Radio Visits: Carter’s Chord, Gary Allan, JaneDear girls

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Show Dog-Universal Music trio Carter’s Chord made a recent stop in Kansas City to visit with recently elected 2011 Radio Hall of Famer, Dale Carter. (L-R) Becky, KFKF PD Dale Carter, Joanna and Emily.

UMG Nashville artist Gary Allan played at the Fox Theatre in Atlanta last week. (L-R): WKHX’s Mark Richards and Mike Macho; UMG’s Royce Risser; Allan; and Citadel’s Jeff Davidson.

The JaneDear girls spent the first day of deer season with WMIL/Greenfield, WI at their Annual Deer Hunter’s Broadcast. The girls played for fans at a local gas station with Karen, Scott, and Radar from 106.1 FM’s morning show. (L-R) front: Scott, fan, Danelle Leverette of the JaneDear girls, Karen, Susie Brown of the JaneDear girls, and Radar.

Tour And New Single For Josh Thompson

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With the Thanksgiving holiday right around the corner, Josh Thompson has a lot to be thankful for this year. He has been nominated for a 2010 American Country Award for Single of the Year: Breakthrough Artist for his Top 20 debut single, “Beer On The Table.” He also co-penned a track on Jason Aldean’s newest album, My Kinda Party called “Church Pew or Bar Stool.”

Josh Thompson

Now on the heels of a new single, “Won’t Be Lonely Long,” set to go for adds at radio on Nov. 22, Thompson is also set to kick off the holiday season with his first headlining tour. The 2010 Cold Beers and Reindeers Tour will feature special guest James Wesley and Columbia Nashville labelmate Joanna Smith.

Thompson’s new single follows his Top 15 “Way Out Here.” He has spent the past year playing over 185 concerts opening for artists such as Brad Paisley, Eric Church and Hank Williams, Jr. The new tour will stop in some of the most popular Texas music venues. For more info check www.joshthompsonofficial.com or www.coldbeersandreindeers.com

2010 Cold Beers and Reindeer Tour Dates
12/8 Victoria – Victoria Community Center
12/9 Lufkin – Wildhorse Saloon
12/10 Texarkana – Shooters
12/14 Tyler – Electric Cowboy
12/15 Abilene – Guitars and Cadillacs
12/16 Wichita Falls – Outskirts
12/17 Lubbock – Wild West
12/18 Amarillo – Midnight Rodeo

Weekly Chart Report (11/19/10)

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Eric Lee Beddingfield recently visited WATZ/Alpena, MI to promote his single "The Gospel According to Jones" from his new album "This Life Ain’t For Everybody." (L-R): WATZ PD Susie Martin and Beddingfield.

HOLIDAY SCHEDULE
In observance of the Thanksgiving holiday next week, MusicRow’s CountryBreakout Chart will be compiled and published on Wednesday, November 24. All reports are due in by 12 Noon CT.

RADIO NEWS
Tom Jeffries has taken over the PD position at Max Broadcast Group Holdings’s WCMS/Elizabeth City-Nags Head, NC effective immediately. In addition to programming duties, Jeffries will also be handling the morning drive airshift. He was most recently with WKQL/Charlotte, and has extensive experience in radio including stints in Boston and Cleveland. Reach him at 252-480-4655 or [email protected].

SPIN ZONE
Rascal Flatts’ “Why Wait” earns the CountryBreakout No. 1 song for a second consecutive week, despite losing a handful of spins. Reba’s “Turn On The Radio” moves up to No. 2 ahead of former No. 1 The Band Perry’s “If I Die Young.” Brad Paisley’s “Anything Like Me” holds at No. 4, and Keith Urban’s “Put You In A Song” races for the top, moving 8-5.

Paisley’s Top 5 positioning brings up an interesting scenario. “Anything Like Me” is still showing positive spin gains at this point, so it’s conceivable that it could earn a No. 1 honor soon. But earlier in the week, Arista rush-released a version Paisley’s “This Is Country Music”—which he played on the CMA Awards—to country radio due to overwhelming demand. It didn’t have quite enough time to impact this chart, but expect it to be added and in rotation next week.

Jason Aldean has a similar predicament. “My Kinda Party” is now Top 10, and showing continued growth. But programmers have quickly latched on to “Don’t You Wanna Stay,” the duet Aldean performed with Kelly Clarkson at the CMA Awards. That song debuted at No. 77 this week, so look to see it lifting off over the next few charts.

