Industry Ink (1/3/14)

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Trey Gray


Drummer Trey Gray, who has toured with Faith Hill, Brooks & Dunn and Jewel, is featured in the documentary Alive and Well. The documentary follows seven resilient people living with the hereditary chronic illness Huntington’s Disease (HD).
The disease is a degenerative neurological disorder which causes mental and physical deterioration. The documentary joined Gray while he performed as part of Brooks & Dunn’s farewell tour. Watch the trailer for Alive and Well below. For more information, visit aliveandwellthefilm.com.

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two bits sign111Demonbreun Street in Nashville is slated to welcome a new restaurant this month. Restaurant and bar Two Bits will hold a soft opening on Jan. 8, followed by a grand opening on Jan. 16. In addition to a full menu, cocktails and a 24-tap system, Two Bits will feature gaming systems that can be played wirelessly, along with vintage arcade games including Ms. Pac Man, Space Invaders and Defender. Tin Roof CEO Bob Franklin saw the space on Demonbreun (which used to house pasta restaurant Mirko’s) as an opportunity to expand.
Will Zuchman, who formerly worked as executive chef at Alma de Cuba’s in Philadelphia, has crafted a menu that will include salads, sandwiches and appetizers among the offerings.

'CMT After Midnite With Cody Alan' Books Swift, Brooks, Hayes

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Garth Brooks


Garth Brooks, Taylor Swift, Zac Brown Band and Hunter Hayes are all scheduled to drop by for the launch of CMT After Midnite with Cody Alan. The syndicated Premiere Networks show will kick off with CMT personality Cody Alan as its new host on Monday, Jan. 6, from midnight-6 a.m. ET.
The show will reach nearly two million weekly listeners on more than 200 radio stations. The show will originate from the CMT Radio studio in Nashville and will be available on iHeartRadio.
Alan has more than 20 years’ experience on the air, along with TV hosting duties as co-host of CMT Hot 20 Countdown.

Weekly Register: Wrapping Up 2013

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featuredCountry music entered 2014 with a strong presence, with New Year’s Eve performances by several big name artists. Let’s hope this presence is a forecast for bright sales in 2014.
Unfortunately, sales continued to slump in the final week of 2013. Overall album sales are down 11 percent from last week, while Country album sales are down 29 percent week over week.
Veteran stars Garth Brooks and Beyonce continue to top chart this week. Brooks holds dominion over the chart with Blame It All On My Roots (Pearl Records Inc.) remaining at No. 1 (No. 6 overall), selling another 90k units this week (770k units RTD). Meanwhile, Beyonce’s self-titled album persists as the No. 1 overall album for the third consecutive week, selling 310k more units (1.3 million RTD).
Luke Bryan’s “That’s My Kind of Night” is the top Country track this week (No. 21 overall), selling 123k additional units (1.5 million RTD). The singer’s current hit “Drink A Beer” comes in at No. 2. Florida Georgia Line also claims 2 singles in the top 5 with “Stay” at No. 3 and “Cruise” at No. 4. The top overall track goes to Pitbull and Ke$ha, with their hit “Timber” selling another 442k units this week (1.9 million RTD).

Year In Review 

albums (1)
tracksAlbums: YTD album sales in 2013 fell short of 2012 with overall sales down 8.4 percent (289 million units sold in 2013, 315 million sold in 2012) and Country sales down 10.7 percent (39 million units sold in 2013, 44 million units sold in 2012). Country’s digital sales also fell in comparison to 2012, with 10.9 million albums sold digitally this year and 11.2 million sold in 2012. Though repetitive, it’s important to note that around the same time last year Taylor Swift’s RED set a high sales standard with 3.1 million units sold RTD.
Analyzing the TEA index (where ten tracks equal one album), overall album sales are down 7.6 percent, while Country album sales are down 8.4 percent.
Tracks: YTD, track sales declined with respect to 2012. Overall track sales are down 5.8 percent (1.2 billion units sold in 2013, 1.3 billion sold in 2012) and Country track sales are down 2 percent (163 million sold in 2013, 166 million sold in 2012). The same time last year 44 singles sold more than 100k units, whereas this year only 32 singles sold more than 100k units.
Decline in Digital Sales: For the first time in a decade, the U.S. music industry has ended the year with a decrease in digital music sales. Digital track sales were down 5.7 percent from 2012 (selling 1.26 billion units this year and 1.34 billion in 2012) and digital album sales were down .1 percent from 2012 (selling 117.6 million units this year and 117.7 million units in 2012). The popularity of streaming services may explain the decline in digital sales. Additionally, 2013 saw fewer million selling releases than 2012, which included Taylor Swift’s RED (3.1 million units sold) and Adele’s 21 (4.4 million units sold). Justin Timberlake’s 20/20 Experience was the only album to sell more than one million units in 2013, with 2.4 million units sold. With the continual rise of streaming services like Spotify and Pandora, we’ll need to keep on eye on how sales change in 2014.
Although there are no noteworthy debuts next week, January will see releases from several artists, including Jennifer Nettles, Jon Pardi, Rosanne Cash and Ronnie Milsap.

