MediterraneanGrocery Wholesalers in Nashville, TN

Vocal groups aren’t exactly flourishing these days in R&B/soul circles, which makes the trio known as the Levert Experience quite unusual. But they also have extremely impressive credentials. Marc Gordon was a producer and original founding member of the famed trio Levert, teaming with Gerald and Sean Levert to make a series of hits from the late ‘80s into the early and mid-90s. Later, he was also part of a second act known as the Levert Reunion. Joe Little was the lead vocalist of the group the Rude Boys, while Dave Tolliver had that same role with the duo Men At Large. Both Little and Tolliver were Cleveland natives, as were both the original O’Jays with the legendary Eddie Levert, father of Gerald and Sean. Gerald and Marc Gordon’s TREVEL Productions later signed both Rude Boys and Men & Large to Atlantic Records.

Now all that legacy and history gets revisited on stage each time the Levert Experience takes the stage. It’s quite a twist of fate that as the original O’Jays’ final tour makes a Nashville stop Thursday night at the Ryman, the Levert Experience will be appearing Saturday night at Live Hendersonville, along with special guest G-Starr. When asked their views regarding the absence of vocal groups, each member offers their take. “For one thing, there’s not the seasoning and apprentice opportunities that we had,” Joe Little said. “We got to tour with the greats, they came to our sessions, and they would tell us straight what we were doing right and wrong.” “Yes, it’s a different day now,” added Gordon. “That opportunity to work with others doesn’t seem as important.” Tolliver added, “I think the vocal group thing is something special. There’s a chemistry that we’ve had since the beginning, and it really works well for us.”

The three also are adamant about still feeling the experience of Gerald Levert’s guidance and emphasize that they see what they’re doing as a tribute to him. “No question you can’t help but feel his presence every show,” Gordon said. “He was so involved and such a part of everything that we did,” added Little. “You certainly don’t forget that experience, and it stays with you,” adds Tolliver.

The group members also say they plan to remain together for a while, though no one wants to put any numbers on just how long. “I think we’re going to be around for a long time,” Gordon said. “The vibes and chemistry have been great from day one.” “This is something I think we were destined to do,” added Little. “I agree, the whole legacy and history of the music is very important to us, and we’re helping to keep that part of it (vocal groups) alive,” concluded Tolliver.

The Levert Experience, along with special guest G-Starr, will appear Saturday night at Live Hendersonville, 90 Volunteer Drive, Suite 250, at 7 p.m. For ticket information, visit www.LiveHendersonville.net.

Copyright TNTRIBUNE 2025. All rights reserved.

Vocal groups aren’t exactly flourishing these days in R&B/soul circles, which makes the trio known as the Levert Experience quite unusual. But they also have extremely impressive credentials. Marc Gordon was a producer and original founding member of the famed trio Levert, teaming with Gerald and Sean Levert to make a series of hits from the late ‘80s into the early and mid-90s. Later, he was also part of a second act known as the Levert Reunion. Joe Little was the lead vocalist of the group the Rude Boys, while Dave Tolliver had that same role with the duo Men At Large. Both Little and Tolliver were Cleveland natives, as were both the original O’Jays with the legendary Eddie Levert, father of Gerald and Sean. Gerald and Marc Gordon’s TREVEL Productions later signed both Rude Boys and Men & Large to Atlantic Records.

Now all that legacy and history gets revisited on stage each time the Levert Experience takes the stage. It’s quite a twist of fate that as the original O’Jays’ final tour makes a Nashville stop Thursday night at the Ryman, the Levert Experience will be appearing Saturday night at Live Hendersonville, along with special guest G-Starr. When asked their views regarding the absence of vocal groups, each member offers their take. “For one thing, there’s not the seasoning and apprentice opportunities that we had,” Joe Little said. “We got to tour with the greats, they came to our sessions, and they would tell us straight what we were doing right and wrong.” “Yes, it’s a different day now,” added Gordon. “That opportunity to work with others doesn’t seem as important.” Tolliver added, “I think the vocal group thing is something special. There’s a chemistry that we’ve had since the beginning, and it really works well for us.”

The three also are adamant about still feeling the experience of Gerald Levert’s guidance and emphasize that they see what they’re doing as a tribute to him. “No question you can’t help but feel his presence every show,” Gordon said. “He was so involved and such a part of everything that we did,” added Little. “You certainly don’t forget that experience, and it stays with you,” adds Tolliver.

The group members also say they plan to remain together for a while, though no one wants to put any numbers on just how long. “I think we’re going to be around for a long time,” Gordon said. “The vibes and chemistry have been great from day one.” “This is something I think we were destined to do,” added Little. “I agree, the whole legacy and history of the music is very important to us, and we’re helping to keep that part of it (vocal groups) alive,” concluded Tolliver.

