Doc McGhee To Be Inducted Into Personal Managers Hall of Fame

Doc McGhee

Doc McGhee is one of 12 music managers to be inducted into the Personal Managers Hall of Fame on May 12, at Morongo Casino Resort in Palm Springs, California.

McGhee helped launch the careers of Bon Jovi, Motley Crue and Skid Row, and previously managed Darius Rucker. McGhee Entertainment has offices in Nashville and Los Angeles.

Other managers to be inducted include George “Bullets” Durgom ( Merv Griffin, Jackie Gleason, Mort Sahl), Brian Epstein (The Beatles, Cilla Black, The Cyrkle, Bill J. Kramer, Dakotas and Gerry and the Pacemakers), Albert Grossman (Bob Dylan, Janis Joplin, Gordon Lightfoot, Odetta, and Peter, Paul and Mary), William “Bill” Loeb (Rose Marie, Rosemary Clooney, Mel Torme), Rushion McDonald (Steve Harvey), Patricia “Pat” McQueeney (Harrison Ford, Teri Garr, Mackenzie Phillips, Cindy Williams), Edie Robb (Calista Flockhart, Anne Heche, Mark Indelicato, Sandra Steele, Chandra Wilson), Jack Segal (Buddy Hackett, Jackie Mason, Joan Rivers), Jerry Solomon (Jackie Joyner Kersee, Nancy Kerrigan, Ivan Lendl), Larry A. Thompson (William Shatner), and Jeff Wald (James Brolin, George Carlin, Helen Reddy, Sylvester Stallone, Flip Wilson).

Josh Abbott Band Inks Deal With Reviver Label Services’ 1608 Promotion

Josh Abbott Band has teamed with Reviver Label Services’ 1608 Promotion.

“If you take a look at what Josh Abbott Band has been able to do on their own – with their last two albums hitting the Top 10 on the Billboard Country Albums chart, you know that the fans really seem to register and identify with what they are doing musically. Taking that next step, and bringing their new radio single ‘Wasn’t That Drunk’ into the band’s story, is what we are going to do at Reviver,” said Reviver Label Services president David Ross.

The group’s new album, Front Row Seat, was released in November, and debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Independent Albums chart.

Demolition Music Publishing Signs Drew Smith

Pictured (L-R): Jon D’Agostino and Drew Smith.

Demolition Music Publishing has signed songwriter/artist Drew Smith to its roster. A Lawrenceburg, Tennessee native, Smith has had recent cuts with Randy Houser and Merle Haggard, and he has opened for Big & Rich, Lee Brice and others.

The Listening Room Cafe Celebrates 10 Years

Pictured (L-R): Listening Room owner Chris Blair, Craig Campbell, Keifer Thompson, Cole Taylor, and Kristian Bush. Photo: Ken Calcaterra.

One of Nashville’s favorite music rooms, The Listening Room Cafe celebrated its 10-year anniversary recently with some extra special songwriter rounds. Kristian Bush, Thompson Square’s Keifer Thompson, Craig Campbell, and Cole Taylor performed a special round to celebrate 10 years of music at The Listening Room Cafe.

Chase Rice. Photo: Cody Cannon

Chase Rice got his start playing the college circuit, and he’ll revisit those roots with the Back to College Tour starting on April 14 at Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Florida.

Other dates include: the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill (where Rice attended college) on April 16; Gannon University and Edinboro University in Erie, Pennsylvania, on April 19; Kent State University in Kent, Ohio, on April 21; Southern Illinois University in Carbondale on April 23; East Georgia State College in Swainsboro on April 29; and Western Connecticut State University in Danbury on May 6.

The concert series is presented by Campus Event Networks, an online resource for college concert programmers.

Rice just released a new single, “Whisper,” from his upcoming second album on Columbia Nashville/Dack Janiels. The single will officially go for adds on Feb. 29, with a new album to follow in 2016. His hits include “Ready, Set, Roll” and “Gonna Wanna Tonight.” He is currently nominated for ACM Top New Male Vocalist.

“We wanted to take our time with this new album and I want to put the good, the bad and all the grit in between into these songs,” Rice says. “The fans in a lot of these cities have been there for me since day one, so I’m looking forward to playing them some new music live and bringing them along on the next step of our journey.”

