Jack Neely

Founded on a bluff overlooking the Tennessee River in 1791, Knoxville was a frontier town as well as the birthplace and first capital of Tennessee. From the postcolonial years through the Civil War and on to Knoxville's emergence as an industrial, dynamic, and thoroughly American city, downtown was where everything happened--the setting of the city's most memorable stories and legends. Spanning First and Second Creeks and connecting the river to the railroad, downtown is where Knoxvillians have built their most defining churches, opera houses, movie theaters, and hotels. Here, traditions, holidays, and the endings of wars have been celebrated; suffrage leaders exhorted politicians to pass a national amendment; conservationists planned a national park; idealistic engineers and architects of a New Deal program reimagined a multistate valley; and musicians convened to record and broadcast new forms of folk music that would be called country. Downtown is where bizarre gunfights drew national attention and a notorious outlaw escaped from jail and rode the sheriff's horse to freedom across the Gay Street Bridge.

Jack Neely - one time sailor, one time regulator, one time Detective Inspector; full time emotional mess and drop out. Once happily married, his life is a perpetual 'Nearly', the nickname given to him in the Royal Navy, punning on his surname, as he so nearly gets what he wants, but is always thwarted by under ambition and laziness. A series of seemingly unconnected murders is now testing the Portsmouth CID. Jack must find the link and stop the senseless killing. VJ, Ahab and Mouse are peddling their wares at local raves, providing the detectives with another line of investigation. Mouse is the brains, but VJ is the leader and when Mouse tries to warn the group to lay low following the rape and murder of the 5th victim he is overruled by VJ. Mouse however, is taking no chances.The characters each have a variety of prejudices, the blacks hate the whites and vice versa, the men hate women, the police hate their superiors and the Navy Police hate their civilian counterparts. As for Jack, in the words of Chief Inspector Ian Morrow, his boss, "He's not racist; he hates everyone".Both Jack and The Naval Provost, Commander Turner, are Special Forces trained and despite needing each other; a deep seated hate still lingers.As the action draws to a close the distinction between the good guys and the bad guys becomes more and more hazy and we learn more about the seedy side of investigations in high stakes crime.

One of the most exuberant move palaces of the South, the Tennesse Theatre is a Jazz Age spectacle, a glimmer of a brifely extravagant era, a bold architectural celebration of an astonishing and suddenly popular new form of art. The motion picture changed the way Americans experienced their world, within its broad region, the Tennesseee became the superlative venue for that experiences. Despite its reputation as the finest, the most expensive, the theater with chandeliers and original art and antiques in its lobby, the Tennessee was also the largest, the busiest, and the most popular...Exclusiveness is one of the Tennessee's most effective illusions. After almost a century, the Tennessee is still obligatory on any trip to Knoxville, one of these sights you have to witness at least at once. Designed with dozens of shapes and countless colors to awe, it is distinct in appearance from every other theater in the world. It's a complex and fascinating artifact. But the Tennessee is also a practical edifice, a modern venue for classical music, opera, rock, jazz, bluegrass, and dozens of other genres that benefit from the old theater's excellent acoutiscs, praised in the national media for the quaility of its sound.

Discover the vibrant history of Knoxville, Tennessee, in this series of articles from Jack Neely's acclaimed "Secret History" column in Knoxville's Metro Pulse. Neely delves into the shadows of centuries past and weaves a path of local history with unmistakable wit and precision. Learn about the people who made Knoxville the "obscure prismatic city" through their genius, bravery or even impiety--natives like Adolph Ochs, whose fear of the old Presbyterian cemetery kick-started his ascent to the editor's desk at the New York Times; Clarence Brown, the University of Tennessee graduate turned Hollywood icon; and Knoxville's own Mark Twain. Learn about race riots, labor riots and good old-fashioned drunken riots, and discover why Knoxville is Tennessee's forgotten music city.