Cumulus Media Appoints Charlie Cook as OM for Nashville Cluster

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Charlie Cook


Cumulus Media, the largest pure-play radio broadcaster in the United States, announces the appointment of Charlie Cook as Operations Manager for the company’s Nashville cluster of stations. Additionally, Cook is named Program Director of Country-formatted 95.5 FM WSM and 103.3 WKDF.
As Cumulus/Nashville Operations Manager, Cook will oversee 95.5 FM WSM and 103.3 WKDF, Urban 92-Q, Super Talk 99.7 and Sports station 104.5 The Zone.
Cook’s new role with Cumulus/Nashville marks his return to the company, having served as VP/Programming for Cumulus’s 61 Country format stations from 2006-2008. Cook returns to Cumulus with more than 35 years of radio industry experience, most recently as VP/Programming for West Virginia Radio Corporation (WVRC). Prior to joining WVRC, Cook held the role of Program Director for Go Country 105 in Los Angeles and before that, as VP/Programming for the Westwood One Radio Network.
“I am thrilled to welcome Charlie back to Cumulus at such an exciting time for the company,” said John Dickey, Executive Vice President and Co-COO of Cumulus. “I am confident his vast radio industry experience will contribute greatly to the success of the growing Nashville market.”
“With all of the new and exciting things Cumulus is launching in conjunction with the NASH brand I am thrilled to rejoin the company,” Cook said. “Being based in Nashville, in the middle of all of this, is an incredible opportunity. Cumulus has an unbelievable cluster here and I am looking forward to rolling up my sleeves and working with the team to reach new heights.”

Musicpreneur Sessions To Educate Music Entrepreneurs

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musicpreneur11111Young Entertainment Professionals (YEP) has partnered with the Music City Council and the Entrepreneur Center (EC) for a four-part educational series, Musicpreneur, which is aimed at educating future and current music business entrepreneurs. Sessions will be held once each month from January through April. The first session, titled “The Core Idea,” features speakers Joe Galante (EC mentor and former executive at Sony), and Randy Goodman (Music City Music Council), and is slated for Jan. 14 from 5:30 p.m. until 7 p.m. at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center (41 Peabody Street).
Additional speakers for upcoming sessions include Mark Montgomery (founder of Echo Music and flo{thinkery}) and Matt Urmy (founder of Artist Growth).
Each session will feature 15 minutes of networking, followed by 30 minutes of educational speaking and a 45-minute moderated discussion from a music industry panel.
Future sessions and topics include “Introduction to Idea Framing” (Feb. 11), “Turning Assumptions Into Facts” (March 11) and “Getting Believers” (April 8).
Attendance is limited to 100 seats for each session; cost is free for Entrepreneur Center members, and $40 for non-members. For more information, visit ec.co.

Artist Updates (1/2/14)

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Travis Tritt


Travis Tritt has been tapped to narrate an upcoming movie about the life of Walt Disney called As Dreamers Do. The film is reportedly set for release in Spring 2014 and will cover Disney’s early life. Tritt will film a live acoustic DVD on Jan. 13-14 at the Franklin Theater in Franklin, Tenn., over the course of the two nights, featuring guests like Kid Rock, Marty Stuart, James Otto, and more.

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Dolly


Dolly Parton and her husband Carl Dean are considering renewing their vows in an intimate celebration to mark their nearly 50 years of marriage, she recently told Closer Weekly. “We’ve talked about that — we might do it all over again! Another big wedding.”
Parton says the two will likely mark the day with a celebration close to home since Carl does not enjoy flying. “Probably be at our big old plantation home. We love it there. Carl doesn’t like to fly. Once many, many years ago, he went with me to Hawaii, and he enjoyed that, but he never wanted to go anywhere else. He’s happy staying home and I’m happy traveling,” she explains.

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iconic duetsT G Sheppard and Kelly Lang are recording a duets album. Iconic Duets will include renditions of “Jackson,” “Golden Ring,” and others, and is available on Sheppard’s website.
“It has been one of the most rewarding projects I have done,” he said. “I had a blast doing it with Kelly. We laughed a lot, and got a chance to record songs that we both have loved for so long.”

