Nashville’s picturesque 12South area is home to popular eateries such as Bartaco and upscale boutiques including Reese Witherspoon’s Draper James and Holly Williams’ White’s Mercantile. Tucked throughout the area, several large-scale, colorful murals, such as the popular “I Believe In Nashville” piece, serve as compelling backdrops for unique photo opps.

Now, a new street art mural on the wall of 12South restaurant The FlipSide incorporates lyrics from Arista Nashville band LANCO’s current single, “Greatest Love Story.”

“We hang out over there in 12South a lot,” says LANCO’s Brandon Lancaster, as he and his fellow bandmembers are in the studio finishing up their first full-length major label project. “Corner Music is there and it’s a vibrant part of the city. It’s still kind of a hidden secret to some people. There’s a lot of culture in 12South.”

The band commissioned local Nashville artist Ners, professionally known as Neon Lumberjack, to craft the mural, which incorporates the idea behind Paris’ Love Locks Bridge and is emblazoned with the phrase “The Greatest Love Story This Town Has Ever Seen.”

“When we tour we see the love locks in a lot of cities,” Lancaster says. “Seattle, Tucson, Austin, so we’ve seen it a lot and we thought it would be cool to bring that to Nashville.”

Ners is known for his 3D spray paint art concepts, which were also incorporated into the piece.

“The coloring and the dimensions really pop out, he’s really good at that,” Lancaster says. “We talked about having dimensions and layers so that it catches your eye. The color scheme doesn’t look like some design on the side of a building that could be part of the restaurant. We really trusted him to take his own approach.”

Through October, visitors can chalk in their own names or initials as part of the mural.

Smyrna, Tennessee native Lancaster is the sole writer behind the intimate, sentimental tale told in “Greatest Love Story”—one that chronicles his own love story with his fiancée, whom he met during college at Lee University.

“She moved and we spent time apart,” Lancaster recalls. “We realized that what we were missing in each other’s lives was each other and we wanted that back. So the song is really personal. It came together really quickly because it was my story. I brought it to the guys in the band, and they liked it. I wasn’t looking to write a hit but I was looking to write my story.”

Pictured (L-R): Ross Copperman, Dierks Bentley, Ashley Gorley

Industry members, friends, and family gathered at new Nashville venue Hemingway’s Bar & Hideaway yesterday (June 22) to celebrate Capitol Nashville artist Dierks Bentley’s 16th chart-topping single (and 13th as a songwriter) “Black.”

ASCAP’s Mike Sistad kicked off the celebration to honor Bentley and his co-writers Ross Copperman and Ashley Gorley. Produced by Copperman and Arturo Buenahora, “Black” is the third consecutive No. 1 song off Bentley’s latest album with the same name.

“One of the things I’m most proud about this song is that working with Ross, obviously he’s a songwriter and we write a lot together, but the six songs that came before this were ones that none of them had our names on them together. This is the first song we’ve put out that actually we wrote together, and that’s something I think the three of us all take a little bit of pride in, that we’re just trying to find the best songs…whether we wrote them or not,” boasted Bentley.

ASCAP’s Beth Brinker honored Gorley, who celebrated his 33rd No. 1 hit. Gorley was the 2016 recipient of ASCAP’s Country Songwriter of the Year award. The Warner/Chappell writer was also honored last year as the first songwriter ever to receive three CMA Triple Play Awards, each of which celebrates writers who pen three No. 1 hits in a 12-month period.

“I want to thank Ross and Dierks for bringing me into this write. Obviously they’ve had a great track record for a while now,” Gorley said. “I want to thank Dierks for being a writer first. He’s somebody that says, ‘This is what I’m thinking, can you guys help me get there?’ Which is a whole different thing and a whole different level of artist.”

Sony/ATV’s Josh Van Valkenburg, Combustion Music’s Kenley Flynn, Warner/Chappell’s BJ Hill, and Kobalt Music’s Jesse Willoughby were also on hand to remark on Gorley’s writing achievements.

BMI’s MaryAnn Keen honored their 2016 Songwriter of the Year recipient Copperman, who also won ACM’s 2016 Songwriter of the Year award as well as a CMA Double Triple Play Award for penning six No. 1 songs in a 12-month period. This is Copperman’s 16th No. 1 song.

