, Ron Block), the Del McCoury Band, and the Sidemen (Terry Eldridge, Jimmy Campbell, Ronnie McCoury, Gene Wooten, Ed Dye, Kristin Scott Benson, and Larry Perkins). Seats from a tour bus used by Lester Flatt, which serve as seating in the venue, are on view as well.
The Station Inn’s cash register
Generations of performers’ children have grown up in the Station’s green room and backstage and have gone on to perform on stage as adults. Newspaper has been put down on the bar to admire someone’s new puppies. Great care has been taken to lovingly craft the perfectly reheated pizza. Beers are shared by locals and honored guests after the doors are closed to the public. (And I have hidden fancy decaf coffee and a pour-over in the back that I take out when I visit.) To this day the Station Inn is a community gathering place where friendships, bands, and lifelong loves of bluegrass are formed. It embodies not only the authenticity of the music but of the community. And often, everyone knows your name.
Editor’s Notes: The Station Inn has endeavored to safely present live music throughout the pandemic. They have reopened to live audiences at a limited capacity and live stream performances through their web portal stationinntv.com.
The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will present The Station Inn: Bluegrass Beacon until January 2, 2022. The museum is currently open to the public at a limited capacity.
Photo of Station Inn and artifacts: Emma Delevante for the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum Other photos: Charmaine Lanham
Artist:Jaelee Roberts Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Something You Didn’t Count On” Release Date: February 5, 2021 Label: Mountain Home Music Company
In Their Words: “‘Something You Didn’t Count On’ is about anything that happens in life unexpectedly. The main theme is about love coming out of nowhere, but it really has so many underlying meanings, and that’s why I love the song so much. The melody and lyrics came to Theo MacMillan and I pretty quickly and, interestingly, the storyline comes from either the male or female perspective. I think my favorite line in the song is ‘you don’t always look for what you find’ which is the focus of what the song is all about!” — Jaelee Roberts
Artist:Margo Price Hometown: Nashville, Tennessee Song: “Hey Child” Album:That’s How Rumors Get Started Label: Loma Vista Recordings
In Their Words: “‘Hey Child’ was a song that was written back in 2012 not long after my husband Jeremy and I lost our son Ezra. We were playing shows with our rock and roll band Buffalo Clover and occupying most of the bars in East Nashville. We had begun hanging with a rowdy group of degenerate musician friends and partying harder than The Rolling Stones… The song was about how many of our talented friends were drinking and partying their talents away, but after a few years had passed, we realized it was just as much about us as our friends. I had retired it when the band broke up but Sturgill Simpson resurrected it when he asked me if I would re-record it for That’s How Rumors Get Started.” — Margo Price
Photo credit: Bobbi Rich
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