The eighth season of Emmy Award-winning TrueSouth Presented by YellaWood rolls into Clinton, Ga. – where series writer and host John T. Edge grew up – on Tuesday, Sept. 2 at 8 p.m. ET. The series revolves around two food stories told from one place, which TrueSouth sets in conversation to make larger points about Southern beliefs and identities.

All episodes of TrueSouth are available on demand on SEC Network+ and ESPN+ immediately upon airing. Visit the TrueSouth website to follow the crew throughout the year.

Episode Summary
Edge began writing a memoir during the production of season three, when TrueSouth made an episode in Bowman, SC, birthplace of his mother. That episode focused on the power of family recipes, including his mother’s catfish stew. Edge’s memoir, House of Smoke: A Southerner Goes Searching for Home, publishes Sept. 16. To make episode one of season eight, director Tim Horgan and the crew document Edge’s return trips to Georgia to ask questions about home and belonging that are both personal and universal. Along the way, Edge reckons with his past, reconnects with old friends and revisits restaurants that his father loved.

Edge and his father ate chili-slaw dogs at Nu-Way Weiners in nearby Macon, Ga. Sitting on a stool, Edge gets to know customer Johnny Hollinghshed, who thinks about these restaurants as portals to his past, and Diana Bailey, a now-retired employee who made a good life for herself cooking and serving hotdogs.

Fresh Air Bar-B-Que near the town Jackson, Ga., was a place of pilgrimage for Edge and his father. Founded in 1929, it’s one of the oldest restaurants in Georgia. Brandt Furin, a fraternity brother from the University of Georgia, joins Edge here to eat barbecue sandwiches, Brunswick stew and coleslaw. As the lunch rush dies down, Edge talks with brothers George and David Barber who run Fresh Air today along with David’s son, Charles Barber.

Music for this episode was inspired, in part, by Clinton, Ga., where Edge was born, and Oxford, Miss., where Edge lives now. Mark Yacovone, a multi-instrumentalist from Oxford, composed three of the songs for this episode and led the band that performed them.

Advance press screeners of TrueSouth: Season Eight, Episode One are available upon request: [email protected]. 

About TrueSouth
TrueSouth is an Emmy Award-winning limited series on Southern food and culture, airing on SEC Network. John T. Edge, author of House of Smoke: A Southerner Goes Searching for Home, writes and hosts the show, which is executive produced by four-time New York Times best-selling author, ESPN senior writer Wright Thompson, and produced by Bluefoot Entertainment.

The series, now in its eighth season, revolves around two food stories told from one place, which TrueSouth sets in conversation to tell bigger stories about Southern beliefs and identities. This season’s featured places are Clinton, Ga.; Charleston, SC.; Jacksonville, Fla; and Ocean Springs, Miss. A special behind-the-scenes episode finishes out season 8. Seasons 1-7 of TrueSouth are available in their entirety on ESPN+.

Music plays an integral role in TrueSouth’s storytelling via in-episode performances and on-screen credits. The TrueSouth playlist on Spotify shares the full soundtrack of every season. A TrueSouth hub on SECSports.com offers a roster of places the crew has visited, along with a road trip planning feature.

About SEC Network
The Southeastern Conference and ESPN launched SEC Network on August 14, 2014. The network televises hundreds of games across the SEC’s 22 sports annually. Programming includes in-depth analysis and storytelling in studio shows such as SEC Nation, Marty & McGee, Read & React and Rally Cap, daily news and information with The Paul Finebaum Show and SEC Now, original content such as the Emmy Award-winning TrueSouth, SEC Storied and SEC Inside, and more. Hundreds of additional live events are available for streaming exclusively on SEC Network’s digital companion, SEC Network+, via the ESPN App and SECNetwork.com. Follow SEC Network on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook and Twitter/X.

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