Songwriter Liz Anderson Passes

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Songwriter and singer Liz Anderson passed away Oct. 31 at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville. She was 81 and died of complications of heart and lung disease. As a co-founder of the Nashville Songwriters Association International alongside husband Casey, Liz made inroads for other female songwriters of her day.

She wrote Merle Haggard’s breakthrough hit “(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers,” which inspired the name of his band The Strangers. She also penned his first No. 1, “The Fugitive.” This two-time Grammy nominee also penned hits for Charley Pride, Brenda Lee, Tammy Wynette, Ernest Tubb, Loretta Lynn, George Jones, Waylon Jennings, Kitty Wells, Conway Twitty, Del Reeves, and her daughter, Grammy winner Lynn Anderson.

Chet Atkins signed Liz to RCA where she had string of hits produced by Felton Jarvis, who also produced label mate Elvis Presley. They included “Husband Hunting,” “Go Now, Pay Later,” and “The Game of Triangles” with Bobby Bare and Norma Jean. Liz and Lynn also had a Top 25 hit with “Mother May I” in 1968 and appeared on the Mother’s Day edition of the Lawrence Welk Show.

Liz is survived by her loving, co-writing husband of 65 years Casey, daughter Lynn, three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.

Visitation will be Fri., Nov. 4 from 5 – 7 PM at Woodlawn-Roesch-Patton Funeral Home (660 Thompson Lane, Nashville, TN, 615-383-4754).

Funeral arrangements are set for 11:30 AM on Sat., Nov. 5 at Woodlawn-Roesch-Patton.

Flowers are welcome, but her family asked that donations may be directed to the NSAI Legislative fund (1710 Roy Acuff Place, Nashville, TN 37203), www.nashvillesongwriters.com or (615) 256-3354.

Willie Nelson Sings The Classics

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Here’s an idea that just makes sense: a country icon performing an album’s worth of iconic country songs.

Luckily the idea is now a reality thanks to Willie Nelson, whose Remember Me, Vol. 1 is due for release Nov. 21 and features the legend tackling country classics from the top Billboard hits of the last 70 years. Included in the collection are Nelson’s take on hits made famous by Ernest Tubb, George Jones, Merle Haggard, Kris Kristofferson, Porter Wagoner, Ray Price, and more. Full tracklist with original artist is included below.

Remember Me, Vol. 1 was recorded with Nelson’s friend and producer James Stroud, along with A-list session players Eddie Bayers, David Hungate, Brent Mason, Biff Watson, Mickey Raphael, Sonny Garrish, John Hobbs, Aubrey Haynie, Wes Hightower and Cindy Walker. A second volume is expected in 2012.

Remember Me, Vol. 1 Tracklist:
1. Remember Me (Ernest Tubb)
2. Sixteen Tons (Tennessee Ernie Ford)
3. Why Baby Why (George Jones)
4. Today I Started Loving You Again (Merle Haggard)
5. I’m Movin’ On (Hank Snow)
6. That Just About Does It (Vern Gosdin)
7. This Old House (Rosemary Clooney)
8. Sunday Morning Coming Down (Johnny Cash)
9. Smoke That Cigarette (Tex Williams)
10. Slowly (Webb Pierce)
11. A Satisfied Mind (Porter Wagoner)
12. Roly Poly (Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys)
13. Release Me (Ray Price)
14. Ramblin’ Fever (Merle Haggard)
*15. More And More (Webb Pierce) *iTunes exclusive

Tuesday Photos

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Museum Celebrates Southern Rock

The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum recently (10/29) hosted Brothers & Sisters: The Rise of Southern Rock, a panel discussion with Bonnie Bramlett of Delaney & Bonnie, Charlie Daniels of the Charlie Daniels Band, Mike Hyland of Capricorn Records and Ed King of Lynyrd Skynyrd. The panel was offered in support of the Family Tradition: The Williams Family Legacy exhibition. The panel discussed combining blues, country, rock, and soul into a distinctly southern sound wholly different than the rock & roll created in other regions—a sound that influenced Hank Williams Jr. and much of country music since the 1980s. (L-R): Museum Writer/Editor Michael McCall, Daniels, Bramlett, Hyland and King.

