Industry Ink: Big Loud, BMI, Warner/Chappell, Crowd Surf

Leading up to last week’s ACM Honors, BMI and Warner/Chappell Nashville honored ACM Songwriter of the Year Rhett Akins with a special dinner at Jeff Ruby’s Steakhouse. Akins was presented a series of BMI Million-Air Awards totaling over 35 million spins. If played back-to-back, these tracks would total over 240 years of continuous airplay.

The 19 Million-Air awards recognized some of Rhett’s greatest hits, including “Take A Back Road,” “Gimme That Girl,” “Dirt on My Boots,” “I Don’t Want This Night To End,” “That Ain’t My Truck,” and many more. Akins was recognized the following evening at the ACM Honors as this year’s ACM Songwriter of the Year.

Crowd Surf Promotes H. Read Davis

Crowd Surf co-founders, Cassie Petrey and Jade Driver, announce the newly created role for Nashville team member H. Read Davis as Director of Creative Operations.

Davis will be responsible for managing all video/graphic/web/photo productions, overseeing all asset delivery on independent releases and all Content I.D. and Facebook Rights Manager initiatives. He will also handle playlisting placement for the company’s independent artists in platforms such as Spotify and YouTube, as well as oversee recruiting and training responsibilities for the company’s staff.

Before he started at Crowd Surf in 2014, Davis was a founding member of Nashville-based group The Westbound Rangers. In October 2016, he was promoted to Marketing Director at the company. Davis can be reached at read@crowdsurf.net.