Change the Conversation Celebrates Anniversary of Chicks With Hits On May 1

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Change the Conversation will celebrate the 20th anniversary of Chicks With Hits by holding a panel featuring several members of Chicks with Hits at BMI on May 1 at 6 p.m., immediately following the group’s party.

Change the Conversation co-founder Tracy Gershon will lead a discussion with the founders of Chicks With Hits about the group’s beginnings and successes, as well as how they are working together in the new age of publishing.

Chicks With Hits was founded 20 years ago by Mighty Kimmy Jo Music’s Kim Jones and Wrensong/Rezonant Publishing’s Abbe Nameche to help female independent music publishers receive the same attention as larger music publishers from producers, A&R executives and artists.

The group has included publishing leaders Celia Froehlig, Courtney Crist, Debbie Zavitson, Diana Maher, Janie West, Jewel Coburn, Judy Harris, Leslie T. DiPiero, Lisa Johnson, Melanie Howard, Ree Guyer, Robin Palmer, Stephanie Cox, Tracy Gershon, Lisa Ramsey-Perkins, Katherine B. Church, Karen Conrad, Shawn Heflin and Whitney Daane.

MusicRow recently spoke with several members of Chicks With Hits, to discuss the group’s 20-year history.

The event is free and open to the public. To attend, please RSVP at [email protected].

In Pictures: SOLID, SOURCE, RaeLynn

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SOLID Helps Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee

Back row, left to right: SOLID board members Lindsey Hughes (Chair, Communications), Nathan Pyle (VP), Bailey Lathem (Co-Chair, Community Outreach), Avery King (Co-Chair, Communications), Collin Trudan (Chair, Community Outreach), Elise Anderson (Secretary), Grayson Flatness (Co-Chair, Music Market), Pete Stormer (Chair, University Outreach), Ammie Sorter (Co-Chair, University Outreach); Front row, left to right: SOLID board members Max Weibrecht (Co-Chair, Social), Rachel Glidden (Chair, Social), Amanda Remo (Treasurer), Erin Pettit (Chair, Music Market) and Johnny Cloherty (President). Download.

The Society of Leaders In Development (SOLID) raised more than $52,000 for Big Brothers Big Sisters of Middle Tennessee (BBBSMT) at their annual Music Row Madness event held at Topgolf. The fundraiser broke records for both organizations: the event, previously known as the annual Bowling for Kids’ Sake bowling event, pulled in more money then any single BBBSMT bowling event in history and became SOLID’s most successful fundraiser in its 20+ years.

 

 

Erin Crawford At SOURCE

Pictured (L-R): Source President, City National Bank’s, Mandy Gallagher; Music Business Association’s, Jamie Litt, SVP, Entertainment & GM, Music, Nielsen, Erin Crawford; Source Vice President, Iconic Entertainment Group’s Alicia Lanier Jones.

Music Business Association’s Nashville Community Relations Rep., Jamie Litt, and Erin Crawford, SVP, Entertainment & GM, Music – Nielsen, were the guest speakers at the Monthly SOURCE luncheon held at ASCAP in Nashville Thursday April 26, 2018.

 

RaeLynn Visits WME

Pictured (L-R): Kerry Hansen (co-Manager, Big Enterprises), Risha Rodgers (Partner, WME), Sloane Logue (Agent, WME), Michelle Kirk (Agent, WME), Becky Gardenhire (Partner, WME), RaeLynn, Morgan Kenney (Agent, WME), Carrie Murphy (Agent, WME), Jenn Witherell (co-Manager, Big Enterprises), Brandi Brammer (Agent, WME)

RAELYNN visited her agency home WME  for a spirited performance of new music, including her new empowerment anthem, “Queens Don’t,” which exclusively premiered on SiriusXM’s The Highway last month. The breakout performer previewed new tracks atop The Steps at WME, thanking them for their five plus years of partnership and the role they played in many accolades such as her headline RAvE tour, ACM New Female Vocalist of the Year nomination and more than 230 million cumulative on-demand career streams.