Photo: Donn Jones

Savannah Music Group Records Hits

Savannah Music Group spent the day recently at Jim “Moose” Brown’s Moose Lodge Studio cutting a batch of future hits. (L-R): Daisy Dern, Bob Saporiti, Kevin “Swine” Grantt and Dave Gibson.

Photo: Denise Fussell, Fussell Graphics

Nashville Rock News: Kings of Leon, Hot Chelle Rae, The Black Keys

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Followills and family in new documentary Talihina Sky.

• The Kings of Leon documentary Talihina Sky is out on DVD, Blu Ray and iTunes today. The film traces the Followills’ past and present, through tour footage, home movies and more. It premiered on Showtime over the summer. See trailer below.

• Hot Chelle Rae has a new album hitting shelves Nov. 29. Whatever, the Nashville-based pop/rock band’s sophomore album is coming via RCA Records. Lead single “I Like It Like That,” includes a rap from New Boyz.

HCR is nominated for best new artist at the upcoming American Music Awards, and has lined-up appearances on Jay Leno, Today, Jimmy Fallon and Regis and Kelly. A headlining tour is on the schedule for early next year, as well as joining Taylor Swift on her Australian run in March.

HCR’s breakthrough song “Tonight, Tonight” has sold double platinum downloads.

• Nashville transplants The Black Keys have a new album coming out Dec. 6. El Camino is the duo’s first project recorded at frontman Dan Auerbach’s local Easy Eye Sound studio, and was co-produced by Danger Mouse. It is set to hit stores Dec. 6 on Nonesuch. Fans who pre-order the album now receive a free download of single “Lonely Boy.” Drummer Pat Carney is the other half of The Black Keys.

Tuesday Tips: Hunter Hayes, Jimmy Wayne and Thompson Entertainment

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Hunter Hayes has joined the Milk Rocks! campaign and will be featured on over 25 million milk containers in schools across the U.S. until Dec. 9. The Milk Rocks! Program promotes healthy lifestyles and nutrition with milk as the focus. They utilize milk carton side panels, lunchroom posters, and online initiatives to communicate their messages. Students can log on to www.milkrocks.com for a chance to win a “Day in the Studio” with Hunter. Hunter, is currently on his first headlining tour, “Most Wanted” Fall Tour 2011 and recently kicked-off the release of his self-titled Atlantic Records debut album.

>>Artist Jimmy Wayne will release Paper Angels on Nov. 1. The work of fiction is the artist’s first book and was written with author Travis Thrasher. “When my sister and I were kids, we were represented by two of those little paper angels hanging on the Salvation Army Christmas tree,” Jimmy said. “Our family was going through a really tough time, and had it not been for the Salvation Army and the people who selected our paper angels, we wouldn’t have had a Christmas. I have never forgotten that and to this day I am still grateful for the generous hearts who take care of these kids at Christmas.” Paper Angels is released on Howard Books an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

>>Nashville based Thompson Entertainment Group has moved to new offices located at 924 Deervale Drive Nashville, TN 37217. All email addresses and telephone numbers remain the same. Publicity Assistant Megan Burns can be reached at media@thompsonentertainmentgroup.com. President Chuck Thompson can be contacted at cthompson@thompsonentertainmentgroup.com

 

ACM Announces New Officers and Board

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The Academy of Country Music has announced its new officers and Board of Directors for the 2011-2012 term.

2011-2012 Academy of Country Music Board of Directors:
Chairman of the Board: Sarah Trahern, Great American Country
President: Butch Waugh
Vice-President: Ken Robold, Universal Music Group
Treasurer: Duane Clark, FBMM
Parliamentarian: Paul Moore, WME
Secretary: Tiffany Moon, Academy of Country Music

Six qualifying professional categories (listed below) are elected to the Board by the Academy’s membership. In addition to the elected, director-at-large positions have been selected by Trahern, Waugh, and Robold. Directors elected from each category are based on that category’s membership numbers. Each director serves staggered two-year terms, with half the board membership changing each year.

“The officers and the Board look forward to continued day-to-day involvement in the operations of the Academy,” said Trahern. “We’re delighted to have the commitment from so many industry leaders to help achieve the ongoing goals of the Academy and to sustain our ability to stay ahead of trends in country music.”

