Plot
Ada Spencer and her younger sister, Piper, are high schoolers living in a rural Tennessee farmhouse with their widowed mother Elizabeth and their grandmother, Meemaw. When a water pipe bursts, the girls find a Silver Star and other information about their father, whom their mother never talks about. Over the next few days, the girls repeatedly lie and say they are going to the farm of Ada's friend, Justine, but actually catch rides with Justine to go learn more about their father.
At the nearby State Veteran's Home, they meet Iraq War veteran Henry Monroe, who tells them about serving in the Marines with their father in 2004, when their father saved his live by jumping on a grenade. They also meet C.J. Simms, a Korean War veteran and musician who is impressed by their singing voices.
They learn that their father had been a country music singer, so they travel to Nashville to learn more about him. They meet Declan, who soon strikes up a relationship with Ada. Declan helps them meet Marq Dunn, the lady with whom their father had written and recorded his music. After hearing them sing, Marq invites them back to Nashville to record a song.
The sisters get in trouble when Elizabeth finally learns that they have been lying about their whereabouts. They respond that their mother is a liar for never telling them the truth about their father's music and military careers. Eventually Meemaw reveals that their father had stopped his music, of his own accord, when he met Elizabeth and wanted to start a family.
Elizabeth visits Marq, reconciling with her and admitting that she always felt a little jealous, but also a little guilty about taking Brian away from the musical opportunities he and Marq could have had. leading to Ada and Piper singing one of their father's songs, on stage with Willie Nelson and Marq, at a fund raiser for veterans.
David Allan Coe is an American singer and songwriter. Coe took up music after spending much of his early life in reform schools and prisons, and first became notable for busking in Nashville. He initially played mostly in the blues style, before transitioning to country music, becoming a major part of the 1970s outlaw country scene. His biggest hits include "You Never Even Called Me by My Name", "Longhaired Redneck", "The Ride", "Mona Lisa Lost Her Smile", and "She Used to Love Me a Lot".
Fred Luther Foster was an American record producer, songwriter, and music business executive who founded Monument Records. As a record producer he was most closely associated with Roy Orbison, and was also involved in the early careers of Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson. Foster suggested to Kris Kristofferson the title and theme of "Me and Bobby McGee", which became a hit for Kristofferson, Roger Miller, and Janis Joplin, and for which Foster received a co-writing credit.
Outlaw country is a subgenre of American country music created by a small group of iconoclastic artists active in the 1970s and early 1980s, known collectively as the outlaw movement, who fought for and won their creative freedom outside of the Nashville establishment that dictated the sound of most country music of the era. Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Johnny Cash, Kris Kristofferson, and David Allan Coe were among the movement's most commercially successful members.
WrestleMania III was the third annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view (PPV) event produced by the World Wrestling Federation. The event was held on March 29, 1987, at the Pontiac Silverdome in Pontiac, Michigan. There were 12 matches, with the main event featuring WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan successfully defending his title against André the Giant.
WrestleMania 2 was the second annual WrestleMania professional wrestling pay-per-view event produced by the World Wrestling Federation. The event took place on April 7, 1986, making it the only WrestleMania that was not held on the traditional Sunday until the two-night WrestleMania 36 in April 2020. The event took place at three venues simultaneously: the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York, the Rosemont Horizon in the Chicago suburb of Rosemont, Illinois, and the Los Angeles Memorial Sports Arena in Los Angeles, California.
Starday Records was an American record label producing traditional country music during the 1950s and 1960s.
New Stories from the South is an annual compilation of short stories published by Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill between 1986 and 2010 and billed as the year's best stories written by Southern writers or about the Southern United States. The stories are collected from more than 100 literary magazines, including The Atlantic, Harper's Magazine, The New Yorker, the Oxford American, The Paris Review, Ploughshares, and The Southern Review. Shannon Ravenel, then the editor of the annual Best American Short Stories anthology, launched the New Stories from the South series in 1986 and compiled and edited every volume until 2006. To mark the third decade of the series, Algonquin invited author and John Simon Guggenheim Fellow Allan Gurganus to be guest editor.
Tracy Nelson is an American country and blues singer. She has been involved in the recording of over 20 albums in her recording career, which started in 1965.
