New Upward Management Signing

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Nashville’s Upward Management has signed 19-year-old Julia Sheer for management representation, where her career will be guided by Liesl Menning Haynie and Jason Greene.

Sheer first began getting noticed two years ago after posting YouTube videos of herself performing covers of Taylor Swift, Lady Antebellum, Bruno Mars and others. Her videos have accumulated over 42 million views, including more than three million views of “You Will Never Be,” an original song she co-wrote. She is currently working on songs for her debut album with several Nashville songwriters.

In addition to Sheer, the Upward Management roster also includes multi-platinum artist Clay Walker and newcomer Sarah Marince.

Mel Tillis Honored At White House Yesterday

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President Obama bestows the National Medal of Arts on Mel Tillis. Photo: UPI/Kevin Dietsch

Mel Tillis was honored with the National Medal of Arts yesterday during a ceremony at the White House. President Obama presented this year’s awards to Tillis, actor Al Pacino, and several others.

First Lady Michelle Obama was also on hand for the event in the East Room.

Tillis, a member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, said, “I’ve had a blessed career, and that has been acknowledged in many ways over the years. I was pleasantly surprised when I got the call because I didn’t know there were anymore awards left to win. I’m very thankful and what an honor!”

The National Medal of Arts is the highest award given to artists and arts patrons by the United States Government. It recognizes outstanding contributions to the excellence, growth, support and availability of the arts in the United States. Past recipients include George Jones, Minnie Pearl, Johnny Cash, and Bob Dylan.

Tillis has recorded more than 60 albums and scored 35 Top Ten singles during his career. He was named the CMA Entertainer of the Year, and is a member of the Grand Ole Opry. Among the other artists who have recorded his songs are Kenny Rogers (“Ruby, Don’t You Take Your Love To Town”), George Strait (“Thoughts of a Fool”), and Ricky Skaggs (“Honey, Open That Door”). BMI named Tillis Songwriter of the Decade for two decades.

Rider Joins RPM Management

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Former Stoney Creek Records GM/VP April Rider has joined the staff RPM Management as VP of Artist Development, it was announced today by RPM President Scott Siman.

“I am so excited to be working with April,” said Siman. “She did an amazing job launching Thompson Square and she has developed into one of the top executives in our industry. She had a lot of companies seeking her out and I’m honored she chose RPM.”

Siman and Rider previously worked together on promotion efforts for Tim McGraw during Rider’s decade-long tenure with Curb Records, where she ended as VP of Promotion. Rider’s promotion experience also includes time with Skip Stevens Promotions and Decca Records.

Rider is already on the job, and she can be congratulated here.

Industry Ink Monday

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• Kenny Rogers is suing former label home Capitol Records for unpaid digital royalties, reports The Tennessean. He filed suit in federal court and is represented by King and Ballow, which successfully led Eminem’s similar suit. The suits hinge on whether or not digital song transactions are licenses or sales.

• Leadership Music is seeking an Executive Director. Click here to download the job description.

• Warner Music Nashville is seeking a Regional Promotion Manager for the WMN promotion team. The position will work directly with the WMN roster which includes The Dirt Drifters, Hunter Hayes, the JaneDear girls and Blake Shelton. Resumes can be sent to [email protected].

• SunTrust Mortgage has named Ellen May to its President’s Team, one of the highest honors the company bestows upon its loan officers. May has been a fixture at the bank’s Music Row branch for over a decade, catering to the specialized needs of the music community.

• Condolences to Trisha Walker-Cunningham on the passing of her father Major Terry Walker. She was at his bedside in England when he died. In lieu of flowers, the longtime music promoter and booker asks for donations to hospice facilities that rely on charitable contributions.

Wade Bowen Plays Nashville’s Exit-In

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Wade Bowen’s current single “Saturday Night” (Sea Gayle/BNA) bears the refrain “So why does everybody love Saturday night/Stale smell of beer and the smoke in your eyes/I keep sittin’ and drinkin’ and thinkin’ ‘bout a sad good-bye/So tell me why is everybody so in love with Saturday night?” It’s an inversion of the usual party-hearty weekend theme found in popular country songs, set to a jangling, uptempo track. It works really well because, let’s face it, the weekend sucks when you’re alone and brokenhearted.

That marriage of darker subject matter to gritty, driving country rock is a particular strength of Bowen’s, and he was in fine form when he played Nashville’s Exit-In last Thursday (Feb. 9) with Charlie Worsham and Striking Matches. Backed by his usual six-piece band, the beloved Texas artist debuted songs from his upcoming BNA Records album and spirited versions of his older material.

The set kicked off with “God Bless This Town,” a bitter take on the gossip and narrow-mindedness that plagues small town dwellers. He originally recorded the song in 2006, but has re-recorded it for the new album. Other new songs included “All That’s Left,” “Say Anything,” and the rocking “Patch of Bad Weather.”

Years of playing hundreds of dates have given Bowen a commanding stage presence, and he’s built a great chemistry with his band. As a unit, they excel in building the suspense for each new song.

Failed relationships were a popular topic in the evening’s selections, and they range from the haunted memory ballad “Ghost In This Town,” to the done-me-wrong kiss off “Nobody’s Fool,” and breakup aftermath tale “You Had Me At My Best.” He even touched on the casualties of alcoholism in “Daddy And The Devil.” Pretty grim stuff, but the crowd loved it.

Fans were also treated to a special appearance by Dave Loggins, whose “Please Come To Boston” is a staple of Bowen’s live sets. Loggins joined the band onstage for a verse and chorus of the song before turning the stage back over.

Bowen closed out his main set with the cathartic and triumphant “Resurrection,” which ought to feel familiar to anyone who’s ever endured a bad breakup. “We’ve all been there,” he said. “If you haven’t, you’re not living like you should.”

