New Music From Dolly and More

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dollyDolly Parton’s latest single, “Change It,” is from the Broadway Musical, 9 to 5. It is being delivered exclusively through AirPlay Direct.

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Radney Foster has added a slew of tour dates in support of his album Revival, to be released Sept. 1 on his own Devil’s River label. The project features Dierks Bentley and Darius Rucker. The title track and first single for Texas radio is “A Little Revival.” In Nashville, Foster is set for an In-Store at Grimey’s New & Preloved Music on Sept. 16, and a Sept. 18 show at the Americana Festival at the Mercy Lounge.
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Nashville-based ALL Entertainment has announced “Somebody Who Would Die for You” as its first single from flagship artist Buddy Jewell. It will ship to radio Aug. 31 with New Revolution Entertainment handling promotion. “Somebody Who Would Die for You” was written by Mark Narmore and Adam Wheeler.

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Brady Seals' southeast radio promo tour kicked off in Huntsville at WDRM where he debuted his new single "Ho Down" on the Dan & Dingo morning show. WDRM air staff shown here from left to right: A.J. McCloud, Dingo, Dan McClain, Brady Seals, Jim Tice, Stuart Langston.

Brady Seals' southeast radio promo tour kicked off in Huntsville at WDRM where he debuted his new single "Ho Down" on the Dan & Dingo morning show. WDRM air staff shown here from left to right: A.J. McCloud, Dingo, Dan McClain, Brady Seals, Jim Tice, Stuart Langston.

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Guy Clark will release Somedays The Song Writes You, his second CD with Dualtone Music Group, on Sept. 22. Clark co-wrote all the album’s songs, some with old friends including Rodney Crowell and Shawn Camp, as well as some with newer artists Patrick Davis, Jedd Hughes and Ashley Monroe. Catch Clark Wed., Sept. 23  at The Belcourt Theater.
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Becky’s Schlegel’s new single, “So Embarrassing,” arrived at Country radio last week via CDX Volume 481, and it can also be downloaded here. It is the debut single from her upcoming CD, Dandelion, on Lilly Ray/IGO Records (distributed by Select-O-Hits). It features renowned singer/instrumentalist Randy Kohrs on background vocals.
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Emerald River recording artist Julia Burton shipped her latest single “Party Down” to radio on Aug. 17. The track is available to radio programmers on CDX Volume 481 and will be distributed via Play MPE. “Party Down” is featured on Burton’s debut album Woman From the Country, scheduled for release later this year.
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Nashville based, Grammy-nominated, singer-songwriter and producer Tom Wurth releases the re-mixed and mastered project, If The Road Runs Out, on Sept. 8. The album comes from Echelon Records, a newly established independent label headed by Mike Dinwiddie, who is also the Mayor of Spring Hill, Tennessee.

S1 Signs Sheryl Crow

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Sheryl Crow and Steve McMellon pictured in Los Angeles after concluding the deal.

Sheryl Crow and Steve McMellon in L.A. after concluding the deal.

S1 Songs Group global CEO Steve McMellon has announced the acquisition of the Sheryl Crow music publishing catalogue and also the execution of a co-publishing agreement for her future works.

The deal sees S1 Songs add 153 songs released by Crow between 1993 and 2008 to its existing portfolio of more than 30,000 songs, as well as securing the rights to her next two albums.

The global independent publisher is headquartered in London and Dublin. Pat Finch oversees the Nashville office. S1 Songs’ US President and Global Head of Creative is Neil Gillis.

Crow has career sales in excess of 30 million albums alongside 9 Grammy awards.

MusicRow Strategy Swells Stats

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twitterMusicRow.com is pleased to announce it has been enjoying record-setting traffic. Recent weekly page views from the week of August 10 jumped over 35% compared with the week of July 20.

The record for most number of views in a single day was established on July 28 topping over 5,600 and then reset again slightly higher on August 13. Another top tier traffic level was scored Aug. 17 becoming the site’s best-ever Monday.

Based upon ongoing results, total August 2009 views are expected to leap 53+% compared with the total June 2009 views.

facebook1MusicRow Publisher David M. Ross attributes the traffic spikes and overall surge to the publication’s new content strategy and social network marketing. “Positioning content in the appropriate venue has been key,” says Ross. “Our marketing interviews, sales analysis and other proprietary features are going into the subscriber-only @Musicrow morning reports, aimed at our most professional readers. The more general stories and press release items wind up online, open to all.”

