It’s not called music friends; it’s called the music business.
If you’ve spent any time or energy in the presentation of amplified noise, you’ve probably heard this phrase.
And it’s true. When you first get into the business, it seems like the possibilities are endless, and it seems relatively easy. How hard could it be to get a band onstage and plug them in, right?
The purpose of this piece is to explain all the things that must come together to produce musical entertainment, sure, but it’s also to highlight the many humans in Knoxville who have decided to make at least a portion of their living from music.
Knoxville has been fertile ground for such endeavors for decades, and it’s as strong now as it has ever been.
Music is a business, and below we’ll highlight several different veins of this strange and rewarding culture. In it, we hope you’ll find that art comes from each piece of the puzzle and not just from the artists onstage.
Intro
Tyler Larrabee performed in the youthful rock act Stonefish before creating New Ground Music Fesitval at Lakeshore Park. The festival ran from 2019-2022, and while he took this year off, Larrabee remains heavily involved in the scene.
He hosts “Locals Only” on WUTK every Tuesday from 8-10 p.m., manages Connor Kelly and the Time Warp and isn’t ready to retire New Ground for good just yet. “I’m open to it. It’s all kind of up in the air,” he says about bringing back the refreshing festival that put a focus on the younger bands in town and in the region.
Larrabee speaks to the communal vibe that Knoxville possesses and why that made him want to take the leap in the first place. “There are a lot of selfless figures in our community who are essential to keeping things like student radio, independent music press, affordable studios and accessible open mics running.”
Cullen Kehoe, for instance, has been operating open mics in the area forever. His latest gig takes place at Boyd’s Jig & Reel each Wednesday evening at 7 p.m.
Then there’s Benny Smith, station manager at WUTK. Smith is considered by many to be the godfather of the local music scene. He has shepherded myriad acts over the last several decades, and those bands are grateful in return. Music has been the medium for reaching people since the first notes were ever played, and it’s the ultimate unifier, according to XHunger’s Jimmy Buckner.
“Our motto is ‘Entertainment With Purpose,’ hence our XHunger team is always open-minded to collaborate with many partners, venues and sponsors with the focus to help existing food pantries, thus helping people in need of hunger solutions,” Buckner explains. “Music connects people and is hugely important to our mission, as it allows us to reach people of all ages.”
Music’s place in our collective daily narrative is more present than we might realize, and the jobs to present that music in the live setting are numerous. Almost every piece of our lives has a soundtrack, and we’re here to celebrate those who make “music” possible in Marble City.
We asked over a dozen local movers and shakers within the music industry a handful of questions to get their takes on what makes Knoxville a viable place to conduct business. Some were asked the same questions, and some were asked slight variations. Despite the similarity in the queries, the answers were fascinatingly diverse.
Merch
It might not immediately come to mind when you think of the music biz, but shirts, hats and posters are a huge part of the industry.
Knoxville is host to several companies who are not only relevant in East Tennessee but across the world, as well.
Justin Helton, known globally as Status Serigraph, has been making concert posters for over a decade. With clients like Bonnaroo, John Prine, Phish, Foo Fighters and “The Simpsons,” his name has become as known as the bands onstage in some circles. He’s gone on to produce artwork for companies outside of music, but his passion remains for matching a band’s sound with a one-of-a-kind piece of art. He credits AC Entertainment for allowing him to blossom in his hometown. “I’ve lived here since I was a child and out of college I was lucky enough to work for AC Entertainment who was doing big music business in our small city. It was really a golden opportunity to get a wider experience in the music industry without having to leave,” he says. “Lots of folks know each other because it’s a fairly small musical community. I feel like with the University of Tennessee located here as well, there’s a lot of young creative minds that are intermingling with the older musical community in creative ways.”
Riot Printing keeps two shifts running these days to keep up with their customers’ demands, but it all started with music for them, too.
The same can be said of Jared Brewster’s Circa Wear. “I first got into printing for bands when I worked at Preservation Pub,” he recalls of his genesis project. “The first band I printed shirts for was Christabel and the Jons in 2006. Then I did some for Tenderhooks, and that got the ball rolling for printing for more bands and businesses. It was 100 percent instrumental in leading me to pursue this work full-time.”