DISClaimer: Abby Anderson, Devin Dawson, Travis Denning, Muscadine Bloodline Top New Releases

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Today belongs to the “young country” crowd.

Veterans Montgomery Gentry and Sugarland take a back seat to an outstanding parade of up-and-comers in this edition of DisClaimer. Jordan Davis, Ashley Monroe, Tyler Farr and Maddie & Tae all have listenable new tunes.

The Disc of the Day award goes to another rising young artist, Devin Dawson.

There’s so much fine new talent here that I am splitting the DisCovery Award into three salutes. The Duo/Group winner is Muscadine Bloodline. The Female winner is Abby Anderson. The Male honoree is Travis Denning. Live long and prosper, all of you.

TRAVIS DENNING/David Ashley Parker From Powder Springs
Writers: none listed; Producer: none listed; Publisher: none listed; Mercury (CDX)
– Pretty dang cool. He sings like a country pro, and the song has hooks in all the right places. Big bonus points for compositional creativity, since it’s undoubtedly the first song ever written exclusively about a fake I.D.

TYLER FARR/Love By The Moon
Writers: none listed; Producer: none listed; Publishers: none listed; Columbia
– Punchy. His tightly-wound, slightly strangulated vocal style is ear catching. And you can’t beat a lyric hook like, “Live by the sun/Love by the moon,” even if the rest of the lyric is standard-issue bro-country.

ABBY ANDERSON/Make Him Wait
Writers: Anderson/Josh Kerr/Tom Douglas; Producer: Josh Kerr; Publishers: Tunes of Black River/Purple Keystone/Songs of Black River/Whistlepig Winners/Sony-ATV Tree/Tomdouglasmusic, BMI/ASCAP; Black River
– Luminous. Melting with warmth. Its message to young girls about holding onto your innocence is worthy. To have your ears really pinned back, experience this artist live. She is a Fourth-of-July sparkler of a personality.

SUGARLAND & TAYLOR SWIFT/Babe
Writers: Swift/Patrick Monahan; Producers: Kristian Bush/Jennifer Nettles/Brandon Bush/Julian Raymond/Zoe Rosen/Brianna Steinitz; Publishers: none listed; Big Machine
– It’s a sugary pop confection that tastes delicious. A production recipe with more nutritious ingredients might have served its lyric of disappointment and rejection better.

MUSCADLINE BLOODLINE/Movin’ On
Writers: Gary Stanton/Charlie Muncaster/Cary Barlowe; Producer: Luke Laird; Publishers: none listed; Creative Nation
– Excitement from the get-go. The pulse-quickening rhythm, the churning guitars and the twin male harmonies grab you by the collar. Then the excellently crafted lyric about getting over a heartbreak delights your brain. Lend this Alabama duo your ears. Right now.

MONTGOMERY GENTRY/Get Down South
Writers: John Wiggins/Bob Moffat/Clint Moffat/Troy Johnson; Producers: Shannon Houchins/Noah Gordon; Publisher: none listed; Average Joes
– Rowdy, Dixie-fried party music.

JORDAN DAVIS/Take It From Me
Writers: Jordan Davis/Jacob Davis/Jason Gantt; Producers: Paul DiGiovanni; Publishers: ole Red Cape/Jordan Davis/ReHits/Me GustaSony-ATV Tree, Songs of Red Bandana, ASCAP/BMI; MCA Nashville
– Tuneful and cheerful. The processed vocal is a little off-putting, but the overall upbeat attitude is infectious.

ASHLEY MONROE/Wild Love
Writers: Ashley Monroe/Waylon Payne/Brendan Benson; Producer: Dave Cobb; Publishers: Monroe Suede/Songs of Kobalt/Tiltawhirl/Carnival/BMG Gold/Gladsad/BMG Rights Mngmnt, BMI/ASCAP; Warner Bros.
– Misty and mysterious. Her dreamy vocal performance floats in a minor-key arrangement featuring sighing organ notes, strummy guitars, echoey background voices and complimentary string phrases. Beautifully haunting.

