Terry Adams has found a way to couple his day job with his passion for playing
You might know Terry Adams by his day job in Knoxville. He’s spent the last 20 years working as a lawyer and business owner. But what you might not know is that Terry is also a musician—and a pretty great one at that.
While Terry has been in Knoxville for years, his connections to Nashville run deep—and so do his musical connections there. “My mother was a singer-songwriter and she traveled internationally,” Terry tells me one afternoon. “She played with a lot of people back in the 60s and 70s, folks you all know like Tammy Wynette, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, and Kris Kristofferson.” His mom would eventually meet his father at the bar that he owned in Nashville called the Driftwood where she had gone to get a gig as the house band. The two hit it off.
Terry can’t remember a time without music, he tells me, and the bigger moments stick with him. “I remember one of the early memories of hearing one of my mom’s songs being played on the radio as a child,” he says. “It impressed me and it was kind of jarring.”
As a youth, knowing his mom was a songwriter made him feel like he was one, too. “The kids at my lunch table would get me to make up songs about whatever we were eating,” he says. Lyrics and melodies would just come easily to him.
During his time in the U.S. Navy, Terry spent time playing music and singing in bars and songwriter rooms in Music City. And while his dream was to keep that going as a career, he knew firsthand how challenging that would be. Those gigs at bars and songwriter rooms would actually help him pay for law school in Memphis after attending UT in Knoxville. Music, however, would forever stay a constant.
Today, Terry keeps the music going in his life. His six singles, songs like “Don’t Cry Mama” and “Tennessee Tuff,” speak to hard times and beautiful moments of life. An additional six songs will be released later this summer. You can find Terry performing at a variety of venues in Knoxville and Nashville this summer. Stay updated on his music at terryglenadams.com.