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Cover Story
Twenty-five Nashvillians who've shaped the city for the better
since 1989
The List: Scene @ 25
by The Committee of Insiders | June 26, 2014
Twenty-five years ago, Nashville was in the death throes of its longtime political machinery; our universities and public libraries were lagging
behind the times; major pro sports were doing end-arounds to avoid the city limits; arts organizations lacked facilities to match their ambitions;
historic structures were falling and parking lots taking their place. Oh, and the rest of the country thought we were chawin' straws and chasing
barefoot farmers' daughters around haybales.
Well, a few things have happened since then.
Whether you regard modern-day Nashville as "an industrial and cultural juggernaut" (Lamar Wyatt, we hardly knew ye) or the biggest, friendliest
small town in America — or a hipster hell on the verge of devolving into the Land of the Absurdly Elaborate Latte — there is no denying the
seismic changes in arts, commerce, politics, nightlife, property values, neighborhoods, our civic profile, and the skyline itself that have transpired
over the past quarter-century. To settle the question David Byrne posed in "Once in a Lifetime" — "How did I get here?" — the Scene convened
its Committee of Insiders, the arbiters, observers, experts and troublemakers who have weighed in since 1989 on matters grave and small.
Remember Watauga, the secret organization of civic leaders who quietly steered the city's progress five decades ago? Think of this as Watauga
without expense accounts.
What follows is a list of 25 people who have made a sizable, demonstrable impact on the city around us over the past 2.5 decades. We stipulate
off the bat: You will argue with the results. Hell, we argued with the results. No Bongo Bob Bernstein, the man who replaced our depressants with
stimulants? No Shain Dennison, the guiding force behind Nashville's greenways? No Tony Brown, the man who made Music Row hip heading
into the '90s? No Billy Lynch, no Jack White, no Mark Deutschmann, no Beth Harwell, no Eddie George, no Detectives Bill Pridemore and Pat
Postiglione, no Taylor Swift (no joke)? Dozens more names, all backed by convincing cases, fell to the ruthless scythe of the poll.
So yes — you will disagree. But before we raise our voices, consider the arguments below on behalf of people who have indisputably affected
the city. Maybe they seized initiative and decided to push forward and build on a massive scale, Fountainhead-style. Maybe they simply did
something seemingly small, and did it so well the rest of the world had to catch up to it. Whatever the case, we're the bigger and better city for
them.
Phil Bredesen
True, Bredesen was a managerial stud and a very smart fellow, but his term as mayor from 1991-1999 was as much about the idea as the man.
In the 1987 mayor's race, this Yankee outsider, Ivy League graduate and withdrawn technocrat lost to the bon vivant Bill Boner, who represented
all that was wrong with the dwindling gene pool of the Old Order. Four years later, there we were, voting for Bredesen, declaring a readiness to
emerge from a deep Southern, inward-looking, intellectually bankrupt slumber. That was such a clear, shining moment of transformation. The
reordering continues to this day.
Nelson Andrews
Nelson Andrews left behind a legacy of civic handiwork unparalleled in the history of Nashville. He played decisive roles in the creation of
Vanderbilt's Children's Hospital, the Nashville Alliance for Public Education and the Better Business Bureau of Nashville/Middle Tennessee,
among other local institutions. As a core member of the secret Watauga Society of local business leaders, he helped create the Metro Nashville
Airport Authority and Leadership Nashville, while quietly pushing for improvements in public education and race relations. "Magnanimous people
don't think less of themselves," Andrews was fond of saying. "They just think of themselves less."
Tom Wills
In addition to his good works with the Downtown Presbyterian Church, this scion of one of the city's oldest, noblest families lent pivotal backing to
two crucial causes. One is The Contributor, the street paper that has helped homeless Nashvillians find new lives, homes, jobs and respect;
almost a victim of its immediate success, it appears to be rebounding as a stronger organization. The other is The Belcourt, one of the city's
great arts developments of the past two decades, which might not have survived — or at least not flourished — if Wills hadn't stepped forward to
become its benevolent landlord. And we'd be remiss not to mention the work of his brother Morgan Wills at Siloam Family Health Center, the
charitable Edgehill clinic that caters to some 5,000 patients from Nashville's indigent and uninsured communities.
