Sweet Talk Publicity, which represents artists including Florida Georgia Line and Kelsea Ballerini, has hired two new team members, Courtney Beebe and Jodi Dawes.

Beebe – formerly of the Country Music Association – is the firm’s newest Publicist, while Dawes – previously of Webster Public Relations – joins as Junior Publicist. Both will take their posts immediately.

“From the minute I met Courtney and Jodi, I knew there was something special about each of them,” shares Sweet Talk president Jensen Sussman. “They both exude passion for public relations, country music and building an artist’s career while their unique backgrounds and experiences bring a fresh energy to the team and our client roster. I’m absolutely thrilled to have them on board!”

Beebe, who graduated with a B.A. from the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at University of North Carolina, moved to Nashville in 2012 and began working as a Content Marketing Specialist at Lotos Nile. In 2013, she joined the CMA team as Communications Assistant before rising to Communications Manager and serving as Managing Editor of CMA Close Up magazine.

Dawes, a graduate of Eastern Kentucky University with a B.A. in Public Relations, began her career as an intern for both WLXX radio and WLEX-TV in Lexington, KY, and also worked in corporate communications for Chelsea Piers Sports & Entertainment Complex in New York City. At Webster PR, Dawes held the role of Publicity Manager, handling day-to-day activities for Mark Chesnutt, Collin Raye, John Michael Montgomery, and more.

Beebe and Dawes will report directly to Sweet Talk president and founder, Jensen Sussman, joining staff members Julianne Cassidy (Publicist) and Montine Felso (Senior Publicist).

Sweet Talk Publicity’s current client list includes Florida Georgia Line, Kelsea Ballerini, A Thousand Horses, Craig Campbell, FGL HOUSE, Home Free, Jillian Jacqueline, Chris Lane, Dustin Lynch, Tegan Marie, MINXX, Jerrod Niemann, Dylan Scott and Morgan Wallen.

Beebe can be reached at [email protected], while Dawes can be reached at [email protected].

Lynn Anderson, known for a string of hit songs including “Rose Garden,” “Keep Me In Mind,” and “How Can I Unlove You,” will be the subject of a new exhibit at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.

Lynn Anderson: Keep Me In Mind will open Sept. 15, 2017 and run through June 24, 2018.

“Anderson’s television background and her ability to bring show-business dynamism to recordings and concert performances helped her achieve crossover success,” said museum CEO Kyle Young. “With talent and tenacity, the country music star brought increased visibility to the genre in the 1960s and ’70s, and we are privileged to share her story with our guests.”

Born in North Dakota and raised in northern California, Anderson started performing at age six, and by her teens she was appearing regularly on television. Her parents, Casey and Liz Anderson, were successful songwriters. Together, they wrote “The Fugitive,” a hit for Merle Haggard. The Andersons’ connections, and Lynn’s talent and hard work, led to her signing with Chart Records at age 19, in 1966.

By the late 1960s, Anderson was a regular on television’s Lawrence Welk Show, and from 1966 to early 1970 she notched five Top Ten country singles in Billboard rankings. By then, she was also an award-winning equestrian, taking home trophies and ribbons for riding show horses and cutting horses. In fact, Anderson competed in equestrian events throughout most of her life, winning 16 national and eight world championships, as well as the top trophies at several celebrity competitions.

After marrying songwriter and producer Glenn Sutton, Anderson moved to Nashville in 1969. She signed with Columbia Records in 1970, and Sutton produced her first sixteen albums including Rose Garden, released in December 1970. The album’s title track spent five weeks at No. 1 on the country chart and reached No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100 pop chart. The album was among the first by female country singers to be certified Platinum for sales of more than a million copies.

Anderson had several No. 1s in the 1970s (“Keep Me in Mind” among them) and numerous Top Ten hits. She won a Grammy for Best Female Country Vocal Performance in 1971. She was named the Academy of Country Music’s Top Female Vocalist in 1967 and 1970, and the Country Music Association’s Female Vocalist of the Year in 1971. In 1974, Anderson was the first female country singer to sell out Madison Square Garden. Anderson continued to perform and record until her death in 2015.

Seventh Day Slumber’s ‘Found’ Out Today

Found, the anticipated new album from Seventh Day Slumber, is out today (July 28). The album’s title-cut and lead single—penned by Seventh Day Slumber’s Joseph Rojas and Jeremy Holderfield with acclaimed singer/songwriter Daniel Dos has been serviced to Christian radio.

Produced by Holderfield, Found (VSR Music Group/Capitol Christian Distribution) features 10 new tracks showcasing the band’s musical breadth, from hard rock anthems to melodic pop ballads. The project was largely inspired following a season of burnout and depression band founder and frontman Rojas faced.

“… four years ago I came to a place where I just got depressed,” Rojas recently told Western New York’s Niagara Frontier Publications. “… I never lost my passion for ministry, or anything like that, but I just couldn’t make myself be happy.… I just decided to write about it. I decided to just put my heart and my soul into these lyrics…. That’s what this record, Found, is about.”

Crowder To Launch ‘American Prodigal’ Tour This Fall

CROWDER is launching a 20-city “American Prodigal Fall Tour,”which will begin on Oct. 24 in Bowling Green, Kentucky, and run through mid-November. The tour will feature special guests Jimi Cravity and The Young Escape.  Tickets for the shows go on sale today. The tour will feature live performances from his current chart-topping album, American Prodigal, which debuted at No. 5 on Billboard’s Top Albums chart, and No. 1 on the Christian & Gospel Album chart. The album’s lead single, “Run Devil Run,” was picked up by NBC’s “Sunday Night Football,” and hit No. 6 on the Christian Digital Songs chart and yielded Top 10 radio hits with the K-LOVE Fan Award nominated “My Victory” and“Forgiven.”

