Indiana Settles With Stage Collapse Victims

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The victims of the Indiana State Fair tragedy are being compensated. All but one of 65 claimants accepted the state’s settlement offer, according to WTHR in Indianapolis. This includes the estates of seven people who died at the Aug. 13 Sugarland concert when high winds caused the stage to collapse.

The state is paying out $5 million total to the victims, the maximum under Indiana law. The estates of the deceased will receive more than $300,000 each, and the remainder will be divided among the other victims.

Fair officials raised and distributed an additional $800,000 in donations for the victims.

Sugarland returned to Indianapolis Oct. 28 for a free concert at Conseco Fieldhouse to raise money for victims.

Other lawsuits stemming from the tragedy are ongoing.

Snapshots (12/20/11)

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The boys of Montgomery Gentry wrapped up a successful year last Thursday (Dec. 15) with a concert in conjunction with WPOC/Baltimore, MD. The event raised over $13,000 for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

(L-R): Eddie Montgomery, WPOC Program Director Justin Cole and Troy Gentry.

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The first ladies pitch group gathered at Black River Music Group for a pitching session on December 14. The young professional song pluggers had a chance to bring songs to the label’s Doug Johnson and artist Sarah Darling.

(L-R) Back: Janine Appelton, Kimberly June, Cynthia Anderson, Meghan Galbraith, Casey Le’Vasseur, Emily Schiraldi, Carrie Gallo, Missy Wilson; Front: Celia Froehlig, Brooke Arrington, Penny Lou Everhard, Lisa Johnson, Laura Wright, Natalie Harker, Sarah Darling, Doug Johnson

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Chris Cagle recently released the video for his current single “Got My Country On,” which was directed by Marcel. The clip explores both the “rocker” and “rancher” aspects of Cagle’s personality, and was filmed both at the Cagle ranch in Marietta, OK as well as Billy Bob’s Forth Worth.

Chris Cagle (R) performs at Billy Bob's Fort Worth for the "Got My Country On" video.

RIAA Issues Country Certifications

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Released Sept. 13, Lady A's latest album has been certified Platinum.

The RIAA recently issued certifications for Lady Antebellum, Eric Church, Brad Paisley/Carrie Underwood, and Taylor Swift.

Lady A’s Capitol Nashville album Own the Night was certified Platinum for shipments of one million units.

Labelmate Church secured Gold certification for his album Chief.

On the digital singles front, the Paisley/Underwood duet “Remind Me” earned Platinum sales, and Swift’s “Jump Then Fall” was certified Gold.

Sony Adds Assoc. Dir., Artist Development/Marketing

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Sony Music Nashville VP Artist Development/Marketing & Web Initiatives Heather McBee announced that Rachel Fontenot has joined Sony Music Nashville as Associate Director, Artist Development/Marketing. She’s already working in her new role, where she reports to McBee.

“Rachel brings a great deal of artist development experience and knowledge about the artists she’s now working,” says McBee. “We are very excited she’s a part of the team and have immediately felt her contribution to our company’s artist marketing activities.”

In this role, Fontenot will provide support in the development and execution of strategic and tactical marketing campaigns for her assigned artists in collaboration with promotion, media, creative, and sales departments. She will also facilitate international marketing efforts for the entire Sony Music Nashville roster.

A native of New Orleans, LA, Fontenot graduated with a Music Business degree from Middle Tennessee State University, where she minored in Marketing and Mass Communications. Congratulate her here.

Digitally Thinking: Albums Sales, Ringtones and stretchy silicon

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>>> Sometimes a great tech idea is so easy to understand that everyone wants to join the party. TouchFire, a stretchy silicon keyboard that sits atop the iPad’s horizontal on-screen keyboard is such a concept. Seattle-based software designer Steve Isaac put the idea on Kickstarter and raised over $200k, more than 20 times what he had hoped. The first run of the product will go to Kickstarter backers. “It sure makes us feel very good about the potential for this project and the demand for this project,” Isaac told AP.

>>> Digital Music News writes that reports of the death of ringtones have been greatly exaggerated. In fact the online industry news outlet quotes Gartner Research who says that ringtone revenues are still four times larger than the combined revenues from all the subscription services such as Spotify, Rhapsody, Rdio, MOG and all others. The worldwide online music revenue numbers play out with subscription services getting 8.4% of the pie; download services earning 57.3% and ringtones grabbing 34.3%. Total worldwide online music revenue for 2011 equals about $6.34 billion.

