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08/24/2023
Searching social media for Tree Paine and Yvette Noel-Schure’s names reveals their own legions of passionate stans.
08/24/2023
Ambrosia Healy and Dennis Dennehy’s first meeting wasn’t quite storybook perfect.
It was a stormy day backstage at the Tibetan Freedom Concert at Washington, D.C.’s Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Stadium in June 1998. Healy and Dennehy were already aware of each other — but they weren’t fans. Dennehy, then handling publicity at Geffen Records, had a roster that included Britpop band Embrace, and the band’s legendary manager, Jazz Summers, had recently suggested bringing Healy, a talented indie publicist he was working with, into the fold to take the lead for the act’s press.
To put it mildly, Dennehy wasn’t thrilled. When an indie is brought in to supplement a label representative’s work, he says, it implies, “You’re not doing your job” — and anyway, he still insists he’d “gotten Embrace under control” on his own.
Meanwhile, shortly before the concert, Healy had called Dennehy to discuss a different artist. Her star client, Dave Matthews Band, was playing two stadium gigs supported by Dennehy’s Geffen act Beck, and she wanted to review photo logistics. Still stinging from the Embrace episode, he rebuffed her. “I was like, ‘This guy f–king sucks!’ ” Healy recounts. By the time Summers introduced them backstage at RFK Stadium, they were primed for conflict.
“You were kind of an a–hole!” Healy insists today. “No, you — that’s not true at all!” Dennehy protests with a bit of dramatic flair. “You gave me the brushoff!” Twenty years later, he hasn’t quite given up on this point, though their circumstances have, to say the least, changed: In what feels like a plot twist out of a music industry romcom, Healy and Dennehy have now been married for 14 years. “It’s like [When] Harry Met Sally, without the friendship,” Healy says with a laugh.
We’re sitting on this July afternoon at Farm Club, a hip farm-to-table restaurant in Northern Michigan, where the couple, who are based in Los Angeles, own a home in the Traverse City area. They’ve been tagging in and out of here to piece together a summer for their 9-year-old daughter and 7-year-old son; Dennehy arrives a few minutes late, having driven directly from Cherry Capital Airport after flying in from New York that morning, and in a few days, Healy will return to L.A. for work. Understandably, both publicity lifers seem mildly apprehensive about being the subjects of a profile rather than playing their usual roles as seasoned pros ensuring an artist’s interview doesn’t go awry. When we order a round of pilsners, Dennehy half-jokingly quips, “That’s off the record!” Healy overrules him.
Over three decades in music publicity, Dennehy and Healy have guided scores of culture-shifting artists’ careers, as well as those of executives at the highest echelons of the business. “It’s a real name-check of major music industry events,” reflects Dennehy, 56, as he begins to unspool his history with Healy, 55; names like Jimmy and Coran (Iovine and Capshaw) pop up casually as supporting players in the couple’s personal story. From digital piracy to the pandemic, the pair has seen — and helped shape the messaging around — widespread change in the business, even if, as Healy puts it, “what’s needed [from publicists] has always been the same.”
Since 2014, Healy has served as executive vp/head of media strategy and relations at Capitol Music Group. Dennehy has been chief communications officer at AEG Presents since 2019, when he left Interscope Geffen A&M after 20 years. Together, they’ve navigated a turbulent, demanding music industry, and though their relationship has created conflict between them countless times — over Saturday Night Live bookings, magazine covers, Grammy campaigns and lots more — working in the same field, and the mutual understanding that has brought them, has strengthened their bond. “It’s not all kill or be killed,” Healy says. “In fact, the kill or be killed, that’s just the nature of what we do. But my greatest ally? I’m married to my greatest ally.”
Technically, Dennehy and Healy first crossed paths three years before their Tibetan Freedom Concert run-in, at South by Southwest (SXSW) in 1995. At the Austin Convention Center, Dennehy, who had just moved to L.A., spotted Healy and asked his then-Geffen colleague Jim Merlis, “Who is that woman? She’s very attractive.” Merlis didn’t know, so Dennehy later “did the brush-by” and saw her tag: “Ambrosia Healy, Ambrosia Healy PR.”