Ross also points to Twitter and a Facebook Fan page as playing a role. “We’ve been nourishing our Twitter presence for a long time,” says Ross, “and it’s been well worth the effort and time we’ve invested. Currently we have over 9,050 followers. We’ve been careful to build trust with the people from all over the world that have elected to tune into our news feed and encourage all our readers and friends to join the fun (www.twitter.com/musicrow).

“Info distributors are facing many of the same challenges and engagement issues as the entertainment industry we cover,” says Ross. “It’s all about staying ahead of the curve, and giving our readers the content they need—when they want it, how they want it and in whatever format they want it. We’re very blessed to have so much support.”

Strait’s Sales, CMA’s Songwriters Series, Redmond’s New Company

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straittwangAs reported in this morning’s @MusicRow sales analysis article, George Strait’s new release is the top selling album in the U.S. this week. Twang debuted at No. 1 today on The Billboard 200 and the Top Country Albums chart selling over 155,000 units. This is the fourth time in Strait’s career that a new release has debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard 200 chart and the 13th time debuting at No. 1 on the Top Country Albums chart.

King George co-wrote three songs on the MCA Nashville album, including the debut single, “Living for the Night.” His son Bubba also scored some writing credits. To view a rare on-camera interview with Strait, click here.

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Chuck Wicks

Chuck Wicks

The CMA Songwriters Series hits New York City once again as Joe’s Pub welcomes an evening with some of Nashville’s finest songwriters on Wednesday, September 9 (6:30 and 9:30 PM/ET). It will be hosted by renowned tunesmith Bob DiPiero (“Blue Clear Sky,” “Can’t Take the Honky Tonk Out of the Girl”), and other participating songwriters include Chuck Wicks (“Stealing Cinderella,” “All I Ever Wanted”), Marv Green (“Amazed,” “Wasted,” “It Just Comes Natural”), and Ashley Gorley (“All American Girl,” “Don’t Forget to Remember Me,” “You’re Gonna Miss This”). Tickets are $25 each. For information about Joe’s Pub or to order tickets, visit www.joespub.com.

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Joe-Redmond-07

Joe Redmond

Joe Redmond has launched Redmond Promotional Services in addition to retaining his position as a promotion executive with Nashville-based Edgehill Music & Media. His extensive experience in record promotion includes senior posts at Warner Bros. Records Nashville, Mediabase, MJI Broadcasting, Lofton Creek Records, Robbins Nashville and Imprint Records. Redmond began his career in radio, working throughout Louisiana as a station manager, sales manager, operations manager, PD and MD.

Redmond Promotional Services has already secured three clients. It will specialize in tracking and analyzing information about song activity at radio, including chart numbers, adds, stations spins, syndication and frozen playlists. It will strive to deliver that information in an easy to understand package.

MySpace Purchases iLike, Stops Auto-Song Play

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myspace-logoMySpace has purchased music based social networking site iLike for an estimated $20 million. The sites will continue to operate separately but will begin sharing technology, such as iLike’s search capabilities, syndication network and discovery tools. MySpace CEO Owen Van Natta says the acquisition is about technical talent, as well as promoting MySpace across the broader social web.

Brothers Ali and Hadi Partovi founded iLike in 2006. It eventually grew to be the largest music application across all social networks with 55 million total users and 1.5 billion monthly impressions. The Partovis will stay on at the company.

In related MySpace news, the company expects to save a significant amount of money in licensing fees by turning off the feature that makes music play automatically whenever the site is visited. Reports say the company is spending around $10 million a month on paid streaming of songs, with autoplays accounting for a billion or more streams per month. It is expected that stopping this feature will give artist handlers more accurate listening data. Some users and MySpace execs saw this as one of the site’s distinguishing features. Accordingly, users can still opt-in to autoplay songs.

Alan, Wy, Willie, Bluebird, and Bucky

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alanjackson_18082008

Alan Jackson’s most recent album "Good Time" just reached the one million worldwide sales mark and his Norwegian Favorites album hit the No. 1 spot on the charts in that country, making his first No. 1 in Norway. Jackson recently played Skien, Norway; Eskilstuna, Sweden; and Bergen, Norway, where 20,000 fans waited 9 hours in the rain to see him.

Wynonna Judd won $50,000 on last night’s episode (8/18) of ABC’s Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, 100% of which she will donate to Backpack Mission Ministries charity. Wynonna was presented with a puzzling mathematical scenario and with the help of a ‘Phone-A-Friend’ lifeline—her Aunt Margaret Mandell—Wynonna provided the correct answer to win the money for the kids’ charity. Also, Wynonna’s 4-part web series “I’m With Wy” launches tomorrow (8/19) on ABC.com. The series is in support of the primetime special, CMA Music Festival: Country’s Night To Rock, airing Aug. 31. Wynonna also chatted backstage with Cameron Mathison from ABC’s All My Children before her performance and you can see that interview on Good Morning America August 31.

