Cole Swindell cebrates with co-writers and execs from ASCAP, BMI, label and song publishers. Photo credit: Preshias
Warner Bros Nashville threw a Number One party for one of their ‘Golden Boys.’ Cole Swindell is basking in the glow of his 6th Number One single, “Middle Of A Memory,” written by Swindell, Ashley Gorley and Zach Crowell. Cole thanked the standing room only crowd for all they have done to get him to this stage in his career and making his dreams come true.
…and Blake Shelton’s 23rd
Blake celebrates another Number One. Photo credit: Lindsey Sipes
Another Warner Bros Nashville “Golden Boy,” Blake Shelton, celebrates another Number One “With A Guy With A Girl.” The song was written by Bryan Simpson and Ashley Gorley. This makes Blake’s 23rd Number One, if I counted right. Trivia Note: Blake had 17 consecutive number one records, which went down in the music history books.
Concert Benefitting Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center with special guests Tracy Lawrence & Randy Owen
Country Hits Back Against Cancer
Acclaimed country hit maker and colon cancer survivor Wade Hayes is set to host the 2nd Annual Country Hits Back concert supporting the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center at the historic Franklin Theatre at 7:00pm on Tuesday, March 7, 2017. Joining him will be Randy Owen, Country Music Hall of Fame member and lead singer of the super group Alabama, and multi-platinum award winning singer/songwriter Tracy Lawrence. Tickets range from $79.00-100.00 and are available at FranklinTheatre.com.
Over the course of his 68-year career, Jim Halsey has been a pioneer of country music innovation and expansion, transforming a once colloquial commodity into a global force. Halsey played a key role in the direction and management of country music giants. He has guided the careers of some of the most iconic figures in country music, including, Roy Clark, Waylon Jennings, The Judds, Hank Thompson, Merle Haggard, Reba McEntire, Wanda Jackson, Freddy Fender, Roy Orbison, Tammy Wynette, Rick Nelson, Clint Black, Dwight Yoakam, Minnie Pearl, James Brown and The Oak Ridge Boys, who he’s managed for 43 years.
When asked what advice he would give to anyone just starting out on a career in music, he kept it simple. “Don’t be afraid to follow your dreams,” he told me.
World’s biggest country music agency
Halsey’s vision, marketing, and passion were fundamental to the rapid growth of a genre that may otherwise have taken many more years to develop. His leadership and vision resulted in The Jim Halsey Company becoming the biggest country music agency in the world. Halsey’s artists have sold hundreds of gold and platinum records, received countless awards, including Grammy awards and nominations, and sold out shows at The Grand Ole Opry, Carnegie Hall, and headlined festivals and performances all over the world.
Country legend, Roy Clark
Halsey has represented 25 of the 125 artists selected to the Country Music Hall of Fame, as well as 10 members of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and has played a pivotal role in bringing country music to television. To date, he is the only producer or manager who has ever presented every artist on a single episode of the Hollywood Squares as well as book his acts in every Las Vegas showroom for an entire week. Continue reading ““Follow your dreams,” says Jim Halsey, music pioneer”
His first number one song, four years in the making
Congrats to Warner Bros / WMN’s newcomer William Michael Morgan and the co-writers Sam Hunt, Shane McAnally and Trevor Rosen who were feted on January 30th for Morgan’s Number One hit “I Met A Girl.” The Number One party, held at South, was co-hosted by ASCAP and First Tennessee Bank. The song, produced by Scott Hendricks (Blake Shelton) and Jimmy Ritchey (Mark Chesnutt), is from Morgan’s debut studio album, VINYL (Warner Bros Nashville) which was released on September 30, 2016, following his self-titled EP.
Photo Credit: Preshias Harris Left to Right: Shane McAnally, William Michael Morgan and Trevor Rosen. Not pictured is Sam Hunt.
“I Met a Girl” is the debut single and first number one record for Morgan and has sold over 300,000 copies since its radio add date of August 24, 2015. It was also included on his debut studio album, “Vinyl,” which was released on September 30, 2016, following his self-titled EP.