The Levert Experience, along with special guest G-Starr, will appear Saturday night at Live Hendersonville, 90 Volunteer Drive, Suite 250, at 7 p.m. For ticket information, visit www.LiveHendersonville.net.

Copyright TNTRIBUNE 2025. All rights reserved.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s termination of federal funding for a program seeking to restore urban tree canopies in low-income areas will leave one Nashville-based nonprofit and the tree farmers that supply them high and dry, the nonprofit says.

The Cumberland River Compact was set to receive about $1 million from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) to plant around 5,000 trees in the Nashville area. The organization engaged tree nurseries in McMinnville early so those farmers could start growing the trees that would be purchased with the infusion of federal funds.

Now, those funds aren’t coming.

“We would have used that to buy trees from McMinnville, to pay our staff, to maintain our vehicles at local garages. So it’s just a subtraction of (that) money from our local economy,” Cumberland River Compact Executive Director Mekayle Houghton said.

And it’s unclear whether the Cumberland River Compact or the farmers will be reimbursed for the work they did under previously valid grant contracts.

The USDA began a “comprehensive review of contracts, personnel, and employee trainings and (Diversity, Equity and Inclusion) programs” following President Donald Trump’s inauguration, according to a department news release.

In the first two weeks under new U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, the USDA has been instructed to “rescind all Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) programs and celebrations,” a USDA news release states. The department also terminated 78 contracts totaling $132 million, and placed more than 1,000 contracts under review “to optimize the USDA workforce and stop wasteful spending” using findings from the newly-branded Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).

We would have used that to buy trees from McMinnville, to pay our staff, to maintain our vehicles at local garages. So it’s just a subtraction of (that) money from our local economy.

– MeKayle Houghton, Cumberland River Compact

The department has yet to respond to a public records request for the details of all 78 terminated contracts, and has not provided further details of DOGE’s specific findings. The limits of the department’s authority and the Trump administration’s ability to claw back already-designated funds are being tested in court.

Cumberland River Compact Executive Director Mekayle Houghton said the organization received two termination letters for the urban canopy program last week from national funders that sub-grant federal dollars out to programs like theirs.

One letter instructed a cease in all project activities because “the USDA Forest Service has determined that our award no longer effectuates agency priorities regarding diversity, equity and inclusion programs and activities,” Houghton said.

The termination was effective immediately.

In the absence of any clarification from the USDA, the organization is left to believe the program was cut because planting trees in low-income communities is considered a DEI initiative.

The Cumberland River Compact’s urban canopy restoration program – called “Root Nashville” – receives the majority of its funding from local sources, and has planted more than 50,000 trees in the Davidson County area since 2018. Neighborhoods that were historically redlined or have higher poverty rates are “almost always going to have low tree canopy as well,” Houghton said.

These grants are processed as reimbursements, meaning nonprofits do the work and then submit reimbursement requests to funding organizations that distribute federal money. Now that the USDA has, in effect, turned off the spigot, organizations like the Cumberland River Compact are left wondering if they will ever be paid for work already completed under valid grant contracts before the Trump administration began suspending and terminating funds.

“Now we’ve been caught short because we received this (termination) notice on projects that we’ve been planning for a long time, and so we have to tell the nurseries in McMinnville, ‘All those trees that you were growing for us this year, we can’t buy them,’” she said.

Rollins released about $20 million in suspended Inflation Reduction Act funds for contracts “already made directly to farmers” on Feb. 20. This includes funds for the Environmental Quality Incentive Program, the Conservation Stewardship Program, and the Agricultural Conservation Easement Program.

The USDA did not answer specific questions about reimbursement plans, how termination decisions are made or why funding was cut for the urban canopy program.

“Per the President’s executive orders, USDA has been in the process of reviewing Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds,” a USDA spokesperson stated in an email to Tennessee Lookout. “Now that Secretary Rollins is confirmed, she will have the opportunity to assess these reviews and to make determinations as soon as possible.”

Other programs suspended

The Cumberland River Compact also runs other programs that serve the entire Cumberland River basin, and funding for projects in that broader region has also been suspended pending USDA review.

One of the programs in limbo provides classes for farmers, helping them improve grazing practices to support healthier soil and put protections in place to prevent farm chemicals from running into freshwater streams.

Houghton said she’s worried that program’s suspension will also turn into a termination, specifically because they encourage “underserved” farmers to participate. The USDA’s definition for underserved farmers includes beginning farmers, veterans, Black farmers and women. More than 80 farmers from counties all over the state and from all different backgrounds attended the Compact’s last grazing school class, Cumberland River Compact Communications Director Meagan Hall said.

“The small streams that flow across their farms, (the farmers are) preventing chemicals from flowing into those small streams, and those small streams become the drinking water sources for everybody else,” Houghton said.