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Willie Nelson will celebrate the release of his new album, American Classic, his first collection of popular standards since his chart-topping Stardust album in 1978, on his SIRIUS XM channel, Willie’s Place, this weekend (8/21). Listeners will hear Nelson’s personal stories about various tracks from American Classic every hour throughout the weekend of August 21. The album will be in stores on August 25.

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Songwriter Jim Photoglo will replace fellow songwriter Rivers Rutherford for The Bluebird Café’s Dyer Observatory Show this Saturday, August 22 at 8:00PM. The line-up will now be: Victoria Shaw, Dave Berg and Jim Photoglo. The rest of the season will feature Kim Carnes, Tim Nichols and Greg Barnhill with Billy Panda, Tim Lauer & Dave Ellingson on Sept. 12; Thom Schuyler, Fred Knobloch, Don Schlitz & Jelly Roll Johnson on Sept. 26 and Kim Richey, Don Henry and TBA on Oct. 10. Tickets are available at Ticketmaster.

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Bucky Covington was in Los Angeles recently to tape an episode of FOX TV’s Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader to benefit The Arthritis Foundation. “I’ve been brushing up on my grade school skills to at least outsmart all of the 4th graders … just in case it turns out I’m NOT smarter than a 5th grader,” said Bucky. “But, if I bring Jeff Foxworthy an apple maybe I’ll get a few extra points.”

SouthComm buying “Scene,” “Nfocus”

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southcomm-publishing-logoNashville, TN (8/19/09)– SouthComm Inc., the parent of MusicRow Magazine and other niche publications, has signed an agreement to buy the assets of Nashville Scene and Nfocus magazine from City Press LLC.

“The Scene is the strongest arts and entertainment brand in Nashville,” said SouthComm CEO Chris Ferrell. “Pairing it and Nfocus with our other niche publications made good strategic sense.”

Terms of the deal are not being disclosed. The acquisition is expected to close this week.scene

With the addition of the Scene and Nfocus, SouthComm will own eight Nashville-area publications, cementing its place as Middle Tennessee’s largest locally owned media company.

“NFocus is a Nashville original that will continue to be the city’s premier outlet for coverage of the nfocussocial scene and philanthropy,” Ferrell said. “And, having been publisher of the Scene for three years, I’m also very familiar with the quality staff we’ll have the opportunity to bring on board.”

Founded in late 2007 after Ferrell left his post at the Scene, the company now employs more than 150 people, the majority of them in Middle Tennessee. It also operates an alternative newsweekly in Louisville as well as two custom publishing businesses that cater primarily to chambers of commerce.

“As the daily newspaper model struggles ever more, advertisers and readers are increasingly looking for next-generation sources of news, information and advertising,” Ferrell said, adding that the combined City Paper/Scene readership will be almost as large as that of The Tennessean.

“The key to our strategy is not the mass reach, however,” he explains. “It is being able to deliver specifically targeted audiences to our advertisers when they need to reach them. Few people read the whole daily paper; they read sections that appeal to them.

“We essentially are unbundling the daily. The City Paper is our brand for news and sports, the Nashville Post and BusinessTN are our business news brands, and the Scene gives us the strongest brand in the market for coverage of arts and culture. With this acquisition, we’ve built out our Nashville model. Over time, we will look to replicate our work here in other cities.”

Chesney To Debut Clothing Line

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kenny-chesney-coronaKenny Chesney has inspired a clothing line called Blue Chair Bay which is set for an official launch Sept. 1 at the MAGIC Marketplace, a nationwide clothing event in Las Vegas. Reflecting his casual beach lifestyle, the clothing for men and women is described as classic, with an emphasis on all-natural fabrics.

During the fashion convention, Blue Chair Bay will showcase inside a tour bus, and Chesney will offer attendees an intimate performance at the Hard Rock Hotel to show who he is and what his music represents.

“We’ve had people approach us in the past [about a clothing line]” says the entertainer, “but it never seemed like something I’d wear… But the people from what became Blue Chair Bay got the things that are important to me…And they let me be involved with the design.” Included are items such as woven shirts, khakis, shorts, T’s and jeans. Well over two years in the works with the American design team, the clothing colors are said to look like they’ve been baked by the sun and sea water.