Mark Your Calendar – January 2014

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GrammyIndustry Events

January 12
71st annual Golden Globe Awards at the Beverly Hilton Hotel
January 17
BMI’s 15th annual Trailblazers of Gospel Music Awards Luncheon at Rocketown in Nashville
January 17-18
St. Jude Country Radio Seminar
January 21
ACM Awards Second Round Ballot Closes
January 26
56th Annual Grammy Awards

Jon-PardiAlbum Releases

January 14
Jennifer Nettles/That Girl/Mercury Nashville
Jon Pardi/Write You A Song/Capitol Records Nashville
Rosanne Cash/The River & The Thread/Blue Note Records
Mary Chapin Carpenter/Songs From The Movie/Rounder Records
Charlie Farley/Hog Heaven/Average Joes Entertainment-Backroad Records
January 21
Various/2014 GRAMMY Nominees album/Atlantic Records
January 28
Ronnie Milsap/Summer #17/Legacy
North 40/Sing Your Own Song/Rhymetown Entertainment

copcarSingle Add Dates

January 6
Bernie Nelson/Scarecrow/If I Know Blue Records
Blake Shelton/Doin’ What She Likes/Warner Bros.-WMN
January 13
Brantley Gilbert/Bottoms Up/Valory
Kayla Calabrese/This Is How It Feels/GTR
Keith Urban/Cop Car/Capitol
Tim McGraw/TBD/Big Machine
January 16
Jeremy Phifer/Take The L Out Of Lover/HMG
January 21 
Lexi James/Stop/Spin Doctors
Rascal Flatts/Rewind/Big Machine
Chris Young/Who I Am With You/RCA Nashville
January 27
Joe Nichols/Yeah/Red Bow

LifeNotes: George A. Collier Passes

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george collier

George Collier


Industry veteran and Philadelphia native George A. Collier died Saturday, Dec. 21 in Nashville. He was 69. Collier, a 45-year industry veteran, most recently served as President at Aspirion Records. During his career, Collier spent time in marketing and promotions with Decca, MCA, Atlantic and Arista labels.
Collier’s funeral was held Saturday, Dec. 28 at Woodlawn-Roesch Patton Funeral Home. He is survived by his wife of 51 years, Diane M. Collier; children, Diane M. (Eric) Jensen, George A. Collier, Jr., Susan L. Collier and Deborah A. (David) Kirby; grandchildren, Jason Parra, Steven Jensen, Andrew Jensen, Lexus Kirby and D.J. Kirby; brother, William G. Collier.
In lieu of flowers, the family requests with gratitude that memorial contributions be directed to the National Kidney Foundation at www.kidney.org

Lady A Gives Virtual Preview of "Downtown" Tour

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In anticipation of their headlining Take Me Downtown Tour, Lady Antebellum is sharing a behind-the-scenes video from tour rehearsals in Nashville, Tenn. The group gives fans a sneak peek of the new stage and hints at surprises for opening night. The North American tour kicks off next week on Jan. 10 in Peoria, Ill., with Kip Moore and Kacey Musgraves.
For a full list of tourdates, visit ladyantebellum.com.

Industry Ink (1/2/14)

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bluebird logo1The 21st Annual Alive at the Bluebird concert series launches tonight (Jan. 2). More than 90 songwriters will come together at The Bluebird Cafe to aid Alive Hospice with 23 shows slated from Jan. 2 through Feb. 1. Artists include Amy Grant, Vince Gill, Kristian Bush, John Oates, Lori McKenna, Scotty Emerick, Larry Gatlin, Kim Carnes and others.
The first show, slated for Jan. 2, begins at 9 p.m. and features Ellen Britton, WT Davidson, Sally Barris and Henry Hipkens. For more information, visit bluebirdcafe.com.

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Hank Williams, Jr.

Hank Williams, Jr.


This year’s annual New Year’s Eve Bash in downtown Nashville drew a record crowd, with an estimated 85,000 people crowding onto Broadway to watch the star-studded concert featuring Striking Matches, the Kopecky Family Band, Brett Eldredge, and Hank Williams Jr. and the midnight Music Note drop and fireworks.
This was the fifth year for the event, which has grown in popularity each year.
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ksnmKSNM/Las Cruces has flipped from News/Talk to a Classic Country format, according to Allaccess.com. Adams Radio of Las Cruces recently made the switch, with Market Manager Veronica Test commenting, “this exciting format change will fill a void our listeners have experienced for quite some time.”
The station will now play songs from the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s by artists like George Strait, Johnny Cash, Willie Nelson, Reba, Kenny Rogers, Dolly, Garth, Alan Jackson, and more.