NASHVILLE – GRAMMY-winning reggae artist Gramps Morgan, Country-Pop-Punk singer-songwriter Cassadee Pope and Country’s Levi Hummon will be part of the diverse concert lineup for Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th presented by Dr Pepper, the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp announced today. This year’s major artist headliner will be announced in the coming weeks.
The event at the downtown riverfront will include the largest fireworks show in the city’s history synchronized to a live performance from the GRAMMY-winning Nashville Symphony. The concert and fireworks show are free and open to the public. During the day, the free Family Fun Zone is returning to Music City Walk of Fame Park. It will include free inflatables, games and other kid-friendly activities. In the evening, a portion of the Let Freedom Sing! concert and fireworks show will be nationally broadcast with additional details forthcoming.
“As Nashville’s momentum as a global destination with world-class events continues to grow, we are grateful that Nashville’s annual Independence Day celebration will be bigger and better,” said Butch Spyridon, CEO, Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp. “We will be promoting all the activities the entire weekend to bring in visitors, and we also want Nashvillians to enjoy a great concert and fireworks show right in their backyard.”
The main concert stage will be located at First and Broadway. After the concert, the event will shift to Ascend Amphitheater for the live performance by the Nashville Symphony and the fireworks show.
With hospitality as the second-largest industry in Nashville, economic activity and tax revenue generated by major events are vital for the city’s economy. Nashville generates one-third of all visitor spending in Tennessee.
Summer is a key leisure travel period, and the NCVC will be promoting additional happenings taking place around July 4 to give visitors from around the country - and worldwide - even more of a reason to travel here and stay longer. Ticketed concerts leading up to July 4 include:
Thursday, June 30
- Motley Crue with Def Leppard, Poison and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts at Nissan Stadium
- 5 Seconds of Summer at Ascend Amphitheater
- Dan Tyminksi for Springer Mountain Farms Bluegrass Nights at the Ryman
- Ben Folds with the Nashville Symphony at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center
Friday, July 1
- Ben Folds with the Nashville Symphony at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center
Saturday, July 2
- Funk N’ Nashville: Morris Day, Zapp, Cameo, SOS Band & Bar Kays at Bridgestone Arena
- Chagall Guevara with Over the Rhine at the Ryman Auditorium
- Ben Folds with the Nashville Symphony at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center
Sunday, July 3
- Dude Perfect at Bridgestone Arena
- Riley Green with Sammy Kershaw and Morgan Wade at Ascend Amphitheater
Tuesday, July 5
- Rod Stewart & Cheap Trick at Bridgestone Arena
Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th presented by Dr Pepper is produced by the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp for the city of Nashville. The free, family-friendly event was created to entertain Nashvillians and attract visitors to generate economic activity and tax revenue for the city. The event has regularly drawn more than 200,000 – and a record-breaking 350,000 in 2021. This will be the 19th annual celebration produced by the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp and the 38th in the city. Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th is presented by Dr Pepper and partners include Kroger, Jack Daniel’s, Budweiser, Dr Pepper Zero and Nashville International Airport.
