Urban and Mayer To Reunite Live Onstage

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John Mayer and Keith Urban on "CMT Crossroads."

Keith Urban and John Mayer have announced that their summer tour plans will intersect on August 28 for a special live performance together at The Gorge in  Spokane, Washington. A pre-sale window via CMT.com will run from May 3 at 8:00 AM CT through May 7 at 8:00 PM CT. Tickets will become available to the public on Saturday, May 8th at 8”00 AM CT.

Fans will also have the opportunity to purchase tickets before the general public exclusively offered by each artists by visiting www.JohnMayer.com and www.KeithUrban.net. Both artist pre-sales begin on Saturday, May 1 at 8:00 AM CT.

Last January, Mayer and Urban met for the first time in Nashville last January for the taping of a CMT Crossroads special. After just hours of rehearsal time, the two Grammy Award-winning musicians took to the stage to collaborate on Urban’s hits “If Ever Could I Love,” “‘Til Summer Comes Around” and “Sweet Thing.”  The duo traded off when Urban backed Mayer on his “Perfectly Lonely” and “Gravity.”

“CMT Crossroads was the first time I performed with Keith but the creative rapport was there right away,” said Mayer. “I’m looking forward to performing together again and I hope it’s one of many opportunities to work together in the future.”

“I had the best time playing with John on CMT Crossroads. There’s a  certain simpatico between us as guitar players that, I think, comes from sharing the same desire to express the unwritten. Playing together at the Gorge will be like  adding a musical score to the most magnificent setting in a film.”

Both musicians are renowned as songwriters, guitar players and vocalists, and their seamless collaborations can be seen when their CMT Crossroads special airs on Friday, June 18 at 8:00 p.m. CT on CMT.

Joe Nichols Partners With Roper

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Roper Apparel and Footwear have announced that Show Dog-Universal Music artist Joe Nichols will become the face of the brand, which, among other things, includes an extensive advertising and marketing campaign.

The advertising campaign will kick off in May with a series of magazine ads, leading up to the CMA Music Festival in Nashville. Additionally the artist will be featured on Point-of-Purchase marketing materials in 1,100 retail stores nationwide.

“Joe embodies the traits of tradition, hard work and family; three things we feel define the Roper brand,” says Roper Marketing Director Kerry Vastine. “We hope that this is just the beginning of a long and lasting relationship between Joe and Roper.”

“I am very excited about my relationship with Roper and like the fact that this partnership developed naturally,” Nichols says. “There are quite a few similarities in our attitudes toward our respective businesses, and I appreciate that. This partnership feels good, and I am happy to be a part of it.”

In addition, Nichols will also participate in a number of autograph signings and in-store appearances at Roper Retailers, beginning with the Roper booth at CMA Music Festival. The company also plans to offer several contest opportunities throughout the year.

Wynonna, Taylor Swift, Colt Ford Partner With Big Brands

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Wynonna Judd is releasing a new album through Cracker Barrel Old Country Store® to support the Wounded Warrior Project. The Curb Records artist will release Love Heals, a collection of hit singles and three other previously unavailable tracks. The new CD is available for pre-order and will arrive in all Cracker Barrel locations on May 24th.

Cracker Barrel will donate a portion of the proceeds from the sale of every Love Heals CD to the Wounded Warrior Project which assists wounded service men and women and their families.

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Sony Electronics has teamed up with Taylor Swift to promote its latest Cyber-shot® digital cameras in an integrated marketing campaign. The ads with Swift focus on the camera’s sleek style and iSweep Panorama feature that captures shots in an easy “press and sweep” motion.

Primetime advertising spots featuring Swift discovering that she can capture the breadth of her audience with the camera are airing on NBC, FOX and CW, accompanied by digital and print ads carried out through June.

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Average Joes Entertainment and Zaxby’s have partnered to offer Colt Ford fans the opportunity to get a free Zax Meal Deal when they purchase a copy of Ford’s latest album, Chicken And Biscuits.

The first 50,000 copies of the album shipped to retail included an offer of a free Zaxby’s Meal Deal upon joining the chicken establishment’s email club.

Katie Armiger In GAC Web Documentary

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Cameras followed rising country singer Katie Armiger for a year, capturing her journey. The result is d’tour to Nashville, a web documentary which is available now exclusively on GAC.com.

Produced by Julie Dove, the movie includes Armiger’s headlining national mall tour last summer, interviews with industry professionals, and lots of behind-the-scenes footage.

Armiger has partnered with GAC several times in recent years. In 2008 the network offered her six-week webseries Kapturing Katie, it also sponsored her mall tour, and paired with her on the 2009 promotion “Kapturing A Love Song with Katie Armiger.”

