Frances W. Preston Estate Sale

Frances W. Preston

A sale of items from the estate of legendary BMI executive Frances W. Preston will be held Wednesday (Dec. 19) through Saturday (Dec. 22), each day from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at 2108 Woodmont Boulevard. Included will be furniture, home furnishings, collectibles, jewelry and artwork.

Copies of the hardback, coffee table book The Art of Doug Williams: Salvation and Beauty (2002) will be for sale for $20 each, with all book sale proceeds to benefit the Frances W. Preston Labs at Vanderbilt Ingram Cancer Center. Original artwork by Doug Williams (Mrs. Preston’s brother) will also be available with a portion from those sales donated to the Preston Labs as well.

For more information, visit pattersonestatesales.com.

 

 

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Jack White Pulls from Composing ‘The Lone Ranger’

Jack White has reportedly dropped out of scoring Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger, citing scheduling conflicts.

White is expected to still contribute material to the film, which stars Johnny Depp and Armie Hammer, under his replacement Hans Zimmer, according to a statement by Disney:

“Oscar winner Hans Zimmer, the musical mastermind behind Disney’s and Jerry Bruckheimer Films’ Pirates of the Caribbean, has signed on to compose the score for The Lone Ranger. Jack White, who had originally been contemplated to score and has contributed several pieces of music to the production, was logistically unavailable due to scheduling conflicts that arose when the film’s release moved to July of 2013.”

White’s previous cinematic contributions include “Another Way To Die” for Quantum of Solace and “Wayfaring Stranger” to Cold Mountain.

A new trailer for the full-length production, which debuts July 3, premiered last week. The film was originally slated for May 2013.

 

Dr. Sanjay Gupta To Speak at CRS 2013

Dr. Sanjay Gupta. Photo Credit: Jeff Hutchens / Reportage for CNN

CNN correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta will be one of the featured daily speakers for CRS 2013. Gupta will speak during the Country Radio Seminar beginning at 9 a.m. CT. on Friday, March 1.

Gupta is a chief medical correspondent for CNN. A practicing neurosurgeon, Gupta reports on health and medical news for Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien, Anderson Cooper 360 and various CNN documentaries.  He also anchors the weekend medical affairs program Sanjay Gupta, MD and contributes to CNN.com and CNNHealth.com.

“CRS is more than just a convention for the Country radio and music industry,” says CRS Executive Director Bill Mayne. “Over the past few years we have expanded our efforts to include agenda topics that appeal to our attendees beyond the scope of Country radio exclusively, which is why we have had speakers like financial expert Dave Ramsey, marketing guru Seth Godin, MTV co-founder Bob Pittman and Scripps Networks’ Ken Lowe. And this year, we are excited to welcome Dr. Sanjay Gupta, who is an award-winning journalist with CNN and a highly respected professional in the medical field.”

CRS 2013 will be held in Nashville from Feb. 27-March 1. Daily speakers for Wednesday and Thursday will be announced in the coming weeks. For more information, visit crb.org.

 

 

 

 

Exclusive Interview with SoundExchange Pres. Michael Huppe

Michael Huppe

MusicRow recently sat down with SoundExchange President Michael Huppe to discuss the performing rights organization. SoundExchange collects statutory royalties on behalf of artists and master rights owners (typically record labels) from satellite radio, internet radio, cable TV music channels and other non-interactive streaming services. Pandora and Sirius/XM are two of the biggest companies that pay artists and label royalties through SoundExchange. The Copyright Royalty Board, created by Congress, has entrusted SoundExchange as the only entity in the United States to collect and distribute these digital performance royalties.

Huppe’s career includes time as Senior Vice President for Business & Legal Affairs and Deputy General Counsel with the RIAA. He also serves on the Leadership Music Board of Directors.

MR: How does SoundExchange’s royalty distribution process work?
Huppe: We collect the royalties and split them 50-50 with the labels and artists. We pay the artists directly, not through the record label, regardless of whether or not they are recouped.

We pay out quarterly. A huge chunk of our money is out the door between 45 to 60 days, and 80 to 100 percent is out the door within about three months.

We’re non-profit, so there are things we do that you wouldn’t do if you were driven by profit, but we do them because it’s the right thing. For instance all P.R.O.s have black box money, which accumulates when they don’t know where to send royalties. According to the law, once we process money and assign it to an account, the person has three years to collect that money. If they don’t collect it, we can absorb it to offset costs. But we routinely push that off and we still have money going back to 2003 and 2004 that rights holders could come collect. There’s no way we would do that if we were driven by profit.