Gigging
While there are many complete bands that have taken the plunge to tour over recent years (The Black Lillies, The Black Cadillacs, Cruz Conreras and The Dirty Guv’nahs to name but a few), there are also several individual musicians who go out on the road with touring acts. Guitar virtuosos Andy Wood and Will Carter have hit the road with Rascal Flatts and Jackson Browne, respectively, while Knoxville adoptees Clint Mullican and Josh Oliver are members of Watchhouse (formerly Mandolin Orange). Matt Morelock and Jon Whitlock have traveled the world through the vehicle of music, as well. And these are just a few of those examples.
Knoxville bassist Daniel Kimbro has made a living alongside Jerry Douglas for the past 10 years. He most recently played on Douglas’ new album (due out next spring), and he’s also been working with his bluegrass project Earls of Leicester. Kimbro will join Sarah Jarosz next spring for her album-release tour, too, so he has found a way to stay busy with his bass. Along with teaching lessons, recording sessions work and a spot at Andy Wood’s Woodshed Guitar Experience, Kimbro stays on the road a lot. “There are a lot of touring cats [in Knoxville],” he tells BLANK. “I try to connect with guys like Josh Oliver and Clint Mullican as much as I can, but it’s funny because I end up seeing them on the road more than I see them at home.”
Bryn Davies is another example. The Nashville transplant did the opposite of what some Knoxville bands have done to try to make it in the state capital, and she explains what makes Knoxville a more collaborative environment. “After living in Nashville then moving here, I would say it is the LACK of industry here that makes it such a collaborative and creative place to make music. I think there is less of a need to fit a mold here, and that benefits creativity greatly. It is also less competitive and more supportive; Knoxville is proud to showcase its originality, and that serves the arts community well.”
Davies’ chops as a bassist have earned her quite the resume. “When I was playing full-time, my main gigs were with the Peter Rowan and Tony Rice Quartet, the Tony Rice Unit, Justin Townes Earle, Guy Clark and Verlon Thompson, Scott Miller and Darrell Scott,” she says. “I spent a year with Patty Griffin and a year with Jack White, as well. Now, I work a 40 hour a week job as a nuclear engineer after going back to school in my late 30s, and I pretty much only play with Darrell Scott. I do the occasional gig around town with Red Shoes & Rosin, and sometimes I still get out with Scott Miller.”
Her partner, Vince Ilagan, has played with over a dozen outlets. “I’ve been playing professionally since 1998,” he begins. “Some of my past gigs or bands include Christabel and the Jons, Jill Andrews, Larkin Poe,
Justin Townes Earle, Circus No. 9, Same As It Ever Was and the ‘Tennessee Shines’ house band among various others. Shortly after our son was born in 2012, Bryn went back to school, and I stopped touring and freelancing for about four years after being offered a gig with salary and benefits at the Smoky Mountain Opry.”
The Sevier County connection is another, oft forgotten part of this equation. Knoxville is loaded with nationally recognized players, and, as a result, they can get some hustle just a few exits up the interstate at the various theaters in Pigeon Forge.
Ilagan and Davies are still staying busy in the biz, but the situation has evolved. “Success from the music business side of things looks different for me at this point,” Ilagen concludes. “Now, it’s really just as simple as being able to stay busy playing music I like with people I enjoy being around. Luckily, Knoxville is full of truly wonderful human beings who happen to be world-class musicians, so it’s fairly easy to keep the soul fed.”
Church gigs are a huge part of the local music economy, too. Many of the artists interviewed in this story maintain side gigs at local churches, and hundreds more do the same throughout the city.
In other words, many of those “making it” are fulfilling multiple parallel jobs.
Jessica Watson has diversified her portfolio when it comes to the music industry. “The real answer to what I do to make money from music … I play gigs … everything from music venues to bars to truck beds to churches. In fact, I have been playing at a church in Powell for 10 years, and I’m now the music director there,” she says.
“Over the years, I have made an effort to help this music community continue to thrive by teaching private lessons and hosting many music related events, like open-mic nights and old-time jams. These days, I am thrilled to be able to make a living as a musician in Knoxville, whether I am onstage or providing the stage for a fellow musician.