Both had established themselves in music publicity in the early 1990s. Though Healy might’ve seemed destined for the music business (her father, Dan Healy, was a sound engineer for the Grateful Dead for most of its career), she had settled in Boulder, Colo., with plans to become a teacher. While working as a cocktail waitress — and handling publicity — at the Fox Theatre, she saw Dave Matthews Band when it passed through the venue on its first tour west of the Mississippi in 1993; when DMB returned to town a few months later, she met its manager, Coran Capshaw, who asked her to do the band’s publicity. After graduating college, Dennehy had landed in New York with record-industry aspirations, and a short spell doing publicity at an indie German metal label led him in 1992 to the Geffen Records publicity job he would hold for the rest of the decade.
As Dennehy puts it today, he and Merlis “thought we knew everybody. You know, you’re in New York, you’re young, you’re…” “Full of yourself,” Healy deadpans. When he saw in the SXSW guide that she was from Boulder, his spirits fell: “I just closed it, and I was like, ‘Aw, I’m never going to meet her.’ ”
But by the late ’90s, Dennehy’s and Healy’s social and professional circles began to converge. Healy moved to New York in 1997, and though Dennehy was out west for his Geffen job, he kept his apartment in Manhattan, where he regularly spent a week per month. “All of a sudden, we’re having lots of mutual friends in New York, and so our paths started to cross,” Healy says. “Every time I’d be like, ‘Ugh.’ Like, ‘That guy is so mean. He’s so rude. I don’t want to be around him.’ ”
“And that’s what I thought about her,” Dennehy says. “ ‘What is her deal?’ ”
For professionals in other fields, a shared occupation might well be the perfect grounds for a meet-cute — but the very nature of music PR prevented that for the two young publicists. “Even your best friends, in what we do, are your competitors,” Dennehy says.
One of those best-friend competitors was Sheila Richman, then working in publicity at Island/Def Jam, who rented a house with Dennehy and longtime Rolling Stone editor Jason Fine in La Quinta, Calif., for Coachella 2001. Healy, also a close friend of Richman’s and Fine’s, was in town, too, and they all met for dinner the night before the festival.
“I get there and that mean guy” — Dennehy — “is there,” Healy says. “And over the course of that dinner in April 2001…”
“And into the evening,” Dennehy interrupts.
“No, it was the dinner,” Healy says. “It started with dinner.”
“I know,” Dennehy says. “We sat around talking for…”
“I was like, ‘Oh, no. I — I love him,’ ” Healy says. (Dennehy: “I was like, ‘Wow, this is awesome!’ ”) “We were sitting next to each other. I asked him for one of his shrimp from his shrimp cocktail as a flirting move and he let me have it. Cut to years later, I know he really doesn’t like to share his shrimp cocktail.” (On the other hand, when Dennehy plucks a crouton from Healy’s salad shortly after they tell this story, it goes unacknowledged.)
“I remember them talking all night and really hitting it off,” recalls Richman, now executive vp of publicity at Atlantic Records. “As the weekend progressed, it seemed like they were falling for each other. It seemed like it made total sense.”
Austin Hargrave
Even so, the weekend didn’t cement their romance; they would date on and off for two monthslong stints before encounters at a fortuitous Big Hassle Media holiday party in December 2003 — where Dennehy recalls thinking, “I need to get back together with Ambrosia Healy,” when he saw her — and the subsequent Grammys brought them together for good. Following short periods at Shore Fire Media and Marty Diamond’s Little Big Man agency, Healy moved to L.A. to run publicity for Capitol Records, where clients included an ascendant Coldplay. Dennehy, meanwhile, joined Interscope Geffen A&M following Geffen’s 1999 merger with Interscope, where, among other things, he was soon running point on PR for one of the world’s biggest artists, Eminem; by 2002, he was head of IGA’s publicity department.
“Think we were competitors before?” Healy says. “We now have identical jobs.”
Saturday Night Live is a sore spot for the couple. Throughout the 2000s and 2010s — with Dennehy at Interscope and Healy at Capitol, then an indie, then Capitol Music Group — they would often compete for the same bookings. For years, he says, “For one of us to win, the other one had to lose.”
“If I call Dennis, Ambrosia will typically let him do his thing and obviously hear what’s going on,” says SNL coordinating producer Brian Siedlecki, who has worked at SNL since the mid-’90s and booked the show’s music for almost that long. “If I call Ambrosia and he’s sitting there, he’ll be screaming the names of his artists in the background while I’m trying to have a conversation with her.”
In early 2014, Healy got Bastille on SNL before Dennehy scored a booking for The 1975 (“Made me insane,” he says), and in fall 2018, she booked Maggie Rogers, then just bubbling up and without an album out, over Dennehy’s priority, Ella Mai, who had scored two huge Billboard Hot 100 hits in the preceding months. “We were in a full-on brawl,” he says.