Martha Ingram
It's virtually impossible to write about Martha Ingram's significance in this short space, since it takes at least a couple hundred words simply to list
the names of the institutions she has helped create. Without the assistance of this billionaire benefactor, there would be no Tennessee
Performing Arts Center or Schermerhorn Symphony Center. There would also likely be no Nashville Opera or Nashville Ballet, and the Nashville
Symphony, if it existed at all, would likely be little more than a gloried community band. Indeed, when the symphony got into dire financial trouble
last year, Ingram intervened, keeping the Schermerhorn off the auction block. Every orchestra in America should have such a patron.
David Tarpley and Gordon Bonnyman
Not many lawyers represent regular people going through heartbreak and hardship, whose very lives are at stake. David Tarpley and Gordon
Bonnyman, two consummate Southern gentlemen, exemplify the best of Nashville's legal profession. In any other city, a Legal Aid lawyer taking
on an international bank might as well be David without any stones. But Tarpley is like a Goliath who can catch (and return) anything thrown his
way. Bonnyman, a nationally renowned health care attorney, is just as formidable. The founder of the Tennessee Justice Center, a public interest
law firm, he's spent decades helping indigent and working-class clients secure health care. Last year, his firm helped Beverly Loyd, a 61-year-old
nurse, obtain a liver transplant. Taking her story to the press, Bonnyman used the media to highlight her case and spotlight the many people
whose lives are at risk because they irritate a calculator.
John Egerton
Southern food "unlocks the rusty gates of race and class, age and sex," John Egerton wrote. "A place at the table is like a ringside seat at the
historical and ongoing drama of life in the region." Egerton contained multitudes — passions for food, history, literature and social justice — and
we're all better for it. He died last year but his works live on, including books like the one quoted above (the incomparable Southern Food, which
touched off the enormous resurgence of interest in Southern cooking), the Southern Foodways Alliance he helped found, and Humanities
Tennessee's literary site Chapter 16, which he helped shepherd. We're left to hope his dream of reconciliation among all the communities in the
South comes true.
Bill Barkley and Steve Armistead
It was such a blank canvas. Not only blank, but rat-infested, guano-covered and smelly. The Gulch, which the Scene offices in Cummins Station
looked out upon in the mid-'90s, resembled in those days a scene straight outta Faulkner — everything falling down, rotting, stuff growing over
other stuff. But a duo of developers, Bill Barkley and Steve Armistead, had, by virtue of extraordinary powers of imagination, conceived of
something else entirely. Huge, lovely, poster-board illustrations of a re-imagined Gulch hung all over their office walls, the signposts of an
emerging new civilization. And now, well, it's for real.
Ray Bell
Ray Bell was a builder of roads, skyscrapers, bridges, deals, reputations and relationships. The gruff, rough-and-tumble honors graduate of
University of the South took personal pride and possession of the many Nashville landmarks that rose above his red-and-white Bell & Associates
Construction banners: "my road" (pick any interstate leading in and out of the city); "my building" (the Justice Adolphus A. Birch Building, the
Tennessee Performing Arts Center, Batman); "my bridge" (Shelby Street Pedestrian, Korean War Veterans Memorial). His generosity,
fundraising skills and eclectic passions extended his impact on the city into museums, medical labs, libraries, theaters, classrooms and parks. At
his funeral in 2010, mayors, welders, governors, bricklayers, museum directors, waiters, medical researchers, truck drivers, CEOs and janitors
filled the church to capacity to honor him. "His word," said son Darek, "was his word."
Christine Kreyling
To keep this from getting too self-congratulatory — too late, you say — the Committee nixed former editor Bruce Dobie as well as early
restaurant critic Kay West, who beat the drum for local providers years before anyone was talking farm-to-table. But as the Scene's longtime
architectural critic, Kreyling has demonstrated time and again the transformative power of informed criticism backed by reportage. Results of her
passionate engagement are all around us: in today's invigorated SoBro; in the new urbanist spaces blooming across the city; in the battles to
preserve our remaining historic structures and surrounding rural areas; in the increased emphasis on downtown living, open public areas, green
space and walkability. Never doubt the power of a writer who can get readers to pay attention.
