Mary Chapin Carpenter. Photo: Aaron Farrington

Mary Chapin Carpenter has released the title track from her upcoming new album, The Dirt And The Stars, which will be released Aug. 7 on Lambent Light Records via Thirty Tigers.

Produced by Ethan Johns and recorded entirely live at Peter Gabriel’s Real World Studios in Bath, England, the album is filled with songs penned by Carpenter at her rural Virginia farmhouse before stay-at-home orders became the new normal. She describes the songs as difficult in some ways, inspired by places of hurt but also happiness as well.

“The writer Margaret Renkl once said, ‘We are all in the process of becoming.’ That doesn’t stop at a certain age,” said Carpenter of the new project. “To be always a student of art and music and life, as she says, that, to me, is what makes life worth living. It’s certainly what makes me want to still write songs. No sugar coating, the songs are very personal and they’re difficult in some ways, and definitely come from places of pain and self-illumination, but also places of joy, discovery and the rewards of self- knowledge. They arrived from looking outward as much as inward, speaking to life changes, growing older, politics, compassion, #metoo, heartbreak, empathy, the power of memory, time and place. So, I suppose I could say there are many themes, but they all come back to that initial idea that we are all constantly ‘becoming’ through art and expression.”

Carpenter has been connecting with fans during the pandemic with her successful “Songs From Home” virtual concert series, which will continue to run throughout the summer. Filmed at her home, the performances have already been viewed over 10 million times across her socials.

Hailey Whitters‘ Pigasus Records has formed a partnership with Big Loud Records and Songs & Daughters, the female-driven label formed by Big Loud Records and songwriter Nicolle Galyon.

“To me, Hailey represents the heart of my favorite kind of Nashville success story,” said Galyon, President of Songs & Daughters. “She’s had the tenacity to master her craft for 12 years, the gift to turn that into compelling music, and the authenticity to win over the Music Row community with a record she made all on her own. I’m honored to get to be a small part of the incredible story she’s writing.”

Big Loud Records and Songs & Daughters will continue marketing and promotion of Whitters’ new album, The Dream, which was originally self-released via her label Pigasus Records.

“Artists like Hailey Whitters rarely come along – she can be one of the biggest stars in the genre, that’s why we decided to team up and pitch her together rather than compete for her,” said co-managers Matt Graham (Brnd Mgmt) and Chris Kappy (Make Wake Artists). “We’ve spent the last year building a team worthy of her talent. Big Loud Records / Songs & Daughters has been an immediate force on that team and we couldn’t be happier with this new partnership.”

Seth England, Partner/CEO of Big Loud, shares, “Entering our fifth year as a record company, we knew it was time to evolve Big Loud’s roster in creative directions we haven’t been before. Today’s announcement marks a big step in that. We have been so drawn to what Hailey and team have been building, and the incredible music they make.” Adding, “Hailey is the quintessential Nashville success story and we couldn’t be more proud to be a part of her future. Thank you Hailey, for trusting Big Loud Records / Songs & Daughters to partner in your next chapter.”

“I’m proud to partner with Big Loud Records / Songs & Daughters, and to be represented by a label that is building artist’s careers in innovative ways that are unrestrained by industry standards and norms,” said Whitters.

The National Music Publishers’ Association’s (NMPA) first-ever Virtual Annual Meeting was held Wednesday (June 10). NMPA President & CEO David Israelite detailed revenue analysis from 2019 showing strong growth in certain sectors and interviewed songwriter Ross Golan, Peloton’s Emma Lovewell and Gwen Riley, and honored country music legend Garth Brooks.

In his annual State of the Industry address, Israelite released new data and insights from the past year. Publishing industry revenue from 2019 was $3,719,796,271, representing an 11.55% growth rate from 2018 to 2019. When that revenue was broken down, performance continued to be the most dominant category making up 52.30%. Sync followed with 22.69%, mechanical with 18.53% and miscellaneous made up the remaining 6.48%. Israelite’s key takeaways were that 2019 represented the fifth consecutive year of significant growth. Additionally, sync and mechanical revenue grew faster than performance, primarily because streaming continues to grow at a fast pace and more and more of that revenue is being categorized as mechanical because of recent successes at the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB) and how it is divided. Additionally, sync revenue has benefitted from some of the landmark deals that NMPA and other publishers have done, which are staring to pay off. Israelite also reinforced that new revenue sources are critical to the industry’s future such as mass synchronization, in-home fitness, and more as traditional models such as physical and digital downloads continue to diminish.

RIAA Chairman & CEO Mitch Glazier spoke about the work his association is doing to globally combat piracy during the COVID-19 pandemic. He also discussed the need for reform in the wake of the recent U.S. Copyright Office’s report on Section 512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) saying, “the services that should be responsible parts of the ecosystem who can voluntarily come in and protect music have refused so far to do so in a way that really protects creators—that protects songwriters and artists.”

NMPA EVP & General Counsel Danielle Aguirre and Mechanical Licensing Collective (MLC) CEO Kris Ahrend were also interviewed. Aguirre, who serves on the board of the MLC, discussed the MLC’s progress thus far with Ahrend, who reinforced that, “our mission is fundamentally to ensure that creators, and their partners—their publishing companies—are paid properly.” When asked about how COVID-19 has affected the MLC’s development timeline, Ahrend assured that, “the coronavirus has not impacted our timeline, we are still laser focused on being ready to fulfill all of our obligations as of the license ability date next January.”

In an interview with Israelite, songwriter Ross Golan was optimistic about how songwriters and publishers have adapted to virtual songwriting during the COVID-19 pandemic, saying, “there’s an efficiency to writing online that I think songwriters are starting to find. So even if in the beginning they may have been reluctant to do sessions via Zoom and otherwise, I find that songwriters are starting to not only embrace it, but they’ve succeeded at it. You know a song like ‘Stuck with You’ with Justin Bieber and Ariana was recorded and released within eight days. So there’s an efficiency from the inception of a song, the mixing, mastering of a song, and the release of a song.”

Adding to the industry analysis, Israelite interviewed David Bakula, SVP of Analytics, Insights and Research at Nielsen Music who said that the pandemic and subsequent quarantine had shifted how consumers listen to music. Bakula reported that an increasing number of consumers are adding music subscriptions and they are more likely to continue to pay in the future. Additionally, country music has been the best performing genre during the period, but children’s and classical have also done well.

The virtual meeting culminated with the honoring of Garth Brooks who discussed the importance of NMPA’s work to protect songwriters saying, “it’s the greatest thing that anybody can call you, is a songwriter.” He added, “we’re the seed, we’re the fragile, but we need to be the most protected or there is no plant.” After performing a section of his iconic song “The River” acoustically, Brooks accepted his NMPA Songwriter Icon Award in the name of his longtime publisher Bob Doyle.