Other tunes debuting are Sugarland’s “Little Miss” at No. 63, Katie Armiger’s “Best Song Ever” at No. 65, and Chris Filer’s “John Deere, John 3:16” at No. 80.

Frozen Playlists: KMKS

Upcoming Singles
November 22
Josh Thompson/Won’t Be Lonely Long/Columbia
Darius Rucker/This/Capitol

December 6
Chuck Wicks/Old School/RCA
LeAnn Rimes/Crazy Women/Curb
The Harters/If I Run/Bigger Picture
Alan Jackson/Ring of Fire/Arista
Crossin Dixon/Goodbye To Henry/Stoney Creek

•  • • • •

New On The Chart—Debuting This Week
Artist/song/label — chart pos.
Sugarland/Little Miss/Mercury — 63
Katie Armiger/Best Song Ever/Cold River — 65
Jason Aldean w/Kelly Clarkson/Don’t You Wanna Stay/Broken Bow — 77
Chris Filer/John Deere, John 3:16/Lofton Creek – 80

Greatest Spin Increase
Artist/song/label — spin+
Taylor Swift/Back To December/Big Machine — 482
Darius Rucker/This/Capitol — 440
Kenny Chesney/Somewhere With You/BNA — 378
Jason Aldean w/Kelly Clarkson/Don’t You Wanna Stay/Broken Bow — 286
Sugarland/Little Miss/Mercury — 273

On Deck—Soon To Be Charting
Artist/song/label — spins
Braden Gray/A Little Less Lonely/ATP Records — 284
Uncle Kracker/Good To Be Me/Top Dog/Atlantic — 233
Brantley Gilbert/My Kind of Crazy/Average Joe’s Entertainment — 199
Josh Thompson/Won’t Be Lonely Long/Columbia — 197
Jason Sturgeon/Rollin’ On/Toolpusher/Spinville/Nine North — 173

Two Week Most Added*
Artist/song/label — New adds
Darius Rucker/This/Capitol — 29
Taylor Swift/Back To December/Big Machine — 29
Jason Aldean w/Kelly Clarkson/Don’t You Wanna Stay/Broken Bow — 25
Sugarland/Little Miss/Mercury — 22
Easton Corbin/I Can’t Love You Back/Mercury — 13
Alan Jackson/Ring of Fire/Arista — 11
Katie Armiger/Best Song Ever/Cold River — 10

FUNL Music’s Ty Herndon, Curb Records’ Ashley Gearing and Republic Nashville’s Sunny Sweeney performed in front of an audience of approximately 200 radio contest winners on Nov. 10, during CMA Awards week. The winners were flown in from all over the U.S. as part of a radio contest package, produced by Nashville-based celebrity event travel management company, What A Trip! (L-R): What A Trip’s Darlene Williams, Sweeney, Herndon and Gearing.

During CMA week, Justin Moore stopped by the WMAD/Madison broadcast to join in the Madness with Star Country. (L-R) Back: Valory Music’s George Briner; WMAD’s Mike Ferris and John Flint; and Valory Music’s Jon Loba. Front: Moore and WMAD’s Tammy Lee and Steph Peters.

Badhorse recently stopped by KLMJ/Hampton, IA. The group is pictured here with KLMJ MD Mike Betten.

EMI Signs Davidson; Better Angels Signs White

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EMI SIGNS SARAH DAVIDSON
Songwriter Sarah Davidson has signed a publishing deal with EMI Music Publishing.

(L-R): EMI’s Laura Wright, Ben Vaughn and Tom Luteran; Sarah Davidson; Craig Hayes, attorney Zumwalt, Almon & Hayes; and EMI’s Josh VanValkenburg and Missy Wilson.

BETTER ANGELS SIGNS JASON WHITE
Singer/songwriter Jason White has inked a recording contract with Better Angels Music Group. In January, he will release The Longing, produced by Better Angels CEO Rob Rappaport. White has been a Better Angels staff writer for three years and is best known for writing “Red Ragtop” (Tim McGraw).

(L-R): Gary Ray, Dir. Artist Relations; Jason White; and Rob Rappaport.

Country Thunder Festivals For Arizona, Wisconsin

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Country Thunder Music Festivals have been announced for Florence, Arizona (April 7-10/2011) and Twin Lakes, Wisconsin (July 21-24/2011). The Arizona event features Toby Keith as its headliner, plus artists such as Martina McBride and Jason Aldean.

