With “Record Year,” EMI Nashville artist Eric Church and co-writer Jeff Hyde dropped the needle on another No. 1 hit. The industry gathered at BMI on Tuesday afternoon (Oct. 11) to wax poetic about the achievement.

BMI’s Jody Williams, whose publishing company signed Hyde to his first deal, presided over the afternoon. When Williams stated that there’s only one Jeff Hyde, Church quipped, “Thank God.” As for that original publishing deal, Williams joked, “Jeff went on to achieve absolutely nothing.”

Since then, the tables have turned. Hyde is the utility player in Church’s touring band. The two men are also co-writers on “Smoke a Little Smoke,” “Springsteen,” and “Kill a Word.” In addition, “Record Year” received CMA nominations in the single, song and video categories. Church is also nominated for male vocalist and album (Mr. Misunderstood).

At the party, Little Louder Music’s Arturo Buenahora Jr. spoke on behalf of Hyde, while Sony/ATV’s Troy Tomlinson represented Church. Producer Jay Joyce was not in attendance. John Peets of Q Prime Management, Brandi Simms of CMA and John Shomby of Country Radio Broadcasters also addressed the industry audience.

Ron Cox of Pinnacle Bank shared news of a donation to Chief Cares, a nonprofit administered by Church and his wife Katherine. After that, UMG Nashville’s Mike Dungan delivered the label’s so-called “Impaler Award,” an small obelisk given to artists on the roster who reach No. 1.

Hyde recalled a time he worked at a gas station and a customer asked him what he wanted to do for a living. When Hyde said he wanted to be a songwriter, the customer remarked, “Don’t be an smart-a.”

After laughter, Hyde continued, “To make a living writing songs, when I was back in the small town of Marshall, Texas, seemed like a distant dream. I feel really blessed to be able to do this for a living and to be a small part of the songwriting community here.”

Hyde said he brought the idea of “Record Year” to Church, who told him to save it so they could finish it together. “He took it a different level,” Hyde noted. “Eric and Katherine, thank you for believing me and giving me a chance.”

Church started his remarks by complimenting Hyde. “I’m going to thank him first because he doesn’t get that a whole lot, ever, in life.” With ripples of laughter in the crowd, he continued, “I’ve written a lot of songs with a lot of people, and very rarely do you come up against an idea that’s unique, and you think, ‘There’s no way this is unique.’ I remember when Jeff pitched me the idea of ‘Record Year,’ I thought, ‘This had to have been done in this way.’ I was shocked to find out it hadn’t been done.”

He continued, “I always know when I sit down with Jeff, I’m going to get something unique. Sometimes he’s batshit crazy but that’s what makes him good. He’s one of those rare guys in town. He’s always on that edge. So, Jeff, thank you for the idea. You’re the one who came up with it. I enjoyed it and I’m terrified of our next co-write.”

Church referred to his radio promotion team at EMI Nashville as the best in town. “I never make the job easy. I know that,” he said, eliciting more laughter. “It wasn’t that funny,” he quickly added.

After a beat, he said, “But here’s what’s important. I promise I’ll never embarrass you. I promise I think about this as I write—where we’re going, where we’ve been, and where we’re headed. I appreciate you guys very much and I appreciate the work you do, and I can’t wait to make it really, really difficult as we go from here.”

Following thank-yous to Williams, Buenahora and Peets, he praised his wife — “who basically runs this whole thing, no kidding, and does a great job of it. Household, career. Thank you for being a confidante. I love you very much.”

Church also emphasized his gratitude to his band and crew, describing them as friends and family as well as “my soldiers on the road.”

He concluded, “I can tell you that we’ve been off a little bit, but in 2017, we’re going to have the biggest tour out there. And here’s what’s important: It’s got to be the best tour out there. And I believe it will be. So I thank you guys very much, and I appreciate this, and I hope to see you soon.”

When Gary Reamey retired from his role as Sr. Partner at financial services firm Edward Jones after 35 years there, he wasn’t quite ready to kick back and relax.

A lifelong lover of music and songwriting, Reamey would meet every six months or so with former work partners who shared his creative zeal. Three years ago, the group ventured to Nashville.

“I read an article in the New York Times about a company called Pivot Planet. If you wanted to learn more about songwriting, or any topic, they connected you with people. I looked at three or four pictures and bios, and I chose the guy who looked like James Taylor,” he quips. “So, that’s how we got here.”

The James Taylor look-a-like was longtime songwriter and publisher Steve Leslie. “Brand New Strings,” his title cut for Ricky Skaggs’ 2004 album, earned Leslie a Grammy. He has also penned 20 Darryl Worley songs, including “Tennessee River Run” and “Second Wind,” as well as songs recorded by George Strait, Kenny Rogers and more.

In addition to years of experience in Nashville’s songwriter circles, Leslie ran his own independent publishing company for several years. From 2011-2014, Leslie was an adjunct professor of songwriting at Belmont University.

They met at music industry haunt Noshville in Nashville’s Green Hills area.