During the media interviews prior to the Number One celebration, Shane said that they’d written the song about four years ago. Morgan said, “We hung on to it and hung on to it.” He recalled. “Once it was recorded, we kept listening to it. We believed it was just a wonderful song all around.”
The lyrics have special meaning for Morgan
The song has a poignant meaning for Morgan. Thinking back to the birth of his daughter and meeting his fiancé brings a whole new meaning to the song for him. “God was moving the chess pieces around,” he said. “We found out the song was Number One on the same day as the album ‘Vinyl’ came out.”
“I Met A Girl” Number One Party
It seems the song has resonated with listeners, too. “I Met A Girl” spent 52 weeks on the charts and has reached an airplay audience of 1.1 billion. The song has also been streamed 25 million times.
The song has received positive reviews from music critics. Taste of Country® awarded “I Met a Girl” with the Taste of Country® Critic’s Pick, saying that the single is “a warm country love song that slows time” adding that “strong songwriting and Morgan’s smooth baritone make the song tough to resist.” So hit replay! More at www.williammichaelmorgan.com.
It takes perseverance
Personal note: Aspiring artists and songwriters should take note of Morgan’s progress along the road to chart success. Around four years elapsed between the time the song was written and the afternoon he stood up to receive his Number One award. If you expect fame and fortune within months of arriving in Music City, you are setting yourself up for disappointment. It takes perseverance and strength of character to keep improving your musical skills, perfecting your stagecraft, building your network of industry contacts and learning from your co-writers. When the real opportunity appears, you’ll be ready to grasp it!
Two of Country’s sweetest voices are off the market. Kacey Musgraves got her ring on Christmas day, from fellow artist Ruston Kelly. “I didn’t say yes…I said HELL YESSSS!!” Musgraves posted on Instagram Christmas Day.
Kelsea Ballerini’s sparkly new ring!
Then Australian artist Morgan Evans asked Country Music Sweetheart Kelsea Ballerini to be his wife on Christmas Day. The two met when they co-hosted Australia’s Country Music Channel Awards this past March. Kelsea wrote on Instagram: “This morning, nine months and 13 days later, he got down on one knee in the kitchen while I was burning pancakes and asked me to marry him.”
The invitation to Kelsea Ballerini’s Number One party for “Peter Pan”
A doubly exciting event for Kelsea Ballerini and her record label. The Number One party for her song “Peter Pan,” written by Ballerini with Forest Glen Whitehead and Jesse Lee was held, not at a restaurant or bar, but at the spacious Averitt Hangar close by Nashville International Airport. “Peter Pan” was her third consecutive Number One, making her the first solo female artist to top the charts with her first three singles since Wynonna Judd achieved that feat in 1992 (and the first ‘new’ female artist to ever achieve it). All three singles have been certified Gold by RIAA, making everyone very happy at Ballerini’s label, Black River Entertainment.
Interestingly, she grew up listening to pop music from such artists as Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera and NSYNC, until she discovered songs by Keith Urban that moved her to listen more closely to country music artists such as Dixie Chicks, Sugarland and – her biggest influence – Shania Twain. At the age of 19, she signed a deal with Black River Entertainment, resulting in “Love Me Like You Mean It,” “Dibs” and now “Peter Pan,” all of which topped Billboard’s Country Airplay charts. All three cuts are from her debut album, “The First Time,” also RIAA certified Gold – and the first Gold Album certification for Black River Entertainment. “Yeah Boy,” the fourth track from that album, was sent to country radio October 10. Will that be another chart topper? Watch this space!
Photo credit: Preshias Harris
Here’s a photo I took during the Number One party at the Averitt Hangar. Kelsea Ballerini had a lot to celebrate: her third-in-a-row Number One single and Black River Entertainment’s first RIAA-certified Gold album. Kelsea’s tour dates and more can be found here.
