Dailey & Vincent’s Jamie Dailey To Keynote IBMA

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Dailey & Vincent

The International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) has announced Jamie Dailey, of Dailey & Vincent, will deliver the Keynote Address at this year’s IBMA Business Conference, on Tuesday, Sept. 25, at the Raleigh Convention Center in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. Dailey will deliver insight on this year’s conference theme, “Branding Bluegrass.”

“I’m honored to be asked to be the keynote speaker at IBMA this year,” says Dailey. “We have an incredible and legit industry, but we face a lot of challenges and uncertainty. However, there are unique and interesting opportunities available to us if we only take the time to search them out and study what could be. I’m excited to bring my perspective on branding. We need forward and unbounded leadership for our genre to grow, thrive and most importantly survive. It’s time to grow and move the music we love to the masses and keep it alive forever.”

The IBMA further outlines the “Branding Bluegrass” theme with the following description:

From front porches and kitchen tables, to the stage of the Grand Ole Opry, and from there around the world, Bluegrass has become a globally recognized phenomenon, a style of music whose identity rings loud and clear – and high and lonesome. The strength of this image inspires and challenges bluegrass professionals to make our voices heard; to tell our own stories to fans old and new; to communicate our brands. We must consider how every decision we make in art and business shapes our brands and the stories we tell about ourselves, both individually and as a genre, and how strategic decision-making can ensure that our stories resonate with the people we want to reach while remaining true to our roots.

“We often underestimate the power of our branding decisions, or lack thereof, on professional success or failure,” says Paul Schiminger, Executive Director of the IBMA. “Jamie Dailey, along with his musical partner Darrin Vincent, has left nothing to chance. Through a conscious and methodical process, they created a brand that has catapulted their careers. We are excited to have Jamie provide important insights that can help us all rethink how we create our own success.”

Omnivore Recordings To Release Buck Owens’ ‘Country Singer’s Prayer’

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Omnivore Recordings, in conjunction with the Buck Owens Estate, will release Country Singer’s Prayer, Buck Owens’ final recorded Capitol album from 1975, which has remained unissued until now. The project will release Aug. 17.

By late 1975, Owens’ contract with Capitol was due to expire at the end of the year, and he and the Buckaroos readied one final album for the label in November 1975. While several of Buck’s later Capitol recordings had not been topping the charts as before, his last single for them, “Country Singer’s Prayer,” failed to even make a showing. The label shelved this final album, and assigned the selection number to what was ultimately Buck’s last Capitol release, Best of Buck Owens, Vol. 6, which did include the last two singles originally intended for Country Singer’s Prayer: “Battle of New Orleans” and the title track.

While Buck later re-recorded some of these songs with producer Norro Wilson in Nashville after signing to Warner Bros. Records, the original recordings produced at Buck’s Bakersfield studio with the Buckaroos remained in the vault.

Taken from the original LP master tapes, in what was the intended sequence, Country Singer’s Prayer also includes the B-sides to Buck’s final two singles from the unissued album.

New liner notes were written by Scott B. Bomar, featuring interviews with longtime Buckaroos piano player Jim Shaw and Robert John Jones (a.k.a. Rocky Topp), who co-wrote “Country Singer’s Prayer.”

Track Listing:
1. John Law
2. Love Don’t Make The Bars
3. He Ain’t Been Out Bowling With The Boys
4. Drifting Away
5. The Battle Of New Orleans
6. Country Singer’s Prayer
7. California Okie
8. A Different Kind Of Sad
9. It’s Been A Long, Long Time
10. How’s Everything
11. Run Him To The Round House Nellie (You Might Corner Him There)
12. Meanwhile Back At The Ranch

Country Music Hall Of Fame Among Grammy Museum Grant Recipients

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The Country Music Hall Of Fame is among 14 recipients who will receive grant money from The GRAMMY Museum Grant Program. The program will award $200,000 in grants to recipients in the United States and Canada to help facilitate a range of research on a variety of subjects, as well as support a number of archiving and preservation programs.

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will receive $15,000 to help preserve, digitize, and ensure public access to 316 rare interviews with performers, songwriters, and music executives from one of the world’s most significant country music oral history collections. The Museum will make these singular recordings searchable and accessible via their online digital archive and via its onsite Collections’ Reading Room.

