I’m a Nashville history nut. Left to my own devices, I would while away all my days at the downtown library’s Nashville Room, the Metro Archives, the Tennessee State Library & Archives or just down in my garage, where I have about three dozen bound volumes of Nashville newspapers spanning the 1880-1940 period. Here are links to various bits of Nashville history I have written over the years:

Old News blog, 2010

“Nashville Now and Then” column (2007-08) and other historical items for NashvillePost.com

“Our Back Pages: This Week in Print Over the Years” — Short-lived weekly feature on Nashville Scene’s news blog, 2009

Marcia Trimble murder case — Coverage for NashvillePost.com

Coffee-table books about Nashville — somehow, I have been involved in four of them:

Nashville: Yesterday & Today , by Nicki Pendleton Wood, with contributions by Dana Kopp Franklin, George Zepp and E. Thomas Wood (Publications International Ltd., 2010)

  • A  neighborhood-by-neighborhood look at the city’s past and present. Benefit sales generated $1,132 for St. Luke’s Community House.

Nashville: Amplified, by Fiona Soltes and E. Thomas Wood (Cherbo Publishing, 2007)

  • I wrote the seven chapters of city-profile material that followed the introductory essay by Fiona. The chapter on the music industry is at this link.

Nashville: An American Self-Portrait, edited by John Egerton and E. Thomas Wood (Beaten Biscuit Press LLC, 2001)

  • Multi-author project depicting in words and images the life of an American city in the course of the year 2000, when Nashville was in the news for reasons ranging from the Tennessee Titans’ Super Bowl season to the disputed presidential election in which favorite son Al Gore lost his home state. Contributing authors included David Halberstam, Roy Blount, Jr., Bruce Feiler, Jean Bethke Elshtain, Lamar Alexander, Fred Russell and Hal Crowther.
  • I conceived the book in partnership with historian John Egerton, secured funding from a venture capital firm, and recruited and developed chapter concepts with a majority of the authors involved. Southern Living magazine hailed book as “a monumental undertaking” and “a glorious tribute.” Nashville Scene reviewer cited my “commandingly” written chapter on power and money dynamics in the city.

Nashville: City of Note, by John M. Seigenthaler (Towery Publishing, 1998)

  • I wrote half of the business profiles in this book, with Heather Cochran writing the other half.