Brumley Publishing Signs Jill King

Artist/songwriter Jill King has signed an exclusive publishing deal with the Brumley Music Group. King, who enjoyed indie success with her 2003 single, “One Mississippi,” is currently touring in support of her latest release, Rain on Fire.

(standing l-r) John Leal of Brace Management, BMI’s Bradley Collins, and Terence Burke, Creative Manager, Brumley Music Group. (seated l-r) Brumley Music President Bob Brumley, King, and Dave Durocher, VP Brumley Music Group.

Swift’s “Fearless” Follow-Up Coming Oct. 25

Taylor Swift’s third studio album Speak Now will be released Oct. 25 via Big Machine. Fans will get the first taste of the project when lead single “Mine” debuts on August 16. The superstar revealed these details and more during a live web chat this afternoon (7/20).

Known for writing or co-writing her own material, Swift said she spent about two years writing for the new project, basically since the release of Fearless. The title, she said, “pertains to the album as a concept, and as an entire theme of the record, more than I can even tell you.”

“Thankfully, in the past two years I’ve experienced a lot of things that I’ve been dying to write about,” she explained. “A lot of things that I’ve wanted to say in the moment that I didn’t… Track by track, each song is a different confession to a different person.”

Starting on August 20th, Speak Now will be available for special pre-sale on the site www.SpeakNow13.com.

Swift reunited with longtime producer Nathan Chapman for the album.

Josh Gracin

“Cover Girl”

Average Joes Entertainment

“I want to sing. I want to write. I want to produce. I want to put myself on the chopping block,” admits Josh Gracin, newly signed to hot independent label Average Joes Entertainment. Signing with an indie has allowed the singer to grow and challenge himself while still providing an outlet for his product. Gracin’s first single for Average Joes is “Cover Girl,” and it’s going for adds August 2.

Gracin has been hard at work on his new album, which he co-produced with his drummer Kevin Murphy and recorded with his road band. “We aimed to paint that picture and give it a feel that everything is in the room with you,” he says. “I love those guys and I love having them on the record. The band was able to live with the songs and given the artistic freedom to bring in their interpretation to the music.”

The Michigan native won the hearts and ears of America after he auditioned for season two of American Idol while serving in the Marine Corps. Following his fourth place finish on Idol and the completion of his military service, Gracin signed with Lyric Street Records and released his self-titled debut album in June 2004. The album was RIAA-certified gold and spawned three top five singles—“I Want to Live,” “Stay With Me (Brass Bed),” and the No. 1 hit “Nothin’ to Lose.”

http://www.joshgracin.com/
http://www.myspace.com/joshgracin

[wpaudio url=”https://musicrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/jshgrcn-cvrgrl.mp3″ text=”Josh Gracin – Cover Girl” dl=”0″ autoplay=”1″]

Top Earners: Kenny Chesney And Toby Keith

L-R: Chesney, Keith

Forbes’ just released list of Top-Earning Musicians includes Kenny Chesney and Toby Keith from the country set. Chesney ranked No. 9 on the Top 10 list, by bringing in $50 million between June 2009 and June 2010. Like most of the other top money makers, a significant portion of his earnings came from the box office, where he raked in about $1.6 million per show, according to the magazine. He also scored with Mastercard and Corona sponsorships.

Keith came in at No. 10 with $48 million for the 12-month period. He too made big bucks on the road, as well as through his restaurant chain, and publishing royalties. Forbes asked his manager, T.K. Kimbrell, how serious is Keith about making money? Kimbrell’s answer: “You’d get a severe head injury dropping a nickel around him.”

Leading the superstar tally is U2, who netted an estimated $130 million, followed by AC/DC ($114 million), No. 3 Beyonce ($87 million), No. 4 Bruce Springsteen ($70 million) and No. 5 Britney Spears ($64 million). Full story here.

The New Normal: Recalibrating The Sales Compass

Bill Kennedy

Country’s half year sales were punctuated by a strong selling sophomore album from Lady Antebellum, but little else emerged to boost industry coffers according to Nielsen SoundScan. One week into the second half of 2010 finds country tallies down 9.5% YTD and drooping like a wilted sunflower. Some optimism is starting to appear however, as the year-end release schedule begins to swell with upcoming superstar entries from artists such as Zac Brown Band, Taylor Swift, Sugarland, Kenny Chesney, Toby Keith and more. The sales story for 2010 is clearly far from over. But with prices dropping and margins shrinking how do we really determine where we are? What about revenue? To help calibrate our compass we contacted Show Dog-Universal veteran and VP Marketing Sales and New Media, Bill Kennedy.

“There are a lot of different revenue sources these days,” says Kennedy. “Physical sales plus the digital album—which in my opinion still has a lot of growth in it for our format. Single downloads may have leveled off in terms of volume, but on the revenue side we have a modestly higher price point that does add up over time. We also have revenue coming in from streaming that we really didn’t have before, and revenue from video downloads which show modest increases. Maybe instead of going for the three run homer you have to play ‘little ball’ and do it a bit differently.”

Kennedy sees single sales at least mitigating some of the losses from album unit sales for some artists. “This revenue model has been changing for the past five years,” Kennedy continues, “so it’s hard to compare just on a per unit CD cost. We have certain tracks and artists in our format that can sell 2 million downloads, and that adds up. It may be invisible revenue to some, but not for the labels, especially when you sell 500k singles or more.”

Kennedy is realistic, but sees some upside on the horizon. “There may actually be a slight increase in overall units sold this year due to all the big titles scheduled to appear, so we’ll see,” he says. “We are operating under a new normal since October 2008 when the market started to implode. It will continue to be a struggle and you will have to grind it out and hope your artist can hit one out of the park and get a career song. Bottom line you have to work a lot smarter and extract the unnecessary costs.”