Wariner’s collaborators include Ricky Skaggs, Duane Eddy, Eric Johnson and more
My dear friend – and fellow Kentucky native – Steve Wariner has a great new album about to drop at the end of October. It really is a special project with a who’s who of guests and family members contributing their combined talent. Please give it a listen!
Steve Wariner releases “All Over The Map.” Photo: David McClister
For his 20th studio album, four-time GRAMMY Award winner Steve Wariner knew he had to do something really special. When All Over The Map began coming together, it became clear just what that would be.
The 12-track album evolved into a remarkable tribute to the Grand Ole Opry member’s influences, both living and deceased, in addition to a celebration of his lineage. While packed with acclaimed guest musicians, the set — to be released Oct. 28 on SelecTone Records — artfully showcases Wariner’s own musical talents. In addition to producing the album, he plays guitar, upright bass, drums and both pedal and lap steel, as well as singing on seven of the songs. (The other five are classic instrumentals.) Wariner also penned 10 of the tracks.
Tribute to Chet Atkins
A touching tribute to late mentor Chet Atkins, titled “CGP,” takes its name from the coveted title Atkins bestowed on Wariner: Certified Guitar Player. On the track, Wariner enlisted the talents of the only two other living musicians to have earned the same title from Atkins, Tommy Emmanuel and John Knowles. The album also includes “When I Still Mattered To You,” a song Wariner wrote with Merle Haggard on a cruise ship in 1996 but had never previously recorded.
Ricky Skaggs guests on “All Over The Map”
Close friend Ricky Skaggs, with whom Wariner won his first GRAMMY in 1992, is featured playing mandolin on “Down Sawmill Road.” Other celebrated musicians featured on the album include: Musicians’ Hall of Fame and Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Duane Eddy (“Nashville Spy-Line”), GRAMMY Award winner Eric Johnson (“Meanwhile Back In Austin”), Greg Martin of The Kentucky Headhunters (“Way It Goes”) and Jack Pearson (“Drop Top”).
Wariner family heritage
But it’s Wariner’s own family that provides the bulk of the inspiration for the album, which was 20 months in the making. Throughout the creation of the album, Steve relied heavily on his son Ross, who lives in New York, for advice and consultation on the technical production aspects of the album. He wrote the Western swing tune “Mr. Roy” as a tribute to his musician father, and “Down Sawmill Road” is named for the Kentucky road where his mother grew up. His GRAMMY-nominated son Ryan Wariner wrote and plays on the track “The Last Word.” Wariner reached back deep into his rich family history for the album’s closing instrumental track, “Augustine’s Dream,” inspired by his maternal four-times great grandfather who served in the Revolutionary War.
“Getting to play and record with these wonderfully creative people means the world to me. I am grateful to all! Some I’ve collaborated with before, others… well, it’s pure bucket list for me! This project is the perfect example of what keeps me going…what keeps me excited,” notes Wariner. “Traveling into territory I’ve never been to before. And there’s lots of that here on this album. It’s hard to describe the joy I feel making music with my sons…and family for that matter. Now I know how my father used to feel. I am so very proud of my musical roots and heritage. ”
You can watch a video of the creation of the album cover for “All Over the Map” here.
14 Number Ones; 30 Top Ten hits
In his storied career, Wariner has achieved 14 No. 1 songs and more than 30 Top 10 hits, including such classics as “Holes in the Floor of Heaven,” “Life’s Highway,” “The Weekend,” “I’m Already Taken,” “I Got Dreams,” “Small Town Girl,” “Two Teardrops,” “Some Fools Never Learn,” “Lynda” and more. An award-winning songwriter, Wariner has also composed hit songs for Clint Black (“Nothin’ But the Taillights”), Garth Brooks (“Longneck Bottle”), Bryan White (“One Small Miracle”) and Keith Urban (“Where the Blacktop Ends”), as well as artists such as Country Music Hall of Fame members Alabama, Kenny Rogers, The Statler Brothers, Conway Twitty and Don Williams; pop music icon Peter Tork (of The Monkees); R&B singer Ruben Studdard; bluegrass music’s Del McCoury Band and many more. Wariner is a member of the Kentucky Music Hall of Fame. For more information, visit Steve’s website
Jean Shepard broke down barriers and inspired female artists who followed
Jean Shepard was more than ‘just’ a country music artist. She was instrumental in changing the way country fans – and the music industry – regarded female singers.
