Nashville Public Radio Staff

The first time that I was given a microphone—a cheap, little plastic deal attached to a toy keyboard—I thought it was funny to mash my lips into it and make farting noises. As far as I was concerned, that joke stayed fresh for a whole year, but I was just a kid. I know better than to try that at WNXP, even if it is my inaugural radio gig.

I’ve been immersed in thinking, talking and writing about music as a Nashville-based critic and journalist for the better part of two decades, long enough to witness radical revolutions, slow-moving evolutions and recurring cycles throughout the music-making world. For the last several years, I’ve been contributing a lot to National Public Radio, NPR Music and other big outlets, like The New York Times and Vulture, often interpreting Nashville happenings for national audiences.

As a kid, I traipsed around outside a lot. Still do. But indoors, I found a lot of ways to get into music. My immersive study of rhythm began when I took up clogging, a percussive folk dance influenced by Black, indigenous and Irish styles and lots else besides, and I eventually shifted that energy over to drumming. I played in church, and everywhere else. When I marched on the high school drum line, one of the cadences in our repertoire was a riff on the 69 Boyz’ banger “Tootsee Roll.” In the first of many all-female bands I was in, we crammed into my bedroom to scream Courtney Love lyrics a capella and I pounded the shit out of my pawn shop drum kit. By college, I was trying to emulate John “Jabo” Starks’ wily, funky-footed groove on James Brown’s “Sex Machine.”

I also want to understand the contexts in which music is shaped, shared, categorized, marketed and experienced. Filling in those gaps in knowledge is an unending project, one that I’ve worked at not only by reading everything from articles to liner notes and conducting my own interviews, but also by citing and collaborating with scholars who are doing the work of bringing hidden musical histories to light.

On the air, you will most definitely hear me letting my curiosity lead. (And not my fart sounds.)

Like countless other sweet suburbanites, I watched Cameron Crowe’s “Almost Famous” in high school and wiped clean my concepts of the future: when I grow up, I’ll be a rock writer, a musician or a Band-Aid, I decided. What else is there? While my college days offered plenty of concert-going and a few overwrought album reviews, too, it was curating playlists and hosting local artists on the student radio station WUSC-FM that really made meaning for me. I enjoyed solo and co-hosted free-format programs every semester throughout my four undergrad and first two alumni years in Columbia, S.C., before relocating to Nashville in 2009.

A nonprofit professional full-time, I’ve remained blissfully music biz adjacent in Music City, U.S.A., partnering with artists, venues and festivals via nonpartisan voter engagement organization HeadCount at live music and community events. Also via HeadCount, I co-produced monthly streaming content for the short-lived ScionAV channel “Headliners” in 2012 and 2013, introducing concert recordings and interviewing music makers such as The Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir.

Beginning in 2017, I returned to the FM airwaves with the all-volunteer, low-power station WXNA and hosted Wednesday morning show “What Moves You,” manning live broadcasts, amplifying the work and stories of guest artists and packaging recorded content in the age of COVID. I am thrilled to begin sharing time on WNXP as morning host, promoting music discovery and celebrating our dynamic local scene.

“It’s all happening!”

Favorite artists: Stephen Malkmus, My Morning Jacket, Fiona Apple, Grateful Dead, Talking Heads, Phish, Billy Strings, St. Vincent + basically any funk, soul and rock ‘n roll with HORNS (i.e. Daptone Records)