The IBMA Women in Bluegrass Summit will take place this Thursday (Jan. 7) from 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. CT. The virtual interactive summit will feature panel discussions and presentations on gender equity from renowned artists and women in business. Dialogue is encouraged and topics are slated to include:

• Knowing Our History – featuring pre-recorded videos from Alison Brown, Susie Monick, Sally Van Meeter, Dr. Dena Jennings, Dale Ann Bradley, Rhonda Vincent, Uma Peters, Kathy Kallick, Sierra Hull
• What We Thought Then and Now – Tristan Scroggins presents a live discussion about the original Women in Bluegrass Newsletters including excerpts about Claire Lynch and Lynn Morris with commentary from Murphy Henry and Louisa Branscomb
• My Feminism Is (Not) the Only Feminism – Missy Raines speaks on feminism
• What Is Real Gender Equity: Setting Goals for Our Future – Live panel including Q&A featuring Kimber Ludiker (moderator), Rhiannon Giddens, Maddie Witler, Laurie Lewis, Melody Walker, Phoebe Hunt
• Women in the Business of Bluegrass – Live panel including Q&A featuring Ashley Moyer (moderator), Trisha Tubbs, Anna Frick, Maria Ivey, Denise Stiff, Katrina Vanderzon Hennigar, Amy Reitnouer, Mollie Farr, Claire Armbruster

The summit’s Zoom meeting room has reached capacity, but it will be viewable live on the IBMA Facebook Event page. The summit is being presented in partnership with Women in Music, the industry’s leading non-profit working to advance the awareness, equality, diversity, heritage, opportunities, and cultural aspects of women in the musical arts through education, support, empowerment, and recognition.

Singer-songwriter Jamie O’Hara, known for being part of the country duo O’Kanes and for writing hit songs for other artists, has been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer. According to a Facebook post from his wife, Lola White, that was shared by Nashville music company Moraine Music Group, O’Hara’s cancer is so far advanced that he could have only weeks.

“It is with deep sorrow, dear friends, that I must tell you that my husband Jamie, the love of my life, has been diagnosed with an aggressive cancer, that has us measuring his life in weeks. Something about making such an announcement in this format seems very wrong, but there are so many people who should know, and so little time to contact everyone individually. I apologize for that, but I did want you to know. My heart is shattered, and I’m spending every moment I can with him,” White said via social media.

With The O’Kanes, O’Hara and Kieran Kane recorded three albums for Columbia Records and charted seven singles on the Billboard Hot Country Singles charts, including the No. 1 song, “Can’t Stop My Heart from Loving You.”

In a solo write, O’Hara wrote The Judds’ “Grandpa (Tell Me ‘Bout the Good Old Days).” The song was the duo’s sixth No. 1 hit, and won a Grammy for Best Country Song in 1986. In another solo write, O’Hara penned Ronnie McDowell’s 10-week No. 1, “Older Women.” He also self-penned “Man to Man,” Gary Allan’s first No. 1 hit, as well as many other songs recorded by artists including Tim McGraw, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Don Williams, Lee Ann Womack, Emmylou Harris, and more.

O’Hara released three solo albums, including Rise Above It in 1992, Beautiful Obsession in 2000, and Dream Hymns in 2012.

Osiris Media announced the premiere of Salute the Songbird, a new podcast hosted by Nashville-based rock and soul singer, Maggie Rose. The podcast was developed in partnership with Rose and her manager, Austin Marshall of Starstruck Entertainment, and features candid conversations with Rose’s female musical heroes about their lives in and out of music, challenging the status quo, and with a desire to offer guidance for young artists starting their careers.

The podcast will feature guests such as Grammy nominee Mickey Guyton, singer-songwriter Nicki Bluhm, Heart’s Nancy Wilson, Martina McBride, Chrissy Metz, and other female musicians, songwriters, producers, and industry members who detail their journeys as women in the music industry.

“We are thrilled to start 2021 by welcoming our first Artist Spotlight show led by a female artist,” said RJ Bee, CEO of Osiris Media. “Maggie hosts real, raw conversations with some of the leading female musicians of our time. We’re grateful to be able to provide a platform for Maggie to talk about the obstacles and opportunities associated with being a great female artist.”