“It was quiet around our house for a couple days,” Healy recalls. “That was the time I was like, ‘If you don’t get it, aren’t you happy I get it?!” “And I was like, ‘No, I want somebody I don’t know to get it!’ ” Dennehy retorts. (Ultimately, they both got their SNL wishes: Mai played the show just two weeks after Rogers.)
By the ’10s, Dennehy and Healy — who bought their house in L.A.’s Hancock Park in 2006 and got married in early 2009 — had established a clandestine but (mostly) compassionate rhythm. “There are times we’re on the phone and the other one’s listening and you’re like, ‘What are you doing here? Get out of the room,’ ” Dennehy says. “Especially before we had kids, there were like two silos in our house. We always had to be two rooms away from each other.”
“It’s a mutual understanding,” Healy says. “These are our livelihoods. We have to be trusted by our employers. There were things we couldn’t talk about.” Or, as Dennehy puts it, “It’s a little cloak and dagger. It’s a little Mr. & Mrs. Smith in our house sometimes.”
Finding that balance took trial and error. In early 2008, a lawyer working with Dennehy needed to contact a prominent magazine editor (even today, they can’t share specifics, but Healy calls it a “cease-and-desist situation”) who Dennehy knew was a personal friend of Healy’s. Without explanation, he asked her for the editor’s number — “Back then, you didn’t have everyone’s cellphone number,” she clarifies — and, assuming good faith, she gave it to him. Backstage at a taping of The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Healy received a call from the editor explaining a lawyer had just called.
“We hadn’t just been dating, we had been dating for a long time,” Healy says, adding that Dennehy explained himself at the time by saying he was under pressure from his colleagues and was willing to do what he had to — even betraying the trust of the person he shared a home with — to get it done. “That was a big line crossed,” she continues. “We haven’t had many of those.”
“But you learn from that,” Dennehy adds. “You figure out how far you can push things.”
Their periodic conflicts make for good stories, but the couple are emphatic about the overall benefits of their shared profession. In no small part, that’s because while their styles differ — they agree that Healy is more methodical while Dennehy is, in her words, “a vibe guy” — they see the job similarly.
“What both of them share [is] they don’t do press. They tell stories,” says Jim Guerinot, who as manager of Nine Inch Nails worked with Dennehy (before the band left Interscope in 2007) and later Healy. “Some people just carpet-bomb the press. Both of them were always very clear about forcing the artist into having a vision for the story that they want to tell and then telling that story.”
That extends to the demands of the gig itself. “We understand what the pull of the job is and where you need to be at a certain time,” Dennehy says, recalling an ex who “couldn’t comprehend why I was at CBGB’s until three in the morning every night.” When his and Healy’s newborn daughter was just a few weeks old, she understood when Dennehy had to fly to Dublin to shoot a U2 magazine cover: “She’s like, ‘Yeah, you have to go.’ ”
Both now laugh about their years facing off in label PR. Dennehy’s pivot into the live space was unexpectedly tumultuous — less than a year after assuming his AEG role, he ended up navigating the biggest calamity that sector has ever faced, the coronavirus pandemic. But they’re noticeably relieved that his new gig has helped ease their professional tensions.
“We’re not competing anymore,” says Dennehy before Healy cuts in: “Actually, it’s kind of more fun than it has ever been.”
This story will appear in the Aug. 26, 2023, issue of Billboard.
One recent Sunday, Shore Fire Media founder and CEO Marilyn Laverty was paddleboarding when she experienced a publicist’s worst nightmare: She dropped her cellphone in New Jersey’s Shark River inlet and watched it slowly sink, rendering her incommunicado. “Carrying a phone when you’re paddleboarding isn’t really necessary or advisable,” Laverty admits now. But as a publicist, she adds, “I’m more comfortable with it on my person.”
Consider it an occupational hazard. Laverty has navigated the often murky waters of public relations for over 45 years — expanding from handling iconic artists like Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt and Elvis Costello to representing venues, tech companies, streaming services, documentaries, entrepreneurs and even athletes.
After trying her hand at journalism — her first job out of Cornell was as an editorial assistant at the Ithaca (N.Y.) Journal — and deciding it wasn’t for her, she joined Columbia Records’ publicity department as an assistant in 1977. She briefly jumped to RCA before returning to Columbia in 1979, ultimately rising to vp and running the publicity department. In 1990, with assurances from Springsteen’s and Wynton Marsalis’ managers that they would continue working with her, she struck out on her own, starting Shore Fire in her Brooklyn Heights apartment.