Elected Board Members

Affiliated
Tony Brown, TBE
Gary Haber, Haber Corporation

Artist/Entertainer/MBI
Craig Morgan
John Rich
Blake Shelton

Club/Casino/Venue Operator
Roger Gearhart, Graham Bros Entertainment

Manager
Robert Allen, 13 Management
Ken Levitan, Vector Management

Music Publisher
Pat Higdon, Universal Music Publishing

Record Company
Tom Baldrica, Average Joe’s Entertainment
Paul Barnabee, Sony Music Nashville
John Esposito, Warner Music Nashville
Jon Loba, BBR & Stoney Creek Records

Directors At Large

Scott Borchetta, Big Machine Records/The Valory Music Co.
Benson Curb, Curb Records
John Dennis, Dennis Entertainment
Marc Driskill, ASCAP
Pete Fisher, Grand Ole Opry
Jeff Garrison, CBS Radio
Brandon Gill, Morris Artists Management
T.K. Kimbrell, T.K.O. Artist Management
Jay Liepis, iTunes
Greg McCarn, Black River Entertainment
Doc McGhee, McGhee Entertainment
Kimberly Perry
Fran Romeo, Romeo Entertainment Group
Ray Sliva, Best Buy
Ben Vaughn, EMI Music Publishing
Ed Warm, Joe’s Bar

Australia Attracts Growing Number of Country Tours

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Lady Antebellum joined Australia native Keith Urban on tour Down Under in 2011.

During 2011 a swarm of country stars ventured out on Australian tours for the first time. Numerous factors are driving the trend explains Jeff Walker, President of The AristoMedia Group, who spearheads many international country music initiatives.

Australia’s rural landscape is home to a significant country fan base who relate to the genre’s subject matter—the same reason tour buses have been crossing the northern border to Canada for years. Yesterday Dierks Bentley announced runs through both countries in early 2012.

Similarly, both countries also have country music television networks helping fuel the frenzy. “The concert promoters can build up a pent-up demand in those territories by use of music videos,” explains Walker. “Plus, the growing impact of social networking and its ability to engage fans worldwide helps the artists feel more confident about going over there.”

Talk about pent up demand, earlier this year Alan Jackson’s first tour Down Under sold out six dates within minutes, turning into the biggest country outing to visit Australia in 20 years.

In 2012 Tim McGraw and Faith Hill are hitting the road together for the first time in five years, in a run that will be the couple’s first Australian tour. The March tour includes a two-night residency in Brisbane and headlining the CMC Rocks the Hunter festival.

Walker notes that two-night stands are commonplace in Australia because many of the venues are smaller than their American counterparts. Festivals are also attractive to artists who want to journey to Oz. “They can go down for the festival and also play another four or five venues,” he explains. “They have a good infrastructure there. A lot of artists have to scale down their shows from what we’d see here in America, but they still have great venues, and festivals.”

Joe Nichols headlined CMC Rocks the Hunter in March 2011, and returned in May for a multi-city tour.

A favorable exchange rate is also enticing artists. “Nowadays it is a lot easier for Australian promoters to come over here and make offers to artists, because the artists can earn as much as they do in the States,” says Walker. “Plus, sometimes they’ve saturated the markets here by touring the same cities over and over. In Australia, they can take three weeks, have a mini-vacation and work at the same time.” Sounds like a win-win.

Major merch sales are another big plus, thanks to the untapped market. Carrie Underwood made her first tour of Australia when she was promoting the international release of Play On: Deluxe Edition.

Among others who performed in Australia in 2011 are native Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum, and Montgomery Gentry. Taylor Swift’s world tour stops there in March.

“You can build a career by going back and back and back,” sums Walker. “Because artists like Don Williams, Charley Pride, Tom T. Hall, Dolly Parton, and Kenny Rogers have fostered that fan base, they are able to book successful international tours every two or three years.”

Alan Jackson's first Australian run. (L-R): Storme Warren, GAC TV and Sirius/XM Radio Show Host; Rob Potts, CEO, Rob Potts Entertainment Edge; Jackson; Michael Chugg, Exec. Chairman, Chugg Entertainment; Matthew Lazarus-Hall, CEO, Chugg Entertainment. Photo: John Huber

Google Reader Update Dumps BossRoss WebRead In Pumpkin Patch

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Perhaps it was fitting that Google updated its Reader RSS tool on Halloween Eve, because the results have been positively ghoulish. And while there are numerous opinions about the new design, there can be no debate about the web giant’s decision to delete social sharing from the Reader options, thus pulling the plug on projects like the BossRoss WebRead.