The Wisconsin Country Thunder event in July features Lady Antebellum, Zac Brown Band, Martina McBride plus headliners Rascal Flatts.

General admission tickets for the four-day events start at $99. Tent and campsites are available which range from primitive rugged to rustic and modern amenities. Complete info can be found online. More artists are expected to be announced for both events in coming weeks.

http://arizona.countrythunder.com/
http://wisconsin.countrythunder.com/

Montgomery Diagnosed with Prostate Cancer

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Eddie Montgomery, of duo Montgomery Gentry, has recently been diagnosed with Prostate Cancer. He will have surgery to remove the cancerous tumor in December. Montgomery says, “I plan to be back in January ready to rock for all the fans!”

MusicRow wishes Eddie a speedy recovery.

Alan Jackson Releases 34 No. 1’s

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Alan Jackson is set to release a career-spanning double-disc collection, 34 Number Ones on November 22.

With 37 songs in all, the collection will include every #1 hit to date from his more than 50 million albums sold, plus three additional tracks featuring the recent collaboration with the Zac Brown Band, “As She’s Walking Away,” “Look at Me” from the 2008 soundtrack Billy [Graham]: The Early Years, and his current single and remake of the Johnny Cash classic, “Ring of Fire.”

Mercury Regional Exits

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Mercury Records Southwest Regional Allen Mitchell has exited his post at the label.

A replacement is expected to be named shortly. Check back to musicrow.com for more updates. Contact Allen here.        [email protected]

SiriusXM 20 Million Strong; Toyota Adds iheartradio

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The competition keeps getting stiffer for traditional radio, with today’s news from Sirius XM and iheartradio.

Sirius XM Radio has reached the 20 million subscriber mark. The satcaster is celebrating the milestone by hosting Paul McCartney‘s first concert at Harlem’s world famous Apollo Theater, as an exclusive event for Sirius XM listeners.

The performance on Monday, December 13 will be broadcast live nationwide on Sirius XM, and subscribers will have the chance to win tickets and trips to the event.

•••••

Toyota plans to add Clear Channel Radio’s iheartradio to select vehicles in 2011. This is the first partnership Toyota is announcing for mobile application integration.

iheartradio will allow Toyota customers to access more than 750 of America’s local radio stations, as well as unique celebrity-hosted channels from Christina Aguilera, Eagles, and Weezer, local traffic reports and commercial-free shows from Ryan Seacrest, and more. Over 10 million consumers are already using the app.

More details will be released at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in January 2011.

Promotion vs. Servicing Myths

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Bryan Farrish

(Bryan Farrish Promotion is an independent promotion company handling airplay, talk radio interviews, and gig promotion. www.radio-media.com)

One of the new tricks to confuse artists is “digital distribution” or “digital servicing”. This is a service where the following is supposed to happen: You pay a small fee to have your audio sent to radio stations, then the person at the station listens to your track, plays it, and the service then tells you who played it. Problem is, it’s very misleading.

First of all, you have to understand the difference between “servicing” radio, and “promoting” to radio. Promoting to radio means you have dialog/conversation with the person at the station, and this requires phones calls and emails. After all, you want to actively talk WITH the person about his/her activities, gripes and stories. That is promotion. Just getting the music to them is simply “servicing” (which is a subset of marketing).

I don’t have anything against digital delivery itself; we provide it to every client for free (it’s called email). But the real problem with those digital delivery services is what they allow you to believe. We hear a lot of artists who said, “I paid $200 and my song was sent to 2000 stations, and the report said that 600 of them played it on air!” If you are believing this kind of stuff, your career is going to be having a multitude of problems.

First off, no commercial PD is going to be playing anything from “just an email”. It must come from a person/group that he is talking to or has talked to in the past, be it you, a promoter or a label. From just this trusted group of people, the PD is already overwhelmed by thousands of releases. He could never play them all because his playlist is already packed. And how about the “reports” that tell you how many listened and/or played the track? Contact some of the people at those stations and ask them. Also, check the station’s website for their playlist, and for your track on it.

In 2003 you thought getting your music on myspace was a low-cost answer to promotion, but now there are millions on there. It’s kinda like having a phone number: Every radio station and label in the world can call you, but how many do?

So if you’re looking for airplay and want results, be sure to understand the difference between servicing and promotion.