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Gramps Morgan
A Nashville native since 2012, Gramps Morgan moved to town after falling in love with Music City following a performance at the historic Ryman Auditorium while on tour with India.Arie. While his reggae roots are at the forefront with “Positive Vibration,” Gramps sees his music as genre-less -bursting with positive vibration -a soundtrack to celebrate both love and Music City. By flavoring reggae with dashes of both country and soul, Gramps effortlessly blends the sounds of legendary artists like Ken Boothe, Toots Hibbert, Jimmy Buffet and Kenny Chesney creating a sonic recipe all his own to bring everyone to the metaphoric table. His father, Denroy Morgan, a Jamaican immigrant, helped form theBlack Eagles, New York’s first reggae group. He also organized several of his children into a reggae band with Gramps joining the appropriately titled Morgan Heritage. Morgan Heritage debuted at Jamaica’sReggae Sunsplash Festival in 1994 and signed a recording contract with MCARecords that same year. Their debut album, Miracles, featured Gramps on vocals and keyboards. In 2009, after fifteen years of touring and recording with Morgan Heritage, the band decided to pursue solo careers. Gramps’s first solo effort, 2 Sides of My Heart, Volume 1, came out that same year. It landed him on “Good Morning America” and on tour with India.Arie andJohn Legend. India.Arie invited Gramps to be the featured vocalist on her breezy2009 single “Therapy.” The song hit No. 22 on Billboard’s R&B and AdultContemporary charts and remains Gramps’ highest charting single. In addition to his solo career, Gramps continued to work with Morgan Heritage. The group's 2015 Strictly Roots topped the Reggae Music charts and earned a GRAMMY® Award in 2016 for Best Reggae Album. Morgan Heritage garnered two more GRAMMY® nominations: for 2017’s Avrakedabraand for feature vocals on Shaggy and Sting’s “44/876” (A&M Records, 2018). grampsmorgan.com
Cassadee Pope
Cassadee Pope is a GRAMMY-nominated, Platinum-certified singer-songwriter who released her ninth career album, Thrive on October 15, 2021. The album’s first single, “What the Stars See” was co-written by Cassadee and features Karen Fairchild (Little Big Town) and Lindsay Ell. Cassadee performed the track on The Kelly Clarkson Show. She wrote or co-wrote every song, blending influences from her pop-punk days fronting the band Hey Monday and her country music storytelling and songwriting. In 2020, she released her first acoustic solo album Rise and Shine, which was co-produced by Cassadee and Todd Lombardo. The collection of original songs followed her critically acclaimed album, Stages (2019) featuring hit singles “Take You Home,” “One More Red Light,” and “If My Heart Had a Heart.” From fronting Hey Monday to winning Season 3 of “The Voice” (2012) and releasing her No. 1 debut album Frame by Frame (2013), Cassadee has effortlessly re-arranged the lines of Country and Pop. Her Platinum-selling single “Wasting All These Tears” was awarded with “Breakthrough Video of the Year” at the 2014 CMT Music Awards and her No. 1 hit “Think of You” with Chris Young received a 2017 GRAMMY nomination for “Best Country Duo/Group.” Cassadee has performed on the TODAY show and has been featured in countless notable publications, including PEOPLE Magazine. She has toured extensively, joining legendary artists Tim McGraw and Dierks Bentley. She has played London’s iconic O2 Arena during C2C: Country to Country Festival, earned the distinction of the only Country artist to perform at 2018’s Warped Tour and joined Maren Morris on her GIRL: THE WORLD TOUR in 2019. Cassadee toured as the headliner of the “2019 CMT Next Women of Country Tour,” which brought the franchise outside of the U.S. for the first time. cassadeepope.com
Levi Hummon
Singer-songwriter Levi Hummon spent his 20s practicing his art, but his immersion into country music started much, much earlier: the day he was born. His father Marcus Hummon is one of Nashville’s most prolific GRAMMY-winning songwriters, having penned hits for The Chicks, Tim McGraw, Rascal Flatts and many more. Being raised by a songwriter and multi-instrumentalist meant that Hummon had master classes early and often, from the time his dad taught him his first three chords on the guitar, and he estimates that he wrote about a million songs with just those three chords. And now, with his viral Walker Hayes collaboration sensation “Paying for It” cementing his status as a rising country star, Hummon is just as at ease in a songwriting session as he is in the studio and on stage. His follow-up tune “Bottled Up” is one that Hummon says reveals more of who he is after a decade of honing his skills: a little countrier, with a roughness to his edges. levihummon.com
The Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp
The mission of the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp is to maximize the economic contribution of the convention and tourism industry to the community by developing and marketing Nashville as a premier destination. Visit the NCVC’s website at www.visitmusiccity.com and follow us on social media:
