The award-winning banjo player and producer Tray Wellington is known for breaking boundaries, infusing folk and bluegrass with jazz elasticity. His new album finds him flexing his hip-hop fluency.
Jewly Hight
Music critic and journalist Jewly Hight has been based in Nashville for two decades. Often, she's interpreted developments in Nashville's music communities and industries for a national audience. Her work has appeared on NPR and in The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, New York Magazine/Vulture, The Guardian, Billboard, The Oxford American, Slate and numerous other outlets, and she's lent her expertise to a number of podcasts and documentaries. Hight landed her first book deal while studying religion, gender, sexuality, music and the South at Vanderbilt Divinity School, she was the inaugural winner of the Chet Flippo Award for Excellence in Country Music Journalism and she helped launch WNXP as its Editorial Director in 2020. Now Senior Music Writer for Nashville Public Radio, and working with a diverse Nashville audience in mind, she's created the organization's first limited podcast series focused on music, "Making Noise."
Why new revelations about the training of AI music models hit close to home
Musicians are expressing alarm at finding their music listed in sets of data that might’ve been used to train AI models. The Atlantic’s AI watchdog project ignited the conversation and Nashville-based digital strategist and songwriter Charles Alexander weighs in with senior music writer Jewly Hight.
How is Nashville elevating its R&B scene? With help from producers like Dom J
How Dom J is elevating Nashville’s R&B music scene — and a visit to the Kinfolk writing camp.
Patriotic music? ‘Outlaws Almanac’ compilation grapples with American history
The compilation “Outlaws’ Almanac” arrives as grand patriotic ceremonies abound — but it’s a celebration of a different kind, “to define and expand the notion of us,” says executive producer Lizzie No. It arrives on Juneteenth.
What’s the opposite of preaching to the choir? LGBTQ+ chorus Nashville in Harmony takes on country music
The Nashville In Harmony choir’s “That Ain’t Country” show is a stylistic stretch for the LGBTQ+ group. It features songs by Little Big Town, Kacey Musgraves, the Chicks, Garth Brooks, and Beyoncé.
In their country music, the flag is for everyone
Recent songs from country stars Morgan Wallen, Brantley Gilbert and Lee Brice portray their side as the only one that can claim the American flag. At the edges of the mainstream, some artists have found ways of freeing the flag from that narrow meaning.
The surprising depth of affection in Ashley Monroe’s “I Hate Nashville”
It may seem like Ashley Monroe is contradicting herself when she sings these emphatic sentiments nearly back to back: “Country music is the reason I’m alive. …But I hate Nashville.”
Elevating Nashville’s R&B scene is a collective effort | Key Changes
The rising R&B scene here in Nashville is advancing through the collaborative dynamic they’re cultivating and the type of music they’re making.
Country music comedy is back | Key Changes
Do you remember when country music had a sense of humor? Punchlines have taken a backseat to the sullenness and swagger of some of the genre’s current male superstars, but it hasn’t always been that way.
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