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The official podcast of The Nashville Retrospect, the monthly newspaper devoted to stories from Nashville's past. Editor and host Allen Forkum interviews local historians and people who experienced the city's history firsthand. He also investigates audio artifacts from area archives and relates fascinating articles from old Nashville newspapers.
A former mayor's country record and a militia's whiskey barrel: your Nashville history rabbit hole starts here.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A reporter's memories connect Nashville's cash-for-clemency scandal with the courthouse work behind the stories.
Nashville Retrospect follows Larry Brenton's journalism career into a knotty Nashville story of alleged bought paroles, threatened witnesses, and corruption reaching high into Tennessee government.
A Nashville history episode where a forgotten hit and one teenager's wartime memory help frame Music City's making.
Nashville Retrospect looks at how Music City took shape by moving between a forgotten million-seller, a hotel memory, early television, and wartime Nashville. Don Cusick follows "Near You" from a B-side picked up by a Georgia station to a Nashville recording, while Mary B.
Roots' afterlife leads into Nashville's slave markets, family separations, and the records that still make them visible.
Nashville Retrospect uses Alex Haley's Roots as a doorway into a broader local history: the surge of genealogical research it helped encourage, and the records that show slavery woven into ordinary commerce.
A Nashville-rooted look at Jackson's rise, Tennessee militia life, and the War of 1812's stranger edges.
Nashville Retrospect places the War of 1812 at the center of Andrew Jackson's ascent, connecting his presidency to the Battle of New Orleans and to the broader direction antebellum America might have taken.
A Nashville Christmas episode where old customs, a river rescue, and complicated family memory share the same winter light.
Christmas comes through in two closely held registers: older observances remembered by Tennessee folk singers Dee and Delta Hicks, and the sudden peril of Christmas Eve 1956, when a woman went from Shelby Street Bridge into the Cumberland River with a baby in her arms.
Miller Beach chaos, served breakfast-style.
Pennsylvania by county, landmark, and stone.
Nebraska culture, live and close to home.
["Nashville Retrospect opens with the 1985 Marie trailer and ties it to Larry Brenton's reporting on Tennessee's cash-for-clemency scandal, where Marie Rajanti said parole board members were selling paroles.", "Host Alan Forkham, editor and publisher of the paper, uses the episode to remember Brenton after his July 25, 2019 death at age 88 and to frame his Nashville Banner and television career.", "Brenton describes growing up in Hillsboro Village, working after his father's death, joining the U.S.
Don Cusick says Francis Craig's B-side 'Near You' turned a Nashville studio, a Georgia radio station, and an independent label into the start of Music City USA.
["Nashville Retrospect centers this episode on Bill Carey's Runaways, Cawfuls, and Fancy Girls, then links that research to Alex Haley's Roots and Tania Koontz's genealogy work.", "Carey says Tennessee newspapers, courts, banks, railroads, and even the city of Nashville were tied to slavery, including a 1830 purchase of 26 enslaved people by the city.", "He uses runaway ads, auction accounts, and sale notices to show people priced by age and fertility, with one 12-year-old valued at $2,000 and one 60-year-old at $100.", "The episode also moves from Roots selling more than 1.6 million copies and drawing 80 million TV viewers to Koontz's methodical search through the 1870 census and slave-holding records."]
["Nashville Retrospect ties the January 2019 issue to Richard Fulton's death at 91 and to a local-history conversation with historian Tom Cannon about the War of 1812.", "Forkham also points to Nashville skyline photos from 1958 and 1832, General Tom Thumb stories, Richard Fulton's 1955 Tennessee State Senate expulsion for being too young, and a sulfur water fountain at Worthen Industries on Taylor Street.", "Cannon explains how Tennessee textbooks once treated the War of 1812 as essential history, then connects the war to impressment, the New Madrid earthquakes, a comet, and the volunteer militia system.", "He follows the Creek War through Fort Mims, Horseshoe Bend, the Treaty of Fort Jackson, and the Battle of New Orleans, where about 2,000 British casualties contrasted with 13 American dead."]
Alan Forkham opens Nashville Retrospect's December 2018 Christmas issue with the Shelby Street Bridge rescue from Christmas Eve 1956, when a woman jumped into the Cumberland River with her baby.
This episode explores Nashville's role in World War I through songs, relics, and exhibitions, featuring an interview with a military history curator.
This episode explores Nashville's school desegregation crisis in 1957 through interviews and historical accounts.
This episode explores Nashville's history through stories about Elvis Presley's 1961 appearance at the state capitol and the settlement story of James Robertson.
Host Allen Forkum explores Nashville's past through interviews, archival audio, and old newspaper articles, featuring stories like the 1918 train wreck at Dutchman's Curve.
Host Allen Forkum introduces an episode featuring President Lyndon Johnson's 1968 speech at the Percy Priest Dam dedication and memories of old Nashville.
This episode covers the 1975 format change of WLAC to rock and roll and the role of Tennessee in passing the 19th Amendment.
Host Allen Forkum explores Nashville's history through old recordings, newspaper archives, and interviews with local historians and reporters.