peermusic Expands Nashville Team

Kendall Lettow, Matt Michiels

peermusic Nashville is expanding its Creative team and has tapped publishing executives Matt Michiels and Kendall Lettow as Senior Creative Director and Creative Manager, respectively, as announced today by Michael Knox, Vice President, peermusic Nashville.

“Our company has a rich history, over 90 years strong, of championing songwriters,” said Knox. “Our songwriters know that we are in it for the long haul and that we have a best-in-class creative team to help find talent, develop careers, and ensure a platform for their songs to be noticed. Appointing talented and proven creative executives is an important part of ensuring this standard, and I am very happy to welcome Matt and Kendall to our team.”

Michiels began his career working part-time for Gallimore Productions & Song Garden Publishing founded by producer Byron Gallimore. There he assisted in production coordination on albums by Faith Hill, Tim McGraw and Jo Dee Messina. This led to an opportunity to join Warner/Chappell Nashville in 2004 as Production Manager where he handled all aspects of the catalog for the pub company’s writers and A&R staff. Over the next 13 and half years his role expanded greatly to include song pitching, graphic design for marketing, pitching for film and television, and consulting for the development of Warner/Chappell’s global creative technology solutions. Matt has secured cuts with Ashley Monroe, Dustin Lynch, Michael Ray, Jason Aldean, Ryan Hurd, and Lindsay Ell among others. He is a native of Meridian, Mississippi and holds a B.A. in Music from The University of Alabama.

Lettow holds a degree from the Recording Industry Management program at Middle Tennessee State University and has worked in the Nashville music publishing community for eight years working in the Creative departments of Kobalt Music, Still Working Music, and THiS Music where she managed writers and pitched songs, landing song placements with major label country artists. Most recently, Lettow held a creative position at the publishing company MV2 Entertainment.

peermusic Nashville’s office is led by Michael Knox – a music industry veteran who knows a thing or two about making a hit. Knox has 20 #1 songs under his belt as a producer, over 40 million singles and 18 million albums sold during his career. In addition to discovering Jason Aldean, being a top publisher and having an artist management business, Knox’s production credits include Jason Aldean, Thomas Rhett, Trace Adkins, Montgomery Gentry, Kelly Clarkson, Ludacris, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Frankie Ballard, Josh Thompson, Tyler Rich, Michael Tyler, as well as the late, legendary Buddy Knox, who is also his father. Knox has also served on the ACM Board of Directors (current), CMA Board of directors and GRAMMY Special Committees.

Country music pioneer, Jimmie Rodgers, was one of the first writers signed to peermusic back in 1927 by the company founder Ralph S. Peer and would later become one of the first performers inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame. Over 90 years later, the company still publishes the Rodgers catalog, and has even has signed a descendant of Jimmie Rodgers, Michael Tyler, to a publishing deal. In the summer of 1927, Peer also recorded The Carter Family and other acts in a series of sessions known as The Bristol Sessions, which Johnny Cash once called “the single most important event in the history of country music.” Peer also played a role in founding BMI, an early champion of country music. Today, Knox ensures that the company’s rich history of championing songwriters with its Nashville office remains as strong as ever.

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Jessica Nicholson

Jessica Nicholson serves as the Managing Editor for MusicRow magazine. Her previous music journalism experience includes work with Country Weekly magazine and Contemporary Christian Music (CCM) magazine. She holds a BBA degree in Music Business and Marketing from Belmont University. She welcomes your feedback at [email protected].

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