DEVIN DAWSON/Asking For A Friend
Writers: none listed; Producer: none listed; Publishers: none listed; Atlantic
– The conversational lyric is just terrific. His super-warm vocal performance is sprinkled with stardust. The wafting production is pristine and perfect. This romantic come-on should absolutely dissolve female listeners.

MADDIE & TAE/Friends Don’t
Writers: Maddie Marlow/Taylor Dye/Jon Nite/Justin Ebach; Producers: Jimmy Robbins/Derek Wells; Publisher: none listed; Mercury
– The song is there and, as always, their voices are beyond dandy. The production seems a little dense and busy on first listen, but I think I could definitely get used to this.

Nashville Quintet Birdtalker To Release Debut Album In June

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Nashville-based quintet Birdtalker will release its debut album, One, on June 22. The group’s song “Heavy” recently earned more than 21 million streams on Spotify, with no label support.

Fronted by couple Zack and Dani Green, Birdtalker blends elements of Americana, folk and pop, taking their name from an anecdote about St. Francis of Assisi’s ability to converse with sparrows.

“The way I experience life is that if you experience a sad thing, it’s almost by letting yourself dive straight down into it and feel the stuff that those things don’t have a hold on you anymore,” described Dani of the new single. “If you ever want to move past the sadness, you have to let it be there for a little while. And then once you allow it to move through you, your heart is still broken, but there’s this beauty in knowing that new growth will happen soon.”

Birdtalker’s path to formation was, much like the success of “Heavy,” hardly planned out.

“Neither of us were in bands before we started this one,” said Dani. The Greens figured out they had some harmonic alchemy early in their relationship, but neither had performed music in public before, even solo, much less imagined starting a band. Zack admits he hadn’t even been much of a music lover growing up, but suddenly found himself exposed to a whole new world of music in his 20s. He began drifting towards emotionally intent acts while writing songs with his similarly newly muse-stricken spouse.

Eventually, drummer Andrew Hubright, guitarist Brian Seligman, and bassist Jesse Baker drifted in, adding new elements until the band found a fully-fledged sound, which led to the breakthrough song “Heavy.”

Track List:
01) Ankle Bone
02) Nothing’s Right
03) Looking For Love
04) Outside The Lines
05) Autodomesticated Animal
06) Free Like A Broken Heart
07) Be Where You Are
08) Heavy
09) Medea
10) Take It Slow
11) One

Nashville Best Cellars Dinner Raises $215,000 For T.J. Martell Foundation

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Pictured (L-R): Chantel Esposito, John Esposito (Chairman & CEO, WMN), John Sanzo (President, Secure Air Charter), Nataliia Sanzo, Eliza Kraft Olander, Melissa Beckham, Rob Beckham (Co-Head, WME Nashville) Photo credit: Rick Diamond / Getty Images

The 19th Annual Nashville Best Cellars dinner on Monday night (April 23) featured celebrity attendees including Frankie Ballard, Big Kenny (Big & Rich), Kix Brooks, Martina McBride, Michael Ray, Dan Smyers (Dan + Shay), Old Dominion, RaeLynn, Reba McEntire, and more, and the event’s gourmet food, exquisite wines and resulted in over $215,000 raised for the T.J. Martell Foundation.

At the helm of the event were co-chairs and industry staples Rob Beckham (Co-Head, WME Nashville), John Esposito (Chairman & CEO, Warner Music Nashville) and Eliza Kraft Olander.

The dinner featured cuisine prepared by award-winning chefs Joseph Lenn (J.C. Holdway – Knoxville, TN), Steven Satterfield (Miller Union – Atlanta, GA), Matt Bolus (404 Kitchen – Nashville, TN) and Lisa Donovan (Nashville-based pastry chef). Satterfield introduced the first course with his vegetable-paired smoked cobia, leading into Lenn’s pork collar with potatoes, ramps, fiddlehead ferns and ham hock. Bolus followed up with lamb sugo and ricotta cavatelli, and Donovan wrapped the evening with black pepper and pecan pavolova, Louisiana strawberries and sweet cream.

