Pictured (L-R): Anna Thiel, Kurt Locher, Dean Dillon and Penny Gattis

Eclipse Music Group has acquired hit songwriter Dean Dillon’s stake in the classic tune “Tennessee Whiskey.”

First recorded by David Allan Coe in 1971, “Tennessee Whiskey” landed at No. 2 on Billboard‘s Hot Country Singles chart when George Jones released his rendition in 1983. Over three decades later, Chris Stapleton‘s version took the song to greater heights when it appeared on his debut album, Traveller, and became a Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) Diamond-certified single.

“Dean is an icon, and the journey of ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ to the top is remarkable,” says Penny Gattis, Partner, Eclipse Music Group. “This acquisition underscores the enduring value of great songwriting and exceptional songs. Thank you, Dean, for entrusting us with a share of this special song. We are thrilled to add ‘Tennessee Whiskey’ to the Eclipse Music Group catalog.”

Matt Cottingham of Lewis Brisbois handled the transaction on behalf of Eclipse Music Group, and Matthew Beckett of Milom Crow Kelley Beckett Shehan PLC handled the transaction on behalf of Dillon.

The acquisition follows Eclipse Music Group’s recent deals including Jamie Moore’s JMZL song catalog and Cory Batten’s catalog interest.

Koe Wetzel. Photo: Gabe Muniz

Koe Wetzel will kick off his headlining “Damn Near Normal World Tour 2024,” which is set to hit arenas and amphitheaters across the globe, this summer.

Treaty Oak Revival, Kolby Cooper, Pecos & The Rooftops, Tanner Usrey, Dylan Wheeler, Kat Hasty and Kolton Moore will join as special guests on select dates.

Selling over 275,000 tickets in 2023, Wetzel made Pollstar’s Top Worldwide Tours list for the third time, and aims to keep growing this year.

Starting July 27 in his home state of Texas, the tour will visit Las Vegas, Washington, D.C., Boston, Nashville and more before concluding its stateside run at Morrison’s famous Red Rocks Amphitheatre on Oct. 13. Wetzel will then head overseas for 12 stops in the U.K., Netherlands, Germany, Sweden, Norway and Denmark on Oct. 26.

Tickets for all dates go on sale to the general public at 10 a.m. local time tomorrow (April 5). American Express Card Members have early access to tickets now until 10 p.m. local time tonight (April 4). For more information, click here.

“It’s been a fun winter in the studio working on new music, but we can’t wait to be back on the road getting rowdy with the fans,” shares Wetzel. “And who knows, we might even have some more new music to sing for y’all at these shows soon…”

Additionally, the artist is slated to perform at various festivals this year, including Rock the Country, Tortuga Music Festival, Cattle Country Music Festival, Country Thunder Bristol Festival, Country Jam Colorado, Watershed and more. He also plans to headline several dates across California this month, and join Morgan Wallen for a “One Night At A Time 2024 Tour” stop in his hometown of Arlington this July.

The Mechanical Licensing Collective (The MLC) has announced that its total royalty distribution has now exceeded two billion dollars.

The MLC reached the milestone in just over three years since beginning full operations, and has now scompleted 36 monthly royalty distributions to date, evach one of which has been on time or early.

It has filed its initial submission to the United States Copyright Office in connection with the first periodic review of the designation of The MLC and Digital Licensee Coordinator (DLC) by the Register of Copyrights. The Music Modernization Act (MMA) of 2018 requires the Register to review the designations of The MLC and DLC once every five years.

“We welcome this periodic review of The MLC’s designation as required by the MMA and view this as yet another valuable opportunity to surface feedback from the members we serve,” says Kris Ahrend, The MLC CEO. “We are proud of the many milestones we have achieved since launching The MLC’s full operations, particularly the milestone of exceeding $2 billion in total royalties distributed. Our team has worked incredibly hard to realize the revolutionary vision Congress set out in the Music Modernization Act. We are committed to continuing to improve upon the successes we have achieved to date, in order to serve our members even better over the next five years.”

In addition to the accomplishments highlighted above, The MLC has matched over 90 percent of the mechanical royalties it has received to musical works in its public database, and The MLC has illuminated the “black box” for digital audio mechanicals by giving members the ability to search all of its data for the remaining unmatched royalties and propose matches of those unmatched royalties to the works they have registered using The MLC’s Matching Tool. The MLC’s public database search tool allows anyone to search the ownership data The MLC has compiled for the more than 35 million works, completely free of charge.

Toby Keith

The CMT Music Awards will honor Toby Keith‘s legacy with an all-star tribute to the country legend during the show on April 7 at Austin’s Moody Center.

The tribute will feature a stacked lineup of one-of-a-kind performances from Brooks & Dunn, Lainey Wilson and Sammy Hagar, all backed by Keith’s longtime band, with special appearances by Lukas Nelson and Roger Clemens.

Keith had a longstanding history with the CMT Awards, including celebrating 30 nominations with seven wins and 13 performances, including performances for 10 consecutive years. He had many memorable moments on the awards stage over the last two decades, including two co-hosting gigs, in 2012 with Kristen Bell and in 2003 with Pamela Anderson for the then-named CMT Flameworthy Video Awards, the year he was the most-awarded artist of the night, taking home three belt buckles including Video of the Year for his video “Courtesy of The Red, White and Blue (The Angry American).”

The 2024 CMT Music Awards, hosted by Kelsea Ballerini, will air live April 7 on CBS and are available to stream live and on demand on Paramount+. A brand-new one-hour tribute special CMT Music Awards Celebrates Toby Keith will premiere April 11 on CMT, celebrating his most memorable show moments.

With more than 44 million albums sold worldwide, Keith was most recently revealed as an upcoming inductee into the 2024 Country Music Hall of Fame. His chart-topping hits include 32 No. 1 hit songs, with an additional 42 songs reaching top 10. In 2021, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts. Keith passed away in February after a long battle with cancer.

The nonprofit, artist-led education and advocacy organization Artist Rights Alliance (ARA) has addressed artificial intelligence (AI) developers, technology companies, platforms and digital music services in an open letter, supported by more than 200 artists, urging them to stop using AI to “infringe upon and devalue the rights of human artists.”

This follows the global discussion on the responsible use of AI in music as well as the Ensuring Likeness Voice and Image Security (ELVIS) Act signing in the state of Tennessee. The ELVIS Act establishes protections for every person’s unique voice and likeness against unauthorized AI deepfakes and voice clones. Similar legislation is being discussed in the U.S. Congress and in several other states.

In the letter, ARA highlights the use of musical works by AI developers without permission to train and produce AI “copycats” as well as the use of AI “sound” to dilute royalty obligations.

“Working musicians are already struggling to make ends meet in the streaming world, and now they have the added burden of trying to compete with a deluge of AI-generated noise,” explains Jen Jacobsen, ARA Executive Director. “The unethical use of generative AI to replace human artists will devalue the entire music ecosystem—for artists and fans alike.”

In part, the letter states: “Make no mistake: we believe that, when used responsibly, AI has enormous potential to advance human creativity and in a manner that enables the development and growth of new and exciting experiences for music fans everywhere…Unfortunately, some platforms and developers are employing AI to sabotage creativity and undermine artists, songwriters, musicians and rightsholders.

“We must protect against the predatory use of AI to steal professional artists’ voices and likenesses, violate creators’ rights, and destroy the music ecosystem. We call on all digital music platforms and music-based services to pledge that they will not develop or deploy AI music-generation technology, content, or tools that undermine or replace the human artistry of songwriters and artists or deny us fair compensation for our work.”