The first episode, with Grammy-nominated songwriter Ruby Amanfu, is available now. Amanfu is a Ghana-born, Nashville-based vocalist and songwriter. She wrote the Top 40 radio single, “Hard Place” by multi-Grammy-winning artist H.E.R.. Amanfu has released nine critically acclaimed solo albums, and has contributed vocals to Beyonce’s “Don’t Hurt Yourself” on her Grammy-nominated album Lemonade, as well as on Jack White’s debut solo single “Love Interruption,” and his two acclaimed solo albums, Blunderbuss and Lazaretto.

Soundstripe has hired music, tech, and entertainment industry veteran Drew Weaver as Chief Operating Officer. In the newly-created COO role, he will be responsible for overseeing day-to-day operations at Soundstripe, reporting to Co-Founders and Co-CEOs Travis Terrell and Micah Sannan.

As COO, Weaver will help manage the rapid growth and continued business-line expansion at Soundstripe, a leader in the stock media industry that provides a catalog of royalty-free music, stock video, and sound effects to creators who need affordable, hassle-free access to media assets for their videos, podcasts, and other projects.

Prior to joining Soundstripe, Weaver was SVP and Head of Product for Pantaya, the fast-growing Spanish-language streaming service backed by Lionsgate and Hemisphere Media. He also supported product and international business operations at Starz, the global media and entertainment company and OTT streaming service acquired by Lionsgate in 2016. Before Lionsgate, Weaver was SVP of Product Management at TouchTunes, the country’s largest in-venue interactive music and entertainment platform, where he led the product and design teams behind the company’s digital jukebox network and popular mobile app, used in over 60,000 locations in North America. Previously, he held executive product and operational roles at AOL and SiriusXM, where he innovated, launched, and ran various consumer products used by millions of users and supported by various business models including SiriusXM’s streaming mobile apps and personalization for AOL Instant Messenger.

“Drew brings extensive operational experience in digital media to Soundstripe, including an expansive background in digital music and video at companies such as SiriusXM, Lionsgate, Starz, and AOL,” said Travis Terrell, Co-Founder and Co-CEO at Soundstripe. “His experience managing teams within large-scale subscription content businesses will be invaluable as we continue our rapid growth in pursuit of our core mission to Keep Creatives Creating.”

“I’m excited to join the talented team at Soundstripe in their quest to empower creatives with the industry’s highest-quality royalty-free music, video, and sound effects,” said Weaver. “I’m impressed by the company’s commitment to super-serve creators as well as its employees, and look forward to supporting its continued innovation in the booming markets of video and podcasting.”

Soundstripe is one of the Top 5 fastest-growing private media companies in the U.S. according to the 2020 Inc. 5000 list.

There are some people who make a list of resolutions for the new year and as the year progresses, they tick them off one by one with most, if not all of them, marked off at the end of the year. Perhaps you are one of those people.

I am not.

For years, I would keep my list of New Year’s Resolutions in my phone. Pretty smart, right? With easy access, I could read them at any time throughout the year and gauge how I was doing. Unfortunately, I never reviewed them. Not even once. The only time I even thought about them was during the Christmas holiday season when it was time to start composing a new list of resolutions for the upcoming year. And I have to admit, the old list required very little editing. I was lucky if I had to make any edits at all, often finding none of the items on my list completed. Some years, the only edit I made was to increase the amount of weight I needed to lose. 

After years of keeping that static list of resolutions, it became so ridiculous and meaningless that I stopped doing New Year’s Resolutions altogether. It was too overwhelming and made me feel defeated. However, a few years ago, I decided to pick just one word that I would give more attention and mindfulness to throughout the year. That changed everything.

I found having one word gave me a platform to help accomplish all the other goals. I was very surprised that something as simple as picking a single word could have such an impact and lasting effect on what I wanted to accomplish during the year. I’m the type of person that can learn a life lesson in the morning and forget it by lunch, so having just one word gave me focus, clarity and something simple I could remember. The word gave me purpose and intent, and became the overall arc of my life for 365 days. 

As I’ve written before, one of my favorite self-improvement books is The Four Agreements written by Don Miguel Ruiz. Actually, I should probably just say it is my favorite. I’ve never read a book in that genre that has guided me in a more positive way. 

And I’m not alone.

