Lionel Richie Unveils “Tuskegee” Details

Lionel Richie is slated to release Tuskegee on Mar. 27 via Mercury Nashville. The album is a collection of 13 of his international hits re-recorded with country artists such as Jennifer Nettles, Jason Aldean, Tim McGraw, Blake Shelton, Darius Rucker, Rascal Flatts, Kenny Chesney, Billy Currington, Little Big Town, Shania Twain, Kenny Rogers, Willie Nelson and Jimmy Buffett.

In addition, the Academy of Country Music and Dick Clark productions will tape a concert special, Lionel Richie and Friends “In concert” at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on Apr. 2. The show will air at a later date on CBS. Some of his greatest hits will be performed by Aldean, The Band Perry, Chesney, Lady Antebellum, Martina McBride, Rascal Flatts, Rogers and more.

“Doing this album was coming back to the beginning, back to basics, back to home,” Richie says. “The part of it I love the most is that the journey has been one of discovering myself. By the time I got back to Nashville, I clearly knew that the roots of my songwriting, my storytelling, were from the South.” 

Tuskegee Track-Listing:

1. “You Are” with Blake Shelton
2. “Say You, Say Me” with Jason Aldean
3. “Stuck On You” with Darius Rucker
4. “Deep River Woman” with Little Big Town
5. “My Love” with Kenny Chesney
6. “Dancing On The Ceiling” with Rascal Flatts
7. “Hello” with Jennifer Nettles
8. “Sail On” with Tim McGraw
9. “Endless Love” with Shania Twain
10. “Just For You” with Billy Currington
11. “Lady” with Kenny Rogers
12. “Easy” with Willie Nelson
13. “All Night Long” with Jimmy Buffett

Nelson, Hiatt and Lovett Schedule Symphony Center Dates

Nashville Symphony has added two special new performances to Schermerhorn Symphony Center’s calendar, and tickets for both will go on sale Friday, January 27 at 10 AM. Tickets can be purchased at nashvillesymphony.org, at the Schermerhorn box office or phone at 615-687-6400.

First on the calendar is a double-your-fun evening with singer/songwriters Lyle Lovett and John Hiatt on Tuesday, March 13 at 7 PM. The artists won’t perform with symphonic accompaniment on this date, but the intimate acoustic evening will feature them trading songs and stories from their years in music.

Further down the road is Willie Nelson, with accompaniment by the Nashville Symphony. That takes place Tuesday, June 5 at 7 PM. The country icon will perform selections from the many periods of his career, including his recent release American Classic.

Borchetta: “Love what you do, and outwork everyone”

(L-R): Michael McCall, Scott Borchetta. Photo: Donn Jones

Scott Borchetta visited with Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum writer and editor Michael McCall this past weekend (Sat., Jan. 21) in a public series at the Museum’s Ford Theater to discuss his career growth and success in the music industry.

MusicRow was in attendance for the event along with many industry players, college students, and a number of Borchetta employees who he referred to as ‘machinists’ including his wife Sandi Spika, John Zarling, Allison Jones, Andrew Kautz, Kelly Rich, Matthew Hargis, Nikki Burns, Erik Powell and Jake Basden.

Borchetta is perhaps best known for breaking Taylor Swift and The Band Perry, and his contributions to the careers of superstars Toby Keith, George Strait, Rascal Flatts, Garth BrooksMartina McBride and Reba. For these reasons, Borchetta has been included among 92 new entries in the second edition printing of The Hall’s Encyclopedia of Country Music, available on Feb. 1.

A majority of the session was spent discussing his resume, and sharing opinions and predictions for the industry. Notably, Borchetta quipped when asked where the music is headed: “it’s going straight to your heart.” A theme that seemed to thread throughout the afternoon was to stay true to yourself; follow your gut.

“We love what we do,” said Borchetta. “I don’t feel like I’ve ever given up anything in my life to do this. This is my life, and we love doing it. If you don’t love doing it, somebody will beat you because they love it more. Love what you do, and outwork everyone.”

When Scott moved to Nashville to join his father Mike, he jumped into a country band on a dare. Music City exposed the Southern California boy to a new music scene—one to which he was unaccustomed. “I wised up very quickly to the amazing level of talent in Nashville. It was the first time I saw what I thought were truly gifted musicians. There’s a difference when you’re a practicing musician and you’re in the presence of a gifted musician. A bell goes off. But one thing that happened, I became able to explain the business to musicians.”

Borchetta grew that business ability and gained a reputation around 1989-90 for promoting edgier country, working with Marty Stuart, Dwight Yoakam, and Kelly Willis, which earned him an invitation to work at MCA. “When I came, MCA had great executives but needed a culture of winning. The program needed a spark, and I think I brought that.”