Conceived in 1853 as a canny real-estate scheme by two young investors expecting to get rich off the idea, Market Square came to be Knoxville's most public spot, a marketplace familiar to every man, woman, and child in the area. By the 1860s, it was the busiest place in a burgeoning city. In a town that became bitterly divided by politics, race, and background, Market Square became a rare common ground: a place to buy all sorts of local produce, but also a place to experience new things, including the grandiose Market House itself, considered a model in a progressive era. Beset by urban blight by the mid-1900s, Market Square had become more of a curiosity than a point of municipal pride, and the neighborhood declined. After years of controversy, the city razed the Market House and struggled to modernize the old Square itself. This second edition is packed with more information about the colorful history of this eccentric place, including details about its African American heritage, the surprising origins of a recent international bestseller, and a much fuller account of its present-day resurgence as an example of vigorous urban revival. Through a combination of public and private efforts in the 21st century, Market Square seems to be returning to its original diverse spirit, suggesting why, on a good day, it can resemble--as a reporter described it in 1900--"the most democratic place on earth." Jack Neely is the award-winning "Secret History" columnist for Metro Pulse, Knoxville's weekly newspaper. He is the author of From the Shadow Side and Other Stories about Knoxville, Tennessee, and, with Aaron Jay, of The Marble City: A Photographic Tour of Knoxville's Graveyards.

They can be as elaborate as ornate statuary from the Victorian era or as simple as plain stones placed over fallen soldiers. They might be tucked away in quiet corners of the county or rest in the shadows of the city’s tallest buildings. They are the grave markers of Knoxville's dead, and they hold an unturned key to this East Tennessee community's past.In this new book, Jack Neely and Aaron Jay take the reader on a tour through Knoxville’s graveyards—a photographic and historic sampling of more than forty cemeteries in Knox County. In words and pictures, Neely and Jay record the handiwork of the stonecutter, the provocative environments of gravesites, and the colorful lives of the people buried there.Wandering from small family graveyards to large institutional cemeteries, Neely writes with a graceful style and a respect for the past while Jay’s photographs capture the mood of the stones, sculptures, and design of grave markers. They lead us to the last resting places of a Supreme Court justice, a Grand Prix racing champion, a presidential nominee, and a great blues singer, showing how the lives of these prominent figures often attain added significance by their tombstones, which reveal the diverse burial customs of Knoxville’s citizens.The Marble City invites us to view cemeteries as a means of appreciating an American city’s cultural diversity and the many roles its citizens played in history: the earliest marked burials in the county date from George Washington’s day, and in these quiet acres Confederates lie within whispering distance of Union dead. As the book shows us, each statue and marker has a story to tell. Slaves and slaveholders, professors and paupers, veterans of every war America has fought—Neely and Jay read the history of America in Knoxville graveyards and show that monuments to the dead can still inspire the living.The Authors: Jack Neely, a columnist for the Knoxville weekly newspaper MetroPulse, is the author of Knoxville’s Secret History. His writing has won awards from both the East Tennessee Historical Society and the Society of Professional Journalists.Aaron Jay is an award-winning photographer who has worked in both fashion photography and photojournalism. He presently works for MetroPulse.

Conceived in 1853 as a canny real-estate scheme by two young investors expecting to get rich off the idea, Market Square came to be Knoxville s most public spot, a marketplace familiar to every man, woman, and child in the area. By the 1860s, it was the busiest place in a burgeoning city, a place to shop, work, play, eat, drink, and live. In a town that became bitterly divided by politics, race, and background, Market Square became a rare common ground: a place to buy all sorts of local produce, but also a place to experience new things, including the grandiose Market House itself, considered a model in a progressive era. Beset by urban blight by the mid-1900s, Market Square had become more of a curiosity than a point of municipal pride, and the neighborhood declined. After years of fevered controversy, the city razed the Market House and struggled to modernize the old Square itself. Through a combination of public and private efforts in the 21st century, Market Square seems to be returning to its original diverse spirit. Market Square details the colorful history of this wonderfully eccentric place, a place that is once again familiar to the whole community, suggesting why, on a good day, Market Square can resemble as a reporter described it in 1900 the most democratic place on earth. Jack Neely is the award-winning Secret History columnist for Metro Pulse, Knoxville s weekly newspaper. He is the author of From the Shadow Side and Other Stories about Knoxville, Tennessee, and, with Aaron Jay, of The Marble City: A Photographic Tour of Knoxville s Graveyards."