Like most publicists, Laverty is much more comfortable pitching her clients than talking about herself. She answers questions cautiously and deliberately and suggests specific angles — like focusing more on Shore Fire’s present (say, exciting new clients like best new artist Grammy winner Samara Joy) than its past, or highlighting her 45-person staff rather than herself (including her executive team of senior vps Mark Satlof — her second hire in 1990 — Rebecca Shapiro, Matt Hanks and Allison Elbl, all of whom have their own high-profile clients and oversee various staff or operations in Shore Fire’s Brooklyn Heights headquarters or its offices in Nashville and Los Angeles).
That same strategic focus and attention to detail has made Shore Fire one of the leading independent PR firms of the last 30 years and Laverty the only indie publicist with whom Springsteen has ever worked. “We and Marilyn have been a match for the last 40 years,” says his manager, Jon Landau. “She has no agenda except for the artists, is a master communicator, is entirely networked, is respected in all corners of the industry and is not shy when — tactfully — disagreeing with management. In fact, she can be incredibly stubborn, but she’s usually — not always! — right.”
How soon after you launched Shore Fire in 1990 were you sure you would make it?
From the start I knew it would work. We had a lot of great artists and we grew slowly. We never had to have layoffs because we grew too quickly. Starting in my apartment was definitely cost-conscious, but within two years we moved to an office in Brooklyn Heights, and after a few years [we] moved to our current space and have been there now for 25 years.
What is something you learned in your early days from a client or mentor that has stuck with you?
Being able to work with [Springsteen] at the beginning of my career was the greatest lesson in knowing yourself. He’s not only one of the most incredible artists of our era, but he knows who he is like no one else. He doesn’t focus on what other artists get. He is really pursuing his own vision and his own way. It has been a lesson that I’ve taken to everybody I’ve worked with, to try to get them to articulate their personal vision and try to honor it with everything we do.
Last November, his comments to Rolling Stone about dynamic pricing for his current tour, and how high some prices were, generated some controversy. Do you prep him for such interviews?
We always let Bruce know in advance about the overall content of an interview, and Bruce always answers questions entirely on his own. I think the thing people love most about Bruce Springsteen is his honesty, his realness. He’s like that in interviews, too. He says what he thinks. It’s honest, not tailored to get a certain response. It’s direct. I respect that.
How has your evolution into so many different areas of PR come about?
One of Shore Fire’s greatest strengths is our brainpower with all 45 staffers. There’s a lot of variety within our roster, and it’s constantly changing because it really reflects not just me and my tastes, but the whole collective. There are so many staff who’ve been with the company over 10 years, over 20 years, but it’s very exciting when the new staff are telling us what they care about and bringing in clients. We’ve developed the roster around the interests of the staff.
Marilyn Laverty photographed on August 15, 2023 at Shore Fire Media in Brooklyn Heights.
Meredith Jenks
Addressing allegations of misconduct is common for artists now. How does Shore Fire handle those situations?
I think all of us publicists are facing some cases of cancel culture on an individual basis, [but] my idea is to try to work with artists who are — it may sound Pollyanna-ish — really good people. We focus on artists who are more known for their artistry than their behavior.
In 2019, Dolphin Entertainment, which also owns PR firms 42West and The Door, purchased Shore Fire. Why was it the right time to sell?
I met [Dolphin founder] Bill O’Dowd through [attorney] Don Passman, who has been a [Shore Fire] client. Bill shared his vision for building a great supergroup of companies. As PR changes more each year, we really become marketers as much as media hunters, and I felt that there would be something very dynamic with working with Bill and with these companies.
How has your role changed since the acquisition?
How we handle our campaigns [and] how we shape our roster are entirely up to us. I’m still bringing in clients, but at the same time, I’m devoting a lot of energy building collaboration within the companies right now, figuring out how we can work together and how our artists can benefit from their clients and vice versa.
Does a positive album review still matter at a time when everyone on social media can weigh in?
Holy cow. I remember when every campaign you had to get a review in Stereo Review and High Fidelity. A great review or an appearance on a morning or latenight TV show are still goals, but nowadays, we’re also putting together ideas for promotional events and partnerships. We call publicists “storytellers” nowadays and maybe that seems like a funny term, but by creating opportunities for artists to be seen at events or creating partnerships, you’re also telling their story.