Lecrae And Tori Kelly Support St. Jude With New Video

Rap artist Lecrae has unveiled the official video for his inspiring single “I’ll Find You” featuring Tori Kelly in support of St. Jude Children’s Hospital. Filmed at the Glendale Memorial Hospital in Los Angeles, the powerful video was directed by Guerilla Hollywood’s Michael Mihail. Patients from St. Jude appear in the music video and were filmed at a studio in Memphis.

Brad Paisley Takes Weekend Warrior World Tour To Sweden, Norway

Brad Paisley has taken his Weekend Warrior World Tour to Sweden and Norway this week. Earlier in the week he played to capacity crowds in Gavle and Stockholm, Sweden and will finish the week today at the Country Festival in Seljord, Norway. Special guest on the tour for Sweden was Chase Bryant.

RaeLynn Offers Tracks From WildHorse During Warner Nashville’s Pickin’ On The Patio

Pictured (L-R): Kerry Hansen (Manager, Big Enterprises), Wes Vause (SVP, WMN), Cris Lacy (VP A&R, WMN), RaeLynn, Chris Palmer (VP Radio & Streaming, WMN), Lisa Ray (VP, Head of Brand Management, WMN), Jenn Witherell (Manager, Big Enterprises)

Raelynn brought the party to the Warner Music Nashville offices on Music Row Wednesday night, playing to a jam-packed crowd for this month’s Pickin’ on the Patio concert. The half-hour set consisted of favorites from her debut album WildHorse, which was recently included as one of Rolling Stone’s “Best Country and Americana Albums of 2017 So Far.”

Maggie Rose Headlines Rooftop On The Rocks At The Westin Nashville

Photo credit: Alex Berger (@alexbergerphotography)

Maggie Rose headlined Rooftop on the Rocks at The Westin Nashville’s L27 Bar Thursday night (7/27). Maggie and friends closed the evening with some new tunes, tracks from her latest EP Dreams > Dollars, and a show-stopping rendition of The Beatles’ “With A Little Help From My Friends”.

Joe Nichols performs acoustically for MusicRow.

Joe Nichols’ latest album for BBR Music Group/Red Bow Records, Never Gets Old, is aptly named. The project, which releases today (July 28) finds Nichols doing what he does best—wrapping his warm, welcoming baritone around evocative lyrics and traditional country melodies.

The new album balances stunners such as the comforting, romantic title track (produced by Brent Rowan), and the empathetic “We All Carry Something,” with more light-hearted fare including “I’ll Sing About You” and “So You’re Saying.” Nichols fans will recognize “Billy Graham’s Bible,” produced by Tony Brown and Mickey Jack Cones, from Nichols’ previous album, 2013’s Crickets.

During a visit to MusicRow, Nichols performed several tracks from the album, including “Tall Boys,” and “Diamonds Make Babies,” which astute country fans will remember from Dierks Bentley’s 2012 album Home.

Though there is a nearly four-year span between Crickets and Never Gets Old, it is not due to a lack of hard work. Nichols and producer Mickey Jack Cones undertook the arduous task of building, dismantling, and reconstructing the project until it presented a unified sound.

“We started working on this album about six months after Crickets was released,” Nichols says. “We started cutting different kinds of songs, progressive stuff similar to ‘Sunny & 75’ and then some traditional stuff.”

Joe Nichols with MusicRow owner/publisher Sherod Robertson. Photo: Haley Crow/MusicRow

Once Nichols and Cones were nearly eight cuts into the making of the album, they realized some songs were leaning more progressive, while others harkened back to the more staunchly traditional songs found on Nichols’ earliest albums.

“We decided this needs to be a country record,” Nichols says. “It feels like the country music climate is shifting back toward accepting traditional country more than it had been, so as we cut away some of the more progressive stuff that we had already spent a lot of time on, we had to go back and record more country stuff.”

Nichols and company were still in the process of listening to, selecting, and recording new songs for the album in mid-2017. Some of the last songs to make the album, “Diamonds Make Babies” and the title track, were recorded in May.

“It was a quick turnaround on those,” says Nichols, who notes the song selection process for Never Gets Old resembles the one he went through for his 2002 album Man With A Memory, which yielded hits such as “The Impossible” and “Brokenheartsville.”

While Never Gets Old might be one of Nichols’ most traditional-leaning albums to date, listeners might do a double-take upon hearing the album’s closer, Nichols’ countrified revamp of Sir Mix-a-Lot’s 1992 hit “Baby Got Back,” which topped the Billboard Hot 100.

The song has been part of Nichols’ live show for a few years, and began as a joke on his band members.

Joe Nichols with MusicRow staffers.

“I thought it would be funny,” Nichols says. “During my shows, I would do a song or two by myself on acoustic guitar. I thought it would be funny to do a joke on the band, cause sometimes they would come join me on the last song of that short set list. So to mess with them, I started singing ‘I like big butts and I cannot lie,’ really country, but they played right along, so the joke was on me. I was like, ‘Oh my god, I’ve got to act like I know the song.’”

Fans and the band took to the twangy remix, so Nichols and his band added the song as a standalone in his set, before deciding to add it to the album, along with hilarious improvisations from comedian Darren Knight, who brings his popular “Southern Mama” character to the track.

“He’s so funny,” Nichols says. “He made it more ridiculous, just icing on the cake.”

Nichols’ rendition of “Baby Got Back” even earned Sir Mix-a-Lot’s stamp of approval.

“We met with Sir Mix-a-Lot last week actually, and he’s a really cool guy. He said, ‘I love this version of the song, and the reason is because it’s your song. You took it and covered it nothing like me so I respect it because you basically just used the words.’ I thought that was a really cool compliment.”