“It was immediately like I’ve known these guys my whole life. We spent a good part of the day doing some mentoring and they sent me some songs ahead of time,” recalls Leslie. The group, which included Dave Skinner, Howard Lopez, Dan Terry, and Rob Boyd, would end up co-writing a song called “Masterpiece” later that afternoon. Garth Brooks would later put the song on hold.

The group began exploring options for launching a publishing company. As the idea developed, Reamey and Leslie proved to be the most committed and passionate about the project. Leslie gave Reamey “probably thousands and thousands of pages of publishing information to read,” recalls Reamey.

Leslie later visited Reamey’s home in Naples, Florida. In four days, the duo crafted the business plan for SNG Music, with a vision to create a home for top-shelf country songwriters, and the goal of always having a tune in the top 20 on the country charts. SNG Music opened in 2014 in Nashville.

Currently, the roster includes Leslie, Reamey, Marianne Allison, Abbey Cone, Bobby Fischer, Zarni de Vette, and Marty Dodson, who signed with SNG Music in July. He penned Billy Currington’s “Must Be Doin’ Something Right” and “Let Me Down Easy,” Carrie Underwood’s “Songs Like This,” Kenny Chesney’s “Everybody Wants To Go To Heaven,” and more. His song “Bounce” topped the K-Pop charts in Korea, and earned him Asian Song of the Year honors in 2013.

The boutique company’s model focuses on country music, and on keeping its roster at six songwriters, in order to fully engage in developing the writers it represents.

“You can’t be all things to all people,” says Reamey, sitting in a writer’s suite just off Nashville’s Music Row area. “You can do it two ways, based on my business experience. You can either be boutique or try to be the biggest, because anything else in between is tough to run as a business.”

He adds, “I’ve done big. Edward Jones was 40,000 employees and 12,000 offices and 4 million clients and I loved it. But as songwriters owning this business, we needed to stay boutique, and we needed to be very selective in whom we represent. Those writers need to be talented, to be driven to write great songs, and have a music philosophy that is consistent with SNG. They also have to want to help mentor and give back to other songwriters.”

SNG Music is a private partnership, and 100 percent owned by its employees. Each songwriter receives co-publishing on every song they create, and each contract has one-year mutual renewal options.

Additionally, each songwriter develops an annual business plan, outlining what they hope to accomplish in the year ahead. The plan can involve anything from identifying specific writers they hope to co-write with, devising paths for getting songs heard and/or cut by specific artists, outlining writing goals, and recognizing networking and performance opportunities.

“It’s the first time a publisher has ever asked me to do that,” Dodson says. “When they first mentioned it, I thought, ‘Well, my business plan is to write a song tomorrow better than the one I wrote today.’ Gary is great at bringing these business principles into what we do because what we do can be artsy and loose. It helped me really look at what do I want to accomplish and how can I get there? How much time do I need to spend mentoring other people and pitching songs, and working on ideas? Now, I consciously spend more time pitching songs. I block out time for it. It has helped me be more balanced as a writer.”

“It also takes care of addressing expectations that they have and things that I’m accountable for,” says Leslie. “We can have a meeting and talk about where we are. If we didn’t accomplish something, it’s ok, why didn’t we? So Gary brings that great structure here.”

“One of the benefits to it being a private company owned by the employees is we can take a long-term view of things, from a business and a songwriter/development perspective,” Reamey says.

“As an example, Zarni and Abbey are newer writers. They have talent and we’ll take the time to develop them in whatever way it needs to happen,” he adds. “In my old business, we used to say, ‘We are not driven by quarterly financials. We make our decisions based on what is best for the company.’ A lot of times we will say, ‘How will this impact us five, 10, 15 years down the road?’ We can pass this on to the next generation and let them do what they need to do.”

“We want to leave a legacy company,” sums Leslie.

When Troy Cartwright’s lease was up in Dallas, he figured he’d move to Nashville to make his mark as a songwriter. He relocated in May, but had already been coming to town about once a month, getting into writing rooms and adding to his catalog.

After playing a hundred shows a year without an agent or manager, Cartwright secured a new deal with the Nashville office of WME. Through the independent Hard Luck Recording Company, he released a new EP in October called Don’t Fade, with a sonic style that wouldn’t sound out of place in a honky-tonk, a listening room, or music festival.

Over coffee at Edgehill Café, Cartwright chatted with MusicRow about getting his foot in the door, absorbing virtual songwriting lessons from John Prine, and treating songwriting like a real job.

MusicRow: What was that year like coming back and forth from Texas to Nashville? Were you just trying to meet people or break in?

Troy Cartwright: Yeah, I was trying to write. I love to write songs, so I was meeting with publishers. I had some friends hook me up. It was the strangest thing and it’s still strange. You go in there and it’s like a job interview. They’re like, “Play your songs.” You play your songs and they set you up with all the writes, and it was really fun. That’s seems so cool the first time you do it and now it feels a little bit more normal, but it’s still great.

Was that you setting that up or was that someone doing that on your behalf?

Yeah, I was just going out there grinding it myself.

How’d you get the meetings?

