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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Born to working-class parents in Massachusetts, Linda Rose came to Nashville in the 1990s — by way of Hawaii, where she first began working in immigration law. When she relocated to Tennessee for her then-husband's career, she didn't think there'd be much for her to do. But her practice took off.

These days, Linda's as busy as she's ever been, and the political climate has her anxious for her clients. To stay centered, she finds solace in her longtime karate practice — she's a third-degree black belt — and playing jazz vibraphone in a band that includes one of the lawyers in her firm.

Guest: Linda Rose, founder of Rose Immigration Law Firm

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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The banjo was Mike Bub's first love, but not long after arriving in Nashville he discovered he could find more work playing the bass. He found himself onstage at the Grand Ole Opry, on tour with the likes of Bill Monroe, and in studios across Nashville. He played in Del McCurry's band for years. He's got some stories.

Mike also became a regular at the Station Inn, what the calls the "last bastion" of the Music City he first encountered in the 1980s — full of legends and upstarts making a go at their craft as sunset began to fall on country music's golden age. He still plays a standing gig there on Monday nights, and if you can find it among the high-rises, you owe it to yourself to check out a show.

Guest: Mike Bub

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producer: Steve Haruch

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When you can hear gibbons shouting out from treetops during office hours, you know your job is a bit off the beaten path. As marketing director for the Nashville Zoo, Jim Bartoo gets to spend a lot of time with the noisy, fuzzy, slimy — and just about everything in between — critters that call the South Nashville property home.

Maybe it's not too much of a stretch that Jim once worked in television news — or that his experience in the media helped him land one of his first zoo jobs. He's been at the helm of Nashville Zoo's publicity efforts for 25 years, and in that time he's developed an appreciation for everything from "snot otters" (aka hellbenders) to flamingoes. He's developed a pretty convincing gibbon call, too.

Guest: Jim Bartoo, director of marketing and public relations, Nashville Zoo

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Steve Haruch and Andrea Tudhope

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Sixty years ago this week, activists marched for civil rights in Selma, Ala., including many, like John Lewis and Diane Nash, who had trained in Nashville. In his role as overseer of the Civil Rights Room at the downtown Nashville Public Library, Elliott Robinson keeps watch over the history that was made here and reverberated across the country.

A "math kid" turned history major, Elliott has a gift for singing and a knack for the stage he discovered later in life than some. (He portrayed Joseph in a Christmas play at TSU at age 41.) He brings a warmth and approachability to his work at the library — telling stories of bravery for all who come to visit. He also has a close personal connection to that history.

Guest: Elliott Robinson, program specialist for the Civil Rights Room, Nashville Public Library

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Steve Haruch and Andrea Tudhope

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As a musician, Ellen Angelico plays many instruments well, but her first love is still her go-to: the guitar. You can hear her play on albums by Lola Kirke and Adeem the Artist. She's backed up the likes of Mickey Guyton and Brandy Clark. She writes her own music as Uncle Ellen, and writes a column for Premier Guitar magazine. In short, she's living the dream that started when she got her first real six-string at age 4.

It was the Music City dream that attracted both Ellen and one of her former bandmates, the talented singer Shelly Bush. In the new podcast Girl in a Hurry, Ellen tells Shelly's story, from a small town in Missouri to the honky tonks of Lower Broad — a life cut tragically short but lived to the absolute fullest. 

Guest: Ellen Angelico, musician, writer and host of Girl in a Hurry

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Andrea Tudhope and Steve Haruch

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Content warning: This episode contains references to sexual assault and murder.

Nine-year-old Marcia Trimble was delivering Girl Scout cookies in the affluent Green Hills neighborhood when she went missing on Feb. 25, 1975. Thirty-three days later, on Easter Sunday, her body was discovered not far from her family home. She had been sexually assaulted.

The early investigation focused on 15-year-old Jeffrey Womack, who lived near the Trimbles and was one of the last people to see Marcia alive. He was arrested and charged in 1979 but released the following year due to lack of evidence. Thirty-three years after Marcia's death, in 2008, Jerome Sydney Barrett was charged with first-degree murder. This special episode of Banner & Company looks back on the case that rocked the city.

Producer and Host: Demetria Kalodimos

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The first time Rebecca Haw Allensworth attended a licensing board meeting, she could hardly believe what she was seeing: A physician with a long malpractice history, including sexual misconduct and giving drugs to patients off the books, was trying to get his medical license reinstated. And to Rebecca's disbelief, the Tennessee Medical Examiners Board did just that. And so the book she thought was writing changed instantly. 

Now, several years and many, many public meetings later, that book has been published. The Licensing Racket takes a deep look at the ways licensing boards operate. These are bodies made up of professionals essentially policing themselves — often with little understanding of the actual statutes they're upholding and little training about how and why they render their judgments. And Rebecca asks whether public safety is really being served by this type of regulation.

Guest: Rebecca Haw Allensworth

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Andrea Tudhope and Steve Haruch

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When the other kids wanted to watch Indiana Jones, Willie Steele took a chance on a baseball movie instead. He didn't know it at the time, but watching Field of Dreams by himself in 1989 would alter the trajectory of his life. He would go on to write his master's thesis about Shoeless Joe, the novel the film was based on, and then, in an unlikely turn, write the biography of that book's author, W.P. Kinsella.

These days, Willie is working on a new book about how Major League Baseball reacted to the events of 9/11, from the perspectives of the four teams that were closest to where the planes went down: The Mets, Yankees, Pirates and Orioles. And he's also learning how to throw a knuckleball — with some help from a few former big leaguers.

Guest: Willie Steele

Host: Demetria Kalodimos

Producers: Andrea Tudhope and Steve Haruch

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