“Knoxville, to me, has always had a small-town charm, and I think that is because there is such a strong sense of community, especially in the music scene. Musicians here collaborate with one another, support one another and genuinely want to see each other succeed.”
It’s hard to discuss musical Swiss Army Knives in regard to Knoxville without mentioning frequent Watson collaborator Greg Horne.
Having produced some outstanding records of his own, Horne has also written around a dozen educational music books on guitar, mandolin and ukulele. While he offers lessons when he’s not gigging, he also mentions the importance of community-building through music. “There has always been a good vibe for that kind of thing here in town. Working with nonprofits and having outreach programs and having events like Waynestock, that community involvement component is important here.”
Horne teaches out of the Community School for the Arts. That and the Joy of Music School offer programs for people looking to learn an instrument, and each are valuable pieces of what makes Knoxville’s music business special.
Gray Comer is another handyman who wears a lot of hats. In addition to doing his own freelance mixing, Comer teaches guitar lessons and is a jack-of-all-trades at Arbor Studio where he does audio engineering, production, mixing and acts as a session player.
Arbor is just one of the fantastic recording studios in town.
Another, somewhat newer staple is Top Hat Recording, owned by Mary Podio and John Harvey. The couple moved here from Austin and have fallen in love with the city, its people and its music culture. They stay busy, too.
“The biggest misconception about Knoxville in terms of the music industry is that there’s a perceived lack of credibility … that somehow a band or artist from Knoxville is just another ‘local artist’ and can’t possibly be as good as a regional or national touring act,” adds Comer. “There’s a lot of great music being made here. We do, however, need more people (this includes me) to get out and support it.”
Production (staging, lighting and sound)
This is a big one. Without these companies, most of the other categories listed wouldn’t be able to function. When it comes to stage production (and production in general), True Grip makes big outdoor events in Knoxville possible.
Corky Corcoran started True Grip in the mid ‘90s with a focus on television and film production. He got his first stage a few years later, and True Grip has been an industry leader across the nation since. When asked if he ever thought a move to a bigger city was necessitated, he didn’t pause. “You know, when I started in the television part, I first thought, ‘Gosh, I need to be living in Atlanta or New York or somewhere big like that.’ But as we grew and people learned who we were, we realized that they were willing to come here.” Corcoran gave us so much good material and mentioned so many other people in the film side of the entertainment industry that we’ve decided to do a separate piece dedicated to the other side of his business in the new year. One of the people he mentioned that works for this piece, though, is Al Braden.
Braden, owner of Tri Star Audio and affectionately known as “Big Al,” has grown his business mightily over the years, and these days either he or one of his guys is behind the soundboard at most of Knoxville’s outdoor events. His network of connections is as strong as anyone in town, and he says the talent in the area makes his job much easier. “We have proximity to other places and a collaborative nature on every side in our market,” he says. “And it’s pretty well-known there are Knoxville badasses in every corner.”
Video production
There are several video production companies who have made an impact on the music scene, but chief among them is Loch & Key Productions.
They have shot commercials and marketing materials for some of the region’s biggest companies, but they’ve also become the go-to for capturing footage at music festivals throughout the country. Whether it’s Bonnaroo, Shaky Knees, High Water or Austin City Limits, the Loch & Key name has become synonymous with recap videos. L&K and Status Serigraph together have put Knoxville on the map for festivalgoers around the world, and it’s great to know that these pieces of art are created within about a 3-mile radius in our sleepy little river town. Loch & Key didn’t start off with these high-profile clients, though. They started with Ice Bears games and – you guessed it – local music videos. At that time, they had four employees, and they now have 20.
Co-owner Eli Hechmer had this to say about the local scene and why Knoxville matters in the grand scheme of things. “I think people still gravitate toward thinking only about Nashville, and to a lesser extent Memphis, when discussing music and the music biz in Tennessee. Despite hosting an ongoing, very successful, world-class music and arts festival with Big Ears and being home to the company that founded Bonnaroo and a ton of other festivals, Knoxville still often gets overlooked as an important music city,” he says. “We have stunning venues with the Bijou Theatre, the Tennessee Theatre, the Mill & Mine and dozens of smaller bars and clubs that have bands playing shows almost every day and night in Knoxville. To that point, I’ve still yet to visit a city with a live daily music show quite like the WDVX ‘Blue Plate Special.’ We’ve got something special here. I think we’ve earned the right to be mentioned as one of Tennessee’s music cities.”
