This Is Nashville

What kind of person can light up the stage at the Lipstick Lounge and a 7th-grade classroom? A genuine original named Benjamin Slinkard , that’s who. Ben, also known as Kennedy Ann Scott , is the 2022 Metro Schools Teacher of the Year. Kennedy Ann is a local favorite drag queen and community staple. Today, we chat with Benjamin about growing up in a small Missouri town, the birth and longevity of...

Today our Roundabout panel of guests focuses exclusively on Venezuela, breaking down the consequences of the president’s capture and the potential impact felt here Middle Tennessee. And we take your calls. Are you celebrating the fall of a dictator? Concerned about what comes next? Confused about how this impacts our Venezuelan neighbors? Call 615-760-2000 to join the conversation. This episode wa...

Freddie O’Connell is back for the first “Ask the Mayor” of 2026! Today, along with your questions, we'll ask him about East Bank development, the main Public Library branch, racing at The Fairgrounds and more. Plus, the phone lines will stay open for you to shout out your upcoming community event. Joining us to talk about WPLN's weekly event amplification, What Where Whens-day , is curator and WNX...

Shape-note singing is one of the oldest musical traditions in this country. It’s a practice that began in colonial America, and after centuries of ups and downs in popularity, today it’s finding an expanded and surprisingly diverse new following. And some of its singers believe the music can teach democracy a thing or two. Join hosts Laura Atkinson and Justin Hicks as they trace the shape-note tra...

Our guest this hour is the frontman of the punk rock trio The RIP Taylors. Their latest album – Negativity Bias – has songs with titles like “I still don’t believe in you,” “I gotta bad attitude,” and “I’m not like…ya know…whatever.” It’s the passion project of Mikey Noechel , who thinks a lot about our state of mind. He’s a Buddhist teacher who guides the Wild Heart Meditation Center on the east...

Although This Is Nashville broadcasts from our studios in Metrocenter, sometimes we let the producers out in the wild to collect tape. If editors find it compelling enough, producers develop a feature out of what they collected. On today’s best-of edition of This Is Nashville, we take a behind-the-scenes look at what went into producing some of 2025’s feature stories that aired both during the sho...

Every week This is Nashville presents The Roundabout where we bring together a panel of guests spanning the political spectrum to unpack the week’s biggest news and hear directly from listeners across Middle Tennessee. For this special “Best of…” episode we revisit some of the most timely conversations, surprising moments of agreement, and thoughtful opinions. Featuring How will Vanderbilt answer...

A songwriter who climbed out of the shadow of her first song, a nonprofit leader who refuses to see his own disability, a restaurateur with a hot take on tourism, a humorist who leaned into her heritage, a forward-thinking physician who rediscovered her mom’s remedies, and the sentimental saint of the Opry. It's the best of our weekly profile interviews, all in one episode.  Further listening: Tia...

Nashville has a long history of celebrating the holidays with musical performances. Nashville has a long history of celebrating the holidays with musical performances. Belmont’s Christmas Eve concert played on their tower’s 42-bell carillon dates back to 1929. Amy and Vince have been gracing the Ryman Stage since 2008. Today we feature holiday music traditions that exist beyond the mainstream, in...

If you see a man with three, maybe four cameras hanging around his neck, odds are you've crossed paths with Ray Di Pietro. He's literally taken millions of photos of Nashville, documenting anything from historic moments to flowers on the sidewalk. He follows three mantras in his profession: do the work, show up, and be kind. Now, he shows up in our studio to kindly share what makes him so passiona...

Mary Elizabeth Vinett died on November 21, 2025, and her family decided her 90 years on the planet deserved more than the average obituary. So they tried to capture her essence starting with the first paragraph.  "Beth was loved by all, perhaps because she was so outrageously funny," they wrote. "A storyteller extraordinaire who changed the essence of a room just by entering it. She smoked with a...

A simple aluminum pole. The annual airing of grievances. The legendary feats of strength. It can only mean one thing: It’s Festivus - the holiday for the rest of us.  And to kick the Festivus season off right this year,  Mayor Freddie O’Connell will be here to take your questions and comments…and maybe demonstrate a few feats of strength. Now, the very first Festivus may not have included Ask the...

