Benjamin Tod’s Lost Dog Street Band was born out of freedom: the idea that an artist with a guitar can go anywhere, at anytime, and earn a living singing their songs. When the Tennessee songwriter was just 13, Tod began playing music for tips on the sidewalks of Nashville. It …
Read More »A Black Country Music Fan Didn't Feel Safe at Concerts. So She Started a Movement
Holly G was trying to find a way to reconcile her love of country music with one disconcerting fact: She rarely saw anyone who looked like her at a country concert. It was always a sea of white faces and the unshakeable feeling that she wasn’t welcome. “I actually bought …
Read More »The Music Industry Saved Songwriter Hugh Prestwood From Homelessness. Is It Also Responsible for His Plight?
Hugh Prestwood needed help. The country music songwriter and his wife Judy came to the sobering realization that they could no longer afford the rent at their Long Island, New York, home. Nor could they scrounge together the money to move back to Prestwood’s native Texas, even if the state’s …
Read More »Karen Black Always Wanted to Make an Album. Years After Her Death, It's Here
Nearly eight years after her death, Karen Black has left multiple footprints on the culture. Thanks to roles in Easy Rider, Five Easy Pieces and Nashville, she’s remembered as part of the New Hollywood film movement of the Seventies. Her ground-breaking role as a transgender woman in Robert Altman’s Come …
Read More »Nashville Bomber Played 'Downtown' Before Blowing Up His RV. Petula Clark Isn't Happy
The white male domestic terrorist who blew up his RV on Nashville‘s historic Second Avenue on Christmas morning —injuring three, crumbling buildings, and damaging more than 40 businesses — played Petula Clark’s 1964 hit “Downtown” over the camper’s speaker system before the blast. On Tuesday, the 88-year-old English singer issued …
Read More »