When asked if he had ever considered moving away from East Tennessee, he was adamant. “Nope, it’s never even been considered. We are in it for the long haul!”
Justin Glanville’s Live & Breathing production company also got its start recording musicians in town. Those sessions are easy to find online, and the company has plans to pick up where they left off. They’ve already created a new weekly stream that takes place in Knoxville each week.
University of Tennessee
Daniel Shifflett came to Knoxville in 2005 as a music major focusing on classical and studio music along with jazz for double bass. His college bass professor, Rusty Holloway, encouraged both he and his fellow students to be versatile in their musical journeys, and, as a result, Shifflett wanted to learn everything. “Classical music to jazz to funk and rock ‘n’ roll music on the electric bass, I wanted to learn it all,” he says. “Immediately, I was able to join existing bands and collaborate with many inside and outside of UT School of Music [now UT College of Music]. Knoxville is lucky to have a wealth of amazing artists and musicians. Between the university, Tennessee Theatre, WDVX, Pilot Light and other venues/avenues, we are blessed to have such an eclectic mix of artistry.
“In 2011, during college, I formed a wedding/event band called Shiffty and the Headmasters. We focused on being a tribute band to ‘70s and ‘80s music. We had multiple singers, horn players, guitar players, etc. We played for events like Boo and the Zoo, New Year’s Eve at Barley’s Knoxville, tons of weddings and things like that. I truly believe I wouldn’t be able to have that kind of band in other towns. I was extremely thankful to have some super talented friends to perform with.”
When asked about the urge to relocate, he had a similar response to others we interviewed, though he did live in Nashville for a time. “I split my time between Nashville and Knoxville around 2012-2016. Nashville is an amazing city,” he says.
“I toured, recorded and met a ton of industry people, but I kept feeling the call to be in Knoxville full-time. Since I’ve solely spent my time in Knoxville, I’ve been fortunate enough to work on the production side of the industry.
“I serve as the technical director for Concord United Methodist Church. Since 2020, I’ve been working in video production, editing, filming and live broadcasting. It’s been a huge challenge but very rewarding, and in winter of 2021, I was contracted by Big Ears Festival to work as a production manager for one of the venues. Getting to work with all the different artists, techs and managers has been an amazing experience,” Shifflett continues.
“From performing with my hometown orchestra, the Chattanooga Symphony, to playing jazz at Bistro at the Bijou, to performing with Mike McGill for his Christmas concert on December 17, I’ve been super fortunate for all of these opportunities. In 2024, I’ve been contracted to play with the national touring show ‘Wicked’ for their January performances at the Tennessee Theatre.”
Then there’s the more academic side of UT. Here’s a story about a new partnership with Pellissippi State that our friends at Compass published in early November.
The University of Tennessee’s recently established College of Music has entered into a partnership with Pellissippi State Community College to create a new pathway for students wanting to prepare for the music business.
The program, according to UT officials, will form a bridge between Pellissippi State’s Associate of Applied Science in media technology/audio production and engineering, and UT’s Bachelor of Arts in music business administration.
“This innovative partnership combines professional industry skills with liberal arts, traditional musical proficiency and business education,” UT Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor John Zomchick said in a statement. “We are excited to partner with Pellissippi State to offer students such a rich combination of technical abilities, artistry and business knowledge.”
Pellissippi State’s program focuses on hard skills on the technical side of music production and audio engineering. Students in the program can then enroll at UT’s College of Music to take courses in applied music, music theory and musicology, music business, accounting, management, entrepreneurship, business law, advertising principles and finance. The Haslam College of Business is collaborating with the College of Music for business instruction.
“These two sets of skills make an especially good match,” said Interim Associate Dean of Academic and Faculty Affairs Brendan McConville of the UT College of Music. “The students in this program are working in industry for sound engineering, producing and so on. So we thought, what if these students had those skills and then combined them with our music, business and entrepreneurship literacies?”
