(L-R): Don Schlitz, Pat Alger
Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame members
Pat Alger and
Don Schlitz have volunteered to provide musical benediction at the grand re-opening of the downtown medical clinic on Friday morning.
Operated by United Neighborhood Health Services, the clinic provides medical, dental and counseling to Nashville’s homeless population. UNHS CEO
Mary Bufwack, Nashville Mayor
Karl Dean, Rep.
Jim Cooper, UNHS Medical Directo
r Dr. Keith Junior and UNHS Director of Homeless Services
Bill Friskics-Warren will preside at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Pat Alger was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010. He has written songs for Brenda Lee, Hal Ketchum, Trisha Yearwood, Kathy Mattea, The Everly Brothers, Dolly Parton, Don Williams, Tanya Tucker, Nanci Griffith and others. Among his hits are “Small Town Saturday Night,” “Goin’ Gone” and “Like We Never Had a Broken Heart.” Alger has co-written four of Garth Brooks’s biggest hits, including “The Thunder Rolls” and “Unanswered Prayers.”
Don Schlitz, a 1993 inductee into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, is the only person named ASCAP Songwriter of the Year four consecutive times (1988-91). He is also the only songwriter to have won three CMA Song of the Year awards. His dozens of hits include “Strong Enough to Bend,” “When You Say Nothing at All,” “Forty Hour Week,” “Give Me Wings,” “Rockin’ with the Rhythm of the Rain” and “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her.” Schlitz has two Grammy Awards for writing Country Song of the Year winners “The Gambler” and “Forever and Ever, Amen.”
United Neighborhood Health Services is a non-profit network of health centers that has served Nashville for more than 30 years. It operates nine neighborhood clinics, five school clinics, two mobile health units and a clinic in Hartsville, TN, as well as the downtown homeless clinic. UNHS serves approximately 32,000 patients, about half of whom have no health insurance.
The clinic’s renovation was funded by $450,000 from the Federal American Reinvestment and Recovery Act and $50,000 from the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA). The ceremony will take place on the clinic’s courtyard at 526 8
th Ave. S. on Friday, May 20, beginning at 10 a.m. The public is welcome.
Tornado Relief Efforts Continue With Help From Swift, Nelson
/by Sarah SkatesSpeak Now … Help Now, the final dress rehearsal for the upcoming tour will be held at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, and is open to the public as a benefit event for tornado victims.
• • • • •
As Willie Nelson’s Country Throwdown Tour 2011 prepares to launch, Nelson, Jamey Johnson, and other Throwdown artists announce that they will donate their performance fees from the Orange Beach, AL show on June 5 to tornado relief efforts in Alabama.
The 24-city second annual music extravaganza launches in Philadelphia on May 27, with Nelson, Johnson, Randy Houser, Lee Brice, Brantley Gilbert, Craig Campbell, Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real, and Drake White.
The tour also is known for spotlighting emerging singer-songwriters, and Adam Hood, Caitlyn Smith, Austin Lucas, Brent Cobb, Dani Flowers, and Erin Enderlin have signed on for the specially designed Bluebird Cafe stage.
Underwood Heading Down Under
/by Sarah SkatesUnderwood’s Australian visit will launch mid-June and will undertake a full promotional schedule while visiting Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane.
Soul Surfer, the film in which Underwood made her big screen debut, will be released in Australia later this month.
Underwood is the latest in a string of country artists embracing fans in Australia. Earlier this year Alan Jackson and Lady Antebellum also toured the continent.
Play On: Deluxe Edition
1. Cowboy Casanova
2. Quitter
3. Mama’s Song
4. Change
5. Undo It
6. Someday When I Stop Loving You
7. Songs Like This
8. Temporary Home
9. This Time
10. Look At Me
11. Unapologize
12. What Can I Say (Featuring Sons of Sylvia)
13. Play On
(Additional Tracks)
1. Don’t Forget To Remember Me
2. Jesus, Take The Wheel
3. Before He Cheats
4. So Small
5. Just A Dream
6. Last Name
7. Home Sweet Home
Jewel-hosted "Platinum Hit" Joins Music Competition Craze
/by Sarah SkatesJewel (L) and Kara DioGuardi (R) on the set of Platinum Hit.
Jewel and Kara DioGuardi are prepping for the Mon., May 30 premiere of their new Bravo show Platinum Hit. Jewel is hosting the music competition series which focuses on singer-songwriters, and she will also be a judge alongside DioGuardi.
The series will include songwriting challenges, with each week focused on a different theme ranging from dance track to love ballad. Following suit of other reality programs, the 12 contestants on Platinum Hit will live under one roof. Nashville resident Karen Waldrup is the show’s lone Country music contender.
Expected guest judges include Leona Lewis, Natasha Bedingfield, Donna Summer, Jermaine Dupri, Taio Cruz, and Ryan Tedder.
The winner gets a $100,000 cash prize, publishing deal with Sony, BMI Songwriters The Writing Camp, and a recording deal with RCA/Jive.
