Jewly Hight

A contemporary brass band that grew out of one of Nashville's historically Black universities is helping to expand the lost musical identity of the country capital.

The mostly white country and folk music industries remain frustratingly difficult for Black musicians to enter. During one of Nashville's biggest events, one group envisioned a new pathway in.

Madi Diaz had much to process leading up to her new album, History of a Feeling: moving home to Nashville from L.A., reestablishing herself as a solo artist and splitting from her partner.

Allisson Russell has spent her career collaborating – but for Outside Child, her first solo record, she is stepping boldly out in front, sharing her tales of healing.

Country music's race problem became a hot topic in early February, but the roots of racial injustice in the industry go much deeper. Two Nashville writers unpack the history and recent responses.

This fall, the bluegrass supergroup Sister Sadie became the first all-female band ever to win the top prize at the International Bluegrass Music Association awards.

Charley Pride was a symbol, ancestor and influence. But the country singer was also a master interpreter of song, his warm baritone attuned to deep emotion.

Rap from Nashville isn't new, nor is the city's tendency to overlook the creators and entrepreneurs behind that music – despite country artists borrowing liberally from the genre over the past decade.

Bandleader Raul Malo and guitarist Eddie Perez both claim Latin American heritage, but their roots music-driven band had never ventured into creating an entirely Spanish album until now.

Fiddler Jenee Fleenor is the first woman ever to win the Country Music Association's Musician of the Year Award. Her work is partly responsible for the instrument's resurgence.

There really was no precedent for Maybelle Carter, who learned to play from her own mother and spent much of her life teaching her children — as well as generations of country stars that followed.

In the '90s, Brooks & Dunn helped to broaden country music's audience with its embrace of a wide range of sounds and on-stage spectacle. 25 years later, their influence is everywhere in Nashville.