Northwest of Knoxville near the Tennessee and Kentucky border, a Mine Land Reforestation program is also suspended.

Mining companies often left the land without trees and covered in low, invasive scrub plants when they finished with it, Houghton said. Under this program, the organization restores the soil and plants 700 trees per acre to help restore habitat to southern Appalachian forest species and clean the water in the area.

The program is in its second year, having planted between 100 and 150 acres per year with federal funding and funding from other sources. Parts of the program fueled by federal money are now on indefinite pause.

“It’s Tennessee and Kentucky rural Appalachian counties that the (coal mining companies) left, and part of what we did was buy the trees from nurseries in that region, hire, and contract with companies from that region to do the restoration work,” Houghton said. “So that was a big focus of our grant, too: putting that money back into those rural counties that are on the governor’s list of distressed counties.”

Houghton said the real-world result of funding suspension and termination will be much broader than targeted savings.

“A lot of the progress that we were starting to make toward cleaner water, we’ll see backsliding on that, and we’ll see our waters are getting more polluted with more unknown chemicals … and we’ll see greater toxicity in our environment over the long term,” she said. “But I think over the short term, that money is being removed from our economy because nonprofits don’t hold onto money. Nonprofits spend money, and so all of that, it’s not just targeting the environmentalists who may believe in climate change. It’s targeting the business people who we buy from.”

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The Pinnacle has the capacity to hold more than 4,500 fans, boasting a large general admission floor space with great views.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Nashville's newest music venue will open its doors on Thursday. The Pinnacle located in the heart of Nashville yards has been years in the making.

For perspective, the historic Ryman can hold upwards of 2,300 people. The Pinnacle has the capacity to hold more than 4,500, nearly double the amount.

AEG's flagship venue stands out with it's massive general admission style floor and balcony providing great views for all fans.

Kacey Musgraves is headlining the opening concert Thursday night. Tickets can be purchased here. Journey, T-Pain, Russell Dickerson and Jason Isbell are on the calendar for next month.

TOP 5 THINGS TO KNOW

1. Location: The Pinnacle is located in the Nashville Yards development at 910 Exchange Ln, Nashville, TN 37203.

2. Ride-share/Parking: Ride-share is highly encouraged, but paid parking is available in three nearby garages including Nashville Yards, Pinnacle Tower and Amazon Towers.

3. Bag Policy / Coat-Check: You don’t need to bring a clear bag! Just make sure your bag is 12” x 12” x 6 or smaller. We do offer a coat-check, which is located on the first floor lobby.

4. Cashless Venue: Pre-packaged snacks and full-service bars are available within the venue and you will need to pay via Visa, MasterCard, American Express, Discover or Digital wallets like Apple Pay and Google Pay.

5. Tickets: Fans can buy tickets 24/7 via AXS or through The Pinnacle. The box office is open Tuesday – Saturday from 10 a.m. through 6 p.m. and 2 hours before doors on show days. Lining up before 8 a.m. on show days and overnights will not be permitted. It is highly recommended to download the AXS app before you arrive at the venue for a seamless entry.

No one can bring a story to life better than the talented group behind the Nashville Public Library's Children's Theater. This story will make you feel like a kid again lost in the wonder of a good story. Congrats to Bret Wilson on his leadership role!

-Carrie Sharp

Copyright 2025 Scripps Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Feb. 27, 2025) — Dr. Joseph Webb, CEO of Nashville General Hospital, submitted his resignation Thursday, just hours before the Hospital Authority Board was set to vote on whether to renew his contract.

Webb, who has led the city-owned safety net hospital since 2015, announced his decision in a swiftly called meeting with employees, stating he would step down in two weeks but remain in his role until March 14. His resignation comes amid mounting scrutiny over his leadership and financial management of the hospital, which serves uninsured patients and operates as a teaching facility for Meharry Medical College.

The timing of Webb’s resignation coincided with the release of a Metro Office of Internal Audit report detailing financial mismanagement at the hospital. The investigation, initiated after credible sources alleged fraud, wasteful spending, and policy violations at the hospital’s executive level, found those claims to be substantiated.

Among the key findings:

The audit added to growing financial concerns at the hospital, which relies on nearly $60 million in subsidies from the Metro government annually. Previous audits have also identified significant deficiencies in financial oversight.

Earlier this week, a Hospital Authority committee evaluating Webb’s performance had already recommended against renewing his contract, raising doubts about whether he was the right leader to guide the hospital forward. The full board was set to vote on the matter Thursday afternoon before Webb preemptively announced his departure.

Despite the criticism, Webb reflected on his tenure in his resignation letter, highlighting his decade of service and accomplishments, including the creation of a food pharmacy to address patient nutrition.