Funded research projects include a study that will examine how rhythmic cues can improve movement for older adults and people with Parkinson’s disease, and a study that will examine how neural integration through music enhances long-term memory, among others. Additional preservation and archiving initiatives will rescue and organize 400 hours of at-risk reel-to-reel tapes of Native Radio—Bay Area, and digitally restore rare kinescopes of the 1950s television series “Stars Of Jazz” (KABC-TV, 1956-58); among others.

“The Recording Academy has proudly supported our GRAMMY Museum Grant Program since its inception,” said Neil Portnow, President/CEO of the Recording Academy and Chair of the GRAMMY Museum Board. “To date, we have awarded more than $7.3 million to more than 400 grantees. The work we help fund includes an impressive array of projects that are at the forefront of exploring music’s beneficial interchange with science, and that maintain our musical legacy for future generations. The initiatives announced today exemplify the Academy’s and GRAMMY Museum’s pledge to uphold music’s value in our lives and shared culture.”

Funded by the Recording Academy, the GRAMMY Museum Grant Program provides funding annually to organizations and individuals to support efforts that advance the archiving and preservation of the recorded sound heritage of the Americas for future generations.

Ziggy Marley, Mindy Smith, Jimmy Buffett Join Kenny Chesney’s ‘Songs For The Saints’

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Kenny Chesney‘s upcoming 17th studio album, and his first for Warner Music Nashville, titled Songs For The Saints, will feature unique collaborations with Ziggy Marley, Mindy Smith and Jimmy Buffett.

“Each one of them has a tie to my life in the islands, but also reflect some piece of what we’re trying to do. Ziggy Marley, and his family’s legacy, holds so much truth for all of the people I know down there. Mindy Smith’s Come To Jesus was an album I lived with from morning to night when I was first going down there – and her voice sounds like an angel. And Jimmy, more than the lost shaker of salt, understands the poetry of the islands beyond what tourists see, the life in a way that made a song written decades ago so current. I’m honored they also want to help.”

Songs For The Saints was recorded in Nashville and mixed in Key West. Chesney began crafting the album in response to the destruction brought upon the Virgin Islands by Hurricane Irma. Proceeds from Songs For The Saints will benefit Chesney’s Love for Love City Fund, to benefit Virgin Island relief.

“Creating like this, you don’t have a master plan, but the music will take you and teach you,” Chesney said. “I knew I wanted this album to show the spirit of the people, but I wanted it to focus on healing, on their gift to rise above such complete chaos and devastation. They had no power, no real food, nothing; they dug in, started clearing the land and rebuilding. To me, that’s inspiring.”

Pre-Sales for Songs For The Saints begin Friday, June 15; available everywhere July 27.
Songs For The Saints Track Listing:
Songs for the Saints
Every Heart
Get Along
Pirate Song
Love for Love City (with Ziggy Marley)
Ends Of The Earth
Gulf Moon
Island Rain
Trying To Reason With Hurricane Season (with Jimmy Buffett)
We’re All Here
Better Boat (featuring Mindy Smith)

Artist Growth Platform Teams With Red Light, Maverick, Vector, UMG

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Artist Growth has grown from a tour-managing tool to an all-encompassing platform that can be used by business managers, production managers, labels, promoters, agents, publicists, travel agents, drivers and the musicians themselves — all at the same time.

Team members can organize everything from events calendars, day sheets, travel, deal info, tasks, tour merchandise, sales, tickets, finances and reports on AG. The customizable, point-and-click interface works on desktop and mobile (Android and iOS), and is a cloud-based system in which anyone on a team can be logged in at the same time and give updates in real-time.

Universal Music Group and execs and managers at Red Light Management, Vector Management and Maverick have all adopted AG to keep track of tours and streamline communication. The company, which got its start in 2012, is currently tracking more than $2.5 billion in tour revenue and nearly $700 million in expenses, with total event guarantees tracked at around $1.7 billion.

The company has announced a new strategic partnership and equity investment with Pinnacle Financial Partners that will fuel growth in 2018 and help bring a new model of financial services to touring entertainers.

Kacey Musgraves Celebrates Platinum Status

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Pictured (L-R): UMG Nashville EVP A&R Brian Wright, Sandbox Entertainment’s Sam Borenstein, UMG Nashville VP A&R Stephanie Wright, Kacey Musgraves, Sandbox Entertainment’s Jason Owen, UMG Nashville COO Mike Harris. Photo: Catherine Powell

Tuesday night (June 12), MCA Nashville’s Kacey Musgraves played Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena as part of Harry Styles: Live on Tour. Immediately following her performance, the singer-songwriter was surprised with a plaque for her debut album Same Trailer Different Park reaching Platinum certification by the RIAA.