Mischa Goldman, program coordinator and associate professor of audio production engineering at Pellissippi State, said the overall combination that makes up the four-and-a-half-year program “would rival any five-year program in the Southeast and perhaps beyond.”
Non-musical events that have everything to do with music
Almost every outdoor event in town has an element of music, and the Knoxville Vintage Market (KVM) is no exception. In fact, creator Ricky Hopkins says that, without music, the event wouldn’t have experienced the success it has seen. “Being that music plays a very important role in our life, it was essential for live musical artists to be a part of the Knoxville Vintage Market,” he explains. “We love all types of music but particularly Black music and hip-hop, and the more local and regional the better. We chose DJ Y$N as our in-house DJ, but we have had several different DJs, including DJ Nyce One, an OG in the game, DJ Captain Ed and DJ Casanova and a couple other OGs like DJ Ty Dye and DJ KGH JERRY.
“As far as live acts at the markets, we’ve been blessed to have two-man hip-hop duo Dos Fuegos grace us with their artistry a handful of times. As you can see, we consider music an integral part of the Market. Without music, there is no market.”
Together with Second Bell and BLANK, KVM produced an event celebrating the 50-year anniversary of hip-hop in August. This brought several elements of the business together to create a block party feel. “Growing up in the golden age of hip-hop, it was essential that we do a market festival for the 50th anniversary of hip-hop,” Hopkins says. “We were able to pull off a mini-festival vintage market with local live hip-hop acts J.Bush, FTF Skitty, Motorcity Jones, The Productz, Denzel Raekwon and Dos Fuegos with comedian Brandi Augustus and poet/MC Black Atticus hosting.
“Music is life, and it’s more than important for us to integrate the local music scene into our markets to help create the quintessential vibe. Moving forward, we hope to keep the vibe going strong and to have more local artists share the spaces with us.”
Marketing
We’ve already said it in this article, but you can grow up in East Tennessee and have an impact on the rest of the world. When Cory Smith got an internship with AC Entertainment in his early 20s, he had no idea that it would lead him to becoming Bonnaroo’s marketing director. He worked hard and kept climbing the ladder, and he was able to reach these heights in the area in which he grew up. “I was fortunate enough to get involved with AC Entertainment shortly after I graduated college and build a career based on my experience from that job. I grew up 20 minutes from downtown in Seymour, Tennessee, so my instinct was that I needed to ‘get out’ at some point,” he explains. “When I was in my early 20s, I would always travel with a mindset of trying to find somewhere I could see myself building a future. I still haven’t found somewhere that I’d rather live than Knoxville, and that’s a pretty cool feeling.”
He goes on to credit the area in greater detail in terms of his career. “Knoxville has way more opportunities for young folks in the music business than really any other city of its size that I’m aware of, but you do have to be focused and deliberate.” Now that he’s in a dream role, he has no intention of leaving. “The music business in Knoxville is much more relaxed and welcoming than other places. You don’t have to deal with the egos that you get in a big city, and it’s much easier to get to know your colleagues on a personal level. I think everyone here also has a sense of how lucky we are. I know that some folks thrive off being around the energy of a city like Nashville or L.A., but for someone who likes a little more space and access to nature and recreation, it’s a huge privilege to be able to live here and still participate in the music industry.”
Jenna Giorgi shares a similar sentiment. She moved to Knoxville from Indiana to attend the University of Tennessee and felt right at home from the jump. “I liked UT because I felt like I could accomplish everything that I wanted to accomplish during college,” she explains. “I thought Knoxville was a really vibrant city but not somewhere that was too big or that I was going to be lost in the fray. It felt like somewhere that I could really create a community.”
Giorgi’s route was a bit different than most in the music world. “I went to school for public relations, and then I had an internship at Regal in college,” she says. “And that was what really sparked a love for working in the entertainment sector. I always preferred live music to movies. So I knew eventually I wanted to make my way to live music.”
After COVID threw a curveball in her plan, she accepted a position with Live Nation at the end of 2021, and she has been working in the biz ever since. As a venue marketing manager, she helps build the public-facing narrative for venues across the region, including the Tennessee Theatre, Chattanooga’s Tivoli and a few others.