As a non-profit, we take our operating costs off the top and everything else goes out the door. Our admin rate in 2011 was 5.3 percent. We do what we do very efficiently. Our board is made up of people who have an interest in keeping the admin rate low. The board includes members from indie and major record labels, trade associations, unions, and artist representatives such as lawyers and managers. So, who better to oversee what we do?

The growth of SoundExchange has been phenomenal. Six or eight years ago we were the little engine that could. In 2005, we distributed $25 million in royalties. This year, that number will top $400 million. That kind of growth is unbelievable. Since its inception, SoundExchange has paid more than $1 billion in royalties.

Does this significant growth reflect changing consumer habits?
The way people consume music is changing. It’s not about ownership, it’s about access. It’s not about buying, it’s about listening. You combine that with penetrating broadband across the country and smartphones that collapse everything on to one device, and Bluetooth and internet access that allows people driving across the country to get Pandora over their cell phones and then delivered through their car stereo. Given these technological advancements, it’s an unbelievable time in the music industry. These new ways people consume music, these new business models—we’re very bullish about where it’s going.

Tell us about SoundExchange’s data collection process.
What we do is extremely complicated. Over 2000 services send us data every month. And sometimes the data is not great, either you can’t read it, or fields are missing, or they submit the wrong information, such as listing the distributing label, which doesn’t own the master rights. We clean it up and process all the money. Then we have the payout side, with 70,000 artists accounts, and more than 20,000 rights owner accounts, mostly labels. SoundExchange has 100 employees and another 40 temps.

We’ve always resisted sampling because if we picked a two-week sample per quarter, it would [miss a lot of song plays]. Since it is digital royalties, and everything runs through computers, we get census reports. Every month Pandora sends us data of which recordings were streamed and how many people heard that recording.

This means that a lot of the middle, working class artists get checks. In 2011, 90 percent of our annual payments were $5000 or less. Those are the stories that make you feel good.

What is SoundExchange’s role in the fight for royalties?
We are first and foremost there to protect content and the long term value of music. I’m proud of that, but we are also very much a technology company. We are at the intersection of technology and music. We are starting to occupy a role as advocates for artists and labels; honest information brokers. We have the benefit of not having to meet our numbers every quarter. Digital is the future of the industry and streaming is a big part of that.

We are trying to get over-the-air radio to pay artist royalties. We love our songwriting brothers and sisters, and we don’t want to encroach upon what they earn, but the other side tries to divide us by telling songwriters that the artists royalties would come out of their piece of the pie. We love songwriters, and we think they should get their fair share, but we think performers and record labels should too. It is tough to get artists to speak out in favor of the terrestrial performance right because they are worried about retribution.

Recently, it was great to see artists speak out against the Internet Radio Fairness Act through an advertising campaign. [Last month Huppe testified against the act which would have lowered rates paid by Pandora and similar services.]

www.SoundExchange.com.

CRB Increases Satellite Radio Royalty Rates

The Copyright Royalty Board set new rates that satellite radio, particularly SiriusXM, will pay to record labels and artists through SoundExchange.

In 2013, satellite radio will pay 9 percent of gross revenue for the use of sound recordings. The current rate is 8 percent. From 2014-2017, the rate will increase .5 percent each year until it reaches 11 percent in 2017.

The CRB’s decision, announced Friday, Dec. 14, does not include royalties paid to music publishers and songwriters. It also does not include Internet radio rates.

Read the official announcement here.

More from the New York Times here.

MusicRow’s exclusive interview with SoundExchange Pres. Michael Huppe is here.

Artist Action Compilation (12/17/12)

LeAnn Rimes will perform her new single, “Borrowed,” for the first time on late night television Tuesday, Dec 18 on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The same day, Rimes’ new song “Borrowed” will be available for download on iTunes. Rimes’ new album, Spitfire, is due out in spring 2013.

                                                                   
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Steven Curtis Chapman has garnered his 47th career No. 1 radio single with “Christmas Time Again,” an original song from his fourth and latest Christmas project, Joy. The song received further attention this week, airing on SiriusXM Radio’s The Message “Eye to Eye” Christmas special. Also, fans can tune in to CBN on Dec. 20 to watch Chapman play “Christmas Time Again” on The 700 Club. His performance will re-air the following week on the program’s Christmas day show. Check www.cbn.com for local air times and listings.

•••

Blake Shelton joined his fellow Voice coaches on NBC’s The TODAY Show this morning.

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Artist Steven Clawson, a runner-up from CMT’s Next Superstar, has released new album Miles To Go. He self-produced the project with Chord Phillips as co-producer/engineer. Taylor Swaid served as executive producer for the album recorded at Gasoline Studios in Franklin, Tenn.

