Canadian Country Music Week Names Future Host Cities

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This year’s CCMA four-day event takes place in Hamilton, Ontario Sept. 9-12, 2011. The organization’s Sept. 12 TV Award show serves as the gathering’s finale. Country Music Week is one of the largest music events in Canada each year with a combination of activities for both community and industry attendees including showcase opportunities for newcomers, educational seminars and an all day FanFest that engages artists with the local community.
On July 14, CCMA Executive Director Don Green announced the following upcoming locations for the event:
2012—Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
2013—Edmonton, Alberta
2014— Edmonton, Alberta
“Edmonton was and continues to be an amazingly supportive community for our industry conference, Country Music Week and the Canadian Country Music Awards,” said Green.  “Our two-year stay will help the Association to focus resources on exploring some new initiatives recognizing Canadian country talent locally, domestically and internationally all year round.”
Edmonton has an excellent history of hosting both Country Music Week and the Canadian Country Music Awards, bringing the event a record high in ticket sales, sponsorship, attendance and viewership of the 2010 Awards show.
For more information and registration info click here:
http://www.ccma.org/cmw2011/events.cfm

Marlee Scott Showcases New Material In Nashville

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Bigride Records artist Marlee Scott showcased in front of a music industry crowd at Red Rooster on Demonbreun yesterday (7/12).
At the private event, Scott gave attendees a sneak preview of the video for her current single “Beautiful Maybe,” which was directed by Wes Edwards. Scott followed that with a set of new songs including “Let It Rain,” “Trainwreck,” and “Planet of Your Own.” She finished the set off with a live version of “Beautiful Maybe,” which was penned by hit songwriters Marcus Hummon, Tia Sillers, and Tania Hancheroff.
Scott is currently in the middle of a national radio tour to support “Beautiful Maybe.”

(L-R): CO5 Nashville’s David Newmark, Teebo Consulting’s Teddi Bonadies, New Music Nashville’s Bob Guerra, Scott, Bigride Entertainment’s Gerry Leiske, Bullseye Marketing’s John Hart.

 

LifeNews: Pete Huttlinger Benefit; Billy Lynn's Brother

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Pete Huttlinger. Photo by Paul Schatzkin


MusicRow’s thoughts are with musician Pete Huttlinger, publisher Billy Lynn, and their families.
• •• •
Musician Pete Huttlinger is suffering from heart failure and his friends are organizing an all-star benefit to help with the cost of treatment.
Vince Gill, John Oates, The Long Players, John Jorgenson, Mark Selby, Joe Robinson, Baillie & the Boys, Sean Della Croce and others will perform Tues., July 26 at the Mercy Lounge at the event called For Pete’s Sake: You’ve Gotta Have Heart. Tickets are $20 and can be purchased via TicketWeb and at the door.
Huttlinger, husband of publicist Erin Morris Huttlinger, was born with a congenital heart defect and has been in extreme heart failure since March. As his condition worsened, he was life-flighted April 29 to St. Luke’s Texas Heart Institute in Houston where he underwent surgery to have a heart pump installed. When Huttlinger recovers, he will return to Nashville and await a heart transplant which will take place at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. To make an online donation go to www.petehuttlinger.com.
• • • • •
Condolences go out to Billy Lynn, VP of Creative at Cal IV Entertainment, on the passing of his brother Charles Lynn, Jr. yesterday (7/12). He died from complications following heart bypass surgery. Funeral services are pending, but will take place in Paducah, KY.
Charles Lynn was 58, a resident of Wellington, Fl., and is survived by wife Patsy, and children Michael and Molly.

Industry Salutes Easton Corbin's Hot-Streak

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Easton Corbin and Carson Chamberlain


Easton Corbin was feted at a lunchtime celebration today (7/13) at BMI’s Music Row offices. The Mercury Records artist is the only solo male in the last 17 years to have his first two singles reach the top of the radio charts.
He broke through in a major way with debut single “I’m A Little More Country Than That,” written by Rory Feek, Don Pothyress and Wynn Varble. He followed that up with the No. 1 “Roll With It,” from the pens of David Lee, Tony Lane and Johnny Park. Some of these writers were on hand today to help mark the artist’s success.
UMG Nashville General Manager Ken Robold started the accolades, noting that Corbin’s album is nearing Gold territory with 400,000 units sold. The project has spawned 1 million single downloads.
BMI’s Jody Williams was the next presenter, exclaiming to Corbin, “There are a lot of publishers in this room who have invested in your career and boy, are they glad they did!”
Sure enough, among the publishers in BMI’s back lobby were Pat Higdon, Roger Murrah, Troy Tomlinson, Carla Wallace and Kos Weaver. Corbin is building his own songwriting career at Bug Music.
CMA’s Brandi Simms also saluted Corbin’s hot-streak. Cheering in the front row were fellow CMA staffers Bob Doerschuk and Betsy Walker. Doerschuk joked that the ladies are part of the organization’s unstoppable “plaque squad.”
Then Corbin and producer/songwriter Carson Chamberlain treated the industry crowd to an acoustic performance of the hits we were there to celebrate.
Corbin’s UMG and BMI team members were among the dozens of minglers dining on delicious veggie orzo, shrimp skewers, sliced tomatoes tossed in vinaigrette, chicken tenderloins, and miniature desserts.
On the way out partygoers received Easton-autographed posters (pictured above) commemorating the occasion.