The Rezonant Music writer praised his fellow writer and friend by saying, “I just want to say one more thing about Ashley Gorley. If we were in high school he’d be the homecoming king of country music.”

“I feel so honored to be a part of this project. Thank you Arturo for bringing me into this world. Thank you to these guys for writing with me, and trusting in me, and being my best friends,” Copperman said.

Rezonant Music’s Tim Wipperman celebrated the writers’ success by presenting them each with a bottle of wine. “The only rule is that you can keep the bottle but you have to drink the wine,” Wipperman teased. “To all the songwriters here and especially to these guys, thank you for my career. Thank you for letting us do what we do and enjoy it.”

Pinnacle Bank’s Cooper Samuels congratulated the writers and celebrated with a charitable contribution made to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital in each of their names.

CMA’s Brandi Simms presented the writers, who have 13 Triple Play Awards between them, with their No. 1 medallions.

Cindy Mabe, President of Universal Music Group Nashville, praised Bentley as the “protector of music.” Mabe said, “’Black’ may be the most personal song of his career. To get that intimate and honest and personal as a writer and performer is what separates Dierks from everyone else in the class. I think his level of honesty and openness and realness is what made his career flourish.”

Toby Keith is set for his first headlining Nashville show in 13 years. Keith will perform July 20 at Ascend Amphitheater. Keith, who recently added 30 additional dates to his Toby Keith Interstates & Tailgates Tour, also recently released his new single, “Wacky Tobaccy,” penned with longtime co-writer Scotty Emerick. The song’s video features guest appearances from Willie Nelson, Mac McAnally, and Emerick.

“Wacky Tobaccy is a slogan, a saying that’s been around forever and no one has ever written it in a song,” says Keith. “The song is written to the screws, and it fits in with what we do every night with the party crowd.”

Tickets will go on sale Wednesday, June 28 at 10 a.m. at livenation.com or by phone at (800) 745-3000.

John Lomax III

Nashville journalist and entrepreneur John Lomax III has announced a year-long celebration of his family’s contributions to American music.

This year marks the 150th anniversary of the birth of his grandfather, John Avery Lomax (1867-1948). The “Year of Lomax” celebration will include the release of a series of recordings and the reissue of a seminal folklore book.

The contributions of the Lomax family have touched the lives of such diverse figures as Muddy Waters, Guy Clark, Beyonce, Leadbelly, K.T. Oslin, Steve Earle and Nicki Minaj.

John Avery Lomax began collecting folk songs in 1908. He and his son Alan Lomax (1915-2002) are particularly noted for a 16,000-mile collecting trip that began in 1932 and was sponsored by the Library of Congress. Their efforts resulted in saving and preserving such immortal songs as “Home on the Range,” “Irene Goodnight,” “Git Along Little Dogies,” “Cotton Fields” and “Midnight Special.”

On the trip, they discovered Leadbelly, Muddy Waters and many other folk, gospel and blues pioneers. John Avery Lomax’s 1947 book about their expeditions, Adventures of a Ballad Hunter, will be reissued by the University of Texas Press later this year.

Lomax III is collaborating on a new introduction for the book with his son John Nova Lomax, a senior editor at Texas Monthly, as well as with his cousin Dr. Anna Lomax Wood, the daughter of Alan.

The first “Year of Lomax” project, however, is an album titled Folk. This is a collection of home recordings made by John Lomax II (1907-1974) in 1969. With liner notes by his son, Lomax III, it is now available on Sounds From Lomax Discs.

“The songs my father sings on Folk are part of the soundtrack of my life,” says Lomax III. “Now you can enjoy these vivid slices of our shared American heritage.”

Lomax II helped to establish The Houston Folklore Society, whose “graduates” include Oslin, Clark and Lucinda Williams. He managed Lightning Hopkins and aided Mance Lipscomb in becoming a recording artist. He also recorded two solo albums for Folkways Records, which remain in print today.

During his varied Nashville career, Lomax III has managed David Schnauffer, The Cactus Brothers, Townes Van Zandt and Earle. He won the CMA’s Jo Walker-Meador International Award in 2010.

The Lomax celebration unofficially began last year when Beyonce included samples from Lomax field recordings on the “Freedom” track of her blockbuster album Lemonade. The David Guetta-Nicki Minaj hit “Hey Mama” began with another Lomax sample, a prison song called “Rosie.”