99.5 RODEO

It's summer, and 'Merica is about to be 250! There are songs we listen to, and then there are songs that become part of our story. Long before streaming platforms built playlists for us, music was personal. A song could instantly transport you back to a first love, a summer road trip, a Friday night with friends, or a chapter of life you thought had faded into memory. It's a feeling that resonates across generations, and it's exactly what rising artist Bay Simpson captures on his latest release, "Summertime Classics."

At a time when nostalgia tours can feel more like museum pieces than living performances, Shawn Mullins brought something noticeably different to Crystal River, Florida: less a retrospective and more a reimagining of his own musical history.

Scene Queen, Callie Kalvig, reporting from the front line

Trade shows exist for one essential reason: to create opportunity. They bring together designers, buyers, press, tastemakers, and industry insiders in a single room with the promise that connections made there can elevate brands, spark sales, and generate momentum. That is the theory, at least. In practice, some events appear to forget that visibility is the currency exhibitors are paying for.

By the time the lights dim at The Listening Room Café, the room already knows what it is. The cocktails catch the amber glow. Plates arrive and disappear with quiet precision. The crowd settles into that increasingly rare posture of anticipation—not rowdy, not distracted, but tuned. Then someone steps onto the stage, leans into the mic, and begins not just to sing, but to tell the story behind the song. In that moment, The Listening Room does what so few venues do anymore: it asks people to listen. In Nashville, that has become its own kind of luxury.

Celebrate Whey Jennings new album, Baptized by Fire, at Cooter's in Nashville on March 25, from 3-5pm.