(L-R): Carson Chamberlain (producer); Damon Moberly (Mercury VP, National Promotion); Sally Green (Mercury Director, Regional Promotion, Northeast); Joe Putnam (UMGN VP, National Road Promotion); Easton Corbin; Royce Risser (UMGN Sr. VP, National Promotion); Doug Nichols (Turner & Nichols & Associates, Co-Manager); Ken Robold (UMGN Executive Vice President, General Manager); Eddie Mascolo (Turner & Nichols & Associates).

Moore's Outlaws and Aldean's Dirt Road Lure Buyers

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With no debuts, and no holiday gifting to lure buyers to the digital and/or physical album bins, country sales slid this week. Overall country sales deflated 8% compared with last week, and Top 75 current country folded 24.6% during the same period.
Jason Aldean continues to set the sales bar for the rest of the country class, pulling another 42k units down that dirt road this week pumping My Kinda Party to almost 1.5 million total units. Yeah, that’s some party and it doesn’t look like it will end soon. Aldean’s “Dirt Road Anthem” was the No. 1 country digital track this week downloading a rockin’ rappin’ 126,000 copies for a RTD (release to date) total of 1.37 million. (Jason has 5 tracks on this week’s county digital tracks 100 chart.)
Justin Moore’s Outlaws Like Me rings registers at No. 2 on the Country album list with close to 22k unit scans down 28% in its third week of sales. Originally from Poyen, Arkansas, Moore’s “If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away” also appears on the digital tracks chart at No. 19 with 23k downloads.
One step further down the country album list at No. 3 is Mr. Brad Paisley with slightly under 20k scans. Paisley has RTD sales of 345k units spread over 7 weeks. The guitar slammin’, singer/songwriter also has two songs on the tracks list this week, his monster Carrie Underwood duet, “Remind Me,” which logs 68k downloads for a five week RTD of 327k scanned. His other charting track is “Old Alabama,” listing at No. 25.
Wide Angle Lens
Backing the radar image out to 30,000 ft. we see the album biz overall is up 1% YTD. Country music continues to swim upstream, improving its numbers over each of the past few weeks. Presently, Nashville’s most high visibility product lags only slightly behind the business overall with its album sales down .8% YTD.
Stay tuned next week when we reveal numbers on the gallant debuts from Blake Shelton, Chris Young and Ashton Shepherd…
 

Shepherd Cultivates Where Country Grows Release

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Ashton Shepherd’s sophomore album Where Country Grows hit stores yesterday (7/12), and the young MCA singer/songwriter is making the media rounds to support it. The album’s title track and second single is currently going for adds at country radio.
Shepherd’s album launch week kicked off last Friday (7/8) with a high profile performance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. (See video here). This week she’s on the road in the South, visiting a different city every day to promote Where Country Grows.
On Monday (7/11) Shepherd traveled to her home state of Alabama, where she gave a live on-air performance at WDXB/Birmingham. She journeyed farther south on Tuesday (7/12) when she visited with WKSJ/Mobile before an in-store event at Wal-Mart. Today (7/13) Shepherd is in Atlanta, where she will visit both WKHX and WUBL, do an in-store signing, and be taped by AOL for an episode of their “On The Road” feature. Thursday (7/14), she’ll head to Knoxville for an in-store signing and a visit with WIVK. Later, she will perform with full band at Cotton Eyed Joe. Shepherd will return to Nashville Friday (7/15) for a WKDF listener luncheon performance at Whiskey Bent and a full band performance later that night at Tin Roof/Lexington, KY.
Early reviews for Where Country Grows have been very positive. Rolling Stone gave the album four stars and declared her an “Artist To Watch.” Entertainment Weekly awarded the album with an A-, and the Washington Post selected Shepherd as one of the five top new artists in all genres to watch in 2011. MusicRow’s Robert Oermann writes that he is “hopelessly in love with this artist” in today’s “DISClaimer” column.

(L to R): UMGN's Tom Lord, WKSJ/Mobile morning co-host Shelby, Shepherd, WKSJ PD Bill Black and MCA's Louie Newman

Industry Ink Wednesday (7/13)

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Reminder–Voting for the first round of balloting for the 2011 CMA Awards closes TODAY Wed., July 13, at 5:00 p.m. CDT.

