The Country Music Association’s industry development program, CMA EDU, held its 11th annual Leadership Summit this week.

The latest CMA EDU membership class—made up of 49 students from 32 universities across the country—participated in professional development training, industry education and community building at the CMA headquarters in Nashville for three full days.

The event kicked off on Sunday (July 28) with a panel hosted by Black River Entertainment that consisted of songwriter McCall Chapin, Black River’s Rebekah Gordon and country artist MaRynn Taylor. Students then attended a show at the Grand Ole Opry, featuring Scotty Hasting, and were given a backstage tour during intermission.

Monday (July 29) started with a presentation from CMA’s Sarah Trahern, followed by a welcome speech from CMA’s Tiffany Kerns, before Belmont University’s Brittany Schaffer moderated a conversation with country artist Tucker Wetmore and his team, including UMG Nashville’s Cindy Mabe, Back Blocks Music’s Rakiyah Marshall and WME’s Carrie Murphy and Braeden Rountree. The panelists gave students an in-depth look at what each of them do in their separate roles to help an artist achieve success. CMA’s Catharine McNelly then spoke about marketing and personal branding before WME’s Kylie Gambone moderated a panel of professionals from the agency, including Agent Trainees Lauren Cunningham and Kallie Rhea as well as Agents Carter Green and Lara Christie.

Yesterday (July 30), students rotated to different rooms to sharpen their interview skills, have a conversation surrounding empathy and cancel culture with CMA’s Mia Jones, build a strong resume and take quality headshots. A discussion on touring with Parkwood Entertainment’s Kaleb Steele and a streaming panel with UMG Nashville’s Vipin Reddy, Sandbox Entertainment Group’s Lucia Kaminsky and Spotify’s Claire Heinichen took place before KP Entertainment’s Kerri Edwards offered the closing keynote to conclude the summit.

“These past few days have been another fantastic opportunity for our CMA EDU program to pour into the music industry professionals of tomorrow and give them a glimpse at what their future careers could offer,” says Kerns. “The CMA EDU Class of 2024-2025 has some of the most ambitious and hard-working students we‘ve ever seen. We are beyond excited to watch what they do, and how they bring the knowledge they picked up from this experience into their careers.”

Applications for the 2025–2026 CMA EDU program are now open. For more information, click here.

Following the announcement of this year’s nominees for the 36th annual MusicRow Awards, presented by City National Bank, we take a closer look at the Producer of the Year category. This visionary class of nominees crafted up some of country music’s most innovative projects during the eligibility period of June 1, 2023 to May 31, 2024.

This year’s winners will be announced online on all MusicRow platforms on Tuesday, Aug. 27.

Click here to see the full list of MusicRow Awards nominees.

Winners are determined solely by MusicRow Magazine subscribers. Voting is now open and closes on Aug. 9 at 5:00 p.m. To receive a ballot to vote in the MusicRow Awards, become a MusicRow subscriber here.

Alongside Chris and Morgane Stapleton, Dave Cobb produced Chris Stapleton’s fifth studio album, Higher, which won the 2024 ACM Award for Album of the Year and secured the singer more hits with its double-Grammy ­winning “White Horse” and “Think I’m In Love With You.” Cobb also produced Lori McKenna’s 1988, Luke Grimes’ self-titled album, Oliver Anthony’s Hymnal Of A Troubled Man, Reba McEntire’s Not That Fancy and The War And Treaty’s Lover’s Game. He was also tapped to produce the soundtrack for the new Hunger Games movie, The Ballad Of Songbirds & Snakes, as well as other projects outside of country and Americana.

Zach Crowell was celebrated for his production credits on projects from Sam Hunt, Dustin Lynch, Cole Swindell, Russell Dickerson and more over the past year. His expertise can be heard on select tracks of Jelly Roll’s Whitsitt Chapel album, including hits “Halfway To Hell” and the 2024 ACM Single of the Year “Save Me.” Other hits that Crowell celebrated over the past year include Hunt’s “Outskirts,” Dickerson’s “God Gave Me A Girl” and Smith’s “Creek Will Rise.” At the 2023 CMA Awards, Crowell had two tracks in the Musical Event of the Year category with “Save Me” and Swindell’s “She Had Me At Heads Carolina.”