It didn’t take long upon her arrival in East Tennessee for Giorgi to realize that she could accomplish big things without leaving town after graduation. “Once I moved here, it was pretty early in college that I learned about AC Entertainment,” she says. “When I met Jonathan Felix and he told me he worked at AC, I think my eyes lit up. I wanted to work there really bad. I love how localized what you do is, but that you do it on such a big scale … you don’t find that very often in a city like Knoxville.
“At some point, I was like, ‘OK, there is something really special going on here.’ And once this position came open, that’s when he kind of whispered in my ear that I might be a decent fit. To be able to work for a company – and obviously we’re Live Nation now – but to be able to scale up what we do is what makes this position, this industry and this area so special. We’re working on really high-caliber, really exciting and relevant shows, and I think we are some of the only people that live and work in a city of our size that are able to say they can do something like that.”
Evvan Tolly was enrolled at South Carolina to study marine biology when he went to his first Bonnaroo in 2005. “I went to Bonnaroo for the first time, and I was kind of blown away with the whole production in general, you know,” he begins. “Just how it worked … how to build a city in an old field, and I got really interested in the inner workings of it.”
Having grown up in the Tri-Cities area, he hadn’t yet heard of AC Entertainment, but after doing some research, he discovered that some of the people behind Bonnaroo were located in Knoxville. “[So I] went to Bonnaroo, found out it was AC, then found out that they were in Knoxville and I was like, ‘Well, I think I’m gonna go to to UT,'” he says. “It’s in-state, so I didn’t have to go too far away. So I kind of just changed course a little bit.”
From there, Tolly just started showing up and asking questions. “I found out that they had a street team via Benny Smith and WUTK, so I literally just showed up to the office one day and said, ‘Hey, I want to volunteer.’”
He then had a chance encounter with a higher-up that he took as a positive sign. “When I was going to volunteer, I got on the elevator, and [AC Entertainment founder] Ashley Capps was getting on the elevator, too,” he says. “This was my first time in the office, so I just word-vomited about how I was this college kid whose world revolved around music and how important concerts were to me. He was super nice …”
Tolly found a way to remain useful as time went on. “I think it was the first or second Big Ears … I stuffed ticket packets,” he says. “They put out a call for people to come up and help, so I did it. I just kept showing up and showing up until finally they offered me an actual internship.”
Finally, after volunteering for about a year, he officially had his foot in the door. “I was an intern for about six months, then they had an opening in the mailroom. So I went into the mailroom, which we call the war room, which is pretty much just making sure all the supplies are stocked, making copies, making sure we had our stash of black towels for shows … just doing odds and ends.”
Tolly then moved to the front desk as a secretary for a couple of months before a marketing-assistant position became available. Up and up he climbed. These days, hejis director of regional marketing for the Southeast region. When asked if this was all part of his master plan, he laughs. “Literally not a plan,” he admits. “It was literally me showing up and working hard … [to] prove I’m not a complete idiot and maybe they’ll keep me around. I owe almost everything to Ashley [Capps] for getting my start in the business.”
Giorgi further examines why Knoxville has been able to claim such a stake in the game. “This is a city that’s been on a growth streak for the past few decades,” she says. “People just keep moving here and moving here, so it creates this environment where you don’t have to look far to find those culturally enriching experiences.
“There’s this perfect storm of circumstances that have created this thriving town. You think about AC and how it has parlayed itself into becoming a part of the largest concert promoter in the world … and you still have people sitting at their homes downtown and in South Knox and West Knoxville, doing work on shows that are being presented across the whole world.”
Promoters
There are several promoters in town, and new ones are coming into the mix all the time. From Ashley Capps, who established AC Entertainment and later co-created Bonnaroo and Big Ears, to Holly Van de Vate, who just got started with a pair of sold-out secret shows, Knoxville has long had a lineage of people dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s behind the scenes to make lasting memories for concert attendees.
Capps has blazed the trail for concert promotion in East Tennessee and beyond and he has as good a feel as anyone for what makes Knoxville special in the music world. “It’s a combination of things,” he begins. “Our location is great, we’re a day’s drive or less from most of the population of the US. We have great venue infrastructure – from clubs to arenas and all points in between. It’s something of a miracle to have TWO historic theaters a block and a half from one another. And it enjoys a great standard of living that remains relatively affordable – so far, at least – which enables creative people the time and bandwidth to explore, try new things and allow ideas to incubate for a bit.”