Phases and Stages is the 17th studio album by Willie Nelson, which followed the moderate success of his first Atlantic Records release, Shotgun Willie. Nelson met producer Jerry Wexler at a party where Nelson sang songs from an album he planned to record. The single "Phases and Stages" was originally recorded the same year. Nelson recorded the album at Muscle Shoals Sound Studios in two days and Wexler produced it.
Pure Rubbish was an American rock band from Houston active from late 1995 to April 2003. The band's moniker was lifted from Mick Jagger's published opinion about the 1960s rock band Herman's Hermits. Pure Rubbish had three records released between 1998 and 2001 and also recorded a debut album produced by Mike Clink entitled Glamorous Youth (2001) @ Rumbo Recorders that never saw an official release. The band was signed to Sharon Osbourne’s record label, Divine Recordings / Priority Records.
Laura Ashley Bell Bundy is an American actress and singer. She is best known for originating the Broadway roles of Amber Von Tussle in the musical version of Hairspray and Elle Woods in the musical version of Legally Blonde. She also portrayed Dr. Jordan Denby on the television show Anger Management. In 2010 she signed to Mercury Records Nashville and released her first two country music singles, "Giddy On Up" and "Drop on By".
Robert Valentine Braddock is an American country songwriter and record producer. A member of the Country Music Hall of Fame and the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, Braddock has contributed numerous hit songs during more than 40 years in the industry, including 13 number-one hit singles.
Heidi Blickenstaff is an American actress based in New York City best known for playing a version of herself in the musical [title of show] during its Off-Broadway and Broadway runs, as well as for originating the role of Bea in the 2015 musical Something Rotten!. She co-starred with Cozi Zuehlsdorff in the Disney Channel musical version of Freaky Friday which was broadcast on August 10, 2018.
Kaitlyn Ashley Maher is an American teen singer and actress known for being the Youngest Top 10 Finalist on America's Got Talent and for her roles in films such as The Search for Santa Paws, Santa Paws 2, Free Birds, and the PupStar series; as well as television shows such as FOX's The Goodwin Games and PBS' Mack and Moxy. She serves as the first-ever youth ambassador for the global nonprofit Compassion International and is a national debate champion, singer/songwriter, and global advocate.
James Thomas Slater is a two-time Grammy-nominated singer/songwriter based in Nashville. He has written several hit songs of American popular music.
Red Lane, born Hollis Rudolph DeLaughter with surname pronounced Dee-LAW-ter, was an American country music singer, songwriter and guitarist who was a member of the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame (1993). A self-taught musician, Lane began writing songs in the early 1960s and over his career wrote or co-wrote 60 songs that reached the U.S. top 100 country charts. Outside of country music, Lane's songs have been recorded by a diverse group of artists including Bob Dylan, Ray Charles and Solomon Burke. He has credits as composer or instrumentalist on at least 386 albums.
Elizabeth Piper Ensley, was an educator and an African-American suffragist. Born in Massachusetts, Ensley was a teacher on the eastern coast of the country. She moved to Colorado where she achieved prominence as a leader in the Colorado suffrage movement. She was also a journalist, activist, and a leader and founder of local women's clubs.
Honky Tonk Time Machine is the thirtieth studio album by American country music artist George Strait. It was released on March 29, 2019, via MCA Nashville. The album's first single, "Every Little Honky Tonk Bar", was released to radio on February 11, 2019.
Rosaline is a 2022 American romantic comedy film directed by Karen Maine, written by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber, and starring Kaitlyn Dever, Isabela Merced, Kyle Allen, Sean Teale, Christopher McDonald, Minnie Driver, and Bradley Whitford. It is based on the 2012 young adult novel When You Were Mine by Rebecca Serle, which in turn was inspired by William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.
Brittney Spencer is an American country singer–songwriter. Spencer received notable attention following a viral Twitter video showing Spencer singing a cover of song by The Highwomen. The video drew praise from fellow country artists and prompted the release of her first extended play (EP) titled Compassion (2020). She has also released several singles, including 2021's "Sober & Skinny". Spencer has since performed on the Country Music Association Awards and has embarked on a world tour.