Continuing to cement his legacy of making hit records, Dann Huff released work with Thomas Rhett, Kane Brown, Keith Urban, Brett Young, Brian Kelley, Darius Rucker, Kameron Marlowe, Kidd G, Restless Road, Riley Green and plenty more over the past year. Among the hits he celebrated are Rhett and Morgan Wallen’s “Mamaw’s House,” Brown’s “Bury Me In Georgia” and “I Can Feel It” and Riley Green and Luke Combs’ “Different ‘Round Here.” In June, Huff received his fifth win for ACM Producer of the Year, bringing his total ACM Award count to 11.

Jay Joyce further pushed his creative limits this year with a wide array of projects. He helmed production on Lainey Wilson’s Bell Bottom Country project, which was awarded Album of the Year at the 2023 CMA Awards and named Best Country Album at the 2024 Grammy Awards. The album also yielded more awards and hit songs with “Watermelon Moonshine,” “Heart Like A Truck” and “Wildflowers and Wild Horses.” Joyce also shared his expertise with Ashley McBryde, Corey Kent, The Black Crowes and Lanco on their respective projects this past year. Last summer, Joyce received his sixth win for ACM Producer of the Year, extending his own already-established title of the winningest Producer of the Year in ACM history.

With his multi-award-winning work with Morgan Wallen, Joey Moi continued to make history this past year. After its release in early 2023, the Moi-produced One Thing At A Time album remained atop the all-genre Billboard 200 chart for 19 non-consecutive weeks, and was the most-streamed album of the year on Spotify. Moi and Wallen have racked up more No. 1 hits at radio, such as “Last Night,” “Thinkin’ Bout Me” and “Man Made A Bar” featuring Eric Church. All the while, Moi also helmed production on projects released by Hardy, Ernest, Lauren Alaina, MacKenzie Porter, Larry Fleet, Lauren Watkins and more. With Hardy, Moi celebrated the smash hit “Truck Bed” and a slew of awards for his and Lainey Wilson’s “Wait In The Truck.”

Alysa Vanderheym co-produced Kelsea Ballerini’s enormously successful Rolling Up The Welcome Mat (For Good) project. The album featured some of Ballerini’s most vulnerable work to date, leading to universal acclaim from critics and fans alike. The project was nominated for Album of the Year at the ACMs and CMAs, and also received a Grammy nomination for Best Country Album. In addition to her production work, Vanderheym is a prolific songwriter with recent cuts by Jelly Roll, Dustin Lynch, Alana Springsteen, Dallas Smith and more.

According to the Nashville Convention & Visitors Corp (NCVC), CMA Fest and “Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th” 2024 experienced record-breaking numbers in visitor spending. Stadium concerts have also helped to drive leisure visitation this year.

“Nashville’s tourism economy, built on our vibrant live music scene, is truly a driving force of our city’s success,” says Deana Ivey, NCVC President & CEO. “It creates jobs, generates tax revenue, boosts our local businesses and supports our musicians and creative culture. We’re thrilled to see our major-event strategy leading to record-breaking visitor spending and hotel room nights sold.”

CMA Fest, which took place June 6–9, generated $77.3 million in estimated direct visitor spending, 3.5% more than the 50th anniversary celebration last year. Almost 90,000 fans from across all 50 states and 46 countries attended the event daily. The average travel party size was 3.4 people, spending $3,608 and staying five nights. About half of attendees indicated they traveled by air, and 11.4% of visitors surveyed were international. The number of downtown rooms sold over the four-day function was up nearly 5% over last year, and the occupancy rate downtown peaked at 93.5% on Friday night (June 7). The top five feeder states outside of Tennessee were Florida, New York, Texas, Pennsylvania and California.

“Let Freedom Sing! Music City July 4th,” the free Independence Day concert and fireworks show, resulted in the most hotel nights ever booked on July 4 in Davidson County with 27,136 rooms filled. The spectacle, which included drone lights for the first time, amassed $17.5 million in vistor spending. The crowd of approximately 355,000 marked a 42% increase compared to last year.

Additionally, Morgan Wallen‘s stint at Nissan Stadium during the first weekend May helped to set an all-time record for hotel sales, alongside a Predators’ home playoff game and numerous college and university graduations, with more than 75,500 hotel rooms booked-the most ever in the city’s history for a Friday and Saturday.

The weekend of June 28-29 was the second-best weekend on record in terms of hotel-room demand with a total of 74,983 rooms sold, a 13% increase compared that same weekend last year. Driving visitation was Zach Bryan‘s concert at Nissan Stadium on June 29, resulting in downtown hotel occupancy of 97.4% that day, along with the Ally 400 Nascar Cup Series at Nashville Superspeedway.

