CMT held an elegant soiree Tuesday evening (Dec. 2) at Nashville’s Schermerhorn Symphony Center, an upscale music venue known for its impeccable acoustics and hosting everyone from bluegrass musicians to the Nashville symphony.
The event, which aired live, honored Jason Aldean, Miranda Lambert, Luke Bryan, Keith Urban, and Florida Georgia Line as CMT Artists of the Year for their career accomplishments in 2014.
However, the star of the evening was clearly Merle Haggard, who was presented with CMT’s first Artist of a Lifetime award. Billy Bob Thornton was on hand to present the honor, and went off-script to add his own words of tribute.

“I’d just like to add something to what they’ve got here,” said Thornton, “which is that I wouldn’t only include Merle Haggard in the greatest songwriters of all time. But I would put him up there alongside people like Tennessee Williams and William Faulker, Erskine Caldwell and John Steinbeck because he is truly a storyteller. That’s something that has been lost over the years, and I’m glad to see that it is coming back a little bit. And Merle Haggard personifies the storyteller.”
Haggard was nearly in tears as he accepted the honor. “Anything I would say would be short of the mark, so thank you very much and God bless you,” he told the audience. Off-camera, industry members and artists including Aldean and Florida Georgia Line were quick to welcome the legend as he entered the room.

Jason Aldean and Chris Cornell of Soundgarden opened the show with Aldean’s latest single, “Just Gettin’ Started.” Kenny Chesney was in attendance to honor his future tourmate. Chesney and Aldean will combine their headlining shows for several stadium concerts in 2015. “His fire and passion is one of the reasons he’s one of CMT’s Artists of the Year,” said Chesney.
Host Larry the Cable Guy kept the elegant evening from getting too stuffy, with his repertoire of one-liners.
Luke Bryan could not be in attendance. He is in Georgia with his family, following the death of his brother-in-law Ben Lee Cheshire over the weekend. Cheshire was 46, and the husband of Bryan’s late sister Kelly.

Lady Antebellum and Chris Stapleton stepped in to honor Bryan with an emotional rendition of his single, “Drink A Beer,” (co-written by Stapleton and Jim Beavers), which drew the first standing ovation of the evening. Other artists, including fellow Georgian Jason Aldean and Keith Urban, offered their condolences to Bryan’s family throughout the broadcast.
Miranda Lambert was honored by friend and fellow songwriter Ashley Monroe. Lambert gave a soulful, refined performance of “Holding On To You,” an album cut from her recent album Platinum. She also teared up while thanking husband Blake Shelton. “You are my rock,” she said. “I think he’s on a TV show somewhere tonight.”
Wiz Khalifa honored genre-melding duo Florida Georgia Line as CMT Artists of the Year. “As musicians, we are all brothers and sisters,” he said. Florida Georgia Line’s Brian Kelley and Tyler Hubbard gave a rousing rendition of their single, “Sun Daze.”

Another highlight of the evening was Urban’s guitar-driven rendition of James Brown’s “It’s A Man’s Man’s Man’s World,” backed by a 15-piece all-female band, complete with a string and horn section.
Urban was quick to praise his fans after receiving his CMT Artists of the Year honor. “Why are fans so important? Because without them it’s just one long sound check,” he said.

Eric Church, Ashley Monroe, and T Bone Burnett rounded out the evening’s performances with a tribute to Haggard on his 1969 classic, “Workin’ Man Blues.”
Encore presentations of Artists of the Year will air Wednesday, Dec. 3 at 1:30 a.m., 8 a.m., and 11:30 a.m. ET/PT, and Sunday, Dec. 7 at 2 p.m. ET/PT.

BBR Music Group’s Red Bow Records has welcomed recording artist Craig Campbell to its roster. Campbell, who notched a Top 10 song at country radio earlier this year with “Keep Them Kisses Comin’,” is also known for the singles “Outta My Head,” “Fish,” “When I Get It,” and “Family Man.”
In addition to a new label home, Campbell has joined Rob Baker and Camile Alston of Longshot Management for representation, as well as Jensen Sussman‘s publicity firm Sweet Talk Publicity. He is booked by William Morris Endeavor.
“The minute he became available, we started getting calls from our partners in radio saying BBR Music Group was the perfect place for Craig and we should consider signing him. After spending some time with Craig and his new music, I was excited about what we could do together,” said Benny Brown, President/ Owner of the BBR Music Group.
“I am super excited at the opportunity I have with RED BOW and to work with this incredible team,” Campbell said. “I’m more fired up than I have ever been and can’t wait to get my new music out to radio and the fans!”
Campbell was previously signed to Bigger Picture Group, which closed in May 2014.
Campbell is recording new music, and will release a new single on Red Bow Records in 2015. Additionally, the SESAC-affiliated artist-songwriter recently garnered a big cut when Garth Brooks included “All American Kid,” (co-written by Campbell) on his recent album Man Against Machine (Pearl/RCA Nashville).