It’s Curious Nashville : where WPLN News answers your questions about Middle Tennessee and takes you on a monthly adventure to find answers.  Today we’re shining a light on an obscure album recorded in Nashville more than 50 years ago that features a Christmas choir performing inside the lobby of a downtown bank. Astute local listener Matthew Bond came across the record two decades ago and wondere...

Marie Williams came up through homeless services in Memphis and found her way to the state agency that oversees mental health and substance abuse services when Gov. Bill Haslam appointed her to lead the agency she’s now been a part of for 25 years. She talks about her life, her work and her philosophy that has guided her career trying to fight off the stigma of the heartless bureaucrat.

What happens when government funding is withheld from a public university that’s served generations of Black Tennesseans? And what could be possible if that debt were finally paid? Today's This is Nashville call-in episode is a companion to the one-hour radio special from WPLN News and the Tennessee Lookout. Listen now or though the WPLN podcast feed. From Nashville Public Radio and the Tennessee...

In this one-hour special from WPLN and the Tennessee Lookout: What happens when government funding is withheld from a public university that's served generations of Black Tennesseans? And what could be possible if that debt were finally paid?

On days when someone is executed at Riverbend Maximum Security Institution in Nashville, community members are generally allowed to gather outside the prison in a large field. Separated by fences and distance are the "against" and "for" sides. The "againsts" are usually made up of a few dozen clergy and abolitionists, including one of our guests today — death row chaplain Rev. Tim Holton . The "fo...

When Andi Marie Tillman moved to Nashville from Scott County, Tennessee, she had dreams of writing the next hit song. But after years of struggling, she looked at her own story and got creative with how she wanted to share it with her audience. After the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic passed, Andi Marie began posting videos on social media. They made waves almost instantly. Now, she works as a ful...

It’s Thursday and time for another episode of The Roundabout. This week, our weekly Roundabout panel turns its attention to issues of religion. We're discussing evangelicals and Nazi ideology, Christians’ relationship to the death penalty, and ICE raids taking place in churches. We welcome Vanderbilt’s Dr. Phillis Sheppard , Russell Moore of Christianity Today and Liam Adams from The Tennessean to...

Today we travel along with Music Citizens to go inside the highest stakes job in the industry – A&R. Through the lens and life of A&R lifer Kim Buie, we get to see that this glamorous job is mostly about losing. Missing out on artists who become superstars (her near-miss tale of N.W.A. is amazing), knowing that the majority of albums you help shepherd into the world will flop and being the...

There aren’t many states like Tennessee with three distinct regions so unique each has its own star on the state flag. West, Middle, and East Tennessee are not just general directions to help explain where we’re from. They're lines drawn in state law representing our cultural heritage and political history. Because Mountain City is a long way from Memphis — in fact, it’s closer to Canada than the...

When Dr. Britt Stone was growing up in Tupelo, Mississippi, her Bahamian mother made her choke down a spoonful of cod liver oil each morning. The daily ritual was part of a “bush medicine” philosophy that incorporated an array of natural supplements and remedies. While training at Meharry Medical College and later specializing in neurology, Stone turned her attention away from herbal medicine. But...

This time of year, we like to recommend some of the best podcasts of the year. So we've sprinkled a few recommendations throughout the show today while we let you enjoy our most downloaded episode of the year. It's about the history of the historically Black university that we never knew – Roger Williams University. Nothing remains of Roger Williams except a couple of historical plaques tucked awa...

It became the calling card for trailblazing WSM , the radio station that reached the wider world with old-time hillbilly music. Just five short years after the first commercial radio broadcast, WSM launched with the “WSM Barn Dance,” the precursor to the Opry, and began to attract musicians and fans to the city. And it put Nashville on a national stage. Today, we sift through the archives to highl...

As the Grand Ole Opry celebrates its 100th birthday this week, we hear from its longest-serving member. Whisperin’ Bill Anderson hasn’t just weathered a 65-year music career, he’s thrived through versatility. A six-time Songwriter of the Year winner, he’s a member of both the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Songwriters Hall of Fame . His songs have earned Grammy nominations, Dove Awards, the AC...