Tommy Frist
He buys one hospital, makes it work, then buys a whole lot more. Thus begat an empire, which Tommy Frist sold, purchased again, cut in half,
spliced and diced, took private, took public, took private again, and in so doing made repeated fortunes. Immensely charitable, Frist gave away
— and continues to give — much of what he made, creating a splendid downtown arts museum, building an almost embarrassingly lavish new
private high school, and more. Interesting anecdote: Though cut from the cloth of the Nashville aristocracy, Frist refused to join Wautaga, the
secret society of businessmen who ran this city for a long while. "I thought it made us a more insular city," he once confided to an insider. And you
think you got people figured out ...
Bill Purcell
Probably no one got the itty-bitty fundamentals of urban planning — the sidewalks, the curbs, the light fixtures on the pedestrian bridge, the type of
trees that work best along city streetscapes — the way Purcell did. Intensely informed by the tiny tissue connectors that profoundly shape a
positive urban awareness, Purcell embarked on shaping a city vision here that rocks us to this day. But he also brought the same microunderstanding of everything — in public schools, public works, storm drainage, whatever — that made his eight years as mayor an era of dealing
with the beautiful basics. Gazing at this city's current explosion, it's easy to trace much of it back to Purcell.
James "Tex" Thomas
The Rev. James Thomas hitchhiked here from his native Texas in 1964 to attend American Baptist Theological Seminary. Thomas can often be
found among outcasts: prisoners, the poor, the persecuted — sometimes even the politicians. Members of this last group in particular flock to
him for wisdom and support. Mayor Karl Dean, who met Thomas inside a jail while working in the 1980s as a public defender, praises Thomas'
"leadership, wisdom and humor," calling him an "essential part of Nashville." Others call him a reconciling force and a bridge between the
African-American and white communities. His influence reaches far beyond the Jefferson Street Missionary Baptist congregation he has
shepherded for 43 years. Theologically profound, politically astute, streetwise and always finding new ways to stand with the excluded and
oppressed, Thomas uses his power for good — and his ministry has been good for power.
David Williams
It's been something of a golden age for Vanderbilt athletics, and it all started when the school eliminated its athletics department. Instead, Vice
Chancellor David Williams was given a broad role that integrated the athletic department with the broader university. It was a bold move that
raised eyebrows across the conservative world of college sports. But it worked. During his tenure — Williams now carries the title of athletic
director, the office resurrected because of the renaissance he led, in part by hiring whiz-bang coaches — Vandy has had more post-season
success, produced more pro athletes and built much-needed modern facilities, and Commodore athletes have their highest GPA in decades.
Charlie Strobel
Avid baseball fan Charlie Strobel would most like to be known for a walk-off home run or game-saving diving catch. But people who struggle with
homelessness in Nashville revere the former Catholic priest for the ministry he began in the winter of 1985, when he invited people he saw
sleeping in their cars in the parking lot of Holy Name Catholic Church inside for shelter and a sandwich. It occurred to him that other churches —
all with unused space at night — could do the same, and Room In The Inn began the following winter with four congregations. The 28th season —
every night from Nov. 1 through March 31 — accepted the generosity and hospitality of 180 congregations and thousands of volunteers, feeding
and sheltering hundreds of men and women through one of Nashville's coldest winters.
John Seigenthaler
It was more than the fact that he bought his ink by the barrel. John Seigenthaler, in his inimitable run as publisher and editor at the city's morning
daily, brought a politically savvy and unabashedly progressive approach to city and state politics that made him, indisputably, the most powerful
guy in town for many years. You just didn't move without heading over to 1100 Broadway and seeking his papal blessing. Alternating deep
streaks of Machiavellian power lust with a keen and brilliant moral awareness, this brave and brilliant Irish Catholic hombre was not to be messed
with. Still isn't.