Pairing “Best Sellers” (popular chart-topping and award winning artists) with “Best Cellars” (some of the top wine collectors in the United States), the event has helped raise money to support the foundation’s mission of funding ground-breaking cancer research since 1999.

 

SiriusXM To Broadcast From Stagecoach Festival

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SiriusXM announced today that for the first time it will broadcast live performances and backstage interviews from the Stagecoach Country Festival in Indio, California. The exclusive radio broadcast will air on The Highway, Channel 56, and will include backstage interviews and live performances from Florida Georgia Line, Jake Owen, Kelsea Ballerini, Kane Brown, Brett Young, Lee Brice, and more.

SiriusXM will debut the SiriusXM Spotlight Stage, a special stage highlighting up-and-coming artists including Highway Find artists Carly Pearce, Ashley McBryde, and numerous others. A special edition of SiriusXM’s ‘Music Row Happy Hour’ hosted by Buzz Brainard, is also airing live from Stagecoach today.

“SiriusXM is proud to bring California’s country music festival to all of North America,” said Steve Blatter, Senior Vice President and General Manager of Music Programming for SiriusXM. “We know our listeners will appreciate hearing both the established artists on the main stages and all the emerging artists on the SiriusXM Spotlight Stage. We’re also thrilled to originate our Music Row Happy Hour live from the festival.”

SiriusXM’s Stagecoach Country Music Festival broadcast begins today through Sunday, April 29 and features continuous coverage of the three-day outdoor country music festival with live performances, artist interviews and commentary from backstage. Select performance highlights and interviews, including Dwight Yoakam, will also air later on SiriusXM’s Outlaw Country, channel 60.

Charley Pride Celebrates 25th Opry Anniversary With Slate Of Shows

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Photo by Chris Hollo

Charley Pride will celebrate his 25th anniversary as a Grand Ole Opry member with appearances on the Opry on May 4 and 5. Pride, who made his Opry debut performance in 1967, is scheduled to perform extended Opry sets in celebration of his milestone anniversary on both nights.

As part of the celebration, Opry flagship station 650 AM WSM plans to salute the award-winning artist with a “Country Pride Weekend”, spinning Pride’s 50-plus Top 10 singles, playing signature Pride archived programs, and taking listener requests for the Country Music Hall of Famer’s all-time favorites.

Upon his Opry induction 25 years ago, Pride recalled his initial dream of baseball stardom. “It’s as if I had made it in baseball and they came up to me and took me to Cooperstown and said, ‘This is where your plaque is going to be – beside Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, Jackie Robinson, and Hank Aaron.”

Pride’s fellow Opry member Carrie Underwood is set to mark 10 years with the Opry on two shows the following weekend, Fri., May 11. Among other artists scheduled for the Opry and Opry Country Classics in May are Trace Adkins, Bobby Bare, Terri Clark, Luke Combs, Easton Corbin, Jordan Davis, Larry Gatlin & the Gatlin Brothers, Crystal Gayle, Craig Morgan, Lorrie Morgan, Rascal Flatts, Darius Rucker, Marty Stuart, and Tanya Tucker.

Amazon Music Aims Country Heat Playlist Toward Global Listeners

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Amazon Music has launched a country music playlist aimed at markets outside the United States. Amazon’s Country Heat playlist is available now, for the first time, in more than 35 countries around the world.

The curated playlist features a mix of new and established country artists. To celebrate the launch of the playlist, Brett Young recorded his own version of the Leonard Cohen classic “Hallelujah,” which he has frequently played as an encore to close his live shows. The newly-recorded track is streaming exclusively as an Amazon Original for fans of the Country Heat playlist.