Speaking of telling stories: Shore Fire differentiates itself from other PR companies by generating intriguing storylines on pitches, like, “This ambient artist gave NFL star Aaron Rodgers tips for his dark retreat.” [Shore Fire used this subject line recently in a pitch for artist East Forest.] How do those come about?
We have a Slack channel devoted entirely to subject lines. We frequently will put subject lines up to a vote, and we share success stories because it’s very competitive getting your message out there. Our success with artists is built over the course of months, but you can only build a story if people are paying attention.
This story will appear in the Aug. 26, 2023, issue of Billboard.
Kids’ audio platform Yoto, which is behind the screen-free Yoto Player and Yoto Mini, signed an industry-first agreement with Universal Music Group (UMG) to bring music titles and artists from its labels and catalogs to the platform for the first time. Founded by Ben Drury and Filip Denker, Yoto allows children to access music without being exposed to advertising or unsuitable content. The UMG partnership kicked off this month with the launch of Queen’s Greatest Hits: Volume 1 as a “Yoto Card.” That will be followed in the coming months by releases from artists like Bob Marley & the Wailers and labels including Motown Records and Disney Music Group. The Queen cards will be available on Yoto webstores in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and the European Union; Yoto Amazon stores in the United States, United Kingdom and Canada; and the Queen online store.
Round Hill Music acquired Linus Entertainment, the Canadian independent music company that includes the recording and publishing catalogs of Borealis Records, Mummy Dust Music, Solid Gold Records, Stony Plain Records, The Children’s Group and True North Records, as well as the distribution company Independent Digital Licensing Agency Inc (IDLA). The acquisition encompasses over 3,000 songs and more than 20,000 master recordings. It includes recordings from Buffy Sainte-Marie, Gordon Lightfoot and Taj Mahal, among many others.
Reservoir Media and PopArabia jointly acquired the catalog of Cairo-based content production and distribution company RE Media, encompassing sub-labels Moseeqa and Moseeqa TV and several of RE Media’s owned and operated YouTube channels. The acquisition includes more than 6,000 recordings and compositions from artists such as Amr Diab, George Wassouf, Dalida and Mohamed Mounir. Reservoir and PopArabia additionally acquired the master and publishing rights for the catalog of Egyptian rap duo El Sawareekh.
Timbaland acquired a stake in lifestyle and vinyl brand 12on12, where he will serve as a strategic partner and curator. According to a press release, 12on12 allows “cultural icons” to curate soundtracks of 12 songs “that have inspired, affected and influenced them,” which are then pressed on 12″ vinyl. Timbaland is currently working on his own 12on12 release that will drop at the beginning of next year. His Verzuz partner Swizz Beatz previously acquired a stake in the company in February 2022; since then, 12on12 has expanded into releasing limited edition fine art prints and lifestyle pieces featuring co-curators’ artwork. The company has already collaborated with Run DMC, Swizz Beatz and Travis Scott x Saint Laurent, among others.
Apple Podcasts added several new hosting providers that will support Delegated Delivery, which allows creators to publish subscriber episodes directly from their participating hosting provider dashboard. The new partners are Audiomeans, Captivate, Podbean, Podspace and Transistor, all of which will support Delegated Delivery by the end of 2023. Elsewhere, the company revealed an exclusive integration with Linkfire, which is expanding into podcasting this fall with a toolkit built specifically for podcasters. Using that toolkit, podcasters on Apple Podcasts will have the ability to generate an unlimited number of smart links with landing pages for their podcasts and measure how listeners engage with them using the Linkfire Insights dashboard.
The Salzburg Festival is making its operas, orchestral concerts, lieder recitals and chamber music exclusively available on the recently launched Apple Music Classical streaming platform. More than 100 such recordings are already available at launch.
Matthew Berry‘s fantasy sports and sports betting media company FantasyLife closed a $2 million dollar friends and family round from investors including John Legend, YouTube co-founder/former CEO Chad Hurley and Wasserman Media Group chairman/CEO Casey Wasserman, among many others. Hurley, Wasserman and The SpringHill Company co-founder/CEO Maverick Carter (also an investor, with LeBron James’ LRMR Ventures) will also join the FantasyLife advisory board. Fantasy Life additionally announced new partnerships with brands including Epic Seats, Webex by Cisco and Buffalo Wild Wings.
Believe‘s global dance and electronic imprint b:electronic signed Berlin-based house and techno label mobilee records and Feathers & Bones, the new label from electronic artist Rodriguez Jr.
