Pictured (L-R): Scott Borchetta, Anne Stanchfield and Scott Nygaard of Target Corporation

Scott Borchetta honored the Target Corporation with the Spirit of Excellence Award earlier this week during the T.J. Martell Foundation’s 38th Honors Gala Tuesday night (Oct. 22) in New York. Borchetta is a past honoree himself of the gala, and introduced the award with a humorous video honoring Target’s commitment to music before his speech at the event.

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Catch This Music’s Rebekah Long, Shawn Bowling, Shona Robertson Burr, CTM owner Eddie Robba, Debi Cochran, Brandon Perdue and Brody Maves.

Catch This Music Recording Studio celebrated its two-year anniversary Wednesday (Oct. 23) in its back lot with a Fall cookout. Friends and clients gnoshed on brats and burgers while helping the studio celebrate its birthday.

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Carolyn Corlew

Thomas Rhett

Valory Music Co. singer-songwriter Thomas Rhett welcomed industry members to a very appropriate setting for his private album preview taping for Sirius XM The Highway–Nashville’s songwriting mecca, The Bluebird Cafe. Rhett’s debut album, It Goes Like This, releases Oct. 29.

Storme Warren hosted the event, and, unbelievably, the taping marked only the second time that Thomas Rhett has ever performed at the Bluebird Cafe. Among the songs he performed in the intimate setting were “It Goes Like This,” “Beer With Jesus,” “Something To Do With My Hands,” and his upcoming single, “Get Me Some of That,” which his father Rhett Akins co-wrote with Cole Swindell and Michael Carter.
Before introducing another song from the project titled “Whatcha Got In That Cup,” Rhett recounted some sage advice from songwriter Craig Wiseman on the importance of carefully selecting songs to record as an artist. “I was a new writer, and Craig told me, ‘I write a lot of songs. I might not remember writing this song tomorrow, but you will be singing this song for the rest of your life.'”
Of course, being the songwriter behind hits including Florida Georgia Line‘s “‘Round Here” (co-written with Rodney Clawson and Chris Tompkins) and other songs can get confusing when Rhett performs his version of those songs for fans. “They will come up to me and say, ‘Why are you singing cover songs?'” he said, laughing.
He went on to perform another song he co-wrote with Luke Laird and Barry Dean, “1994,” which was later recorded by Jason Aldean. “We were trying to write a ballad that day, and we didn’t like what we were writing,” says Thomas. The ballad was a love song involving a guy, his girl, their preferred romantic spot, and Joe Diffie music spilling from their boom box. “Luke is one of the best at making beats, so he played a loop he’d been working on and sang that line, ‘1994/Joe Diffie comin’ out the stereo,’ and we started writing the song from there.” Rhett recalled being floored when he got the call that Aldean wanted to record it. “They said it was the only song in the listening session that he had wanted to hear more than once,” said Thomas. Rhett also revealed just how the song has impacted his life. “Joe Diffie texted me after that. We text maybe once a month. We actually have a photo of his face next to our tour bus that we hit as we are getting onto it, like they do in sports. It’s mullet Joe Diffie from the Regular Joe record.”
Thomas Rhett’s original career plan was to get a job selling insurance; he studied communications at Lipscomb University while getting more serious about his songwriting, and credits Warner/Chappell’s Ben Vaughn with spurring him into songwriting. “I was playing shows with my cover band at the time, and Ben saw me play. He asked if I could write songs and said that I should try it more. I said, ‘How much are you going to pay me?’ and so they signed me up as a songwriter.”

Pictured (L-R): Rhett Akins and Thomas Rhett

Pictured (L-R): SiriusXM Producer John Marks, SiriusXM The Highway host Storme Warren, Rhett Akins, Thomas Rhett, G Major Management President Virginia Davis, Big Machine Label Group VP John Zarling and The Bluebird Café C.O.O./President Erika Wollam Nichols. Photo: Rick Diamond/Getty Images

Pictured (L-R): Morris Artist Management’s Brandon Gill and Matt Petty, Jake Owen and Sony Music Nashville’s Senior VP Marketing Paul Barnabee.

• Jake Owen was surprised backstage at his Hollywood Bowl show on Oct. 19 with a plaque commemorating reaching one million followers on Twitter. The artist has been known to tweet everything from planking photos to finger injury pics, so it’s no wonder he keeps fans constantly engaged on Twitter. His new CD Days Of Gold is due out Dec. 3, and he’s partnering with Target to release a special exclusive deluxe version of the album that features four bonus songs, including “Summer Jam” a tune featuring Florida Georgia Line.

Pictured (L-R): Skip Bishop (HitShop), Leslie Fram (CMT), Natalie Stovall, Stacey Cato (CMT)

• Natalie Stovall and The Drive debuted some of the songs on their brand new EP for a Nashville crowd Tues. night (Oct. 22) at Anthem. The EP hit the Top 15 in the iTunes Country downloads chart upon its release.

Pictured (L-R): Dan Pitts (True Artist Management), Dan Rogers (Director, Marketing and Communications Grand Ole Opry), Mandisa and 650 AM WSM’s Bill Cody. Photo Credit: Chris Hollo

 • Mandisa made her Grand Ole Opry debut last night (Oct. 23) during the Opry’s fifth annual “Opry Goes Pink” show in support of Women Rock For The Cure.  Mandisa and other artists including LeAnn Rimes, Amy Grant, Pam Tillis, Lorrie Morgan and Natalie Grant performed on the special show in support of breast cancer awareness.