Armiger’s current single “Kiss Me Now,” from her forthcoming third album on Cold River Records, is in the Top 40 on MusicRow’s Country Breakout Chart, making it her highest charting single to date.

Urban/Mayer Crossroads; Bentley On Leno Tonight

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John Mayer and Keith Urban on "CMT Crossroads."

Grammy winning guitar gods John Mayer and Keith Urban are the latest pairing for CMT Crossroads. The episode, premiering Friday, June 18, was taped before an invitation-only audience in Nashville. Their set includes Urban hits “If Ever Could I Love,” “’Til Summer Comes Around” and “Sweet Thing,” and Mayer favorites such as “Perfectly Lonely” and “Gravity.” They wrap the show with a cover of George Michael’s pop-rock classic “Faith.”

The collaboration of Mayer and Urban marks the first time artists have returned to the CMT Crossroads stage since the series launched in January 2002. Urban and John Fogerty were featured in a 2005 edition, and Mayer paired with Brad Paisley for an episode that premiered in 2004.

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Dierks Bentley will debut the lead and title track from his forthcoming bluegrass-influenced album Up On The Ridge tonight (4/27) on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. The song, written by Bentley and Angelo Petraglia, features Petraglia on acoustic guitar, Sam Bush on mandolin and background vocals by Alison Krauss.

Early reviews of the album due June 8 are stellar. MusicRow’s Robert Oermann called it “the first masterpiece country album of 2010.” Get a short video preview of the project here.

Bentley kicked off his Up On The Ridge tour of 24 shows in 30 days this past weekend with sold out crowds in Portland, OR; Boulder, CO; Colorado Springs, CO; and Austin, TX. The run continues through May 22 with a final show at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium.

Mobile Spawns Location-Based Search

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Gowalla

Social networks that revolve around following a user’s geographic location, such as Foursquare and Gowalla may soon become irrelevant, according to a recent Ad Age article (3/22/10 by Kunur Patel) which predicts that location-based marketing will become an integral part of all web sites and critical for advertisers.

Imagine if advertisers knew your location at all given moments, plus had detailed data concerning your likes, dislikes and purchasing decisions. It would only be a matter of time before mobile search could give you local answers and suggestions that matched some of your favorites and might even pop up with suggestions based upon your age, size and style tastes.

Kip Cassino, VP-research at Borrell Associates tells Ad Age, “What used to be called point-of-purchase is now called mobile advertising. Mobile can be an extension of a retailer’s storefront.” Once you begin tracking where consumers are, the barriers between advertising and promotion start fading away.

Mobile ad group product manager for Google, Paul Feng explains, “We think of location as a hugely important signal. Foursquare is really innovating for small businesses and that’s fantastic. But ultimately that’s just one piece of the opportunity.” Feng notes that about one-third of all mobile searches have local intent. With that in mind Google has recently allowed advertisers to add phone numbers to mobile ads so consumers can click to call.

Cassino predicts, “The demand for stationary computers is going to dry up on a consumer level. One quarter of Facebook’s 400 million users access its network from mobile devices and they tend to be almost twice as active as the non-mobile crowd. The article also suggests Facebook will introduce location-based features during April.

Film Festival Attendance; Clint Black In “Flicka 2”

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“We’re thrilled to report that overall attendance for the festival stayed steady at just under 22,000,” reports Sallie Mayne, executive director of the Nashville Film Festival, which was held last week. “We had fewer events than last year, but sold more tickets to films, panels and workshops this year. To maintain our attendance in our 41st year, after the anniversary blow-out we hosted last year, is a testament to the quality of our film programming and the strong support of this festival by the community.”

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Clint Black stars in the new straight-to-DVD release Flicka 2. The movie will premiere at Nashville’s Belcourt Theater on Tues., April 27, with the event benefiting The Children’s Miracle Network and The Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. There will be a special presentation of a $500 million check from The Walmart Foundation to Children’s Miracle Network.

Black plays alongside actor Patrick Warburton (“Rules of Engagement,” “Seinfeld”) and Tammin Sursok (“The Young And The Restless”), in the continuation of the popular 2006 Flicka that starred Tim McGraw.

The DVD will be out May 4th from Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment, and is a available for pre-order exclusively at Walmart.com.

“Avatar” Shatters Records; Rhapsody Plays Offline

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When’s the last time an album debuted with sales over 6 million units?

The movie business is booming today with news of the best selling DVD in North American history. Since its release on April 22, James Cameron’s sci-fi opus “Avatar” has moved a total of 6.7 million copies—about 4 million DVDs and 2.7 million Blu-rays. This also makes it the top selling Blu-ray movie in history.