One reassuring new development is seeing single sales jump ahead of country radio. “With Joe Nichols’ ‘Gimme That Girl’ we had single sales topping 20-25k per week while the single was hovering in the 20s at country radio,” Kennedy recalls. “We are also seeing it with some of the newer acts like Jerrod Neimann and Jaron And The Long Road to Love. Our fans are engaging the viral world where you can spread the word, network and get to the fans directly long before the song happens via radio. You still need country radio in our format to put it over the top, but you have the opportunity to get there a lot quicker than ever before.”

Greene Becomes Pres./Owner of Modern Mgmt.

Ted Greene

Modern Management partner Ted Greene has taken over as President/Owner of the firm which represents Josh Turner, Diamond Rio, Raquel Warchol and NASCAR Nationwide Series Driver Willie Allen.

Brenner McDonald, a partner in the company since its 2002 inception, has sold her interest in Modern Management. She can be contacted at brenner.mcdonald@comcast.net or (615) 594-3550.

Songwriters In New York, Napa, Nashville

Singer/songwriter James Otto, songwriters Robert Ellis Orrall and Chris Wallin, and host/songwriter Bob DiPiero hang out backstage between two sold-out shows of the “CMA Songwriters Series” at Joe’s Pub in New York City last Thursday, July 15. The popular series, which showcases many of Nashville’s top songwriters, will continue at Joe’s Pub on Sept. 8 when Jamey Johnson, Buddy Cannon, and Bobby Pinson join DiPiero on stage.

Pictured (L-R): Robert Ellis Orrall, James Otto, Chris Wallin, and Bob DiPiero. Photo Credit: 2010, Kyle Quigley/CMA

•••••••••••••••••

Another group of songwriters is headed to Napa Valley, California for the annual Nashville In Napa event at Baldacci Family Vineyards. Tony Lane, Jessi Alexander, Jon Randall, Jim “Moose” Brown, Brett Jones and Don Sampson will perform at the Aug. 14 event. Proceeds will go to provide music education for school-aged children. The Notes for Education charity was founded when producer/songwriter Frank Rogers and winemaker Debi Cali began to see the similarities between their industries.

••••••••

The Loveless Cafe will host the  Rock Away the Blues family festival and concert at the Loveless Barn on Thursday, July 29 from 4 p.m. until midnight. The free event will feature Starship with Mickey Thomas, Jimmy Hall and more.

The family festival will take place from 4 -7 p.m. and the concert from 7 p.m. – midnight. The event’s goal is to aid local flood victims, particularly children, with free entertainment, new toys and school supplies to replace those lost in the flood.

The event plans to be an annual one and is sponsored by Leap Frog and Freshii, a new healthy fast food restaurant coming to Nashville in August. Attendees who were not affected by the flood are asked to bring a new packaged toy or school supplies.

Jerrod’s Release Party; Jaron On “Tonight Show”

Over 400 fans packed Knoxville’s Tin Roof last week for Jerrod Niemann’s CD release party. He performed for two hours, followed by a marathon two-and-a-half hour CD signing session. More than 550 copies of his new album Judge Jerrod & The Hung Jury were sold that night.

Staying up late for Niemann's album release party were (l-r): Arista Nashville Regional Promo Manager R.J. Curtis and Director of Nat’l Promotion Lesly Tyson, Niemann, and WIVK Knoxville programmer Mike Hammond.

Jaron recently visited Hazel Smith for a taping of CMT's Southern Fried Flicks.

••••••••••

Jaron of Jaron And The Long Road To Love will perform his hit single “Pray For You” on Tuesday, July 27 on NBC’s The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The single is now seeing success beyond the US, and has become a hit in Canada and Australia.

••••••••

Chuck Wicks will be representing Nashville as the sole country artist performing at the Los Angeles Chapter GRAMMY Block Party on July 31, a celebration of music that will also serve as a fundraiser for the MusiCares Nashville Flood Relief Fund.

••••••••
Bridgette Tatum will perform at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway this weekend at the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series’ Brickyard 400.

••••••••

Christian Kane performed his song “Thinking of You” on the Sunday, July 18 episode of the hit TNT series Leverage, in which he stars as “Eliot Spencer.” Next month Kane will release his first single “The House Rules,” which he co-wrote with Blair Daly. The single is from his forthcoming full-length album due out in October.

Warner Continues Pickin’ On The Patio

Jesse Lee

Warner Music Nashville is gearing up for this month’s Pickin’ On The Patio party (industry-only) on Thursday, July 22.

The event starts at 5:00 PM and will feature performances by Atlantic Records newcomers Brett Eldredge and Jesse Lee.

The label is hosting Pickin’ On The Patio at its Music Row offices on the fourth Thursday of every month, from May to October. Next month’s party is set for August 26.

Brett Eldredge

Exclusive Premieres From The Grascals, Amy Grant

The video for The Grascals’ version of the Monkees’ ’60s pop smash, “The Last Train To Clarksville,” premiered worldwide on AOL Music / The Boot yesterday (7/19), marking the first time the website has debuted a bluegrass video. Directed by Marcel Chagnon, who also recently shot Clay Walker’s “She Won’t Be Lonely Long,” the video was taped at several Nashville locations in late June. The lead single from The Grascals’ newest CD, The Famous Lefty Flynn’s, is already a hit on the bluegrass charts and shipped to country radio in June.

••••••••••••••
The newest music video from six-time Grammy winner Amy Grant, “Better Than A Hallelujah,” will premiere exclusively online at Ladies’ Home Journal’s website LHJ.com today (7/20). LHJ.com will also run an interview with Grant to coincide with the video’s premiere. The song “Better Than A Hallelujah” comes from Grant’s acclaimed March release titled Somewhere Down the Road. It is her first new, non-holiday music in seven years.