Allison Russell and Neko Case Draw on the Power of Collaboration

After a little while of seeing live music, you start to notice that the ratio of bands you actually enjoy at any show hits a slippery slope if more than two or three artists are on the bill. With that in mind, it feels decidedly retro to be this excited about a four-band bill. Of course, when Mom was dropping us off at the all-ages spot, the lineup wasn’t Neko Case, Allison Russell, Jimmie Dale Gilmore and Destroyer’s Dan Bejar playing solo, which is what we’re getting Friday night at the Ryman. Back then, there were a lot of middling hardcore covers and bad cologne, not to mention a curfew. Though it’s true people’s smells can surprise you, none of that should apply here, which is all the more reason why Friday’s gig is one hell of a bargain for your concert-ticket dollar (plus taxes and fees). We caught up with Case and Russell in separate interviews to learn more about why we should show up early to the Mother Church and stay late.

“The Ryman is such a special place,” Case tells the Scene on a video call. “I play there very rarely. And so when I do, I want to make it a special occasion.” She’s just returned stateside after two months in London working on the Thelma & Louise musical, for which she wrote the music. “I thought it would be really fun to not just have it be our show, but Allison’s show and Jimmie Dale’s show,” she says, “and maybe do some songs together and maybe have some special guests come. Because that’s kind of a Nashville tradition.” 

Case, who jokingly admits that she’s “in 20 million bands,” is touring her latest solo record — 2025’s Neon Grey Midnight Green, her sixth solo record and a stunning collection of sonically adventurous, structurally ambitious songs from one of the masters of the craft. Neon Grey is a self-produced portrait of an artist at the top of her game, leading a team whose mind-blowing musicianship makes her expansive genre-absorbing aesthetic feel as intimate as it is brave. This set of songs feels tailor-made to fill the Ryman. 

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“We like rooms that give something back to you, because it’s a pleasure to move the air in a room — because it’s an organic thing,” says Case. The venerable Mother Church of Country Music is a perfect example of a room that just breathes with you. “It’s a great privilege. It adds to your own physicality. … I was just talking about how it’s a great privilege to move up to rooms where they are known for their resonance. Because it’s a cyclical thing — we don’t play the same if there’s no audience. With an audience, we’re different, and so it’s like alternating current.” 

Considering that Neon Grey is great music about how great music is, it’s no surprise that Case invited Russell to join her. Russell is an artist’s artist — her name comes up in about half of the interviews I conduct, unprompted by anything other than pure listener excitement. Her latest album In the Hour of Chaos is a duets record, which gives it the potential to lose focus or dilute Russell’s sonic identity. Yet even with powerful and distinctive voices like those of Norah Jones, Ruby Amanfu, Joy Oladokun and Kyshona joining Russell on almost all of the 11 tracks, it somehow sounds more like Russell than ever.

“I think that’s all I’ve ever really done as a musician, is collaboration,” Russell says. “And to be honest, I think if people are truthful with themselves — that is what music is. Even if you are a so-called solo artist, even if you record everything by yourself in your bedroom, you are still in collaboration and conversation with everything you’ve ever listened to.

“You’re not creating music in a vacuum. Nobody is. We are drawing from all that has come before us, some of which we may be aware of and some of which is subconscious.”

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Russell in particular is creating music jam-packed with Scene-favorite artists — let’s go ahead and name a few more on Chaos, including locals like Brittney Spencer, Denitia and multi-instrumental wizard Megan McCormick, along with legends like Wendy Melvoin. Their collective defiance of genre conventions and commitment to letting the songs guide the performance make for thrillingly contemporary music that never loses sight of joys and conflicts that have created it. 

“I think we don’t know what will feed and seed and blossom,” says Russell. “There’s this mystery and this alchemy of what happens when we collaborate and come together. The whole is always greater than the sum of the parts, and it’s always a journey worth taking.”

That the journey can take us all from the metaphorical (or literal) pizza parlor basement to the Ryman’s pews can be a bit overwhelming at times — things can be intimidating once Mom drives away. But it’s not a journey we have to make alone. Case and Russell are shining examples of how humanity does its best work in collaboration.

“I’m doubling down on that belief,” says Russell, “and I’m even more in awe of what happens when we do things together.”