Shelby Kennedy has traversed many segments of the music industry during his career, including stints as a songwriter and publisher, time at performing rights organizations BMI and ASCAP, as well as four years as director of the now-defunct Lyric Street Records. Now his priority is reaching out to the Nashville music industry as the local representative for music services company TuneCore.
Brooklyn-based TuneCore began as a distribution company, and now also offers music publishing, mastering tracks, CD duplication, social media services, monetizing YouTube and Facebook for artists, and distributing music to more than 80 digital stores, including iTunes, Google Play and Spotify. TuneCore also aids artists in getting songs placed in television shows, films and commercials. “We are trying to figure out the services that help someone be as autonomous as they choose to be or have to be,” says Kennedy. “I’m trying to be a liaison to find out what things we need to include, in order to meet the needs of artists, managers and other clients.”
TuneCore’s service model seems to be working. It has more than 1 million registered users, and a team of approximately 50 employees.
What drew you to TuneCore?
There’s not many entities in the digital music space that make you feel warm and fuzzy. I thought, “What artists are not here who need instant presence, acceptance and outreach in their first 30 minutes?,” because that’s what TuneCore would provide. And with TuneCore, I felt this is a solution for what is going on in the industry right now.
As an artist, you can choose the stores you want to be in, the territories you want to be in. It gives artists a lot of choice and a lot of control. They aren’t losing any of their rights, and they aren’t losing any of their sales revenue. That’s a no-brainer for me.
How is the TuneCore model different?
Most distribution companies participate in the artist’s revenue by taking a percentage of it. TuneCore is a subscription model, so you can pay a small fee and have the music out to all the digital outlets around the world. You renew the subscription every year. We don’t take a penny of the sales revenue. None. So if someone’s selling thousands of units, it’s the same at TuneCore as if they sold tens of units. It’s not about riding the backs of the artists and labels. To me, that’s awesome. TuneCore’s mission statement is to provide equal access that’s an affordable price to the channels of music distribution.
If you do a single it’s $9.99 for a single song. Next year, when you renew it’s the same price. As soon as you don’t renew, the songs come out of the stores—Spotify, iTunes, all of them. If it were an album, it would be $29.99. Every year, it’s $50 to keep it there. But every penny of revenue goes to the artist.
Who else is using TuneCore?
Publishers are starting to use this and that’s what I’m having fun with. Publishers are starting to realize it’s a tool to develop and break new acts. Exhibit A would be Logan Mize and Big Yellow Dog. They sold around 80,000 of the single and Arista now snagged him. AristoMedia uses it, and management company Red Light is going to do a couple of things. It’s like everybody’s empowered now to not sit and wait for somebody to pick him or her to come play in the superdome, if you will. Everybody is in the stadium. They can play the game.
How does TuneCore help level the playing field for aspiring artists?
Some of the biggest acts that we have in the industry, every label passed on them with the exception of one. That’s how it’s gone, and as we’ve consolidated down to a few labels, those labels are not there to be the one. They rely more on very predictable artists. I’m thinking that’s where TuneCore can help. There’s so much talent that doesn’t get into the “predictables” category. That’s the stuff that really changes our industry, and we need to figure out what gets these artists launched. That’s purpose for our industry as a whole.
We know music is the creative part of the industry, but we’ve entered the time where the business part has to be just as creative as the music. If you’ve got a toolbox, the process of choosing the right mix of tools to use is extremely creative, but I want all the tools I can possibly get, just to have the choice to use the ones I want to use.
What is your biggest challenge?
The biggest challenge is that digital space is static. People don’t know what TuneCore does, versus a Grooveshark or Songza or other tech spaces. So right now for me, awareness is job number one.