Jean Shepard pictured in 1971
In the early 1950s, solo female country artists were very few and far between, Kitty Wells being one of the most notable of the few. The absence of female country singers was something of a self-fulfilling prophesy on the part of record label executives: they were convinced that nobody wanted to hear female artists so they didn’t sign any, and then of course, no female singers were cutting songs and no records by female artists were showing up on the charts. Those record execs could look at the charts and say, “See? Songs by female artists aren’t selling.”
Her big break came thanks to her own determination when she pretty much invited herself onto the stage in 1952 while Hank Thompson, a big star at the time, was performing. Thompson was impressed both by Shepard’s talent and her resolve and convinced the very reluctant execs at his label (Capitol Records) to sign her.
After one non-charting single, Capitol teamed her with one of their male artists, Ferlin Husky, on “A Dear John Letter,” a million-plus seller that topped the Country charts and became a pop hit too. Touring with Husky – he was appointed her legal guardian as she was still a minor – she quickly became a fan favorite in her own right. Her popularity was such that, when she was only 22, she became only the third female artist invited to join the Grand Ole Opry, the other two being Kitty Wells and Minnie Pearl. (At the time of her death, Shepard was the only female artist to have been a member of the Opry for sixty years.)
Inspiration to female artists
By breaking through as a female singer in a male dominated music world, she inspired other young women to persevere with their craft and not give up the dream. So many female country stars that came along after her have cited Shepard as a true role model.
Shepard’s resilience was also remarkable in the face of so much adversity in her personal life. She grew up desperately poor, the daughter of a sharecropper with her nine sibling in a home without running water or electricity. Later, at the height of her career, when she was eight months pregnant, she lost her husband Hawkshaw Hawkins in the 1963 plane crash that also killed Patsy Cline and Cowboy Copas. Despite her grief, she returned to the Opry and the recording studio, determined to maintain her career and support her small children.
Country’s first ‘concept album’
A rarity for female artists at the time, Shepard was not afraid to sing and record songs, including “The Root of All Evil (Is A Man)” and “Twice The Lovin’ In Half The Time,” that focused on ‘gritty’ subjects such as adultery and broken marriages from a woman’s point of view. Artists such as Loretta Lynn note that Shepard’s album “Songs of a Love Affair” opened the door for them to sing about subjects that might have otherwise been nixed by record labels. “Songs of a Love Affair” is recognized as the first ‘concept’ album in Country music.
Jean Shepard, with Bill Anderson, celebrating 60 years as an Opry member in 2015. Photo: Chris Hollo
Often described as ‘feisty’ – she made no secret of her distaste for modern ‘pop-country’ music – she had strong convictions and a strength of character that stayed with her throughout her personal and professional life. Jean Shepard was a pioneer and an inspiration to any aspiring artist who feels the odds are stacked against them. As Brenda Lee said when Shepard was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2011: “She busted down the doors.”
For a discography and more about Jean Shepard’s long career at the Opry, click here.
Ollie Imogene (‘Jean’) Shepard, November 21, 1933 – September 25, 2016. She is survived by her husband, Benny Birchfield, and sons Don Robin Hawkins, Harold Franklin Hawkins II and Corey Birchfield.