The album won Best Country Album at the 2014 Grammy Awards, as well as 2014 ACM Awards. Musgraves recently released her fourth studio album Golden Hour.

UMPG Signs Singer-Songwriter Greylan James To Publishing Deal

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Universal Music Publishing Group (UMPG) has signed singer-songwriter Greylan James to a global publishing deal.

Raised outside of Knoxville, James has been writing songs since age thirteen. At 18, he was signed to his first publishing deal by Nashville Songwriter Hall of Fame inductee Bob DiPiero. James appeared on Season Four of NBC’s The Voice. He was also featured in Guitar Center Magazine’s Brotherhood of the Guitar Top 100, which ranks the top guitarists in the world under the age of 21.

“I am incredibly honored to be a part of UMPG’s roster of talented artists and songwriters. The passion and excitement they show for the creative process lets me know I found my home. I can’t wait to see what we can stir up together!” said James. “Special thanks to Kent, Ron, Travis and the rest of my Universal crew for welcoming me to the family.”

“Our entire team is thrilled Greylan decided to make UMPG his next publishing home. The passion, hard work and freshness he brings to the writing room each day is truly infectious. We look forward to helping Greylan reach all of his goals,” said Kent Earls, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Universal Music Publishing Nashville.

The deal was led by UMPG Nashville’s Ron Stuve, VP, A&R/Special Projects and Travis Gordon, Senior Creative Director.

Jerry Salley Tapped To Lead Two New Bluegrass And Americana Labels

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Pictured (L-R): Jerry Salley, Ed Leonard

Ed Leonard, President of Nashville-based Daywind Music Group, and Jerry Salley, award-winning songwriter, artist and producer, have launched Billy Blue Records and Billy Jam Records, Nashville’s newest bluegrass and Americana/Roots labels. Leonard has tapped Salley as A&R and Creative Director for both labels.

“With the recent increase in popularity of roots music, we feel it’s time to launch a new division providing opportunities and guidance for the talented artists and songwriters in these genres. Jerry Salley’s considerable success and sterling reputation in the Bluegrass and acoustic music worlds make him the perfect fit to lead our newest venture,” says Leonard. “His experience and creative abilities combined with Daywind’s talented staff and distribution reach allow artists at the new labels to compete from record one.”

Salley is the 2003 SESAC Country Music Songwriter of the Year and a two-time nominee for IBMA’s Songwriter of the Year. He has had over 500 songs recorded, with sales in excess of 17 million records, and has written multiple chart-topping hits in country, bluegrass and gospel.

“I am very grateful to Ed Leonard for this opportunity,” Salley says. “Daywind’s history as a leading independent label in Nashville with an intense artist and song focus is second to none.  I am honored and eager to build these new labels with them.”

The new labels will announce the first signings shortly and plan to have a presence at IBMA and Americana gatherings this fall. The labels will be distributed through the Orchard, Sony’s independent music distributor.

Industry Ink: Play It Again Music, NATD, Belmont At Bonnaroo

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Kyle Fishman Renews Contract With Play It Again

Pictured (L-R): Play It Again Music Creative Manager Cade Price, Play It Again Music President Juli Newton Griffith, Fishman and Play It Again Music Owner and CEO Dallas Davidson.

Play It Again Music has re-signed songwriter Kyle Fishman to an exclusive publishing agreement.

Kyle has been a part of the Play It Again family for three years and celebrated his first four-week No. 1 hit in 2017 with “Small Town Boy,” recorded by Dustin Lynch. Fishman has songs recorded by Luke Bryan, Jason Aldean, Cole Swindell, Florida Georgia Line and others.

 

NATD To Welcome Artist Manager Chris Kappy For Speaker Series

The Nashville Association of Talent Directors will feature a speaker session with Chris Kappy, manager for Luke Combs, on June 20, as part of its Breaking Artists series. The event will be held June 20 at the CMA event space (located at 35 Music Sq. E.), beginning at 6 p.m.

For tickets, visit eventbrite.com.

 

Belmont At Bonnaroo

Ken Springs interviews Bonnaroo’s Ashley Capps.

Belmont University students got real-world music industry experience by studying the behind-the-scenes workings of one of Tennessee’s most popular music festivals, Bonnaroo. 20 students signed up for “Belmont at Bonnaroo,” a new program led by Dr. Sarita Stewart and Dr. Ken Spring. The curriculum combines two co-curricular classes, “Research Methods and Festival Culture,” and “Sociology of Music.”