 

Kelly Clarkson Engaged to Brandon Blackstock

Brandon Blackstock with fiancee Kelly Clarkson.

Kelly Clarkson announced her engagement to Starstruck Management’s Brandon Blackstock over the weekend (12/15) via social media. The couple has been dating since 2011.

Clarkson's custom yellow diamond ring.

“I’M ENGAGED!!!!!” announced Clarkson. “I wanted y’all to know!! Happiest night of my life last night! I am so lucky and am with the greatest man ever.”

Blackstock, 35, manages the career of Blake Shelton for Starstruck Management. The Nashville-based company, led by Blackstock’s father and Reba McEntire‘s husband Narvel Blackstock, also oversees the careers of Clarkson and Reba.

The 30-year old Clarkson revealed her yellow canary Johnathon Arndt diamond ring, designed in part by Blackstock, saying that she will work with the ringmaker to design one for her beau.

Clarkson, who was nominated for a CMA award in 2012, performed on VH1’s Divas last night (12/16) wearing the custom ring.

Aristo Int’l Report: New Country Music Festival, Global Accolades

Click to view the report.

The AristoMedia Group has released the December issue of its Aristo International Report. Highlights include:

• Inaugural C2C: Country to Country festival, scheduled for March 16-17, 2013, in London

• 41st annual Country Music Awards of Australia, to be held Jan. 26, 2013

Lady A’s global accolades and LadyAID Initiative

• Apple nearly doubles global footprint of iTunes 

• CMA International Country Broadcaster Award, CMA Wesley Rose Media Award, and CMA Songwriter Series overseas

•  Global Events during CMA Music Festival to celebrate 10th anniversary in 2013

• Q&A with BBC Radio 2 Controller Bob Shennan

AristoMedia has been issuing this quarterly review of global activities since 2008. Please click to view the newsletter online at www.AristoMedia.com.

Recording Academy Launches GRAMMY Promotions Via Social Media

The Recording Academy has launched two interactive social media games to promote the upcoming GRAMMY Awards on Feb. 10, 2013.

“Get Me to the GRAMMYs,” will launch Monday (Dec. 17) and run through Jan. 29, 2013. Fans of the GRAMMYs on Facebook will have a chance to win seven weekly prizes from each of the GRAMMYs’ six participating partners — Delta Air Lines, Harman, Hilton Hotels & Resorts, Hitlab, MasterCard, and Proctor & Gamble. Prizes range from music gift cards to the Ultimate GRAMMYs Superfan prize featuring two tickets to the 55th Annual GRAMMY Awards®.

Additionally, The Recording Academy and Curalate, the marketing platform for visual sites such as Pinterest, have teamed for “Pin Your Way To The GRAMMYs,” — a social media promotion offering Pinterest members the opportunity to share exclusive GRAMMY images. The promotion launched Thursday (Dec. 13) and will run through Jan. 16, 2013. Images for the 55th Annual GRAMMY Awards ad campaign, “#TheWorldIsListening,” debuted online on Dec. 13. Exclusive photos will only be seen on the official GRAMMY Pinterest page (www.pinterest.com/thegrammys).

“The GRAMMYs remains focused on connecting fans, not only with their favorite artists, but with each other,” said Evan Greene, Chief Marketing Officer of The Recording Academy. “The exclusive images on Pinterest will allow fans to show their love of music in a creative way.”

The GRAMMYs will be held on Feb. 10, 2013 at the Staples Center in Los Angeles and will broadcast on CBS Television Network from 8-11:30 p.m. ET.

For more information on the GRAMMYs social media contests, visit www.facebook.com/thegrammys, www.twitter.com/thegrammys, or www.pinterest.com/thegrammys.

Brad Paisley Helps Provide Clean Water in Haiti

Kimberly Williams-Paisley with children in Haiti. Photo courtesy of Schmidt Relations.

Brad Paisley and wife Kimberly Williams-Paisley have signed on to support the non-profit organization Live Beyond…Thirst, both financially and as volunteers. Led by Dr. David and Laurie Vanderpool, the organization provides clean water for households throughout Thomazeau, Haiti, a poor suburb of Port au Prince. Live Beyond…Thirst hopes to establish 100 clean water collection sites as a foundation for improved health within the community and for disease prevention.

“Going to Haiti really opened my eyes to the plight of these hundreds of thousands of people–many of them mothers, fathers, and children–who are our neighbors. With Live Beyond…Thirst, we can help give them a basic human necessity they have never had: Clean water. I want to show them they are not forgotten,” said Kimberly via a release.

 

The Paisleys invite others to join them in support of Live Beyond…Thirst. Visit www.livebeyond.org or www.bradpaisley.com to donate to the water project.