Knoxville lawyer, musician does it all
Unapologetically Adams: Part 1
A well-known lawyer and businessman in west Knoxville, Adams has overseen Adams Law and Adams Title for the past 25 years. He also has written for CityView Magazine, developed a novel, served in the U.S. Navy Reserves
and, in 2014, even ran for U.S. Senate.
For most people, those obligations would leave too little time to do anything else — but not Adams.
Instead, the 50-year-old retreats to his studio, props up his boots and strums his guitar as an independent country artist whose work has generated international acclaim.
“It’s insane,” Adams said with a chuckle. “But it’s the way I’ve lived my whole life. You just do all you can, every single day — and then you wake up and do it again.”
Born into music
Growing up in Nashville, Adams did not go a day without listening to some form of music.
It was in his blood from the day he was born. His mother, Shirley Adams (Wood), penned Connie Smith’s 1967 hit song, “Cry, Cry, Cry,” and his paternal uncle owned the joint where Charlie Daniels made his country music debut.
“So in my mind, from the moment I can remember being alive, I thought I was a songwriter,” he said. “Because my mom was, and I thought that’s what you do. I didn’t know you had an option not to be a songwriter.”
A young Adams latched onto the idea, practicing with the red Harmony guitar he received at 12 years old.
He fancied Waylon Jennings like his parents, but he also followed their appreciation for The Beatles and Elvis Presley.
“Music was so ubiquitous in our family and household,” Adams recalled. “Blaring from the radio in our living room. It’s in your face, and there’s no escaping it. I liked all the stuff my parents liked.”
Adams would make up songs in class at school — but only years later did he consider performing his own material onstage.
Tall Paul
After enlisting in the Navy Reserves right out of high school, Adams went to boot camp to begin a career that remained with him through 1997.
His affair with performing began eight years earlier, though, during his freshman year at University of Tennessee.
One night, Adams found himself in “The Library” — a venue that, like many others along Cumberland Avenue, is now extinct.
Yet the spark that lit within Adams that night still burns today, as he watched a man known as “Tall Paul” entertain the audience.
“It was so crowded, and I’m just watching this dude,” Adams recalled. “He’s so charismatic, holding a room that should have been out of control in the palm of his hand. So I just went home, and I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do because there was nothing like that in Nashville. I had never seen a solo acoustic guy just blow you away.”
He returned home and called his mother, who was reluctant to lend Adams one of her prized guitars.
Once she relented, he learned to play by listening to Dwight Yoakim songs through the stereo — finding time when he wasn’t going to class or bartending at Chesapeake’s.
“I knew, when I saw Tall Paul, that I could do it,” Adams said. “Because to me, a band was a lot. And my whole life, I’ve had a lot going on and haven’t had much time.”
‘No epiphany’
That stuck with Adams through UT, where he starred in stage productions as a theater major.
After graduation, he ran political campaigns and kept his music going, making money performing gigs along Cumberland.
He transitioned from traditional covers, putting his own spin on hits in an effort to find his own sound.
“And I loved it,” Adams said. “But with the campaign side, I saw 50-year-old men doing the same job, praying another campaign would pop up, and I didn’t want to do that and hated where politics was heading. I didn’t want to live a life around that stuff.”
As Adams neared 30, he faced a choice of whether to return to Nashville and go all-in on his musical career.
But he had also just applied to law school — one of 100 things on his bucket list — and the admission all but secured his next steps.
“There was no epiphany,” he said. “I had talked to a couple songwriters I was friends with, and they reminded me I wasn’t giving up anything by going.”
See Part II in next week’s farragutpress for more on Terry Adams’ journey as a businessman and musician.
