Banner & Company

As we wind down the year, we've been looking back at some of our best episodes, and we noticed one common thread between several of our favorite interviews: books. In 2024, those included: a cookbook brimming with both recipes and great stories from the South; a unique and kaleidoscopic look at a musical great; a dive into three still-unsolved integration-era bombings in Nashville; a firsthand account of visiting Tennessee's death row and the people there; a fight for justice in the wake of a historic environmental disaster; and an obsessive consideration of two legendary country music stars.

So this week we're bringing you a few highlights from our favorite author interviews of the year.



Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Steve Haruch and Andrea Tudhope

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Attorney Rose Palermo still keeps an office on Music Row, where she got her start in the ’70s representing musicians. When some of those musicians started getting divorced, she took on that work, too. It helps to know the business, after all. Eventually there was so much divorce work she had to choose, and she chose divorce — though not for herself. (She and fellow attorney Denty Cheatham remain happily married, as they have been for 50-plus years.)

In the intervening decades, Rose has built a reputation as one of the toughest divorce attorneys in Music City. And her clients, including host Demetria Kalodimos, swear by her tenacity, sure — maybe you saw her come crashing into a lying huckster's office on an episode of 60 Minutes. But for the people she's guided through some of their hardest times, she's known just as much for her compassion and care.

This episode was first broadcast in July.

Guest: Rose Palermo, divorce attorney

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Andrea Tudhope and Steve Haruch

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Long before Beyoncé's Cowboy Carter album re-ignited the conversation, Frankie Staton was booking showcases aimed at highlighting Nashville's Black country music talent, which remained hidden in the mix. "I knew that I was not the only Black person that was being treated the way I was being treated," she says.

A North Carolina native inspired to move to Music City by the likes of Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton, Frankie has toiled in the shadows for decades, but not long ago she finally made it onto the stage at the Grand Ole Opry. And a new generation, inspired by her example, has both shined a light on her work and carried it on.

This episode was originally broadcast in May.

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Elisheba Mrozik is probably best known as a tattooer: She made an appearance on the TV show Inkmaster and owns her own shop in North Nashville. But she’s also a painter, muralist and textile artist who uses whatever medium she’s working in to explore community and cultural interconnectedness. And yes, some of that work involves fermenting mud.

An artist from an early age — including an elementary school-era side gig selling her drawings — Elisheba credits a trip to Japan for unlocking her potential and beginning her journey exploring her identity as a Black Southern woman.

This episode was originally broadcast in April.

Guest: Elisheba Mrozik, artist; owner, One Drop Ink Tattoo; president, North Nashville Arts Coalition

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Steve Haruch and Andrea Tudhope

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For our premiere episode, we broke from our usual one-on-one format to bring you an abbreviated — but nonetheless colorful and complicated — history of the Nashville Banner: a look at the days of a two-newspaper city, from people who lived it, day in and day out, in the storied newsroom at 1100 Broadway.

This episode was first broadcast in April 2024.

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From a young age, Hal Cato knew he wanted to help others — from a chance encounter with a senior in an assisted living center to recruiting friends to help him deliver Meals on Wheels. That drive has brought him into leadership at some of Nashville's most prominent nonprofits — including Hands On Nashville, Oasis Center and Thistle Farms. And it brought him very close to a run for mayor.

"I'm still attracted to the underdog today, those who are marginalized and just sort of on the outskirts," Hal says. Today, he sits at the helm of the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, which oversees more than 1,500 funds and hundreds millions of dollars to help those in need. How to best direct and coordinate those resources in a fast-changing city is a challenge Hal feels up for, even if it means changing

Disclosure: CFMT is a sponsor of Banner & Company. Sponsors do not influence coverage.

Guest: Hal Cato, CEO, Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Steve Haruch and Andrea Tudhope

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President-elect Donald Trump has promised mass deportations, raising questions about the feasibility of such an operation and, at the same time, causing fear in immigrant communities across the country. Here in Nashville, local authorities have stayed away from strident rhetoric, but this week Tennessee lawmakers introduced two bills aimed at undocumented immigrants — one that would require law enforcement to transport them to "sanctuary cities" and another that would require state IDs to distinguish citizens from noncitizens.

Tessa Lemos Del Pino is the granddaughter of migrant farm workers who once associated with the United Farm Workers and Cesar Chavez. Today, she is the executive director of Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors, a nonprofit law office that helps people navigate the complex and time-consuming immigration system. Her office has been inundated with messages this week, as the specter of drastic enforcement measures hangs over undocumented Tennesseans and their families.

Guest: Tessa Lemos Del Pino, executive director, Tennessee Justice for Our Neighbors

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Steve Haruch and Andrea Tudhope

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The 2024 election in the books. At the city level, Mayor Freddie O'Connell's transit measure won big. What was different this time, as opposed to the failed 2018 plan? As expected, Republicans dominated statewide elections, but what comes next for Democrats, who eked out a must-win seat in the state legislature but made no significant gains?

And with a second Trump administration on the horizon, what could that mean for Tennessee politicians. Demetria sits down with three members of the Banner team to dissect the results and discuss key takeaways.

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As of November 2024, the account A Girl Has No President has more than 820,000 followers on Instagram. That following includes scores of celebrities. But the creator of the account chooses to stay anonymous, in part because of threats against her and her family, and in part because she is not interested in notoriety. She also rarely grants interviews, but made an exception for this episode of Banner & Company.

She talks about why she created the account in 2016 out of "unadulterated anger," how growing up poor in Nashville has influenced the way she thinks, and how she and Demetria once crossed paths many years ago — well before there was any such thing as social media.

This episode was first broadcast in April 2024.

Guest: Anonymous, A Girl Has No President

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Andrea Tudhope and Steve Haruch

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On a cold night in 1985, the Rev. Charles Strobel, then pastor at Holy Name Catholic Church in East Nashville, invited the people who were trying to sleep in the parking lot to come inside. This gesture, which he already knew might alter the course of his life, eventually grew into a citywide program known as Room In The Inn, now comprising 200 congregations, offering shelter and warm meals to those in need. It has become a national model, and the city's first permanent supportive housing facility, Strobel House, bears his name.

Charlie, as most knew him, passed away in August 2023. Three years earlier, he sat down with his friend John Spragens for an interview. The Banner's Demetria Kalodimos was behind one of the cameras as Charlie shared some of the major influences on his life: an encampment of unhoused men who befriended him as a child; attending school in Washington, D.C., during the height of anti-war protests there; a professor who read the Sermon on the Mount every day. This special episode draws from that interview.

Guest: Rev. Charles Strobel, founder of Room In The Inn and author of the posthumously published memoir The Kingdom of the Poor

Producer and host: Demetria Kalodimos

Editor: Steve Haruch

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