When Capps launched Big Ears, Knoxville’s signature and longest-running music festival, he was met with some peculiar looks from time to time, but that wasn’t new.
“Nationally, some questioned the location as many of the artists who were being presented at the festival seldom played outside of major culture centers in the USA, and even less in the southeast, so there was some push back in that regard…at least until people were able to visit the city. The experience of being in Knoxville definitely changes people’s minds,” he explains. “It worth noting that Bonnaroo was met with similarly dismissive attitudes from many before it was launched in 2002. Very few people thought it was a good idea. It took years for that mindset to shift as it has now.”
Ted Heinig is currently the president of Live Nation Knoxville. On top of his duties managing concerts across the state, he helps produce festivals like Bonnaroo, High Water, Moon River and the recently announced South Star Festival in Huntsville, Alabama. When asked why Knoxville became a lifeline for people behind the scenes in the music industry, he answers without hesitation. “Somebody’s got to have the vision to be a trailblazer that’s going to commit,” he says. “Using the analogy of the farm, somebody’s got to go out and work the field and cultivate the soil so you can have a really great crop. And the person that did that in Knoxville was Ashley Capps. Ashley started in the ’80s, and he took Knoxville from being a city that had virtually no live music through the week when I was in college in the late ’80s to one of – if not the best – secondary markets in the United States.
“He started AC Entertainment in ‘91, and I joined him a couple months later. And then from 1991 through very recently, he had one of the greatest runs of all time for an independent promoter. And the Mill & Mine, the Tennessee Theatre, the Bijou – they all owe a great debt of gratitude to what Ashley accomplished over all those years.”
Knoxville has treated Heinig well, and just as others have stated in this piece, he has always felt at home in Knoxville, no matter where the job takes him. “I didn’t ever feel like I needed to move somewhere else,” he says. “Knoxville has been great. It’s been great to me and great to my family. It’s an incredible place to live and to raise a family and be able to do your thing. I prefer to be off the radar, and it’s also a great place to be off the radar. If you’re in Nashville or [some of the larger music] cities, you can end up being in the spotlight, and there’s more to that. That’s not really my personality. Knoxville has just been a really great town to me.”
Van de Vate has been overwhelmed with the response to her idea of placing unannounced bands in nontraditional venues and is excited about the future of her endeavor. “I can’t even describe the gratitude I have already. It has been way more successful than I ever thought,” she explains.
Larrabee shares the trait of youth with Van de Vate, as well as her enthusiasm for the local community. “Everyone thinks about moving to Nashville after a while, but over there I am just a tiny fish in a huge pond where the sharks want me dead. In Knoxville, I can collaborate with the community and the city to make actual change and have real influence.”
Jay Harris has operated the Concourse on Broadway for years now and echoes that sentiment. Previously, Brian Coakley did a phenomenal job running both the International and the Concourse with a handful of the same people when the business was located adjacent to Fort Sanders. “The Concourse, much like Temple (our goth dance night celebrating 19 years this month) really only works in Knoxville,” explains Harris. “It only works here because its soul was forged here with our neighbors in mind. I have lived in other cities for a while when I was in the military … but I never found a place that works as well with my personality and dreams as this crazy little big city.
“In this industry, much like food service, it is not only unavoidable but also imperative to create a family-like atmosphere for the staff … at least that is how I see it,” he continues. “You are spending some of your most stressful moments together, as well as some of your most rewarding moments. You do that with others that have been through something similar, and it’s only natural that you start to feel and act like a family.”
Harris and his aforementioned “family” at the Concourse have nourished both the electronic and metal scenes for which Coakley helped plant the groundwork, and the family feel goes over the rail and into the crowd at the venue’s shows. “As a venue owner, I am always meeting new people, but at the same time, it always feels like the room is full of old friends. I never knew that would be so important to me, but it is.”