Jeff Bhasker. Photo: Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

“I’m driven to work with very unique and vulnerable singers with amazing voices and perspectives,” Grammy-winning producer/songwriter Jeff Bhasker tells MusicRow via phone from California. “I love mixing genres and defying a genre.”

MusicRow caught up with Bhasker weeks before his Grammy win for 2016 Producer of the Year on Monday, Feb. 15, 2016.

Bhasker has carved a high-powered career out of the diversity of musical genres he’s worked in, with names including Alicia Keys, Drake, Beyoncé, Kanye West, Pink, Ed Sheeran, fun., Bruno Mars and country newcomer Cam peppering his resume. Bhasker has previously earned three Grammy wins for his work with fun. and West.

Ronson’s infectious pop-soul hit from early 2015, “Uptown Funk,” is the result of an approximately nine-month process of re-writing lyrics, and revamping melodies and production elements. Bhasker co-wrote the song with Ronson, Mars, and Philip Lawrence. “It took two minutes to create the first 16 bars, and then nine months to complete it and bring it to where we felt it needed to be,” said Bhasker. “Because the song was so great in the first 20 seconds, it was like, ‘How do we top that by the time we get to the chorus?’ So you’ve got something that is like a 10 and now you need something that is like a 10.5 and you need to fill in the gaps perfectly to get there. It sucks when you have a great idea but no chorus, because when you get to the chorus, it better not let you down. Putting all those pieces together was like a Rubik’s Cube.”

The struggle paid off; “Uptown Funk” topped the Nielsen Soundscan rankings.

Bhasker brought that same tenacity and passion to his work with country newcomer (and MusicRow 2016 Next Big Thing artist) Cam. Bhasker was introduced to Cam’s talent both as a songwriter and artist while she was working with songwriter-producer Tyler Johnson. “They were working on music for the current album, and they worked on music at my studio,” says Bhasker. “I had seen them perform live, and I was like, ‘Wow, she has an amazing voice, and these songs are great.’ While they were working on new music, I would give some comments and critiques and they kind of kept taking that in and improving the songs. I really challenged them to make the music bulletproof and was really nitpicky about everything. After a while, there was nothing left for me to nitpick.”

Bhasker signed Cam to a development deal under his independent company KRAVENWORKS, working with her on songs and recordings, and introducing her to labels. Cam would go on to sign with Arista Nashville/RCA Records and release the 11-track album Untamed. Bhasker co-wrote and produced Cam‘s single “Burning House,” which was nominated for a Grammy this year in the Best Country Solo Performance category. “I wanted to take the step of signing an artist,” he says. “I had never dreamed it would be a country artist. I was just so impressed with her voice, their songwriting and just the energy of the whole project that I asked her to sign with me and we eventually wound up at RCA.”

“Burning House,” a somber ballad free from layers of production, is a departure from the sound country radio has embraced in the past several years. “We definitely took radio into account,” says Bhasker. “But I think, in any genre, if the song is great and the vocal is great, it’s going to win. I had to study the sound of country radio a bit. We almost under-produced [“Burning House”] and let her voice and the song do the talking. That was the way to go for me. We tried adding more and more stuff to it, but then we just said, ‘Let’s strip it back all the way.’

“Over the years, I learned that less is more,” he continues. “It makes things sound bigger and more epic when there is space for the important parts to exist. I always want the artist to shine through. I never want anyone to hide behind the production.”

Though Cam was Bhasker’s first signing, he had previously worked with another country-tinged singer-songwriter. Bhasker produced the songs “Holy Ground” and “The Lucky One” for Taylor Swift’s 2012 album Red.

He recalls, “She showed up to my little studio in Venice with her guitar and sat down and said, ‘I wrote this song [“The Lucky One”] and I want you to produce it.’ She played it sitting on my couch and blew me away. When you find an artist that can just present a song in its entirety that’s perfect, it’s like, ‘Ok, let’s work from here and let me add something that’s from my world onto it.’ But you only need like…two cool things and you’re golden. I’m really proud of those songs.”

As for future work, Bhasker’s love of unique performers leaves him open to the possibility of working more in the country field. “It definitely opened up a world to me that I hadn’t been exposed to,” he continues. “I hold in high regard the tradition of songwriting and musicianship that comes from Nashville and country music. It’s a special American tradition that I had a lot of fun digging into. I always try to learn something from music, and what it means in the context of musical history.”