>>The Nielsen SoundScan music sales reports come out on Wed. mornings and measure the week which ends the previous Sunday. If you are simply unable to wait, you can click over to HitsDailyDouble.com and view its Album Sales Chart which is usually ‘final’ early Tuesday. Although the numbers may not be precisely the same as SS, they are usually close. With that in mind, it appears that tomorrow’s SS report will show the largest single week country album sales of the year. According to HDD, Lady A’s Own The Night is the highest selling country album with over 80k units. Scotty McCreery follows with about 67,000 units. Jason Aldean‘s My Kinda Party and Taylor Swift’s World Tour Live offering are in the next two positions with around 48,000 each. Stay tuned… we’ll have a complete report tomorrow, including how close we are to reaching last year’s sales totals.

Hays Joins Franklin Theatre

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New Franklin Theater Director Dan Hays.

The Board of Directors of the Heritage Foundation of Franklin and Williamson County today announced that Dan Hays will become the new Director for the Franklin Theatre. Hays previously headed the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) since 1990 and is expected to initially split his time between the two entities until early 2012 when a new IBMA leader is in place.

The Franklin Theatre recently enjoyed an $8 million renovation. Since its re-opening, the 300 seat venue has hosted a diverse musical lineup including Sheryl Crow, Michael McDonald, The Judds, Keb’ Mo’ and Sam Bush, plus sold out every show in its Franklin Theatre Live concert series.

Heritage Foundation President Cyril Stewart said the four-month executive search process was purposely intensive. “We owed it to our community to be very deliberate about finding the right person to lead the Franklin Theatre,” Stewart said. “We feel strongly that Dan Hays is the ideal choice and the theatre will build on its already phenomenal trajectory under his leadership.”

Heritage Foundation Executive Director Mary Pearce said, “Dan has tremendous nonprofit management experience and a wealth of contacts in the music industry. He has proven his dedication to music and truly understands and appreciates the fabric of this community and all the Franklin Theatre is and can be.”

During Hay’s IBMA tenure, the organization developed from an association in its infancy to an influential music industry player. IBMA Board Chair Stan Zdonik said, “IBMA will sorely miss Dan. In his 21 years, IBMA has grown into a multifaceted resource for the bluegrass community. He approached the work of the organization with vigor and integrity and we were all the better for it. Speaking for the IBMA Board, we wish Dan all the best in his new position.”

“I am honored and look forward to joining the extraordinary staff at the Franklin Theatre,” Hays said. “This intimate historic Theatre is bursting with promise and is a vibrant cultural asset for our community and the talents we present.”

For more information on the Franklin Theater originally built in 1937 visit www.franklintheatre.com.

Herring Exits Skyville

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Skyville Records President Kevin Herring has exited his position with the label, which he joined in January 2011.

His career includes over 20 years experience in radio and promotion, with tenures at Mercury Records and over a decade with the Walt Disney Company’s Lyric Street Records. His work has been integral in the breakout success of some of country’s biggest names, including Rascal Flatts, Shania Twain, and Toby Keith.

ACAs Boost Track Sales

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The American Country Awards, which aired December 5 on Fox, had plenty of outstanding musical moments. In addition to format superstars like Toby Keith, newer faces like Pistol Annies and Thompson Square also had the big platform to expose them to new audiences. Tracking the show’s effect on music sales isn’t clear-cut because the show aired the week after Black Friday and the opening of holiday shopping season.

According to Nielsen SoundScan data from the week ending Dec. 11, album sales were up nearly 16% across the board, likely due to increased holiday spending.

Fletcher Foster

MusicRow spoke with one of ACA’s producers, industry vet Fletcher Foster, who says the show’s impact can be more directly felt with regard to individual tracks, rather than in albums. “I went specifically back to tracks people performed on the show to see if there was a correlation,” says Foster. “You saw the huge sales from Toby. From the tracks standpoint, everybody who performed did well.”

According to SoundScan, digital sales of ACA show closer (and Artist of the Decade) Toby Keith’s “Red Solo Cup” were up 90% for a total of 96k units. Other performers also experienced increased digital track activity: Pistol Annies’ “Hell On Heels” was up 168% to more than 15k units, with very little radio support. Following Chris Young’s performance of “Voices,” the track had a 211% jump. Similarly, Thompson Square performed “Are You Gonna Kiss Me Or Not” on the telecast and it experienced a 140% sales increase despite it not being the current single.