"Marie Claire's" July issue features publicist Natalie Kilgore in a spread called "The Money Diaries." Kilgore recently joined GPJ’s G7 Entertainment as Sr. Publicist/ Account Manager.


Diesel Records Debuts
Founder Drew Turner has launched Diesel Records in Nashville with the Wayne Mills Band as its flagship artist. The group’s album is called Long Hard Road and the first single “She Knows the Words” impacts radio Aug. 16. The album will include guest appearances by TG Sheppard, and was produced by Grammy winner Denny Diante. Handling media relations is Heath Scott of The Scott Organization. He can be reached at 859-948-8659 or heath@scottorg.com.
DDEX Community Meeting Tomorrow
DDEX (Digital Data Exchange), the worldwide organization that develops standards for the digital supply chain, is holding an open meeting in Nashville July 14 at 8:30 AM at Belmont University’s Gordon E. Inman Conference Center. The non-profit organization will introduce local music companies to the benefits of standards implementation. The meeting is free and open to anyone who owns, produces or sells music in the digital environment. Nashville music industry representatives wishing to attend should pre-register by emailing their interest to secretariat@digitaldataexchange.com.
Copyright Forum At Belmont
Belmont University and NSAI are teaming to bring a series of events to campus focusing on intellectual property. The Copyright Forum launched last week with a press conference about the new Copyright Alert Act, and will continue July 19 with U.S. Rep. Marsha Blackburn presenting a briefing on the Commerce Committee’s anti-piracy efforts.
Publicity signings: Lorrie Morgan has inked with Music City Media; and Canadian country newcomer Drake Jensen has added PLA Media to his team.

Shane Drake of Taillight TV recently directed the debut music video for "American Idol" champ Scotty McCreery. The video for "I Love You This Big" was shot on location in California. Drake also directed six of the Ford/Idol spots featured this season.


• • • Trisha Walker Cunningham and Rusty Cunningham are booking talent for a new venue in Tyler, Texas. The Kiepersol Enterprises venue holds 1,000 people, and includes a recording studio, restaurant and B&B. One of the Cunningham’s first bookings is Gary Morris on July 23. Contact twinashvil@aol.com for bookings.
• • • Netflix is raising subscription prices. The movie rental company gave customers a 60% price hike when it separated its streaming service/DVD rental combo into separate offerings priced at $7.99 each. The previous combined rate was $9.99
• • • Watkins College of Art, Design & Film has named Gibson Guitar Pres. David Berryman to its Board of Trustees.
• • • Deirdre Chadwick has been named Director, Classical Music Administration for Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI). She will be based in BMI’s New York office.

Sony Taps RoyaltyShare

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According to a report by Billboard’s Ed Christman, Sony Music Entertainment has retained San Diego-based Royalty Share to process mechanical and artist royalties. Involved in the agreement is the hiring by RoyaltyShare of 70 Sony employees who will continue to be based in Sony’s Lyndhurst, N.J. offices. The agreement also includes a gradual transition and shift form Sony’s processing techniques to using RoyaltyShare’s specialized software.
According to the RoyaltyShare web site, the company is able to manage sales data from all music services in one location, “From the newest online marketplace to established industry distribution channels, we support the companies you do business with. Digital sales management on our Digital Advantage platform allows you to match transactions contained in these files to individual tracks within your catalog. The result is a consolidated, aggregated sales output file that makes it easier to integrate digital data with any existing internal systems and legacy royalties software.”

Bob Kohn


The company also has a royalty management division to “deal with complex digital transacitons as well as support all forms of physical distribution…” The RS software offers U.S.  and Canadian support and is compatible with Harry Fox Agency and CMRRA reporting standards.
“Just as record labels outsource their payroll accounting to experts who monitor the latest tax laws and spread the costs over thousands of clients,” says RoyaltyShare Chairman/CEO Bob Kohn, “so too will record labels outsource their royalty accounting. The cost of building and maintaining a modern royalty accounting system from the ground up would require an investment that is not feasible for one record label, even a major. No. Now more than ever, record labels need to focus on their core competencies: marketing and A& R, not building information systems.”
 

Flamingos Flock To MusicRow

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MusicRow staffers were greeted this morning by a flock of pink flamingos on the front lawn. As reported on Monday (7/11), organizers of the Music Row Ladies Golf Tournament, which benefits United Cerebral Palsy of Middle Tennessee, are promoting the fundraising event by placing pink flamingos in front of local businesses.

