Craig Dunn. Photo: Judith Hill

Collective Artist Management (CAM) has elevated industry professional Craig Dunn to Vice President of the company effective immediately. While continuing management duties for clients Sara Evans, Born To Fly Records and Grant Landis, his new position gives him an expanded role in the ongoing efforts of the company’s entire roster—adding Clint Black, Corey Smith, Edwin McCain and Steve Wariner to the list—and a key strategic voice in identifying opportunities for the growth and trajectory of Collective Artist Management.

“Craig’s expertise, creativity and experience have proven invaluable to our client roster and to Collective Artist Management,” says Brinson Strickland, President, Collective Artist Management. “Since joining our company, he has further grown Sara’s brand, including overseeing Born To Fly Records operations and adding co-A&R responsibilities for her acclaimed album Words, and signed and launched the first single from pop R&B artist Grant Landis (Timbaland). By expanding his role, I am confident that Craig will continue to be instrumental in CAM’s new business development and strategic growth.”

“I’m incredibly grateful to work alongside such an amazing, passionate, and focused team. Our artists truly are world class and I am committed to finding innovative ways for them to share their talent and music with their fans. I’m also so excited to help grow and expand both our roster and comprehensive management offerings,” says Dunn.

Dunn joined Collective Artist Management in 2012. Prior to joining the tenured firm, he was partnered with digital marketing & merchandise company Music City Networks (MCN) as Senior Vice President. In addition to his entertainment industry expertise, Dunn’s experience expands to politics, having worked with Larry Craig campaign for U.S. Senate as Deputy Assistant Campaign Manager in 2002. He also spent three years at PinnPointe Consulting Group as Director of IT and Marketing. He attended both the University of Portland and Boise State University majoring in Business Management and Marketing.

Dunn can be reached at cdunn@collectiveartistmgmt.com.

Brandi Carlile and Lauren Daigle are among the female artists helping Apple Music highlight the work of visionary female music artists throughout the month of August. For International Women’s Day (March 8), recent Grammy winners Carlile and Daigle have each revealed playlists filled with music from some of the female artists who have inspired them.

Carlile’s playlist includes songs from Patsy Cline, H.E.R., Sheryl Crow, Dolly Parton, Janelle Monae, Maren Morris and Tanya Tucker, while Daigle’s playlist includes works from Lauren Hill, Whitney Houston, Etta James, Anita Baker, Sade, and Sister Sledge.

Other artists revealing playlists include Cardi B, Camila Cabello and Halsey. Also more than 100 Apple Music playlists feature single and multiple female artists, while 3000+ tracks are featured within women-themed playlists, and a complete 24-hour Beats 1 takeover with shows and host-led conversations highlighting content and issues that matter to women worldwide.

Apple also partnered with human rights activist Annie Lennox and the NGO she founded, The Circle, for a Global International Women’s Day short film in support of Global Feminism, featuring famous faces (Ed Sheeran, Dua Lipa, Mary J. Blige, etc) highlighting the injustices still experienced by millions of women and girls on a global level—from misogyny, rape and violence to pay disparity.

Pictured (L-R): Robin Palmer, Tracy Gershon, Katie Kerkhover, Kendall Lettow, Mary Kutter

OMG! I’m A Songwriter, a grassroots songwriter support community in Nashville, celebrated International Women’s Day at BMI on Thursday (March 7) with a Women’s Day Panel featuring Change the Conversation co-founder, Tracy Gershon, SMACKSongs’ Robin Palmer, Sony/ATV’s Katie Kerkhover, and peermusic’s Kendall Lettow.

Hosted by Mary Kutter, OMG! I’m A Songwriter’s co-founder, the panel centered around being a woman in the music industry, both as an artist and songwriter as well as a businessperson.

Gershon, whose career includes time in publishing, A&R, concert promotion, management and more, provided some insight on the challenges facing women in the music business.  The Change the Conversation co-founder currently works with Grammy-winner Brandi Carlile at Atlas Music Publishing, and also manages Natalie Stovall with Red Light Management.

“When I first moved to town, I never heard ‘female vs male,'” Gershon said. “I’ve got to tell you, it’s terrible right now.

“One thing that [Change the Conversation] did is we got a bunch of young female artists in one room and said ‘look, you guys have been told that there’s one slot at a record label and that makes you inherently very competitive,’ so what we have to say to everybody is that a win for one is a win for all and you guys have to support each other. If one person is doing well, go out there and support them. Show up at the showcases, Tweet, do all the stuff. We have really seen this camaraderie that we thought was not existing between young female artists; and that’s a start,” she said.

Now Creative Manager at Sony/ATV, Katie Kerkhover spoke to being a businesswoman and being a female artist on the road. She learned from playing fiddle in both Sara Evans and Billy Currington’s bands. “Touring is a very male-dominated part of the industry,” she said. “Not only the band members, but the crew. You have to do a lot out on the road to make sure that you’re mindful [being a young woman.]

“Work hard,” Kerkhover continued. “Be good at what you do and work really hard. Be the best, regardless of male of female. At the end of the day talent, hard work, attitude, drive; those things don’t have a gender.”

Robin Palmer, who currently serves as Senior Vice President – Creative at SMACKSongs, shared what inspires her to sign new acts. “I think it’s just talent,” Palmer said. “I do believe women have a harder time in the industry, they just really do. We [SMACK] take risks, but we take calculated risks. These are all people that we’re totally, 100 percent behind. I signed Kylie [Morgan] because of that.”

Kendall Lettow, Creative Manager at peermusic, shared about some promising female songwriters that she admires. “Emily Weisband; I started working with her when she had a songwriting internship at THiS Music,” she said. “She was just immediately vulnerable. She never blinked an eye, she never overthought what other people wanted to hear, she was just very much like ‘this is what I want to share today. This is who I am.’