“Serving this hospital has truly been a pleasure, and I extend my highest compliments to the team of employees who have worked with me over my 10-year tenure to extend excellent healthcare to the Nashville Davidson County community,” Webb wrote.

With Webb’s departure, the Hospital Authority Board must now appoint an interim CEO and launch a search for a permanent leader. Mayor Freddie O’Connell confirmed he will participate in the selection process.

Webb, who earns close to $1 million annually in salary and benefits, leaves behind an institution facing significant financial and operational challenges. His resignation marks the beginning of a leadership transition at Nashville General Hospital, as officials look to stabilize its finances and chart a new course forward.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Feb. 27, 2025) — Dr. Joseph Webb, CEO of Nashville General Hospital, submitted his resignation Thursday, just hours before the Hospital Authority Board was set to vote on whether to renew his contract.

Webb, who has led the city-owned safety net hospital since 2015, announced his decision in a swiftly called meeting with employees, stating he would step down in two weeks but remain in his role until March 14. His resignation comes amid mounting scrutiny over his leadership and financial management of the hospital, which serves uninsured patients and operates as a teaching facility for Meharry Medical College.

The timing of Webb’s resignation coincided with the release of a Metro Office of Internal Audit report detailing financial mismanagement at the hospital. The investigation, initiated after credible sources alleged fraud, wasteful spending, and policy violations at the hospital’s executive level, found those claims to be substantiated.

Among the key findings:

The audit added to growing financial concerns at the hospital, which relies on nearly $60 million in subsidies from the Metro government annually. Previous audits have also identified significant deficiencies in financial oversight.

Earlier this week, a Hospital Authority committee evaluating Webb’s performance had already recommended against renewing his contract, raising doubts about whether he was the right leader to guide the hospital forward. The full board was set to vote on the matter Thursday afternoon before Webb preemptively announced his departure.

Despite the criticism, Webb reflected on his tenure in his resignation letter, highlighting his decade of service and accomplishments, including the creation of a food pharmacy to address patient nutrition.

“Serving this hospital has truly been a pleasure, and I extend my highest compliments to the team of employees who have worked with me over my 10-year tenure to extend excellent healthcare to the Nashville Davidson County community,” Webb wrote.

With Webb’s departure, the Hospital Authority Board must now appoint an interim CEO and launch a search for a permanent leader. Mayor Freddie O’Connell confirmed he will participate in the selection process.

Webb, who earns close to $1 million annually in salary and benefits, leaves behind an institution facing significant financial and operational challenges. His resignation marks the beginning of a leadership transition at Nashville General Hospital, as officials look to stabilize its finances and chart a new course forward.

Amy Gleason worked for Nashville healthcare startups Russell Street Ventures and Main Street Health.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WSMV/AP) - A former Nashville healthcare tech chief product officer was named as the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) acting administrator.

On Tuesday afternoon, the White House identified Amy Gleason as the acting leader of DOGE. DOGE has been pushing agencies to fire employees, cancel contracts, and make other budget cuts, the Associated Press said.

AP said while DOGE cuts have been championed by Elon Musk and his associates, the White House said Musk is overseeing the effort as a senior advisor to President Donald Trump and is not a DOGE employee.

In January, Trump signed an executive order that called for the appointment of an administrator to report to the White House.

A government lawyer on Monday told a judge he didn’t know who the person previously running DOGE was and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt declined to identify the person in a press briefing on Tuesday.

From 2018 through 2021, Gleason, 53, has worked in the United States Digital Service, the agency that was renamed to DOGE, according to her LinkedIn profile.

Following her role in the White House, according to her LinkedIn, Gleason worked in Nashville as Chief Product Officer for two healthcare startups, Main Street Health and Russell Street Ventures from November 2021 to December 2024.

Both companies were founded by Brad Smith, a healthcare entrepreneur, who worked in the first Trump administration. He has had several key healthcare roles and also has been working on the DOGE initiative, AP said.

Russell Street Ventures’ website has recently been deleted, but the company has called itself “an innovative healthcare firm focused on launching and scaling companies that serve some of the nation’s most vulnerable and underserved patient populations.”

Main Street Health says it works with primary care physicians in rural areas to provide clinics “with the data and opportunities they need to succeed in value-based care.”

The company’s website deleted Gleason’s biography. But an archived version shows that it said she “spearheaded technology efforts for the federal COVID-19 response” and worked on projects with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

In January, Gleason returned to the White House after Trump took office.

In addition to her return to the White House, the AP reported that Gleason also runs a consulting firm, Gleason Strategies.

On Tuesday, the day she was announced as the acting administrator, more than 20 members of the former digital service resigned with a letter criticizing Musk for “working to dismantle critical public service.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Copyright 2025 WSMV. All rights reserved.