The Bruce Springsteen Archives and Center for American Music at Monmouth University and E Street Band guitarist Steve Van Zandt’s TeachRock education program announced they would team up to help teachers bring American popular music into the curriculums of classrooms across the United States. Future collaborations will include teacher workshops, student internships, seminars and conferences, curriculum development and joint research activities. The efforts between the two organizations will begin at Asbury Park Middle School and High Schools in New Jersey with the Harmony Student Wellness Program, which uses “popular music as a springboard” for lessons around self-awareness, self-management, relationship skills, responsible decision-making and social awareness, according to the TeachRock website.
Absolute Label Services partnered with Prestige Management for the release of Busted’s forthcoming Greatest Hits 2.0 compilation. Absolute will provide a range of services for the release, including distribution, marketing and project management. The album compiles newly-recorded versions of all of Busted’s biggest hits, fan favorites and live staples, with deluxe formats featuring a number of previously unreleased collaborations with artists including McFly, James Arthur, You Me At Six, The Vamps, Bowling For Soup, Dashboard Confessional, Deaf Havana, Wheatus and Charlotte Sands.
SYDNEY, Australia — A new chapter unfolds for Australia’s music community with the activation of Creative Australia, the centerpiece of the federal government’s National Cultural Policy, Revive, which its architects hope will turn Australia into a music powerhouse.
On Thursday (Aug. 24), as the Creative Australia Act 2023 came into effect, federal minister for the arts Tony Burke officially unveiled Creative Australia and its new board, led by chairman Robert Morgan and deputy chair Wesley Enoch.
Creative Australia is an expanded and modernized Australia Council for the Arts which, Burke says, “will bring the drive, direction and vision that Australian artists have been calling out for.”
The government agency’s CEO Adrian Collette will chair the newly-appointed Music Australia council, an eight-strong board of artists and music industry experts, which includes legendary concerts promoter Michael Chugg and was unveiled earlier in the week.
“Pleasingly,” comments Evelyn Richardson, CEO of Live Performance Australia, “Creative Australia comes to life with the restoration of funding that was lost under the previous government’s budget cuts in 2014, as well as new initiatives such as Music Australia and Creative Workplaces.”
To fully “realize its ambition and promise,” she continues, “it will be important that current and future governments are committed to greater investment in our cultural and creative industries through Creative Australia.”
The music industry has long advocated for a new body to help Australia’s commercial music sector reach new heights at home and abroad.
When Anthony Albanese’s center-left Labor government was formed in 2022, ending the nine-year administration of the center-right Liberal Party, hope turned to action.
In the months that followed the federal election, Burke welcomed key representative bodies of the Australian contemporary music industry leaders to consult on the policy, from which Revive was shaped.
In January, prime minister Albanese presented Revive to the industry and the public, and with it, the promise of a new Music Australia, a reimagined national music development agency that would support and invest in the development of Australian contemporary music.
The policy is an ambitious year-long action plan, structured around five interconnected pillars and underpinned by a commitment for new, additional investment totaling A$286 million (US$202 million) — record levels of arts funding. Music Australia alone is funded to the tune of A$69 million ($44 million) over four years.
The establishment of Music Australia is a “landmark moment for Australia’s music industry,” says Dean Ormston, CEO of APRA AMCOS. “It represents for the first time in the nation’s history that we have had a long-term commitment from government to work in partnership with industry to make Australia a music powerhouse,” he adds.
“We look forward to working with Music Australia chair and Creative Australia CEO Adrian Collette and the rest of the council to fully realize the cultural, economic and social benefits of a vibrant, healthy and sustainable music industry accessible to all Australians, and the world.”
The Creative Australia Bill, which lays the legal framework for the existence of Music Australia, passed parliament and was enshrined into law in June. Today’s development was a formality, but an important one.
“Now it all comes down to execution,” comments ARIA and PPCA CEO Annabelle Herd. “Now is the time to think big, consult wide, and deliver the solutions that Australian recording artists and industry professionals deserve; restoring the infrastructure to help them achieve sustainable careers at home and providing a greater platform for them to reach new audiences by cutting through an increasingly saturated market.”
Australia’s contemporary music industry, she continues, “is an incredible incubator for world-class talent. But for the world to discover that talent, we need the right strategic support and investment. There’s no time to waste.”
Work is “already underway” to establish Music Australia and Creative Workplaces within Creative Australia, reads a statement from the Creative Australia office.
In 2024, the inaugural First Nations-led board will be established, building on the Australia Council’s 50-year history of investment in First Nations Arts and Culture. And in 2025, Writers Australia will be established.