DISClaimer Single Reviews (7/13/11)

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“After years of being nothing, they’re all looking right at you.”
That’s what it says in our Music Row anthem, “16th Avenue.” And that’s exactly what is happening to Blake Shelton right now. All at once, everything is going this man’s way. Male Vocalist award. Superstar wife. National TV stardom. Hit after hit. He deserves them all. As well as a Disc of the Day award for “God Gave Me You.”
Our DisCovery Award goes to a Canadian singer-songwriter who has a completely captivating album called Little Red Boots. If you buy one platter from today’s stack of sounds, by all means make it hers. Remember this name: Lindi Ortega.
BADHORSE/It’s All Good
Writer: Adam Grant/Robert E. Walden II/Charlie Gilbert; Producer: Larry Blackmon & Badhorse; Publisher: none listed; Global Maximus (www.badhorsemusic.com)
—More cowbell! The first thing you hear is the snap of a beer tab, then the stomping and romping begins. And, yes, the steady rhythm is punctuated by a cowbell. These guys sound like a built-in party.
MARTINA McBRIDE/I’m Gonna Love You Through It
Writer: Ben Hayslip/Sonya Isaacs/Jimmy Yeary; Producer: Martina McBride & Byron Gallimore; Publisher: WB/Melissa’s Money/Get a Load of This/Nashvistaville/Sonya Isaacs/Black to Black, ASCAP/BMI; Universal Republic
—A wife and mother faces cancer with a strong and steady husband by her side. This kind of ballad performance is what made this lady a star. Heart tugging, to say the least.
DAVID WOOD/Ride The Wild West
Writer: Lore Orion/Robert E. Byrd; Producer: Ronnie Guilbeau, David Wood & Billy Graham; Publisher: Shy Ann/Finest, BMI; Dew Note (track) (www.davidwoodcountry.com)
—Monotonic. I’ve heard more complicated nursery rhymes.
BLAKE SHELTON/God Gave Me You
Writer: Dave Barnes; Producer: Scott Hendricks; Publisher: No Gang/Razor & Tie, ASCAP; Warner Bros.
—I worshipped writer Dave Barnes’s version of this when I reviewed it last year. Blake sure knows a dynamite song when he hears it, too. Producer Hendricks surrounds his emotional reading with chiming guitars, sighing steel and thumping percussion. A shining, glittering gem of a disc.
LINDI ORTEGA/Angels
Writer: Lindi Ortega; Producer: Ron Lopata; Publisher: ShadowBox, SOCAN; Last Gang (Canada)(track) (www.lindiortega.ca)
—Enchanting. She has one of those sweet/tart vocal instruments that manages to sound both fragile and tough within the same song. This starts out softly, but builds into a smart shuffle with terrific, suppressed, undertow energy. This gal is definitely worth your attention.
ASHTON SHEPHERD/Where Country Grows
Writer: Ashton Shepherd/Bobby Pinson; Producer: Buddy Cannon; Publisher: EMI BlackwoodGin Road/Music of Stage Three/Bobby’s Song and Salvage/BMG, BMI; MCA Nashville (track)
—The title tune to Ashton’s sophomore CD is a soaring statement of purpose. Her voice on this is a resonant, ringing, victory bell of authenticity. I am hopelessly in love with this artist.
DANE ESTOK/Semiautomatic Kind Of Love
Writer: Dane Estok; Producer: The Zods; Publisher: Sounds from Space, ASCAP; DaneEstok (track) (www.daneestok.com)
—This Nashvillian is described as “pop-country.” I’d say he leans strongly toward the “pop” end of that spectrum. Whatever the genre, this twirling and utterly engaging wisp of romance was featured on TV’s Keeping Up the Kardashians soundtrack. Somebody at the E! network definitely has ears.
RONNIE MILSAP/If You Don’t Want Me To
Writer: none listed; Producer: none listed; Publisher: none listed; Bigger Picture (track)
—This bouncy ditty evidently accompanies a dance called The Freeze. The retro, repetitive ‘80s keyboard riff is bound to jog a few memories and tap a few toes, at any rate. Jaunty and smiley, despite the somewhat downbeat lyric.
CHRISTIAN KANE/Let Me Go
Writer: C. Beathard/T. Shapiro; Producer: Bob Ezrin & Jimmie Lee Sloas; Publisher: Sony-ATV Acuff-Rose/EMI Blackwood/Piano Wire, BMI; Bigger Picture (track) (www.christiankane.com)
—This Leverage TNT-TV star sings well, with admirable expressiveness and personality. So this sounds best when he’s allowed to shine through with a minimum of production adornment. Unfortunately, during many passages, the producers just can’t leave well enough alone. Still, it’s a highly melodic improvement over his overly rocked-up debut single.
DAN SIMONIS & THE WEST TEXAS MILLIONAIRES/Heart On Fire
Writer: Dan Simonis; Producer: Greg Schumacher; Publisher: Croaking Toad, BMI; 45 Caliber (track) (www.westtexasmillionaires.com)
—File this under “arty troubadour,” if there is such a category. Actually, make that “pitch-y, arty troubadour.”