It wasn’t just his drive that pushed the label forward, however. MCA gained the ability to be trusted by radio. “At the end of the day records and radio want the same thing: answers. Is this going to work? The momentum from George and Reba gave MCA more opportunity to be trusted by the gatekeepers at radio to really start forest fires with the listeners and fans for newer acts.”

When Borchetta’s time at MCA ended, he aligned with James Stroud, who was starting DreamWorks Nashville for David Geffen and Mo Ostin. Borchetta had a vision of creating another imprint for DreamWorks, which would allow the label to compete with RCA and MCA, and he began building a business model. That plan was shelved when DreamWorks in LA decided to sell out to Universal Music Group, home to MCA Nashville. Borchetta found himself SVP of Promotions and Artist Development at the label he had been working at a few years prior. Nonetheless, he pocketed a few lessons from his work with the DreamWorks roster.

Borchetta notes, DreamWorks hadn’t fully understood Toby Keith’s commercial appeal, but when they did, he exploded. “He was like a new Hank Jr., a country rock star. Toby eventually got so big that DreamWorks was unable to keep a balance and it hurt the label dramatically. When Taylor got so big, we knew we needed to keep a balance.”

“The things we learned with Jessica Andrews [at DreamWorks] had a lot to do with how we broke Taylor. For one, we found she had a teenage audience very excited about country music.” Jimmy Harnen, then in promotions at DreamWorks, suggested engaging this audience with shows at high schools. “Nothing too extraordinary, it just came out of paying attention. And we saw it just light up. A lot of the things we learned, we put into play with Taylor from day one. Jessica wavered between wanting to be a pop artist and a country artist. A lot of artists that young don’t have the focus, that’s whats so extraordinary about Taylor. She had that drive.

“Mergers are tough,” Borchetta said about the shift back to MCA after DreamWorks sold. “I don’t think bigger is better. Fewer isn’t better for the creative community. I’ve never thought fewer radio stations or record labels were better. Greatness is about identifying great talent, but what I think is great, other label heads Mike Dungan, Luke Lewis, or Gary Overton might hate. People just need more opportunities.”

In 2004, Borchetta met Taylor, and she waited for him to start Big Machine after he exited Universal. “We had a real vision and a direct goal for what we wanted to do. It just started happening, I put up my own money in the beginning, Toby put money in, and we were able to get Big Machine launched. There were a lot of disbelievers.

Mike McCall with Scott Borchetta discussing the impact the late race car driver Dan Wheldon made on his life

“If you haven’t done this, I encourage everyone to do it at least once, put everything on the line and see how good you are. You will reach down and find things in yourself that you didn’t know you had. I found people that were willing to put it on the line with me. We put blinders on and didn’t look back, we looked straight ahead. Talk about feeling alive and living like you were dying.”

Borchetta explained the success of his label is the diversified talent and the agility to move quickly where larger labels are unable. “We made sure our label wasn’t just about Taylor, we found balance with Garth and shortly after, Trisha, and Reba. We broke The Band Perry and we’re able to treat every artist individually.”

Breaking acts while continuing to promote established superstars seems to be at the crux of his business model. “Don’t ever take these amazing artists for granted. You know their names because they’re extraordinary. They didn’t one day stop being extraordinary. Something stopped happening and someone stopped caring. Maybe that artist or maybe the people around them, but you have to cut through and stay relevant and understand and accept that things change.

“The industry is going to change. We’ve got to do a better job at harnessing our whole digital platform. It’s out of control, but people haven’t fallen out of love with music, they’ve just fallen in love with new ways to use it. There’s no value in us fighting that, we have to accept it and figure out what other services to provide an artist. I love Spotify as a consumer, but as a businessman I hate it. It’s literally fractions of pennies and its really hard for a new artist to survive. We’ve got to make a lot of noise by figuring out how to get the attention if you’re playing video games or on Facebook all day. But when we get it, the artist better be ready.”

And as swiftly as he addressed his intentions to sell his empire a few months ago in an appearance on CNBC, Borchetta eloquently stated, “Predominantly, I’m un-hirable. I have a house. I have a car. I don’t know that you could throw a bunch of money and we’d give up what we’ve got. Right now, I’ve not seen anything that excites me more than what we do. We are always looking at opportunities, but it would have to be pretty extraordinary for us to change our mind.

“And for the Taylor fans, we’ll have a new record out in October.”

Flynn Promoted at Combustion Music

Combustion Music has announced the promotion of Kenley Flynn to Creative Manager. He originally joined the publishing company in 2011 following his graduation from Belmont University’s College of Entertainment and Music Business.

In this role, Flynn will work closely with Combustion President Chris Farren and VP Chris Van Belkom in catalog exploitation as well as managing a writer roster that includes Ashley Gorley, Brett James, Matthew West and Blair Daly.