Read the full National Cultural Policy here.
Music Australia Council:Fred Alale, co-founder and chair of African Music and Cultural Festivals Inc.Lisa Baker, manager of creative cultural development, City of PlayfordDanielle Caruana (Mama Kin), artist and founder/director of The Seed FundMichael Chugg, founder of Chugg EntertainmentPetrina Convey, owner and director of UNITY. MgmtFred Leone, artistNathan McLay, CEO of Future ClassicDr Sophie Payten (Gordi), artist
Australia Council Board of Creative Australia:Adrian Collette AMRobert Morgan (Chair)Wesley Enoch AM (Deputy Chair)Rosheen GarnonStephen FoundChristine Simpson Stokes AMPhilip WatkinsAlexandra DimosCaroline BowditchCourtney StewartKitty TaylorLindy LeeCaroline WoodAmanda Jackes
In two weeks, Oliver Anthony went from an unknown artist to the owner of the No. 1 track on the Hot 100 chart with the surprise hit “Rich Men North of Richmond” — and in the process went from earning less than $200 in weekly royalties to roughly $356,000 in his chart-topping week.
“Rich Men North of Richmond” generated an estimated $218,000 in royalties for both recorded music and music publishing from track purchases and on-demand audio streams in the week ended Aug. 17, Billboard estimates based on Luminate data. And because he owns his master – released through digital distributor Vydia – and publishing, Anthony will pocket all that money. The track, released through digital distributor Vydia, generated 147,000 track sales and 17.5 million audio on-demand streams over that time period. Luminate did not track any on-demand video streams for the recording. The track also earned Anthony a small amount of publishing royalties from 517 spins at radio.
After the unlikely, whirlwind week in America’s spotlight, Anthony’s long list of accomplishments include the first artist to debut a first Hot 100 chart entry at No. 1; No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs charts; the 23rd song to top both the Hot 100 and Hot Country Songs charts simultaneously (and the first to do so by a solo male); the first solo-written Hot 100 No. 1 since Glass Animals’ “Heat Waves” in March and April 2022; and a rare independently released recording to reach No. 1 on the Hot 100.
The intense interest in “Rich Men North From Richmond” — it instantly found favor in conservative political circles and became a cultural lightning rod among liberals — bled over to the other 18 individually released tracks in Anthony’s catalog and generated an additional $139,000 from 73,000 track sales, 14.8 million audio on-demand streams, 658,000 on-demand video streams and 65,000 programmed audio streams. Anthony had four of the week’s top 10 track downloads: “Ain’t Got a Dollar” was a distant No. 2, “I’ve Got to Get Sober” was No. 5 and “I Want to Go Home” was No. 10. (Strong download sales also put “Ain’t Got a Dollar” and “I’ve Got to Get Sober” onto the Hot Country Songs chart.) In all, Anthony had 16 of the top 100 track downloads in the country last week.
Country music took the top three spots on the Hot 100 but took different routes to get there. Track purchases was the deciding factor in “Rich Men North of Richmond” beating out Luke Combs’ “Fast Car” and Morgan Wallen’s “Last Night.” “Fast Car” had just 10,000 track purchases, 7% as many as “Rich Men North of Richmond,” but its radio audience of 101.7 million was more than 100 times more than the 937,000 achieved by “Rich Men North of Richmond.” Combs’ “Last Night” had the most on-demand audio streams of the trio — 20.5 million to 17.5 million for “Rich Men North of Richmond” and 16.4 million for “Fast Car” — but the fewest track purchases with 6,000 and a radio audience — 70.5 million — about 69% the size the audience of “Fast Car.”
Daily data suggests Anthony’s hot streak will continue. This week’s track purchases of “Rich Men North of Richmond” may decline from last week but through the first two days of the tracking week purchased enough to likely give Anthony the top download for a second consecutive week. And with radio programmers following the lead of consumer purchases and streams, this week’s broadcast radio spins will easily top last week’s count. That’ll all mean more money for the independent artist — and plenty of leverage as he considers offers coming in from major labels “rushing” to sign him.
Grammy-winning songwriting/production duo Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis first met Clarence Avant — who died Aug. 13 at age 92 — in the summer of 1982 when they wrote a song for his Tabu Records act, The S.O.S. Band. They famously went on to work with A&M artist Janet Jackson, for whom they produced the blockbuster 1986 album, Control, and its 1989 follow-up, Rhythm Nation 1814, among others.
The hitmakers paid tribute to Avant in an interview.