Blue Chair Bay has soft launched in select retailers including Fast Buck Freddy’s in Key West; Ocean Eddie’s in Gulf Coast, AL; and Levy’s in Nashville.

Dolly Box Set Coming This Fall

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DollyPartonA four-CD box set simply-titled Dolly, will debut Oct. 27. Comprising 99 songs, it is the first multi-CD, multi-label deluxe box set compilation ever to represent her life’s work and will be released through RCA Nashville/Legacy, a division of Sony Music Entertainment.

Dolly Parton is distinguished for having charted at least one Top 5 country hit in each decade since the ’60s. She has also charted at least one #1 country hit (if not a dozen) in each decade from the ’70s to the 2000’s: “Joshua,” “Jolene,” “I Will Always Love You,” “Here You Come Again,”  “Starting Over Again,” the Grammy Award-winning “9 To 5,” “Islands In The Stream” (with Kenny Rogers), “Tennessee Homesick Blues,” “Why’d You Come In Here Lookin’ Like That,” “Rockin’ Years” (with Ricky Van Shelton) and “When I Get Where I’m Going” (with Brad Paisley).

The elegant package designed for Dolly houses a full-color 60-page booklet with never-before-seen photographs and rare memorabilia. A brief and loving introduction has been written by Nashville-bred singer-songwriter Laura Cantrell. An extensive 5,000-word biographical essay follows, by ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award-winning writer-editor-producer-lecturer Holly George-Warren.

Dolly continues to explore the broad range and depth of her recording career – from the rarely-heard sides cut at age 11 for the Louisiana-based Goldband indie label, and at age 16 for Mercury in Nashville, through her whirlwind two years (and first chart records) with Monument (1965-67), her record-setting near two-decade stay with RCA Records (1967-85, underpinning her long hitmaking association with Porter Wagoner), and another near-decade at Columbia into the ’90s. In addition, seven previously unreleased tracks make their historic debuts on this box set, as well as 11 of Porter and Dolly’s hit duets. The set is also available for pre-order at www.shopdolly.com.

Leadership Music, CMA Industry InSite, and the “Just Plain Folks” Awards

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Steve Wariner pictured during a recent visit to Rose Barracks Army Post in Vilseck, Germany, where he performed for American troops.

Steve Wariner pictured during a recent visit to Rose Barracks Army Post in Vilseck, Germany, where he performed for American troops.

Grammy winner Steve Wariner and noted studio owner John McBride have been added to the Leadership Music Dale Franklin Award salute to Jim Foglesong, Allen Reynolds and Garth Brooks, set for Sunday, Aug. 23 at the Renaissance Hotel. Wariner (co-writer of Brooks’ hit “Longneck Bottle”) joins in the tribute to Brooks with his wife Trisha Yearwood, and longtime friends Martina and John McBride, who once worked as Brooks’ tour production manager.

Reynolds-produced artists Kathy Mattea, Hal Ketchum and Crystal Gayle, songwriter Bob McDill and Cowboy Jack Clement will lead the salute to Reynolds. Colleagues celebrating Foglesong include Roy Clark, John Conlee and Lee Greenwood.

Many more luminaries are set to send video messages. Tickets to the invitation only fundraising event are nearly sold out. For more information, contact LM@leadershipmusic.org.

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Understanding the benefits of legal representation in the entertainment industry is the focus of the latest installment of CMA Industry InSite, an online educational series, which is posted exclusively for CMA members at My.CMAworld.com.

The fourth episode on Entertainment Law features interviews with Duff Berschback, VP, Business Affairs, Sony/ATV Publishing; Rusty Jones, Attorney, Harris, Martin, Jones, Shrum, Bradford & Wommack P.A.; and Tyler Middleton of Baker & Kelley, PLLC.

Future episodes include topics from Social Networking to Country Radio and Touring. Episodes are posted on the third Monday of the month. With each new episode, CMA members are able to submit questions to the panel of experts. Each segment, which is roughly 10 minutes long, is archived for easy access at any time.

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The Just Plain Folks Music Awards will be held at the Wildhorse Saloon Saturday night. Among the Country nominees in the Album category are Gretchen Peters, Rick Huckaby, Ray Stephenson, Rebecca Lindsey, Jerry Kilgore, The Amazing Rhythm Aces, Jerry Salley, Aaron Tippin, Big Al Anderson and The Balls, and Thom Shepherd & Steve Williams. See all the nominees, including those for Song, Lyrics and Video here.