Sales of “Avatar” have grossed about $130 million. The sci-fi smash grossed $2.7 billion at the box office, making it the most successful film in history.

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Music streaming service Rhapsody has a new iPhone application which lets users listen to music even when a data connection is not available. The new offline option stores playlists and tracks on the phone’s memory for playback.

This new option is supposed to significantly extend battery life of the device, and is expected to be useful during travel, and when cell signals are weak.

This technology has been available for some time to users of similar service Spotify in Europe, but Rhapsody is the first to offer it in the United States.

The $10/month music subscription allows listeners to carry music on one portable device, or up to three devices for $15/month. Rhapsody currently has nine million songs in its catalog.

Film Vets Launch Thinking Bee Productions

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Jo Hunt

Producer Jo Hunt and director/editor Bill Filipiak have announced the launch of Thinking Bee Productions. The television and video production company will focus on the creation of unscripted series for both broadcast and webcast as well as music videos.

Hunt and Filipiak first met while developing Meet the Wilsons, a popular reality series based in Nashville and currently airing on CMT Canada. “It became obvious within a couple of months that we had a shared belief that there is a place for programming and video of a positive nature,” says Hunt.  “Our goal with Thinking Bee is to build an arsenal of programs that will inspire and encourage audiences.”
In addition to their series work, Filipiak and Hunt see major opportunities applying their storytelling skills to create entertaining and compelling video content for the web.

“Developing effective web video content is becoming its own art form,” Filipiak says. “Having a team that understands the need for that content to both be entertaining and tie in directly with all other marketing and branding efforts is essential to helping businesses get the biggest return for their marketing dollars.”

Bill Filipiak

Filipiak marries a strong background in directing/editing with a very successful history in advertising/marketing.  Hunt, meanwhile, as vice president/development for High Five Entertainment, produced both music and non-music television properties for multiple cable networks. Thinking Bee currently has three reality-based television series in development and is in production on several Web series.

“We’re thrilled to be in a position to offer labels and businesses a means of creating web video that is more than just behind the scenes footage,” says Filipiak. “We believe that the growth of social networking on the Web has created a need for video pieces that tell a story and help the audience connect with artists and businesses on an emotional level. In essence we believe everyone has a great story to share and we’re here to help them tell it.”

For more information about Thinking Bee Productions, click here.

Belmont’s “Best,” Tate’s USO Mission and a CDX Milestone

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Belmont Salutes Gill With “Best of the Best”
Tomorrow night (4/24) at 7:00 PM, Belmont University’s Mike Curb College of Entertainment and Music Business will present its annual “Best of the Best” showcase. The event will honor Vince Gill, 2010 recipient of the Robert E. Mulloy Award of Excellence, an annual award given to an individual who has achieved a level of excellence in the music business and entertainment industries with notable service to Belmont University and the Nashville community.

Co-hosted by TV personality Harry Chapman and Restless Heart’s Larry Stewart, the show will salute Gill with a tribute performance from acclaimed singer/songwriter Rodney Crowell. Also featured will be student performances from Miss B (Urban/Pop), Joshua Eric Wright (Christian), Cheryl LuQuire (Country), Delta Saints (Rock) and from ASCAP Writers’ Night series winners Clare Dunn, Hailey Faith, Hailey Steele, Josh Johnson, Greg Bates and Jordan Kyle Reynolds.

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Jamie Tate

Jamie Tate Becomes USO Ambassador
Bodell Records artist Jamie Tate has been named an honorary ambassador by the USO of North Carolina for her ongoing support and contributions to the United Service Organizations, Inc.

The USO designated Tate as an ambassador in response to the North Carolina native’s upcoming “I’ll Give My All” initiative. In March, Tate recorded “I’ll Give My All” with the 82nd Airborne All-American Chorus in Nashville. The track is part of an online campaign that aims to deliver the song via digital download to more than one million military servicemen and women around the world. As part of her ambassadorship, Tate will appear and perform at USO of NC events and other military activities throughout North Carolina and other parts of the country.

“I am incredibly honored that the USO of North Carolina has made me an honorary ambassador,” says Tate. “The USO does so much for our military, and I’m proud to say that I’m associated with such an esteemed organization.”

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CDX Loses Motley, Marks Milestone
On April 29, CDX, the longstanding physical delivery system for new singles to secondary stations, will release Volume 500, a definite milestone in the company’s 20-year history.

The date will also mark the retirement of Peggy Motley, who came to CDX in 1994 from WSM and Gaylord after having completed a career in the radio industry.

“Not only did Peggy bring professionalism and dedication to her job, for these past 16 years she has brought us joy, laughter and a spirit that makes everyone feel good,” said CDX Co-Owner Paul Lovelace. “She will be missed very, very much.”