“Country Heat represents the biggest and best in country music right now, and launching this playlist around the world is a great way to super-serve the country fans on Amazon Music and provide them with a weekly destination for the best in country music, while providing a massive look for some artists that might not yet have a presence outside of the US,” said Emily Cohen, country music curator for Amazon Music. “Amazon Music offers thousands of playlists in every territory, and it’s amazing to add Country Heat to our programming roster globally.”

Country Heat is now available to stream via the Amazon Music app for iOS and Android, or at amazon.com/countryheat. Listeners can also access Country Heat on Alexa-enabled devices where available by simply asking, “Alexa, play Country Heat.”

The timing of the new playlist launch is apt, given that country music labels, managers, promoters and agents are pushing for more international opportunities for their artists in areas such as the U.K. and Australia. Last year marked the first Country Music Week in the U.K., following the success of the Country To Country (C2C) festival, which AEG launched in 2013. CMW will return for a second year in October, with headlining concerts from Kacey Musgraves, Darius Rucker, and Drake White. The C2C festival will return next year, running from March 8-10, 2019. Meanwhile, numerous artists have used the newfound visibility gained from the festival and CMW to book a run of shows.

Camila Cabello, Kane Brown Team For New Collaboration

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Kane Brown has teamed up with Camila Cabello on a new version of Cabello’s smash hit “Never Be The Same.”  The new track is out today and is already setting social media ablaze and can be heard here.

The collaboration is a genre-crossing version of Cabello’s No. 2 hit, which is the second single from her platinum debut album, CAMILA. Cabello will be opening for Taylor Swift this summer on the star’s eagerly awaited Reputation tour.

Brown continues to dominate country charts with the rise of his Top 5 hit, “Heaven,” which has been a seven-week No. 1 on Nielsen’s On Demand Audio Core Country Streaming chart, tallied more than 81 million YouTube/VEVO video views, and was his third track to achieve Platinum or Multi-Platinum certification.

 

“Yodeling Boy” Mason Ramsey Inks Deal With Atlantic Records, Big Loud

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Mason Ramsey, who shot to fame after a video of Ramsey singing Hank Williams’ “Lovesick Blues” recently went viral with more than 31 million views, has inked a deal with Atlantic Records and Big Loud. He releases his debut single, “Famous,” today.

After his rendition of the Williams classic went viral, he made an appearance on Ellen and made his Grand Ole Opry debut, as well as an appearance at Coachella. He is scheduled for a return visit to Ellen today, and will join Florida Georgia Line for an appearance at the Stagecoach festival tonight.

Mason Ramsey said, “I’d been to Nashville a few times before, but never thought something like this would happen. It’s a dream to sign with Atlantic and Big Loud. I loved recording ‘Famous’ and can’t wait for everyone to hear it.”

Ian Cripps, Atlantic Records Vice President of A&R said: “I loved the video that went viral, and after spending time with Mason, I knew he was a star. He has the talent and emotional ability to really feel a song and sing from his soul. I’m blessed to have the opportunity to work with him and his family to help develop his career. Coachella, Stagecoach … World, here he comes.”

Seth England, Big Loud Partner said, “The minute Mason and his family walked into Big Loud, I knew we had to work with him. He is a star, but most importantly he is a down to earth kid who loves country music. The Ramseys are an amazing family from a small Southern Illinois town just like me. We understood them, and their goals and simply fell in love with their story and vision. I want to give a special thank you to Julie Greenwald, Craig Kallman, Ian Cripps and Jeff Levin at Atlantic for also believing in Big Loud as their partner on this project. This would have never happened without you guys and we’re forever grateful. Most of all, I want to thank The Ramseys, Danny Kang and Dan Awad for trusting Big Loud and Atlantic to join them on this journey.”

“Famous” will soon be joined by a new companion video, currently in production. Produced by Joey Moi (Florida Georgia Line, Jake Owen) and Corey Crowder (Chris Young), the track was written by Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard (Jason Aldean), Corey Crowder (Chris Young, A Thousand Horses), Sarah Buxton (Chris Lane, Keith Urban), and Canaan Smith (Florida Georgia Line, Love & Theft).