AFM Local 257 sets 24 September for the concert For Those We Lost IV

For Those We Lost IV, the fourth edition of the Nashville Musicians Association's tribute night, has a date and a room. AFM Local 257 will hold it on 24 September at 3rd and Lindsley, built around the lives and the music of seven songwriters, artists and players from the local who have died in the past two years.

The seven being remembered are Kris Kristofferson, Don Schlitz, Ronnie Bowman, Craig Krampf, Wayne Moss, Jerry Kennedy and David Briggs. Between them they wrote, played on and produced a very large amount of what Nashville sent out into the world, much of it without their names ever reaching a sleeve a casual listener would read.

Their songs are being taken back to a stage by John Berry, Suzy Bogguss, Linda Davis, The McCrary Sisters, Jonell Mosser and Sweethearts of the Rodeo, with more performers still to be announced. That is a bill assembled from the same working community the night is about, which is rather the point of a union running it.

A live auction runs with the concert, and the lots are the sort of thing only a room like this produces. A Toby Keith signed drumhead framed with a photograph and a stage pass from his final Las Vegas performance. A Fender signed by The Oak Ridge Boys, The Gatlin Brothers and Marty Raybon. An Epiphone signed by Ted Nugent. A framed drumhead signed by Chester Thompson of Weather Report and Genesis. An original Nancy Spurlock painting of Willie Nelson, a Gibson Les Paul Standard and a guitar autographed by Trace Adkins. More items were still arriving when the announcement went out, and bidding opens online a few days before the show.

Every dollar raised goes to the Local 257 Funeral Benefit Fund, which paid out $139,500 to members' beneficiaries during 2025. That figure is the plainest statement of what the night is for: this is a working musicians' union covering the cost of burying its own.

Dave Pomeroy, the president of Local 257, called it a chance for fans to spend an evening with good artists, timeless songs and a strong auction, all in service of a cause he described as thoroughly worthwhile. For a country town that runs on session players, the fund is a piece of infrastructure rather than a gesture.