Music historian Don Cusic has played many roles — songwriter, producer, novelist, professor. (Not to mention putting in a stint at a newspaper in Cookeville many years ago.) Decades ago, he pulled into Nashville in an old VW bus that doubled as his home until he found his footing writing about music.

Since then, Don has written 28 books, ranging from a biography of Roger Miller to an encyclopedia of cowboys. His latest delves into the life of one of Nashville's most influential figures. Chet Atkins: Mr. Guitar took Don more than a decade to write, and is informed by both research and his personal proximity to the late songwriter, producer and instrumentalist.

Guest: Don Cusic

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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Five years ago this week, Watkins School of Art, Design & Film held a socially distanced commencement ceremony amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It would the last in the school's 185-year history, as it later merged with Belmont University. Steven Womack taught at Watkins for 25 years, and he details his time there — and the school's demise — in a memoir titled Death of a College.

Before he ever stepped into a college classroom, Steven was a writer (inspired first by Robert Penn Warren) of multiple novels, beginning with Murphy's Fault and including many mysteries after, including a Nashville-set series featuring the detective Harry James Denton, and the newly released stand-alone, Blood Plot.

Guest: Steven Womack

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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With the state of Tennessee set to restart executions this month, federal public defender Kelley Henry is even more busy than usual. Her client Oscar Smith is the first man scheduled to be killed at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville. Her team has exhausted its legal options, and Smith is set to be executed on May 22. He will spend 14 days on death watch, instead of the customary three.

The drug that will be used to carry out that execution, pentobarbital, is not without controversy, and the state has not disclosed where or how it obtained its supply. Henry has pressed for transparency, claiming that the state should not be able to hide the identity or identities of whoever supplied the drug. Whatever the outcome, Henry is determined to keep fighting for the rights of "her guys" — a fight she has promised herself to continue as long as she lives.

Guest: Kelley Henry, supervising assistant federal public defender

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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This week, the Metropolitan Social Services department released a report based on its annual community needs evaluation. The title of this year's report: "The High Cost of Low Wages in Nashville." Coinciding with the release of the report, the department hosted a community gathering at West End Community Church, featuring a panel discussion on the report's findings and possible solutions.

Guests

Credits

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This week, Tennessee Highway Patrol said it made close to 500 traffic stops — coordinating with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in a sweeping effort to find undocumented immigrants along state roads. Troopers made 12 arrests, and 94 people were detained for reasons related to immigration. The enforcement actions created anxiety and uncertainty in Nashville's Latino communities and raised questions about what Nashville officials knew, and when.

Banner reporters have spent the week talking to people affected, attending community meetings, accompanying lawmakers and observing activity outside the Nashville ICE field office. In this special episode, state government reporter Sarah Grace Taylor, metro reporter Stephen Elliott and criminal justice reporter Steven Hale talk about what they've seen and heard, and what we still don't know.

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Guests: Sarah Grace Taylor and Stephen Elliott

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Andrea Tudhope

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Major Jackson is the author of six poetry collections, including, most recently, Razzle Dazzle: New & Selected Poems. He is a professor at Vanderbilt University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Coming to Nashville to teach was a homecoming of sorts — he spent many summers here as a child.

For two years, spanning 443 episodes, Major was the host of the podcast The Slowdown, which gave him the space to introduce new poems and poets to a devoted audience on a daily basis. He recently stepped down from that role, and joined Demetria to talk about his career, his inspirations and what comes next.

Guest: Major Jackson, poet, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair in the Humanities at Vanderbilt University

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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Michael Shane Neal knew from an early age he wanted to be an artist. But there were no artists in his family, so he wasn't sure how he'd turn that into a career. After taking classes in the basement of a dormitory at Lipscomb University, he had a chance meeting with someone who knew the famed portrait artist Raymond Kinstler. And after a trip to New York, a mentorship was born.

Shane credits Kinstler with showing him the way to an artist's life. And since then, he's painted everyone from John Lewis to Sandra Day O'Connor, Morgan Freeman to former Tennessee governor Phil Bredesen. It's painstaking work — sometimes taking months of sittings, sketches and many, many conversations. It's in that process that, Shane says, he gets to know the essence of a person in order to convey it on canvas.

Guest: Michael Shane Neal

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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Rev. Matt Steinhauer was among the dozen or so clergy who interrupted a House committee meeting earlier this week by reciting the Lord's Prayer. He was eventually escorted out by Tennessee State Troopers. What brought Matt to the Cordell Hull State Office Building that day was a belief that public education is for everyone, and that the bill under consideration — which would allow school districts to turn away or charge tuition to undocumented children — goes against the teachings of Jesus.

Matt is no stranger to state politics; his father, a polio survivor, served four terms in the General Assembly and passed on a legacy of working to help others. He took his father's example to heart, and even though he was nervous, at first, to voice his concerns in such a public way, he knew it was part of his calling.

Guest: Rev. Matt Steinhauer, interim pastor, Saint Andrew Lutheran Church

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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Middle Tennessee weather can be unpredictable — and dangerous. When things get iffy, a trio of "suburban dads" keeps the information flowing. But once the watches turn to warnings, they really get serious: That's when they start livestreaming on YouTube, tracking storms in real time and letting their audience know when to shelter and when it's safe to carry on.

Nashville Severe Weather started as a Twitter account to keep locals informed of potential rainouts and worse. It's grown into a high-tech multi-platform operation with hundreds of thousands of followers. Two-thirds of the team joined Demetria to talk about their origins — which go back farther than one might think — and their advice for getting through a nasty weather event.

Guests: Andrew Leeper and Will Minkoff, Nashville Severe Weather

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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Growing up in Johnson City, Tenn., Mo Sabri could look out the window of his parents' house and see cows. He grew up listening to Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers. He played baseball and football. It was an all-American childhood in many ways. Add a guitar, and all of this sounds like the perfect backstory for a country music singer — except for a detail or two.

Mo's parents immigrated from Pakistan, and he grew up Muslim. Neither of those facts can take away his love for country music, or his pride in being raised just down the road from the hallowed ground of Bristol. Still, after nearly a decade in Nashville and an international following, Mo still finds that for many, just being Muslim is, as he describes it, "radioactive." But that's not stopping him from writing songs or finding new connections between the traditions he embodies.

Guest: Mo Sabri, musician

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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