John Ingrassia

Music executive John Ingrassia has been named President, Music for podcast content production studio Audio Up Media. Ingrassia previously served as General Manager at Vector Management since 2009. His career has also included time as Exec. VP at Sony Music, overseeing operations for Columbia Records Group and as President of the Commercial Music Group following the merger of Sony Music and BMG.

“John and I believe that podcasting is poised to become the next great discovery platform, not only for developing artists, but also for established artists looking to release new content in innovative ways, particularly in these uncertain times, as well as energizing the vast catalog of music that is available thanks to streaming services,” added Audio Up Media Founder and CEO Jared Gutstadt.

“After spending the first part of my music career working for one of the major record companies, and then the last decade supporting artists at one of the best management companies in the business, I am more than excited to join Jared in his latest venture and create new opportunities for music discovery through the exploding medium of podcasts,” said Ingrassia in a recent statement. “ Even as the popularity of podcasts has increased exponentially in recent years, music has been underserved, and Audio Up’s mission is to develop innovative programming that incorporates music that can stand on its own—the perfect compliment for telling stories in a pure audio medium.”

“We are crafting best in class audio stories with supersized musical components,” Gutstadt added. “If people go to platforms like Spotify, iHeart, Pandora, Apple, etc. and expect podcasts to engage them and keep them in the environment, the variety and quality of the content will have to improve dramatically to compete with the multiple forms of entertainment that grasp people’s attention like film, TV, gaming, etc. Podcasts can be just as rich and engaging as all other forms of media, and Audio Up is built on a foundation of podcasts, which will not only be springboards for albums of the future, but also spin off film, television and Broadway shows, and will be valued for a catalog of stories, songs and masters. We are excited to be offering an amazing slate of projects, both scripted and unscripted, that we have been able to quickly bring to market in the short time since the company was launched earlier this year. It’s been a perfect storm for us to create, while the pandemic surrounds the ever-moving media landscape of 2020.”

Audio Up Media’s current and recent projects include Dennis Quaid’s The Dennissance, true crime podcast Where The Bodies Are Buried, pet culture podcast The Pet Show, as well as upcoming projects including Make It Up As We Go with Scarlett Burke, Miranda Lambert, Lindsay Ell, Bobbby Bones and Billy Bob Thornton, Machine Gun Kelly’s Halloween In Hell and more.

Kari Jobe

Kari Jobe will release a new live album, The Blessing, on Oct. 23 on Capitol CMG. In anticipation of the new album, three singles are available this week: “First Love,” “Embers” and “Obsession (ft. Cody Carnes),” along with the pre-order for the album.

The album was recorded and captured live this summer during the pandemic without an audience at her home church, The Belonging Co, in Nashville.

The Blessing features 15 tracks co-written by Cody Carnes, Austin Davis, Jacob Sooter, Jonas Myrin, Elyssa Smith, Steffany Gretzinger, Chris Brown, Steven Furtick and Passion’s Kristian Stanfill and Brett Younker. The new album’s title track features the global worship anthem of the year, “The Blessing,” which Jobe co-wrote along with Carnes and Elevation Worship’s Steven Furtick and Chris Brown. The song was written and released the week before the world was overcome with the pandemic, and the live video now has more than 28.6 million views, 57 million global audio streams in just six months, and has been included on Spotify’s US Viral 50, Global Viral 50 playlists and Top 50 Most thumbed-up songs on Pandora.

“Recording this album live without an audience was something I wrestled with, but I really felt God say to keep moving forward,” Jobe said. “I felt like if I waited, I would be disobeying the Lord. I’m trusting that these songs are meant to release hope right now in this uncertain season. When I was working on this new album, I wanted to think about the church – little did I know that I would have to have the ‘church’ in my heart when I recorded a live album as well.”

Luke Laird. Photo: Spencer Combs

After 24 No. 1 songs, Grammys, ACMs, and multiple other honors, lauded songwriter/producer Luke Laird released his first-ever album today (Sept. 18).

In a project aptly titled Music Row, the hit-maker behind monster country hits including Carrie Underwood’s “So Small,” “Temporary Home,” and “Undo It”; Eric Church’s “Drink in My Hand,” “Give Me Back My Hometown,” and “Talladega”; Little Big Town’s “Pontoon,” Kenny Chesney’s “American Kids,” Lady A’s “Downtown,” Jon Pardi’s “Head Over Boots,” and many more, Laird finally tells his story of how a kid from Hartstown, Pennsylvania made it on Music Row, where he has made a lasting mark on country music.

When the idea came up for him to put out his own music, Laird says support from his wife, and Creative Nation CEO and Co-Owner, Beth Laird, sealed the deal.

“Every time I write something, I’m always happy for anybody else to cut it,” Laird says. “But I realized I started having this collection of songs that were more personal. A few of them I wrote just to write, and then once I realized I had a few that were more personal, then I focused on writing for myself.

“Beth suggested [making an album]. She said, ‘Why don’t you just make an album so these songs can actually get heard?’ That was really all the encouragement I needed.”