Gulf Coast Jam presented by Jim Beam has unveiled Lainey Wilson and Sam Hunt as its first headliners for the 2025 festival.

The four-day event wrapped up last month with a sold out crowd. Choreographed drones announced that Wilson was the initial headliner for the upcoming year. Following the announcement, organizers revealed Hunt as the second of four headliners.

“Lainey has just exploded the past couple of years, and we were so excited to announce her as the first of four headliners for next year,” says festival Executive Producer Rendy Lovelady. “Sam Hunt has been one of our most requested artists, and we can’t wait to see him open the 2025 festival.”

This year’s festival, headlined by Morgan Wallen, Jelly Roll, Cody Johnson and Parker McCollum, sold out before 2023 came to a close. With a fourth night added to the event to commemorate the festival’s 10 year anniversary in 2022, organizers made the decision to make the additional day a permanent part of the schedule moving forward.

“What better way to kick off our 2025 Festival than with the ACM Entertainer of the Year and Sam Hunt,” adds Gulf Coast Jam Presented by Jim Beam COO Mark Sheldon. “Every year just gets better and better, and having Lainey and Sam here is an amazing start.”

The upcoming Gulf Coast Jam presented by Jim Beam is set to take place in Panama City Beach May 30 through June 1, 2025, with additional headliners to be announced in the coming weeks. Tickets are available now at www.gulfcoastjam.com.

Hardy Performs On Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon

Hardy appeared on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last week to perform “Psycho” from his recently released new LP, Quit!! The album is No.1 on the Billboard Hard Rock Albums chart and, with 24,000 units, comes in at No. 9 on Album Sales and No. 5 on Current Rock Albums charts. He also released the debut of a live deluxe edition of Quit!! and visuals for “Soul4Sale” featuring Fred Durst and “Psycho.”

 

Russell Dickerson Brings ‘Bones’ To GMA3

Russell Dickerson brought his newest single “Bones” to GMA3 last week. Penned by Dickerson, Chase McGill, Chris LaCorte and Parker Welling, “Bones” blends soul-mate symphonies with epic country devotion.

With over 77 adds at country radio, “Bones” is Dickerson’s biggest first week release; shattering his previous high of 52. He continues his time on the road this summer with performances at fairs, festivals, and shows across the country including dates on Sam Hunt’s “Locked Up Tour 2024” and will close the season headlining his “Good Day To Have A Great Tour” in the UK.

 

Grand Ole Opry Celebrates 30 Years Of Forrest Gump

The Grand Ole Opry celebrated the 30thanniversary of Paramount Pictures’ beloved classic Forrest Gump on a special sold-out Sunday Night Opry at the Opry House and the Opry debut of Gary Sinise & The Lt. Dan Band, who was introduced to the stage by a heartfelt video message from Tom Hanks. Additionally, the movie’s producer, Academy Award-winner Wendy Finerman, actor Mykelti Williamson, who portrayed the iconic character Bubba in the film, and Michael Conner Humphreys, who portrayed Forrest Gump as a young boy, each appeared as guest hosts.

The special Opry also featured Mandy Barnett, Madeline Edwards, The Gatlin Brothers, Scotty Hasting, Jamey Johnson, Gary LeVox, Scotty McCreery, and Stolen Silver performing songs from the 12-times Platinum-selling movie soundtrack. Additionally, the live audience was treated to clips of the movie throughout the show. A sold-out post-show event was held in the Opry House’s Studio A and featured a Q&A discussion of 30 years of Forrest Gump with Sinise (Lt. Dan), Williamson (Bubba), Humphreys (young Forrest Gump) and producer Finerman as well as photo ops on the iconic park bench seen in numerous scenes from the film.

 

Green Hill Music Tributes Three Decades Of Business At Anniversary Party

Green Hill Music held its 30th anniversary celebration July 13 in partnership with the Nashville Jazz Workshop. The evening was filled with heartfelt tributes and was attended by a crowd of music enthusiasts and industry professionals.

Green Hill artists performed including Roger Spencer, Lori Mechem, Jack Jezzro, Luke Woodle, Sam Levine, Jaimee Paul, Matt Belsante and Phillip Keveren. The evening closed out with a heartfelt video tribute and performances of songs by the late Beegie Adair. Adair, a towering figure in the jazz world, was remembered for her virtuosic piano skills and her impact on the music community as an educator and mentor. Her contributions to the Nashville Jazz Workshop and enduring legacy were celebrated through a lineup of emotional performances, underscoring her lasting influence on the jazz scene.