“Kenley has become an extremely valuable member of the Combustion team and a rising force on Music Row in a very short time. I look forward to many years of prospering together,” says Farren.

Congratulate him here.

SOPA and PIPA Succumb To Internet Activists

The goal was to move closer to a world where owners of intellectual property were compensated for their works in the digital arena. Toward a utopian era, where education and effective legal remedies combined forces to virtually end the theft of copyrighted material.

Content owners and technology companies seemed to agree on the destination, but as usual, when it comes to government regulation, the devil is in the details. In the case of the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) the details created adversaries. On Jan. 18, major websites censored their own data with black bars. Google, Wikipedia, Mozilla, Reddit, Craigslist, Wired, TechCrunch were some of the many participating.

The remedies of site blocking and search removal upset the technology faction who warned it would undermine the security of domain name servers (DNS) and incentivize the creation of underground DNS systems. PCworld offered an interesting timeline, written by Grant Gross, of how the bills lost favor and were knocked out of contention.

“Last week’s Web protests against two controversial copyright enforcement bills were a huge victory against three powerful and well-funded trade groups that pushed hard for passage of the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Protect IP Act,” says Gross. “By the time the week was over, dozens of lawmakers had abandoned the two bills or voiced opposition, and a cloture vote on PIPA scheduled for this Tuesday (1/24) in the Senate was delayed as lawmakers try to find a compromise. In the House, Representative Lamar Smith, the lead SOPA sponsor and Texas Republican, killed his bill.”

“Just weeks ago, passage of PIPA or SOPA in Congress seemed all but assured,” Gross continues. “[It had] strong support in both the Senate and the House of Representatives judiciary committees and a coordinated lobbying campaign by the MPAA, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the Recording Industry Association of America and several other groups.”

Nashville Songwriters Association International, Bart Herbison who had been active in trying to get SOPA passed released a terse message in the aftermath of the bill’s withdrawal.

“Congress was deluged with millions of communications after popular websites went dark this week in protest of both anti-piracy bills and support for both acts dwindled dramatically. Finally, today the legislation was postponed. Concerns expressed by Google and others over the legislation were never accurate to begin with. Most of their previously expressed concerns were addressed when key provisions were removed. Nonetheless, while copyright holders won the debate, we lost in the court of uninformed public opinion. Over the past few weeks this moved from a debate on the issues to a political debate…. and that is when support began to erode. The tech community did a great job of instilling fear and confusion over both bills. I want to thank every songwriter, music industry person and others who worked to pass these bills. NSAI visited with more than 200 Members of Congress about these bills, just last year! Our efforts were unrivaled in terms of putting songwriters in front of lawmakers throughout this process. We will continue fighting until a solution is found. Please watch communications from NSAI over the next few days and weeks as we strategically plan the next steps in this battle.”

Garth Brooks and Premiere Launch Las Vegas Sweepstakes

Garth Brooks and Premiere Radio Networks have joined efforts to create The Garth Brooks Wynn at Las Vegas Sweepstakes, running through Sunday, Jan. 29.

Listeners of Premiere’s country programs such as After MidNite with Blair Garner, The Big D & Bubba Show and The Crook & Chase Countdown can enter the Sweepstakes at any of their respective websites. Contestants will vie for a chance to win a grand-prize round-trip airfare for two to Las Vegas, two-night stay at the Wynn, dinner for two, a private lunch with Brooks and two VIP tickets to see his intimate concert at the Encore Theater.

Garth announced his Wynn residency in Las Vegas in 2009 and continues to perform weekends at the casino.

Coy Taylor Signs Management Agreement

Coy Taylor has signed an exclusive career management deal with Rusty Harmon and Average Joe’s Entertainment.

“Coy has everything I look for in a new artist,” said Harmon. “He is a tireless self promoter, he takes advantage of every professional opportunity afforded to him, he is great songwriter and a talented singer. Realizing that the music industry is all about working hard to help yourself, Coy Taylor and Average Joe’s Entertainment are going to have a bright future together.”

Over the last year Taylor has crossed the country visiting radio and opening shows for Mark Chestnut, Joe Diffie, Colt Ford and more. In the studio, he’s been working with Brady Seals (Little Texas) and recorded with Grand Ole Opry star Little Jimmy Dickens on a remake of “Out Behind the Barn.”

To celebrate his signing with Average Joe’s, Taylor will perform a free showcase today (Jan. 24) at 6 p.m. at 12th & Porter (114 12th Ave. North).

CRS 2012 Update: Hall of Fame After Party, New Panelists

(L-R): Jerrod Niemann, Brent Anderson, and Wade Bowen

On Feb. 21, prior to the official kickoff of Country Radio Seminar 2012, Sony Music Nashville and Sea Gayle Records will stage the Official Country Radio Hall of Fame After Party with Brent Anderson, Wade Bowen and Jerrod Niemann. The full-band show will be held at 8:30 PM in the Renaisannce Hotel’s Music City Ballroom immediately following the Country Radio Hall of Fame dinner and induction.