Throughout the four-day festival June 7-10, the 20-member class and two faculty members planted themselves on tour buses behind the festival’s main stage. Every day four groups of five students each would wander throughout the festival site to find attendees to interview, seeking to gain insights into four areas Stewart described, all critical to the future of festivals and the music business at large. In addition to their on-site research, students also attended classes each day in the Bonnaroo press tent with their faculty and Artists/Executives in Residence, including Bonnaroo founder Ashley Capps, Khalid manager Courtney Stewart and C3 promoter Amy Corbin, among others.

Q&A: Stoney’s Founder Chris Lowden Talks Expanding Presence And Footprint

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Chris Lowden, founder of Stoney’s Rockin’ Country in Las Vegas

Stoney’s Rockin’ Country, the go-to country music venue in Las Vegas, has an ever-expanding presence on the west coast and is making a footprint in Nashville with a new office.

On April 13 and 14, Stoney’s hosted the ACM Tailgate as part of ACM Party For a Cause, featuring more than 30 artists including Kip Moore and Jon Pardi. The venue expanded the festival-style outdoor event from one day in 2017, to two days this year, with proceeds benefiting ACM Lifting Lives.

In addition, Stoney’s is celebrating it’s 11th birthday this summer, as well as its first ACM Industry Award nomination for Nightclub of the Year, set to be presented in August 22 at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium.

MusicRow spoke to founder Chris Lowden about the driving forces behind the venue, which he runs with the help of marketing director Jeff “Toad” Higginbotham.

Stoney’s prides itself on embracing emerging artists. Who has played there and who would you love to see take the stage?

There’s so much great talent that typically Vegas doesn’t see, because they are rising artists who don’t fit the showroom mold or the arena mold. With a 1200 capacity, Stoney’s fills a hole [in the market] that other places don’t, by offering shows by artists like Jimmie Allen, Stephanie Quayle and The Cadillac Three. Russell Dickerson has played here about eight times in the last three years, and the last two times he sold out. I’d love to host Cody Jinks, John D. Hale Band, Brent Cobb and Mitchell Tenpenny. Brett Young, Jon Pardi and Luke Combs have all played here, and now we can’t afford them.

When did you decide to open Stoney’s?

I used to hang out at a place called Gilley’s, inside the Frontier Hotel and Casino. The General Manager was a guy named Stoney. Then in 2005 or ‘06, we found out they were going to tear down The Frontier, and there would be no more Gilley’s. So we decided to build our own place and name it after Stoney, because everybody knew who he was. We opened in 2007.

What was it like growing up in Las Vegas with family in the entertainment and gaming business?

We were in the gaming business and owned six casinos at one point. We just sold our last casino. We are transitioning from gaming to a real estate investment company that happens to have Stoney’s.

We owned the Sahara, where I saw Brooks and Dunn perform before they were famous. We had people like Tina Turner and George Carlin. The Grateful Dead used to stay at the Sahara and eat lunch in the coffee shop. My dad also helped take Siegfried & Roy from a small act inside the Lido, by working with Irvin Feld to create the show we know today.

My dad has a crazy history with Las Vegas entertainment, but also with playing music. He is a musician who left home at about age 15. He is a keyboard player and his forte is the Hammond B3. He still plays today and tours with Jack Jones.

What is the idea behind Stoney’s launch of Country AF radio?

It was born out of frustration that terrestrial radio would not play our emerging artists’ music.

So we program it with 50 percent terresetrial and 50 percent what we want to play, like Blackberry Smoke, Carlton Anderson, Travis Parker and Alex Williams. We also have a lot of content and interviews. It’s an app or you can listen online at CountryAFRadio.com.

Russell Dickerson’s sold-out show at Stoney’s Rockin’ Country on April 12, 2018.

Congratulations on your first ACM nomination. What sets Stoney’s apart from other venues?

The vibe is super cool, and it’s not just a venue. On the dance floor it’s not uncommon for half or three-fourths of the fans to be watching the show while the other half or one-fourth are line dancing or two-stepping.

The nomination is a little surreal. We’re super excited and humbled by it. Our philosoply is to be the venue that artists love to call home, love to play. We really treat them like family…as I say, “the family that you like.” We want them to know they will have a good crowd and great equipment.

Most of all the hospitality is second to none, which is what we strive for, because we really appreciate the hard work that artists put in.