One friend of a friend who used to write somewhere would call and tell them, “Hey you should give this guy a meeting.” Another one was through my radio promoter who knew some people and they let me have a meeting and that was it. That’s kind of how my career really started. I didn’t understand that things were hard or didn’t know what “no” was. I always figured it’s worth a try. Somebody tells you no then that’s OK.

When I was reading up on you, I saw that you like Pete Yorn and John Prine, and I thought, “All right, he’s got good taste in music.” When did you really start listening to songs, like listening to the words and what the messages were?

I think the words definitely came later. When I was growing up, Pete Yorn was one of the first guys I got into because I played acoustic guitar and he played guitar. He was on MTV at the time, but I also really liked rock music at the time because I was an angsty teen. I think as I got older, more in college and really got into the craft of songwriting. That’s when I really started loving guys like John Prine and Robert Earl Keen and stuff because their words and their stories are so compelling.

John Prine is so funny, but also a little dark, and that’s a hard thing to do.

That’s one thing I love about John Prine and Robert Earl Keen as well. A lot of times when they’re singing, they always sound like they’re about to crack up. I find that very endearing.

What were you studying when you went to New York and Boston?

Yeah I went to Berklee College of Music up there in Boston and I always thought I would live in New York. I did an internship in between my junior and senior year of college in New York at a company called RightsFlow, which was like mechanical royalties. I realized that that was not what I wanted to do.

I always thought I would work in the music industry and make contacts and play. Doing that internship, I realized if I want to make a career out of this, I’m going to have to devote my whole being to trying to make it as a musician. It was a tough summer, but I really appreciate that lesson. I probably would have stumbled for a long time before I figured that out.

How did you get to make the ends meet to support yourself?

After that summer, I knew I’d to have to figure out a way to make some money because I wasn’t looking for a full-time job. I was singing in weddings and then I was walking dogs in Boston. That was when I started taking songwriting really seriously. I made up a class for myself to study. I would listen to Spotify radio of Robert Earl Keen or John Prine or something like that. I would listen to it all day and star all the songs I liked and try and absorb all of that songwriting knowledge.

I learned those songs and I started writing every day and really taking my vocal lessons a lot more seriously. I think I might have been a late bloomer in that way because some musicians start that process a lot earlier. For me, I was goofing off until my early 20s.

One thing I like about the way you do write is you don’t overwrite. You don’t put a whole bunch of stuff in there. Is that something that’s developed over the last year from being in Nashville or something that you’ve learned?

I’m sure it’s a combination. I believe you have all these inputs—and that’s listening to music or reading books—and you process it as it all goes into this blender that I imagine exists above my head. When I sit down to write, I just press the spigot and try and catch something from what comes out that day. To me it’s magic. Writing songs is magical because I don’t think anyone really knows where it comes from.

Do you have peak hours of creativity?

11 to 1. Peak writing time for sure.

Which one, a.m. or p.m.?

Morning.

Really?

Yeah. It’s actually very convenient because here in Nashville a lot of the writes start at 10:30 or 11. I wake up around 9 or 9:30. I get my coffee going and I start. When I lived in Texas, I was writing by myself and I needed that structure. Otherwise you just goof off all day. So I would get up and then sit down at 11 and write for a couple hours. I think maybe my brain is trained now to turn it on then.

Well, you treat it like job.

Yeah it is. When I first started, when I moved to Texas from Boston, I would keep a notebook and write down my hours that I would spend on my music career. I would try and spend 40 hours a week, and I did try to treat it like job. Eventually you just get tired of writing it down and you’re like, “All right, I’m good. I did it.”

Nashville Artists Take To BMI Stage at ACL

Many Nashville artists ventured to Austin to perform at the 2016 Austin City Limits Music Festival’s second weekend, held Oct. 7-9. Among those who performed on the BMI stage are songstress Amanda Shires, country band LANco, indie-pop band Daniel Ellsworth and the Great Lakes, singer-songwriter Elise Davis, and band The Roosevelts. Photos by Erika Goldring.

 

Belmont and Sony/ATV Continue Partnership

The Mike Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business at Belmont University is once again partnering with Sony/ATV Music Publishing for the All Access program. Through the program, students will have the opportunity to have two songs reviewed by the Sony/ATV Music Publishing Creative Team who will then select a limited number of students to perform live for the team at a showcase.

Sony/ATV Music Publishing SVP of Nashville A&R Josh Van Valkenburg said, “Sony/ATV is incredibly proud to continue this partnership with Belmont. We have signed a student from each of the last two years, and we are always impressed with the level of talent put forth by the student body. Belmont continues to be an innovative educational leader by developing opportunities like All Access, and we feel confident we will receive even more impressive submissions from Belmont students this year.”

The first year of the program led to the signing of Belmont songwriting major Maddie Larkin and in 2015, songwriting major Jake Rogers signed with Sony/ATV Music Publishing.

 

CMHoF Hosts Whisperin’ Bill

The Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum will present Country Music Hall of Fame member Bill Anderson in a special songwriter session on Saturday, Oct. 22, at 11:30 a.m. Anderson will perform and discuss his new autobiography Whisperin’ Bill Anderson: An Unprecedented Life in Country Music. The program will be hosted by the museum’s Peter Cooper, who co-wrote Anderson’s book.