Benefit News From Nettles, McCurdy, Mercer
/by Sarah SkatesBob Mercer Scholarship Fund Donates to W.O. Smith School
An annual scholarship fund has been established in memory of renowned record executive Bob Mercer who passed away in May of last year. The Rising Star Music Fund created the scholarship fund, and the first annual contribution was presented to W.O. Smith Music School Executive Director Jonah Rabinowitz by Mercer’s widow, Margie Mercer. The money will be used to purchase musical instruments for students at the Nashville school. The first annual fundraiser for the Bob Mercer Memorial Fund is being planned for the fall and will take place in Nashville.
(L-R): Katie Gillon, Rising Star Music Fund board member, W.O. Smith School ED Jonah Rabinowitz, Margie Mercer.
Jennette McCurdy Tour Benefits St. Jude
Capitol Records Nashville recording artist and star of Nickelodeon’s iCarly Jennette McCurdy visited St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis over the weekend where she presented the hospital with a check for $139,643. McCurdy collected the money while on her cross country mall tour, Generation Love Tour for St. Jude.
(L-R): Jennette McCurdy, St. Jude patients Elise, Anthony, Dawson, and Emily Callahan, chief marketing officer for ALSAC, the fundraising organization for St. Jude.
Jennifer Nettles
Nettles Boosts Music Education
Jennifer Nettles helped raise over $50,000 for the Attic Community Playground through an online auction she recently hosted on CharityBuzz. Up for bid were items from Katy Perry, Carrie Underwood, Sheryl Crow, Jon Bon Jovi, Keith Urban, Kid Rock, Kenny Chesney, Reba McEntire, Martina McBride and Sugarland. The money will benefit Atlanta-based charity Attic Community Playground, which helps provide music education opportunities for kids.
Country Stars On "Forbes'" Celebrity 100
/by Sarah SkatesSource: Forbes
Proving the power of social media, Lady Gaga takes the No. 1 spot, driven by an enormous number of Twitter followers and Facebook fans.
Social media influence and an estimated net income of $45 million helped propel Swift to number seven.
Brad Paisley ranked No. 48 ($40 million), followed by Toby Keith at No. 51 ($50 million) and Tim McGraw at No. 61 ($35 million).
The earnings consist of pretax income between May 1, 2010, and May 1, 2011. Management, agent and attorney fees are not deducted. Forbes has been publishing the list annually since 1999.
More here.
Songwriters Sing For The Homeless
/by Robert K Oermann(L-R): Don Schlitz, Pat Alger
Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame members Pat Alger and Don Schlitz have volunteered to provide musical benediction at the grand re-opening of the downtown medical clinic on Friday morning.
Operated by United Neighborhood Health Services, the clinic provides medical, dental and counseling to Nashville’s homeless population. UNHS CEO Mary Bufwack, Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, Rep. Jim Cooper, UNHS Medical Director Dr. Keith Junior and UNHS Director of Homeless Services Bill Friskics-Warren will preside at the ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Pat Alger was inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010. He has written songs for Brenda Lee, Hal Ketchum, Trisha Yearwood, Kathy Mattea, The Everly Brothers, Dolly Parton, Don Williams, Tanya Tucker, Nanci Griffith and others. Among his hits are “Small Town Saturday Night,” “Goin’ Gone” and “Like We Never Had a Broken Heart.” Alger has co-written four of Garth Brooks’s biggest hits, including “The Thunder Rolls” and “Unanswered Prayers.”
Don Schlitz, a 1993 inductee into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame, is the only person named ASCAP Songwriter of the Year four consecutive times (1988-91). He is also the only songwriter to have won three CMA Song of the Year awards. His dozens of hits include “Strong Enough to Bend,” “When You Say Nothing at All,” “Forty Hour Week,” “Give Me Wings,” “Rockin’ with the Rhythm of the Rain” and “He Thinks He’ll Keep Her.” Schlitz has two Grammy Awards for writing Country Song of the Year winners “The Gambler” and “Forever and Ever, Amen.”
United Neighborhood Health Services is a non-profit network of health centers that has served Nashville for more than 30 years. It operates nine neighborhood clinics, five school clinics, two mobile health units and a clinic in Hartsville, TN, as well as the downtown homeless clinic. UNHS serves approximately 32,000 patients, about half of whom have no health insurance.
The clinic’s renovation was funded by $450,000 from the Federal American Reinvestment and Recovery Act and $50,000 from the Metropolitan Development and Housing Agency (MDHA). The ceremony will take place on the clinic’s courtyard at 526 8th Ave. S. on Friday, May 20, beginning at 10 a.m. The public is welcome.
Nashville Songwriters Claim BMI Pop Song of the Year
/by FreemanBMI held its 59th annual Pop Music Awards in Los Angeles yesterday (5/17) and for the second straight year, Nashville songwriters wrote the BMI Pop Song of the Year. Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood along with publishers DWHaywood Music, RADIOBULLETSPUBLISHING and Warner-Tamerlane Publishing earned the top honor for Lady Antebellum’s world-conquering “Need You Now.” Previously the award went to Taylor Swift and Liz Rose for “Love Story.”