The title track shows Laird’s affinity for the magic of Music City and country music.

“For me, the first time I came [to Nashville], I had never seen anything like it,” Laird says. “Even the actual physical music row, thinking about all these writers that I grew up to admire and are kind of my heroes, that I’m doing the same thing they were doing in a little house on music row, writing a song. There’s just something to me that’s really cool about that, and to get to continue to be a part of that tradition is really neat.”

Laird wrote every song with no co-writers, other than “Branch On The Tree,” which he wrote with Barry Dean and Lori McKenna, which makes for a deeply personal chronicle of Laird’s life and career. Perhaps the most strikingly personal song is “That’s Why I Don’t Drink Anymore,” a pain-tinged song of hope to recover from addiction.

“I played that song one night at the Bluebird. It was the first time I played it out and this young lady came up to me, she’s a Belmont student and she had tears in her eyes and she was like, ‘I love that song so much. It makes me think about my dad. Do you have a copy of that?’ Of course at the time, I didn’t. I actually went home that night and made a work tape of it and I got her email and sent it to her. When it came time to choose songs for the album, it was pretty much a no brainer [to include the song]. I thought of that one experience and thought, ‘I wonder if there’s anybody else that can connect to it,'” Laird says.

Another profoundly personal song on the record deals with Laird’s grief after losing his childhood best friend.

“I think about what you’d be doin’ right now, your kids and my kids, they’d be hangin’ out. They’d be laughing about the clothes we wore and how much root beer we drank on your mama’s porch,” Laird sings.

While the record skillfully covers darkness, it also effortlessly sheds light on the many bright spots of Laird’s life. The charming, breezy “Hangin’ Out” tells the story of the Creative Nation power couple, from their early days, to building the beautiful life they have now. “Jake and Mack” further tells that story, in a love letter to the couple’s sons.

Photo: Spencer Combs

“Why I Am Who I Am” sums Laird’s childhood, the family he made, and his contentment. “The truth is I’m a product of a lot of love,” Laird sings, believably.

The project concludes with an ode to the music that has enriched his life and given him a career, in “Country Music Will Never Die.” The opening verse in the tune gives an ode to ’90s country, Laird’s favorite genre.

He continues to pay his respect to ’90s country on his new Apple Music Radio show, Country Replay Radio, where he helps listeners rediscover their favorite country hits from the ’90s to now while diving into the stories and songwriters behind those songs.

“Doing the radio show, it’s like when you write a song, you take yourself back into being a fan again. When you turn on the radio, what do you like to listen to?” Laird says. “That’s a little different than when you’re just sitting in a room, trying to come up with a great line. But playing songs for an hour on the radio, you do that a little differently than if you’re just sitting in a writing room. And believe me, I have so much more respect for real radio personalities at this point because I’m like ‘Oh my goodness, I’m so green. But it really has been a lot of fun.”

Read more of this interview in the upcoming MusicRow print issue.

The Department of Commerce announced Friday (Sept. 18) that it will prohibit new downloads in the U.S. relating to Chinese-owned video sharing app TikTok and WeChat, beginning Sept. 20, in order to “safeguard the national security of the United States.”

Beginning Sunday, Sept. 20, the following transactions are prohibited:

1. Any provision of service to distribute or maintain the WeChat or TikTok mobile applications, constituent code, or application updates through an online mobile application store in the U.S.;
2. Any provision of services through the WeChat mobile application for the purpose of transferring funds or processing payments within the U.S.

As of Sept. 20, 2020, for WeChat and as of Nov. 12, 2020, for TikTok, the following transactions are prohibited:

1. Any provision of internet hosting services enabling the functioning or optimization of the mobile application in the U.S.;
2. Any provision of content delivery network services enabling the functioning or optimization of the mobile application in the U.S.;
3. Any provision directly contracted or arranged internet transit or peering services enabling the function or optimization of the mobile application within the U.S.;
4. Any utilization of the mobile application’s constituent code, functions, or services in the functioning of software or services developed and/or accessible within the U.S.

The move implements the executive orders the Trump administration announced last month.
“Today’s actions prove once again that President Trump will do everything in his power to guarantee our national security and protect Americans from the threats of the Chinese Communist Party,” said U.S. Department of Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. “At the President’s direction, we have taken significant action to combat China’s malicious collection of American citizens’ personal data, while promoting our national values, democratic rules-based norms, and aggressive enforcement of U.S. laws and regulations.

“While the threats posed by WeChat and TikTok are not identical, they are similar. Each collects vast swaths of data from users, including network activity, location data, and browsing and search histories. Each is an active participant in China’s civil-military fusion and is subject to mandatory cooperation with the intelligence services of the CCP. This combination results in the use of WeChat and TikTok creating unacceptable risks to our national security,” a statement from the Department of Commerce continued.

According to the same statement, President Trump has provided until Nov. 12 for the national security concerns to be resolved.

TikTok’s parent company, the Chinese-owned ByteDance, is currently negotiating an agreement with the Treasury Department to sell ownership of the app’s U.S. operations, with Oracle reportedly earning the winning bid.