This sentiment is one to which I personally can attest regarding events of my own. When this newspaper decided to start Second Bell Festival, it was important to me that everyone be represented equally, and I wanted that group-led dynamic to be apparent to festival attendees, as well. That’s why our staff shirts didn’t say “Team” or “Crew.” It was very important to me that the shirts said “Fam” on the back because that’s what we became over the course of producing six festivals in five years, and we wanted to create that vibe for fans, as well. It makes people feel safe, and it helps them let their hair down and really become absorbed in the moments being presented when they see camaraderie from those in charge.
Garrett Thomson and Kent Oglesby have been making moves in Knoxville for years as Born & Raised Productions. Together, they have thrown successful shows at more venues in town than most anyone these days. Thomson moved here from Nashville to join the team at Rhythm N’ Blooms several years ago before starting his own thing with Oglesby. He says the local scene has provided a more enlightening opportunity to make a career as an independent promoter. “In Nashville, it was more about the business than it was about the music. So it lost a lot of its humanity for me,” he says. “It was very transactional, and it was missing the part that I think fans here are actually excited about.”
Thomson acknowledges that things have changed in attendance behavior, but he remains optimistic about the future.
“There are certain trends that we’re seeing that I think that you could probably attribute to the pandemic because consumer habits change. But no matter what, I think there’s a place for live music in Knoxville, because it is our culture, right? It’s this communal gathering for all of us to enjoy something and have the shared experience.”
Kyle Przybyszewski has been the talent buyer for Barley’s in the Old City for several years and has hosted some of music’s top names over the years. The roster of musicians who have graced the stage under his watch includes a Billy Strings residency and shows from the likes of Chris Stapleton, Black Pumas, Sturgill Simpson, Margo Price, Charlie Crockett, Lucy Dacus, St. Paul & the Broken Bones, Man Man and Rebecca Black (yes, that one) among thousands of others by locals and touring acts alike. He now books for Jig & Reel and Merchants of Beer, as well.
There are other venues in town that focus mainly on original music. Places like Open Chord in Knoxville’s Midwest district routinely host nationally touring acts in addition to local delights, and Ale’ Rae’s has earned a good reputation for presenting quality acts in its relatively short history. The Pilot Light has been the indie engine that could for over two decades, and Jason Boardman’s vision is as strong now as it’s ever been. It is perhaps Knoxville’s most iconic small room, and with its attention to pure art and creativity, it should be.
Preservation Pub was once the place to play for original bands looking for a willing crowd on any given night of the week, but it has shifted more towards cover bands in recent years, as has its sister venue, Scruffy City Hall. That’s not to say that either doesn’t host amazing bands throughout the year, though. Second Bell alum Chew just had a two-night run at the Pub, the place where we first discovered the band several years ago. Attendance is down at most venues, no matter the size, so themed nights and cover bands have become a go-to over the past year for many venues. Heck, you even see it at the larger clubs in town.
I’m inclined to believe that this is temporary, and truthfully, I’m hoping that this piece and the others in this issue urge people to attend more original music in the area. If people come, we will book it. You have my word there.
Fin
A few years ago, I started inviting a handful of promoters in town to occasional breakfast gatherings. I wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page and lifting each other up instead of trying to book on top of each other. Not only did we share our dates and ideas, we wound up helping at each other’s events day-of, and our pooled resources and talents made each event better. I look forward to bringing those back soon, only with a few new faces involved to see what the next chapter of promotion in Knoxville holds.
People are multi-talented, we learned, and putting together an event is perhaps the quickest way to discover a hidden talent in your friend or peer group.
Matt Rankin, the person responsible for editing this very paper, doubles as merchandise coordinator when the time comes. Resident soothsayer and purveyor of our homemade horoscopes Jennifer Duncan-Rankin handles the money and logistics of day-of operations. Jess Hale and Daniel Fluitt were artist-relations lead and concessionaire, respectively, for Second Bell. Rebecca Swain Hines was artist-transportation lead along with Jared Hagemann and Steven Hines. Rebecca and Jared are in the video production business normally.
The music business IS a business, but when a group of people comes together to help create a platform to display people’s talent, an unlikely bond is formed from all sides. And that’s why much of Knoxville’s music industry is one big family. If you’ve got some time, go check out a show and find someone who is working the event to tell them you appreciate them. Unless it’s a sound guy. Don’t ever talk to the sound guy.
rusty@blanknews.com