Preshias with Joni Twitty and John Wesley Ryles, listening to the remastered Conway Twitty tapes
Monday morning started out great with Joni Twitty and John Wesley Ryles. I was with them at Ricky Skaggs‘ studio putting the finishing touches of musical magic to the rare 1970 recordings that Joni’s father Conway Twitty cut with Scotty Moore for the U.S. Armed Forces Network. The long-lost songs are soon to be released by Country Rewind Records. www.countryrewindrecords.com
Working on Conway Twitty’s ‘Lost Tapes’
Pictured (left to right) are: John Wesley Ryles (back up vocalist and Conway’s son-in-law), Ron Oates (‘The Bomb’ piano player!) Joni Twitty, and engineer Mark Capps (Mark worked on Conway’s last album). Not Pictured: Guitarist Kevin Williams, who has played with The Gaithers for 24 yrs. Everyone at Country Rewind Records is so excited to be ‘a spoke in this wheel’ as these historic recordings finally get to be heard by Conway’s fans!
Reproduced below is the press release announcing the Waylon Jennings album for which I wrote the liner notes. It is a remarkable album of tracks long thought to have been lost forever. In addition to its historical significance, it’s a heck of a good album! I recommend you give it a listen. – Preshias Harris
COUNTRY REWIND RECORDS (NY) INTRODUCES THE LOST NASHVILLE SESSIONS FROM WAYLON JENNINGS
Gem Features 14 Never-Heard-Before Tracks, And One Bonus Track (Digital Only)
The Sixth In The Label Series — Due Mid-October 2016
The Lost Nashville Sessions (Waylon Jennings)
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (September 13, 2016)—Country Rewind Records (a division of Hindsight Records, NY), will introduce one of its newest collections of country music’s hidden treasures—THE LOST NASHVILLE SESSIONS (Waylon Jennings). The project will be available October 21, 2016* via all major digital retail outlets.
An impressionable country music singer, who became a Grammy recipient early in his career (for “MacArthur Park”) and forged his name as an iconic figure in American music history, Waylon Jennings was a member of the “Outlaw Country” music movement and genre. He shared the billing with renowned, award-winning recording artists such as Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard and Kris Kristofferson. THE LOST NASHVILLE SESSIONS showcases Jennings’ stout talents as a young and promising recording artist (spotlighting the number one hit “Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line”) and highlights a piece of music history that may have easily been lost and forgotten.
The musical gem features 14 never-heard-before tracks originally recorded at Scotty Moore’s Music City Recorders (July 1970) as part of a U.S. military recruitment radio program. The 15-minute recorded shows hosted performances by, and banter with, popular country artists (Jennings, George Jones, Dolly Parton, Conway Twitty and Tammy Wynette to name a few). Created to encourage recruitment, the shows were distributed for “promotional-use only” on vinyl to 2,000 participating radio stations. Country Rewind Records President, Thomas Gramuglia, dusted off the masters from each and every recorded program with the idea to bring these performances to life via today’s contemporary and digital musical formats. (THE LOST NASHVILLE SESSIONS is just one of hundreds of recordings.)
Grammy award-winning musician and producer, Robby Turner (who is also the late country legend’s longtime steel guitarist and producer, and now plays with Chris Stapleton), added instrumentals and background vocals to the raw original tracks (including Waylon Jennings’ classics and his renditions of Chuck Berry’s “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” and Kris Kristofferson’s “Sunday Morning Coming Down”).
With audio quality of the highest twenty-first century standard, the project has been described as “Delightful” (Robert K. Oermann/Music Row Magazine). The production sounds as if Waylon and A-list musicians recorded the project just yesterday. Jennings’ widow, Jessi Colter, and their son (Shooter Jennings) have given their permissions and blessings to release the project.
Music City Media will head up the press and social media campaign; Williams Promotions will oversee the radio promotion campaign. The project is being distributed by Select-O-Hits.
THE LOST NASHVILLE SESSIONS digital retail release date: October 21, 2016. iTunes pre-sale begins September 23, 2016; purchasers who take advantage of the iTunes pre-sale will be offered “Kentucky Woman” as the instant gratification track.
For more on THE LOST NASHVILLE SESSIONS and other Country Rewind Records productions, visit countryrewindrecords.com.