“And then Nora Collins, I worked with her at MV2 Entertainment,” Lettow continued. “Nora is just the most prepared human I’ve ever met in my life. She knew she was responsible for her own career at the end of the day. She’s always been an amazingly hard worker.”

OMG! I’m A Songwriter posts daily lineups of songwriter rounds in Nashville on their Instagram (@omgimasongwriter), as well as host their own weekly round at Tin Roof on Thursdays. They also just started an OMG! I’m A Songwriter podcast.

Over the past few years, Nashville’s country scene has seen an influx of artists from the Golden State launch radio hits, each with a unique style of California country—including Brett Young’s soulful R&B, Jon Pardi’s Bakersfield-drenched strains, and Cam’s soothing approach.

Of course, those artists only add to country’s deep California linage created by Merle Haggard, Buck Owens, Dwight Yoakam, Gary Allan and others.

Today, with the release of their EP Magic, new Sony Music Nashville trio Fairground Saints are intent on deepening the long line of country performers with California origins and influence, even as they offer a relaxed, smooth sound that drifts in on their feathery harmonies.

Though the trio’s music is informed by throwback sounds of groups like the Eagles and Fleetwood Mac, the Santa Barbara, California-grown trio formed in a very modern, organic fashion—social media.

The trio’s Mason Van Valin (a Santa Ynez, Calif. native) met Elijah Edwards (Santa Barbara) after posting an ad on Facebook seeking band members.

“I was the only person that answered it,” Elijah recalls with a laugh. “I played bass with him and we played around Southern California for a little while, but we wanted to expand our endeavors and so we went to the L.A. area.”

Searches on YouTube and Craigslist brought in California transplant and Michigan-raised Megan McAllister to the group.

“We saw a video of her singing background with another person on YouTube and we said to ourselves, ‘Who’s that in the background singing?’” says Edwards. “Then we found her on Facebook.”

The first day the trio wrote together, they also blended their voices on the track “Somethin’ From Nothin’.”

“It just fell into place and felt really natural,” Edwards says.

The group originally signed with Verve Music Group in 2014, but later exited the deal and moved to Nashville nearly three years ago, driven by a desire to deepen their songwriting. Fellow songwriters Chuck Cannon and the late Lari White opened their home to Van Valin, McAllister and Edwards, and began introducing them to others in Music City’s writer community.

Cannon and White also contributed to two tracks on the current EP, including the title track “Magic,” and “Somewhere Down The Line.” Old Dominion singer-songwriter Brad Tursi, along with Eric Arjes, contributed “How It Rolls.”

“All three of us were craving a community of songwriters, and there’s not really anywhere else like Nashville for that,” Edwards says. “It’s such a community of musicians and talented people and I think we wanted to try something new, and it was just calling our name.”

Word spread about the new trio in town with serious writing chops and ethereal harmonies. Within two weeks, they had inked a deal with Sony Music Nashville.

“Fairground Saints capture the breezy aesthetic of the California coastline grounded in the equally potent songwriting tradition of Nashville,” notes Taylor Lindsey, Vice President of A&R, Sony Music Nashville. “The combination, wrapped around their distinctive harmonies, is fresh, inspired, and attracting an enthusiastic audience.”

“That was sort of like a very solidifying moment,” Edwards says of the signing, “where we were sort of like, well, that’s awesome, we’re gonna stay here and chase that.”

Though their harmonies are unfettered, their devotion to the craft in the studio and the writing room is pronounced. Van Valin performs acoustic and electric guitar, while McAllister handles percussion. Multi-instrumentalist Edwards brings work on guitar, keys, mandolin, lap steel, dulcimer and more to the studio.

“We only used other musicians for bass and drums,” Edwards notes. “And Megan played some harmonica, and all the lap steel and mandolin and everything is us.”

Having the ability to craft music as a mostly self-contained unit offered ample opportunities for those harmonies to nestle in the natural grooves around the melodies. Edwards estimates they have penned more than 150 songs since making the move to Music City.

“We will generally take melodies that are, just by their nature, very easy to harmonize or lend themselves to harmony. I don’t think we’re ever thinking specifically about it, it just sort of develops that way because there are three singers in the room and we love harmonizing so much.”

The trio brought in producer Marshall Altman, known for his work with Frankie Ballard, Amy Grant, and Kenny Wayne Shepherd, as the trio worked on the Magic at Nashville’s Sound Emporium.

“He’s very good at communicating with everyone as a whole and communicating with people individually and he knows exactly what he wants to hear, and he’s also very open to trying stuff, which I think is a very valuable asset in a producer,” Edwards notes.

Only a couple of tracks on the EP come from outside writers—one being the trio’s first single from the EP, the aptly titled “California,” which was penned by Altman, Dylan Altman, and Anna Vaus.

“As soon as we heard that first chorus, all three of our hands went up. It was pretty unanimous. It was very obvious that that was something we wanted to put on the record. It just felt natural and we knew we could make it our own to a certain degree.”

As they were creating the EP, the trio was also testing the songs in concert, which informed which would ultimately be chosen for the project.

“Playing the songs live really gives you an idea of what’s working and what’s not, because when you’re just in your room playing a song, that’s one thing, and you can think ‘this is great’ to yourself. I think that’s what really makes a great song is how many people like it and/or how people respond to it live, and so that’s definitely affected our decisions.”

Though the trio has a tight touring schedule for much of the year, they are also making time to get in the studio to finish up a full-length project.

“We actually just got out of the studio doing a couple more songs, and then as soon as we get back from this little tour we’re on, we’re gonna go back into the studio and track vocals and stuff like that. We can’t wait to continue with it.”