Chrissy Metz has brewed up a brand new remix of her song “Feel Good” with Grammy Award-winning producer Dave Audé. He added a hypnotic groove element to the tune, written by Metz with Nicolette Hayford, Connie Herrington, Aaron Raitiere and Jake Mitchell.

Audé has landed more No. 1s than any other producer on the Billboard Dance Club Songs charts, currently 135, of which 14 are his own singles as an artist. In 2016, he won a Grammy in the Best Remixed Recording, Non-Classical category for his remix of “Uptown Funk” by Mark Ronson and Bruno Mars.

“Feel Good” was initially released in conjunction with Metz’s 2020 fall fashion collaboration with ELOQUII Elements, and represents the moment she realized she was done living her life for other people and that it was time to put the focus on herself. “I can’t worry about what people are going to say, think, or do,” says Metz. “I’ve got to do what feels good to me.”

Metz spent much of 2020 writing and recording in Nashville, where she further realized her country music dream by making her Grand Ole Opry debut.

Now back in L.A. shooting the award-winning series This Is Us, she is spending much of her time not on set working on her first full-length music project.

Grammy-winning artist and long-time Music Health Alliance supporter Rodney Crowell has enlisted his all-star friends for a digital compilation of rarities to benefit the non-profit organization.

Available for two weeks only, exclusively via Bandcamp, Rodney Crowell and Friends’ Songs From Quarantine features Rosanne Cash with John Leventhal & The Milk Carton Kids, Ry Cooder, Elvis Costello, Ronnie Dunn, Steve Earle, Emmylou Harris, Joe Henry, John Hiatt, Taj Mahal, Jeff Tweedy, Keith Urban and Lucinda Williams.

Proceeds will benefit Music Health Alliance and its continued work to provide free healthcare advocacy and support to the music community nationwide, including critical mental health and COVID-19 resources in addition to access to healthcare, medicines, diagnostic tests and more.

Rodney Crowell and Friends’ Songs From Quarantine features:
Ry Cooder – “Baby Started Wearing Her Mask”
Elvis Costello – “Maud Gone Wrong”
Emmylou Harris – “Gold”
Jeff Tweedy – “Even I Can See” (Demo)
Keith Urban – “Polaroid”
Taj Mahal – “Sitting On Top Of The World”
Lucinda Williams – “When The Way Gets Dark”
Steve Earle – “Time Is Never On Our Side”
Rosanne Cash with John Leventhal and The Milk Carton Kids – “Western Wall”
Rodney Crowell – “She’s Back In Town”
Joe Henry – “Mission”
John Hiatt – “Goin’ Back To Nashville”
Ronnie Dunn – “Train To Glory”

Songs From Quarantine is available for two weeks on Bandcamp.

Crowell is already at work on the follow-up, Songs from Quarantine: Volume 2, also set to benefit Music Health Alliance. And he’s set to appear on the Sequestered Songwriters Facebook page Monday, Feb. 8 at 6 p.m. CT.

Nate Barnes. Photo: Jason Myers

Singer-songwriter Nate Barnes was working at a nuclear power plant in Michigan when his musical dreams came to fruition. He spent years playing bars, coffee shops, small venues and festivals in and around his hometown until one fateful day when he met chart-topping songwriter Jason Sellers while passing through Nashville.

Now he’s the flagship artist on Quartz Hill Records, helmed by industry veteran Benny Brown alongside Sellers and Paul Brown.

“A year and a half ago, I was living up in Michigan working in a nuclear power plant and blueberry farms on the side, playing and gigging anywhere I could. I took a vacation to Gatlinburg around that time. On my way to Gatlinburg, I stopped at Nashville to meet a buddy for the first time,” Barnes recalled to MusicRow in a recent artist visit. The songwriter he met was Rob Hatch, he had been referred to him by a buddy at the power plant.

“It was an amazing thing to be able to sit there and meet him. Jason Sellers comes walking in the door, randomly. He didn’t know I was going to be there, and I didn’t know he was going to be there. Me and Jason just hit it off. I played him a few songs and he said, ‘Nate, I’ve got a guy you need to meet.’ And that guy was Benny Brown.”

Barnes went to meet Benny and Paul, they signed him on the spot.

“I had a week and a half to make a decision and get all my affairs in order to leave everything, with the power plant. I had to move away from my 12-year-old boy, which was really hard. I had to sell everything I could and pack everything else up with me, my dog and my truck. I moved down here and lived in a hotel room for over a year.”

A year and a half later, Barnes is working in the studio with producers Mickey Jack Cones (Jason Aldean, Thomas Rhett) and Derek George (Dustin Lynch, Randy Houser) on his Quartz Hill Records album debut. He released his debut single, “You Ain’t Pretty,” which earned him a DisCovery Award from MusicRow‘s Robert K. Oermann for its “warmth and sincerity.” The single impacts country radio on Feb. 16.

The brand new artist on the new Quartz Hill label has made a significant entry. The lyric video for “You Ain’t Pretty” has surpassed 400,000 views, and Barnes’ TikTok streams have surpassed 13.7 million at press time.

Pictured (clockwise): Byron Kennedy, Marathon Talent Agency’s Peter Strickland, Spielberg Entertainment’s Neal Spielberg. Illustration: Marjory Boyer

Comedian Byron Kennedy has signed with Spielberg Entertainment for management representation and Marathon Talent Agency.

Kennedy spent the past two decades channeling his comedic colors through the airwaves as a major market broadcast personality and programming executive. He transitioned his skills to a major Nashville based label, where he quarterbacked the careers of international Platinum recording artists. Now, less than two years removed from a career in the music business, Kennedy draws from life experiences working in entertainment and having served in the U.S. Army in a comedy trajectory that has taken him from open mic nights to being featured in Las Vegas and beyond.

Morgan Wallen. Photo: John Shearer

Morgan Wallen has been dropped from WME’s roster, MusicRow has confirmed.

The talent agency’s decision to drop Wallen is the latest development since a video surfaced on Feb. 2 of him using a racial slur. The video was reportedly shot Sunday (Jan. 31) night outside Wallen’s Nashville home by neighbors and shows him yelling profanities, including the N-word. Wallen has since been suspended from his label (Big Loud Records), and his music has been removed from iHeartMedia, Cumulus, and CMT, as well as major playlists on Spotify and Apple Music, and other organizations’ platforms. Read more here.

The Academy of Country Music also announced they will halt Wallen’s potential involvement and eligibility for this year’s ACM Awards.

Wallen issued an apology to TMZ, “I’m embarrassed and sorry. I used an unacceptable and inappropriate racial slur that I wish I could take back. There are no excuses to use this type of language, ever. I want to sincerely apologize for using the word. I promise to do better.” MusicRow confirmed its authenticity.