The Sidebar with Eric Barnes

For more than 20 years, Joey Lewis loved the Hotel Pontotoc, the former Downtown Memphis bordello that is now a hotel - and much more. Lewis bought the Hotel Pontotoc in 2022, then embarked on a three and a half year process of renovating the building. Lewis talks about the first year of the hotel's new life as a boutique hotel, a bar (The Dame), and a music venue.

Brian Goldstone wrote a book about the millions of homeless people in the U.S., "There is No Place For us: Working and Homeless in America," which won the Pulitzer Price for nonfiction.

With a lineup that includes the band Soccer Mommy and a show at the new Satellite Music Hall, WYXR's Raised by Sound Fest announced the bands that will be playing at the radio station's annual festival.

Brady Walkinshaw joins Eric Barnes to talk about the importance of local media, the network of local alt weeklies he's creating, and how print publications can be an antidote to the problems of AI.

Tim Disney, who'll be at Novel on August 29, joins Eric Barnes on The Sidebar to talk about his dark satire of a culture of lying, misinformation and the global elite -- plus his life as the grandnephew of Walt Disney.

Pat Mitchell Worley, the president and CEO of the Soulsville Foundation, joined Eric Barnes on this week's episode of "The Sidebar."

Rachel Knox, senior program officer for arts & culture for the Hyde Family Foundation, talks not just about the arts organizations that the foundation has supported, but the entire landscape of the arts in Memphis.

The principal of Constellation Properties, Stuart Harris, and the executive director of HiFi Memphis, Mersadies Burch, join Eric Barnes to talk about the scope and scale of the Downtown project.

Elizabeth Cawein, who founded Memphis Export Memphis ten years ago to promote Memphis musicians and help them in their careers, talks about the organization's birthday celebration concerts on July 25, the realities of making money as a musician, and what Memphis does right - and could do better - in being a music city.

International exhibition "Café Society" at Dixon Gallery and Gardens centers on Belle Époque Paris and explores how Parisian cafés shaped the city's culture from 1855-1914. Julie Pierotti, the Martha R. Robinson Curator of the Dixon, was the primary organizer of the exhibition. She joins us today to discuss the exhibition, as well as with the process of coordination it requires.