One aspect in which the ACA show stands out from the rest is its commitment to giving new artists a chance to play. Last year The Band Perry had one of its first big performances on the show, right on the cusp of that group’s chart dominance. This year the group returned with a triumphant and memorable run through “All Your Life.”

“We wanted to be the show that can help break acts,” explains Foster. “Last year we had The Band Perry, and they’d just gotten a Grammy nomination the week before. This year Eli Young Band, Pistol Annies, some really cool acts, got opportunities they maybe wouldn’t get on other shows. As long as you can have those acts that really drive viewership [like Blake Shelton], then you can have some fun and really develop other acts too.”

It’s a trend the show’s producers plan to maintain, to hopefully serve as a bridge in the space between the CMA Awards and the Grammys. With the ACA ratings improved over last year’s inaugural show, network home Fox is pleased with the results and Foster feels optimistic about its future.

“We’ve found more of a balance to give people a really great platform to have their talent exposed,” says Foster. “We’ll look at it again next year, but Fox was really happy—not just with ratings—but the balance of awards and performers.”

And importantly, country music seems to have found an ally in Fox. Its presence can be felt through music heavy shows like American Idol, and the network may have access to a younger-skewing demographic still eager to seek and discover new music.

“It’s definitely a record-buying music-driven network,” remarks Foster. “They have brought music to the forefront and hopefully we can take advantage of that for country.”

Nashville’s Venture Capital Market Buzzing

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Nicholas Holland

Nashville is enjoying a rash of year-end venture capital deals. The latest two, Populr.me and ArtistGrowth.com, have two music industry names in common, Joe Galante and Mark Montgomery who are part of the investment teams in both ventures.

Populr.me
According to Venturenashville.com, Populr.com is a service that helps small businesses easily create one-page web sites with unique web addresses to better take advantage new digital marketing tools like Groupon. Steering the company is entrepreneur Nicholas Holland who has placed day-to-day control of his company, CentreSource under newly named CEO Evan Owens. The deal between Populr and Nashville’s Bullpen Ventures, closed on Dec. 16. Holland received $25k in capital and a place at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center (NEC) table. In return, Bullpen receives 12% equity in the new company and NEC gets 15% of Bullpen’s share in return for its support role. Bullpen partners include Stuart McWhorter, John Ingram, Joe Galante, Steve Turner and Mark Montgomery. NEC is under the leadership of CEO Michael Burcham.

Artist Growth
This music service is aimed at providing online tools for DIY musicians for career management. The product was created by Matt Urmy and Jonathan Sexton, both Nashville-based musican-turned entrepreneur. According to an invite for the site’s mid-Jan. coming out announcement, ArtistGrowth.com’s proprietary technology integrates finances, calendars, inventory, contacts, social media and mentoring resources within a single interface. Among the named early stage investors are former Sony Records Chairman Joe Galante, echomusic founder Mark Montgomery and Moontoast founder Joe Glaser. The video below features the founders and investors discussing the new software. It’s about “Empowering artists to participate in the business side of music without being too distracted from their creativity,” says Urmy. Included is AGtv which is a series of tutorials from industry pros on a variety of subjects. There is also a vast industry contact database for media, and other contacts. “It’s the record business in a box,” adds Galante.

Brad Paisley, Zac Brown Eye Oscar Noms

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Songs written by Zac Brown and Brad Paisley are among a pool of potential Oscar nominees for Best Original Song.

Brown, Wyatt Durrette, Drew Pearson and Anne Preven penned “Where the River Goes” for the Footloose soundtrack. Brown also recorded the song for the project.

Paisley teamed with British pop star Robbie Williams to write and record “Collision of Worlds” for the Cars 2 soundtrack.

There are 39 contenders vying for the final nominations for Best Original Song, which will be determined by voting members of the music branch in Los Angeles on Jan. 5. More on that process from the LA Times. Nominees will be revealed Jan. 24 and the Oscars will be presented Feb. 26.

“Where The River Goes” also recently scored a Grammy nomination for Best Song Written For Visual Media. The Grammys will air live Feb. 12 on CBS.