During the ceremony, David Foster was named a BMI Icon, while Lady Gaga, Jason Derülo, and JR Rotem were all honored as BMI Pop Songwriters of the Year. Sony/ATV Songs LLC was named Pop Publisher of the Year. BMI President/CEO Del Bryant co-hosted the event with BMI VP/GM Los Angeles Barbara Cane and BMI SVP Writer/Publisher Relations Phil Graham, which also saluted the writers and publishers of the year’s 50 most-performed pop songs.
Members of Nashville’s family gathered for a group photo at the 2011 BMI Pop Awards. (L-R): BMI’s Jody Williams, Warner/Chappell Music’s B.J. Hill, Sony/ATV Publishing’s Troy Tomlinson, BMI’s Clay Bradley, Charles Kelley and Dave Haywood, and Warner/Chappell Music’s Steve Markland.
Music in the Movies Workshop This Weekend
/by Sarah SkatesThe Nashville Screenwriters Conference takes place at the Union Station Hotel May 20-22. The open-to-the-public event brings Hollywood’s top players to Music City to provide information and networking.
There will also be a VIP Party & Guitar Pull with a Grammy Award winning surprise guest.
For details, schedule, or registration visit www.nashscreen.com.
ReThinking Track Equivalent Albums
/by adminNielsen SoundScan recently announced that 2011 vs. 2010 music sales are showing a 1.6% increase through 5/8/2011. Good sales news has been in short supply for the music industry, making the release especially newsworthy. The number was calculated by combining physical and digital album sales plus track equivalent albums (TEA).
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According to Nielsen SoundScan Data (through 5/8/2011):
Total Albums w/TEA +1.6%
Overall Albums -1.5%
Physical Albums -8.3%
Digital Albums +16.8%
Digital Tracks +9.6%
============
The actual number of tracks per album, however varies widely. For example, Jason Aldean’s latest chart topping hit album has 15 tracks. Katy Perry’s CD has 12 cuts plus there is a 17 cut deluxe version. Adele’s blockbuster album has 12 cuts. Then we also have six paks and eight paks. Regardless of the number of cuts an album contains, each time it’s scanned it counts as one unit.
Not surprisingly, rebalancing the equation could result in big swings. Looking at SoundScan numbers in the table below, using 11 tracks=1 album in 2011 would add 42 million equivalent albums compared with 46.3 million using 10 tracks=1 album.
Solutions?
Could this TEA process be improved? One way to sharpen the tabulations might be to calculate each album’s “TEA rate” based upon the number of cuts it contains. So for example Jason Aldean would have to sell 15 tracks from his current album to add an additional TEA unit to that album. And John Rich, who is releasing a new six pak this week would need only six downloads of any of the tracks contained on this new release to get a TEA unit credit. SoundScan is all about units—not dollars—so although this might seem unfair to artists with a higher number of cuts on an album, in reality it simply applies a constant yardstick across album and track purchases.
But what about the financial side of these transactions? Is it possible to compare pricing, margins and profitability across album and track sales for retail and wholesale? The degree of difficulty here is high. The additional burden of offsetting marketing, distribution and manufacturing costs, makes this method highly complex.
However, giving each downloaded track an individual TEA sales equation based upon the number of cuts available on the album from which the cut was released, seems both doable and more accurate.
What are your thoughts? Do you have another solution?
Industry Ink: Levon Helm Release Will Benefit AMA
/by Sarah Skates• • • The Voice has been renewed for second season on NBC. With celeb coaches including Blake Shelton, the show has been a hit in its current debut season. The coaching lineup for next year has not been announced.
• • • Katie Armiger has signed with Auburn Moon Agency for booking representation. The group is a multiple NACA/College Market “Agency of The Year” winner focused on university bookings.
• • • Elektra Nashville newcomer Jana Kramer has sold almost 100,000 combined digital downloads of her tracks “Whiskey” and “I Won’t Give Up” in less than three months. The sales have primarily been driven by the actress/singer’s performances on The CW show One Tree Hill. She is a regular on the series and sang new single “Why You Wanna” on last night’s season finale.
• • • Tickets to the 2011 CMT Music Awards will go on sale Saturday, May 21 at all Ticketmaster outlets and the Bridgestone Arena Box Office. Celebrating its tenth anniversary, the June 8 show will feature performances by Jason Aldean, Keith Urban, Lady Antebellum, Rascal Flatts and Sugarland, with more to be announced.
• • Compassion International, a Christian child development and sponsorship organization, has added Traci Frasher as the newest Nashville team member. She will work within the country music community and serve as the Artist Relations liaison for the organization.
• • • Congrats to musician/artist/producer Randy Kohrs and publicist Ashley Brown who were married on April 27.