Published in 1997, the book has reportedly been translated into 46 languages and sold over 8 million copies in the United States. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, the book features four guiding principles to help create a life full of freedom, happiness and love and the first agreement is to be impeccable with your word. It’s appropriate that this is the first agreement because words matter. They really do! In this day of social media jabs and divisive political rhetoric, it can sometimes feel like our words have little consequence. But I have learned that a single word can change your life. It’s done so every year to mine since I started choosing a new word for each year. A word can be that powerful.

There aren’t any rules about what or how to pick your word. You do you. But for me, it seems like the word picks me, not the other way around. I habitually take a small amount of time out of the day to wander, to just be with my thoughts. It’s such an important part of my day. When I’m in that head space, my mind becomes a busy intersection of ideas, thoughts and dreams. It may happen during a walk, or a drive, or when I’m getting ready in the morning before I start my day. I let most of those ideas, thoughts and dreams pass through my mind. They may have value but aren’t worth stopping and hanging on to, so best to let them go. But occasionally, there’s one that gets my attention and I grab it. It’s during those recurring sessions when I usually receive my best ideas– whether it’s for personal development or enhancing something here at the magazine. And it’s during one of those sessions late in the year, when I pick my new word for the upcoming year. 

2021 will be the fifth consecutive year that I’ve chosen a word for the year. My prior words have included “Hustle,” “Strategic”, “Expansion,” and “Ready.” After spending a year with a single word, it doesn’t go away after the clock strikes midnight and you are propelled into the new year with a champagne flute in your hand. It becomes part of the fabric of who you are, the way you make decisions, the way you set goals, the way you engage with others. It becomes a key ingredient in your life and it’s fascinating to look back and see how that word has manifested in your life. 

During the year when my word was “Hustle,” that’s exactly what I did, and I continue to carry that with me in subsequent years as a self-professed hustler. But it wasn’t just about being busy. You can be busy and not really accomplish anything. Looking back, I didn’t see it at the time, but it now makes sense that “Strategic” was my word for the following year. Being a hustler is exhausting, but doing so strategically, changes everything and is an essential tool for an entrepreneur when time seems to always be in short supply. 

Last year, a year usurped by a world-wide pandemic, my word was “Ready.” In hindsight, I admit it turned out to be an interesting word for 2020. I had a close friend jokingly ask me recently, “So how did that word work out for you!?” And the irony of that word for 2020 isn’t lost on me. But I have to be honest—although I had no idea what was going to happen when I picked the word, it proved to be the perfect word for me in 2020. At the onslaught of Covid-19, I had to be ready. Like all of us, MusicRow magazine had to pivot and to do so quickly. And it proved to be a great word for me the entire year, always reminding me to be ready for whatever happened in a year that was so intensely difficult and unpredictable. Being ready didn’t mean that I had to have all my ducks in a row or even know where they were. But it gave me a sense of purpose and focus to accept things in a year that I had so little control over.

 

Once you have your word, what do you do? In my experience, my intent and laser-like focus of that word is the most important effort. It’s a heightened sense and mindfulness of that word that drives what I do. My word serves as the highway I travel down as I move forward and accomplish goals throughout the year. Words are powerful. Your word will tell you what you need to know. It will guide you throughout the year. And I’m confident with the attention you place on it, it will uncover delicious morsels of knowledge and valued direction that you would not have experienced or received otherwise. 

It will also protect you from veering off the path or getting lost in the muck. For example, while there are many benefits of social media, one of the biggest negatives is that it has decimated our understanding of the power of words. I remember as a child I often heard the phrase from adults, “Think before you speak!,” but that lesson has been deeply buried with the blasting of so much noise and garbage on social media. Your word will give you clarity and guidance, helping you to avoid hitting the many potholes found on the internet.

So as we start this new year, I challenge each of you to rediscover the power of words. Picking a word for 2021 is a great way to help restore their transformative power.

And if you’re curious about my word for 2021, the legendary American poet, memoirist, and civil rights activist Maya Angelou says it best. 

“RISE.”

 

Off The Record is a recurring column from MusicRow Owner and Publisher, Sherod Robertson. After 10 years heading the publication, he shares some of the nuggets of wisdom he’s acquired throughout the years that have helped him in his journey. The views and opinions expressed here are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of MusicRow Magazine nor its team members.