For his encore, he played an acoustic “Before These Walls Were Blue” accompanied by vocalist Jessica Murray. He closed out the evening with one more poison-arrow anthem called “Beat Me Down,” accompanied by the song’s co-writer Sean McConnell and a pack of rowdy music lovers pumping their fists in time.

Being bummed out never felt so good.

NRA Takes Aim With Country Compilation

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The National Rile Association has assembled some of country music’s favorite male stars for a new compilation release, This Is NRA Country, Vol. 1. Featured artists include Charlie Daniels, Trace Adkins, Justin Moore and others. The album is currently available for purchase here.

The organization has cozied up to Nashville lately through its This is NRA Country campaign, which launched in Sept. 2011. So far, Moore, Lee Brice, Trace Adkins, and Craig Morgan have all been featured as This is NRA Country Artists of the Month.

Tracklist:
1. Justin Moore “This is NRA Country
2. Hank Williams Jr. “A Country Boy Can Survive”
3. Montgomery Gentry “My Town”
4. Rodney Atkins “Cleaning This Gun”
5. Trace Adkins “More Of Us”
6. Craig Morgan “I’m Country”
7. Charlie Daniels “In America”
8. Josh Thompson “Way Out Here”
9. John Rich “Shutting Detroit Down”
10. Lee Brice “She Ain’t Right”
11. Rhett Akins & Dallas Davidson “Opening Day”

Berry Named Manager Regional Promotion For RCA

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David “Bubba” Berry has been hired as Manager Regional Promotion for RCA Records. The position will be based out of Dallas and report directly to Vice President of National Promotion for RCA Nashville, Keith Gale, who made the announcement today (Feb. 13).

A 20-year promotion veteran, Berry previously worked as Manager Regional Promotion for BNA Records from 2006 until his exit in August 2011. Most recently, he served as Midwest Regional Promotion & Marketing Director for Show Dog-Universal.

“We are very fortunate to be able to add a person to the RCA team with Bubba’s experience, passion, and creativity,” Gale said of Berry. “It is a real luxury, and we are excited to welcome him back to The RCA Records Label.”

1 Million Music Lovers Join Myspace

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Myspace is gaining users for the first time in recent memory. Since the site debuted its Myspace Music Player in December, it has averaged 40,000 new U.S. registrants daily—a total of more than 1 million new users in 30 days.

The player offers free streaming of 42 million songs, the largest online catalog in the world. Myspace has unlimited, on-demand listening, lean-back personalized radio modes, a sophisticated recommendation engine, and integration with Facebook.

Owners Tim Vanderhook, Chris Vanderhook, and Justin Timberlake continue to rebrand the site as a music and entertainment destination. In June they bought Myspace for $35 million from News Corp., which had paid $580 million for the company in 2005.

In January, monthly traffic on Myspace saw its first uptick in almost a year. The four percent increase to 25.1 million visitors, is still greatly reduced from the 2008 peak of 75.9 million unique visitors a month.

To experience the new Myspace music player, go to http://www.myspace.com/guide/music-player.

Grammys Ratings Through The Roof

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Jason Aldean and Kelly Clarkson perform on the Grammy Awards.

Last night’s Grammy Awards attracted the show’s biggest audience in almost 30 years, with 41.2 million viewers tuning in for the ceremony on CBS, reports Zap2It.com. This is a gigantic leap from last year’s 26.6 million viewers.

According to Zap2It.com, it was the Grammy’s second biggest audience since total-viewer counts started being kept in the late 1970s.

Saturday’s death of superstar singer Whitney Houston could have contributed to the increase in viewership.

By comparison, the biggest ratings magnets of the year on US television are the Super Bowl and the Academy Awards. Earlier this month the Super Bowl drew 111.3 million viewers to become the most-watched television program in U.S. history, according to Nielsen.

The 2011 Academy Awards drew 37.6 million viewers. The 2012 show is set for Feb. 26.

Photos: Artists Around Nashville

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Urban Joined by Wariner on Ryman Stage 

Keith Urban performed publicly for the first time (Fri., Feb. 3) since his vocal surgery on the 61-year-old Ryman stage for the final time before it was taken out for replacement the following morning.

Urban played his latest single, “Long Hot Summer,” with a string quartet, then went into “Making Memories of Us,” sitting on a monitor at the front of the stage with no amplification. “You Gonna’ Fly” was followed by an encore featuring “Somebody Like You.”

Steve Wariner was set to close the show, and as he began, he called Urban back on stage to join him on “Let My Guitar Do The Talking.”

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ASCAP Nashville Salutes David Nail’s “Let It Rain”

(L-R) LeAnn Phelan (ASCAP), Singleton, Taylor Lindsey (BMG Chrysalis) and Sara Johnson, David Nail and Ryan Beuschel (ASCAP). Photo: Ed Rode

ASCAP hosted a No. 1 Party for David Nail’s “Let It Rain,” a song Nail co-wrote with Jonathan Singleton.

Producers Chuck Ainlay and Frank Liddell were also honored at the event alongside publishers BMG Chrysalis and Carnival Music.

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Fricke Visits CMA

(L-R) Sheri Warnke (CMA Vice President of Strategic Partnerships), Fricke, Betsy Walker (CMA Senior Coordinator of Member Relations and Services), Brandi Simms (CMA Senior Manager of Membership and Balloting) and Montine Felso (Webster & Associates PR). Photo: Christian Bottorff.

Two-time CMA Female Vocalist of the Year Janie Fricke stopped by the CMA offices last week (Feb. 10) to talk about her latest album, Country Side of Bluegrass.