André Prince Jeffries
It's been said that Prince's Hot Chicken Shack is the most integrated space in the city; in Nashville, that's accomplishment enough. But over the
past two decades, hot chicken — our indigenous culinary delicacy — has gone from a secret handshake among local connoisseurs to the stuff of
magazine profiles, a city festival that gathers thousands to East Park every July 4, and copycat versions from New York to San Francisco. It's also
prompted a major shift in the outside-is-better inferiority complex that led local diners for many years to settle for snobbish, sub-standard
approximations of other cities' restaurants — and worse, cookie-cutter chains — while snubbing the down-home treasures we flat-out rock. And
Miss André is both its royalty and its ambassador.
Becca Stevens
The signs of the Rev. Becca Stevens' impact on the community are all over Nashville: on "I'm a Thistle Farmer" bumper stickers; on "Love Heals"
coffee mugs, hats and T-shirts; on stores shelves stacked with Thistle Farms bath and beauty products; in six houses for recovering street
prostitutes in or transitioning out of the two-year residential Magdalene program she founded in 1997; in the 11,000-square-foot Thistle Farms
manufacturing facility on Charlotte Pike and the Thistle Stop Café, which together employ almost 50 Magdalene residents and graduates. But the
most inspiring evidence of her founding truth — "Love is more powerful than all the forces that drive women to the streets" — can be found in the
beautiful faces of the women themselves.
Margot McCormack
There are quite a few food folks who belong on this list, among them restaurateur Randy Rayburn and chef Deb Paquette, both of whom have
indelibly shaped Nashville's food scene. But Margot McCormack helped define an entire neighborhood, in addition to further fueling a local chefdriven restaurant movement that is thriving in the city today. When McCormack and business partner Jay Frein opened the delightful Margot Café
in 1999, East Nashville was a culinary desert. When they launched Marché Artisan Foods in 2006, Five Points became a culinary destination day
and night — in fact, one Insider told us the opening of Marché was the tipping point in the decision to buy a home on the East Side.
Bob Fisher
They call him "Bob the Builder" for a reason. Since arriving from Arkansas State in 2000, Belmont president Bob Fisher has presided over the
greatest period of growth in school history. The student body has doubled, graduate programs have multiplied, and schools of law and pharmacy
started. The campus today barely resembles the campus of 20 years ago, with new buildings, an arena, and a massive expansion of student
housing. And with one classroom building newly completed and another one under construction, Bob the Builder's legacy continues to grow.
Joe Interrante
The plague has not given up, and neither has Joe Interrante. He was HIV-positive when he came to Nashville CARES in 1994. He had already
lost one life partner to the disease; his second life partner, Sandy Bloch, died in 2012. Nevertheless, during his years as Nashville CARES' CEO,
the organziation has emerged as a role model for the nation's AIDS agencies and as one of the city's most respected nonprofits. When
describing the CEOs of other major social-service agencies in town, the ready adjectives are typically "energetic," "charming," irrepressible" or
even "lovable." For Interrante, the words of choice are "implacable," "indomitable" and "unrelenting." He does not struggle — he fights.
Denice Hicks
In 1998, Denice Hicks, a fixture of forward-looking local theater, became Nashville Shakespeare Festival's artistic director. Except for a threeyear hiatus, she's been the troupe's guiding light ever since. Under her stewardship, the annual Shakespeare in the Park series has become the
city's signature theatrical event, and NSF hosts a variety of public readings and community outreach events throughout the year. Most
significantly, the organization has become one of the premier Shakespeare groups in the country — it is one of only 14 theater companies in
North America to be featured in the upcoming documentary and book Shakespeare on the Road, a project of The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust
in Stratford-Upon-Avon, England, the Bard's birthplace.
Manuel Zeitlin
Other architects have had a more visible impact on the skyline and surroundings — not always for the better, we might add. But Zeitlin led the way
in getting locals to reconsider the raze-and-rebuild mentality, instead reclaiming and accentuating the cool, unique features awaiting discovery in
abandoned industrial and commercial spaces. At the Scene's old offices in Cummins Station, Zeitlin reconfigured a concrete boiler-room vibe
into open, playful creative space, bringing out the modernist chic in the angular metal fixtures and staircases. The Zeitgeist gallery his wife Janice
runs with Lain York has had a similar effect on its surroundings — one reason its move from Hillsboro Village to Wedgewood-Houston bodes well
for that burgeoning arts district.