For the uninitiated, an RSS feed is a stream of content generated from blog entries and/or news headlines and stories. Google describes its Reader app saying, “Google Reader lets you subscribe to your favorite websites so new content comes to you when it’s posted. Google Reader collects information from news sites, blogs, and other sources on the topics of your choice, and lets you read it all in one place.” To find these RSS feeds look for the orange icon with radio waves.

In the case of the BossRoss WebRead, this writer acted as curator, sifting carefully each day through dozens of sources to find and share articles of interest. Those articles would immediately post to a widget found on MusicRow.com, and other places. Unfortunately it appears that functionality has now been replaced with the ability to share articles with Google+, a welcome addition to be sure, but hardly a replacement.

“We hope you’ll like the new Reader (and Google+) as much as we do,” says the official Google Reader Blog. “But we understand that some of you may not. Retiring Reader’s sharing features wasn’t a decision that we made lightly, but in the end, it helps us focus on fewer areas, and build an even better experience across all of Google.” (Yeah, Happy Halloween and welcome to my nightmare!)

Apparently, I’m not the only user feeling unfairly violated.

According to Mashable, a group of 10,000 like-minded individuals, known as the “Sharebros” have signed a petition. “Many of us have been faithful users of your Reader for years,” the petition reads. “It’s central to our daily information consumption. …Reader builds tremendous goodwill from a core group of heavy Internet users, leading us to recommend this and your other services to our friends.”

Sharebros in Iran (who knew?) are especially upset, since Reader’s sharing function provided a “useful way to distribute news and comments under the radar,” and away from Government view.

Angry Twitter users have starting using the hashtag #OccupyGoogleReader.

According to theAtlanticWire.com, Sharebro fanatic Francis Cleary has declared he will build a replacement for the new Reader app, to be named HiveMined. “Google+ is a cool idea, but it’s not about content first,” Cleary told The Atlantic Wire. “It’s about page views–that’s not what people want. It’s about the content you like. It’s not about you pushing the link and being like, Everybody look at the link and look what I shared. The way to think about it is that the people on the Hive are going to mine out the best content on the internet,” said the 26-year-old Pennsylvania native, who settled on the name with the help of 40 other Sharebros.

Can a signed mighty petition of 10,000 be enough to influence the Google monolith? Can Francis Cleary and his HiveMind project restore peace of mind to the Sharebro community? Stay tuned, but don’t expect to read the results right away in the BossRoss WebRead, unless Google relents of course!!

 

 

Pickler Enjoys Making “100 Proof”

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Kellie Pickler will release her third album, 100 Proof, on Jan. 24, 2012. Pickler set out to get back to her southern roots on this project and make a traditional, fresh sounding country album. To achieve this, she enlisted accomplished producers Frank Liddell (Miranda Lambert and Lee Ann Womack) and Luke Wooten.

“I’m just happy to be making country music,” said Pickler. “I hope everyone enjoys the new music as much as I’ve enjoyed making it!”

The album opener “Where’s Tammy Wynette,” written by Jimmy Ritchey, Don Poythress and Leslie Satcher, sets the tone. Pickler co-wrote six of the 11 songs including “Long As I Never See You Again” which she wrote with songwriters Dean Dillon and Dale Dodson.

Pickler’s upcoming album is available for pre-order on Amazon.

Lineup For Tootsie’s Birthday Bash

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The McClymonts

Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge will celebrate its 51st Birthday in downtown Nashville on Nov. 23. Rocking country group The Kentucky HeadHunters, bluegrass duo The Roys, Australia group The McClymonts and others will be gracing the outdoor stage on Broadway starting at 12 noon prior to the Kid Rock concert at the Ryman Auditorium.

“Last year having Kris Kristofferson, Terri Clark, Randy Houser and Mel Tillis was the beginning of what has become an annual event – The Tootsie’s Birthday Bash!,” says Tootsie’s owner Steve Smith. “Knowing how Kid Rock has agreed to partner with Tootsie’s and co-brand his Ryman show as part of our Birthday Bash is just proof of what we are creating here.”

The Kentucky HeadHunters will celebrate its new album Dixie Lullabies with a Nov. 19 concert at Third & Lindsley in Nashville.

The Kentucky HeadHunters (L) and The Roys (R)