“This is the first time that Sea Gayle Records and Sony Music Nashville have had the opportunity to collaborate on a special event,” says Sony Music Nashville Chairman and CEO Gary Overton. “We are proud and excited to be able to bring the music of Brent, Wade and Jerrod to all CRS attendees. It is such an honor for us to celebrate this year’s Country Radio Hall of Fame inductees.”

The following day Feb. 22 begins the educational portion of Country Radio Seminar, which will feature some of the music industry’s big thinkers in a series of informative panels. Included on the docket are John Dimick of Lincoln Financial Media, Todd Cassetty of Hi Fi Fusion, Thompson Square, Owen Grover of iHeartRadio and many others. They join previously announced speakers including Clear Channel’s Bob Pittman, CMT’s Stephen Linn, David Houle, and Twitter For Dummies co-author Laura Fitton.

CRS 2012 regular registration rate of $499 ends on Friday, Jan. 27. Starting Jan. 28, the price increases to $599. Register here.

TuneSat Debuts Exclusive Internet Monitoring Technology

TuneSat, the audio monitoring service which helps copyright holders track unauthorized musical performances, is expanding with today’s launch of Internet monitoring, and an Administrative Services division.

TuneSat essentially serves as an outside auditing service for rights holders to cross-reference their royalty and licensing statements. Since its founding, the company has monitored television and film for public performances of musical compositions. TuneSat detects music in noisy broadcast environments, including under dialogue, sound effects, or voiceovers.

Tech-savvy composers and producers Scott Schreer and Chris Woods founded TuneSat, which uses audio fingerprint technology to search for usages and deliver reports to clients’ online dashboards. Based in New York City, the company actively monitors hundreds of broadcast channels and millions of websites around the world.

The company’s new Internet multi-media monitoring searches publicly available domains, identifying music used in streaming audio, video, podcasts, flash and other multimedia files. TuneSat monitors the Web around the clock, immediately posting the results in a secure online interface. These detections could include files posted moments before the search, or those put online several years ago. Every detection includes a link to the site where the music is found, and the site where the content is hosted (for example, a website may offer a video embedded from elsewhere).

In the event of a royalty discrepancy, TuneSat subscribers can pursue the claim themselves, or hire the company’s newly-launched Administrative Services branch to pursue unlicensed and unpaid uses of their music.

“TuneSat’s Internet monitoring service is history in the making, providing sophisticated, worldwide detection easily available to all music rights holders, even for just one song,” explained Scott Schreer, CEO and Founder. “TuneSat’s data tames the Wild Wild West of the Web, pinpointing the use of music online and providing the information needed to monetize those uses, putting dollars back into the pocket of musicians.”

“TuneSat’s detection data, coupled with the legal resources and expertise of our Administration Services, is a one-two punch for music rights holders,” said Chris Woods, Co-Founder and COO. “Monitoring multi-media content on the Internet can reveal more than just music videos—TuneSat clients have discovered movie trailers, TV synchs, and other media usages that were unlicensed. Further, we now provide access to the Administrative resources needed to ensure the rights holder is compensated for the use of their work.”

Monthly TuneSat subscription rates start at $10 per month and vary by number of tracks and type of service.

Check MusicRow.com later this week for Publisher Sherod Robertson’s exclusive interview with Chris Woods.

Currington Announces First Headlining Tour

Billy Currington is scheduled to kick off his first headlining tour on Mar. 24 in Biloxi, MS. Currington, who recently started work on his fifth studio album, has announced eleven dates in major cities including San Antonio, Knoxville, and Charlotte. UMG Nashville labelmates David Nail and Kip Moore will be joining him on the road.

“I have learned a lot over the years touring with some of the biggest names in country music,” said Currington. “I am excited to put that knowledge to use on this tour by giving fans a great show as a thank you for all of their support. It will also be a great way to test out some new music!”

Fans can go to www.billycurrington.com to get more information about on-sales and an up-to-date tour itinerary.

2012 Billy Currington Tour:

March 24 – Biloxi, MS – Hard Rock Live
April 13 – San Antonio, TX – Cowboy’s Dance Hall
April 20 – Kingston, ON – K-Rock Centre
April 21 – Orillia, ON – Casino Rama
April 27 – Huntington, WV – Big Sandy Arena
April 28 – Knoxville, TN – Civic Auditorium
May 3 – Lowell, MA – Tsongas Arena
May 4– Wallingford, CT – Oakdale Theatre
May 17 – Asheville, NC – NC Civic Center
May 18 – Charlotte, NC – Uptown Amphitheatre
May 19 – Rome, GA – Rome River Jam