Mike Grimes and Doyle Davis
Nashville's cool cachet — and the national recognition of its rock scene — owes in no small measure to these gentlemen: Grimey as a member
of Bare Jr., one of the first hard-rock bands to break outside Music City; and Davis as a longtime fixture at vinyl hub The Great Escape and host
of 91 Rock's influential D-Funk show. Then Grimey and Dave Gehrke's opening of the Slow Bar in Five Points turbo-boosted the East Side's
turn-of-the-century transformation. But Grimey and Davis' legacy may be their indie record store Grimey's. It proved a bulwark in coast-to-coast
defiance of music retail consolidation; it's helped turn Record Store Day (and vinyl's comeback) into a nationwide phenomenon; and perhaps
most importantly, it convinced many a touring act large and small to stop skipping Music City — and then to settle here.
Renata Soto
She'd be the last to tell you so, but few have done as much as Renata Soto to connect Nashville's diverse immigrant communities to vital
resources and, just as importantly, to each other — it's right there in the name of Conexión Américas, the organization she co-founded. She was
also instrumental in defeating "English Only." And in the depths of the Great Recession, Soto rallied her team to raise $5 million for the
construction of Casa Azafrán, the multimodal cultural center on Nolensville Pike that houses Conexión's offices under the same inclusive roof as
organizations such as the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition and American Center for Outreach, as well as a United
Neighborhood Health Services clinic, a performance space, a meeting hall, a commercial kitchen, and soon, a Metro schools pre-kindergarten
program.
Emmylou Harris
When Emmylou Harris moved to Nashville 32 years ago, her seminal early-'70s collaboration with Gram Parsons and her work with her backing
group The Hot Band had already established her as a star. But her 1995 album Wrecking Ball, produced by Daniel Lanois, set a new standard
for adventurous alt-country. Since then, she's joined forces with Music City stalwarts like Buddy Miller, Gillian Welch and Dave Rawlings, and
Rodney Crowell (who was also in The Hot Band) to make consistently engaging music, in the process laying much of the foundation for what is
now called Americana. And her organization Bonaparte's Retreat has been finding homes for stray dogs since 2004.
Email [email protected].
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Comments (5)
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Under a third are women? Nearly all are white? Forgive me if I take this less than seriously...
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6 likes, 17 dislikes like dislike
Posted by Whatever on 06/26/2014 at 3:28 PM
Oh whatever whatever. Even if this list just happen to represent the population exactly, people would still be pissed because these types of lists are always subjective. Get
over yourself.
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11 likes, 1 dislike like dislike
like dislike
3 likes, 2 dislikes like dislike
Posted by 44allin on 06/26/2014 at 3:35 PM
I'm a little bit surprised that Jack White didn't make the list...
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Posted by Keeley Hancox on 06/27/2014 at 9:50 AM
I agree with Whatever. Nashville is still stuck in the patriarchal white ages.
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Posted by Seer on 06/27/2014 at 12:58 PM This is an incredibly weak list from an incredibly truthful outlet that is not afraid to cause controversy and discuss truth and justice. Maybe, maybe 8 deserve to be on it.
Awesome, awesome folks on the list and love many of them, but the list in general seems like it took a young writer about a week to put together with a grey-haired to oversee
and then say "print it" we gotta go. Isn't that the way it happens anyway. Thanks for discussing removing Bruce Dobie and Albie DelFavero, but one of them has to be included.
Okay on to the brighter and best side for me and my opinion. Thank you Nashville Scene for 25 years of keeping so many media outlets, PR firms and pundits more honest. Thank you
for being more than a glorified press release--which is really what the Tennessean seemed to be over the years, especially after the Banner folded in. Thank you for supporting the
powerful undercurrent of Nashville outside of the known and unknown establishments--that has truly shaped this town in ways we have yet to see--The Nashville Scene should probably
be on the list. Keep up the good work Nashville Scene, but don't worry becoming a historical paper unless you are willing to dig in a lot deeper and vet the list and the contributions more
and talk about truth and justice just a bit more…that takes more than a week's preparation…worry about next week and keeping everyone honest…you're damned good at that!
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Posted by derek on 06/28/2014 at 10:07 AM
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