Jam: We wrote “High Hopes” for The S.O.S. Band. But we didn’t produce it. When we met with Clarence, we told him that. And he was like, “Well if you were to produce it, what would it sound like?” So we played him a demo of the song and he loved it.
Lewis: Yeah, we told him that we would have put the chili sauce on it. He cracked up; he really loved that comment.
Jam: I didn’t know a whole lot about Clarence before that meeting. But my first impression is of him making me laugh because he called us two thugs: “Who are these two thugs coming in here?” He’d get on a phone call and be cussing everybody out. He was just a character, so funny. It was like being in a movie: two kids from Minneapolis sitting in suits and hats in 90-degree weather, here in L.A.’s high-powered music scene. We were a hilarious anomaly to him.
Lewis: He was definitely funny and animated. But I knew he was shrewd and smart by the way he conducted the meeting; it was so comfortable and easy. It was different from other meetings we’d had with people wanting to hire us. But what really struck me is when Clarence talked to us by himself, without our manager. And he told us, “You motherfuckers need to learn to count. In order to make things happen the right way, you’re going to need this and that.” When he gave us more than we’d asked for, it established a whole new paradigm for me. He helped us reevaluate and understand what our value was. He put the official rubber stamp on it.
Jam: I’m glad his story got told in the Netflix documentary The Black Godfather. It only scratches the surface of Clarence’s greatness and influence. It should be required viewing as there will never be another Clarence in the singular sense. But there will be from all the seeds that he planted: a bunch of people with Clarence characteristics that will power positive growth across entertainment and other areas.
Lewis: Coming up through the ranks, fighting for everyone’s diversity and equity, it was important for Clarence to teach. His obsession was to do the right thing and force people who didn’t to do the right thing. That was what Clarence was always about. He was never about the rewards in it. I think Clarence was definitely pleased with his life. He had a beautiful wife and beautiful kids. He created some beautiful music as a label owner; inspired and crafted some beautiful deals. How could he not feel good about that? All we really have at the end of the day is our relationships. The one way that you can judge a person is by their relationships. And Clarence touched so many people in a beautiful way. Whether they were record company owners, presidents or executives, artists, politicians or just regular people. He touched everyone in a positive way.
Jam: One of the things we always tried to remind him of, though, were the connections that he had made that then led to other things that he didn’t know about … we were able to connect the dots for him. Like, “Did you know this happened because of this thing that you did five years ago?” Because he was involved in so many things, he couldn’t keep track of everything that he had possibly done. But I totally agree that he felt very comfortable with what he had done [in his life]. There were just so many people and things that he affected.
Jam: Clarence and Jerry [Moss] were also really good friends. As partners [in A&M Records], Herb Alpert and Jerry were certainly a blueprint for Terry and myself. They started with a handshake like Terry and I did. I remember back around the Rhythm Nation days when there [were] a lot of crazy negotiations going on for us to do the record. Clarence called up Jerry and said let’s get this deal done. Give these guys a million dollars. And literally the next week, the deal was done and we were in the studio recording.
Lewis: Jerry was an incredible man. Both he and Clarence were part of an incredible era of human beings. But they live on through all of us.
Jam: Whenever we win an award, God would be the first person we thank. And the next person we thank would be Clarence Avant, who was the earthly god for us.
Lewis: There are no words that I could use to adequately express my personal feelings for Clarence. But I always do simply say he’s the greatest man I’ve ever known.
As Southern California braced for its first tropical storm in 84 years, Salt-N-Pepa’s Cheryl “Salt” James made history as the first female keynoter at the Guild of Music Supervisors’ (GMS) ninth annual State of Music in Media Conference (Aug. 19). Her invigorating speech fittingly kicked off the daylong event at The Los Angeles Film School in Hollywood.
In addition to a suite of panels celebrating the 50th anniversary of hip-hop, the conference schedule — a collaboration between GMS and L.A. Film School — was packed with sessions ranging from “Music Clearance 101” and “The Global Craft of Music Supervision: We Are Worldwide!” to “AI and the Art of Music Supervision: Finding Harmony in the Age of Automation” and “The Ethics of Music Supervising Projects That Tell Diverse Stories.” Among the host of industry participants and guests: rap pioneer/Public Enemy frontman Chuck D, Joel C. High of Creative Control Entertainment (a GMS founder and its outgoing president), Stax Records icon/Songwriter Hall of Famer David Porter, Format Entertainment’s Julia Michels, producer Steve Schnur (Star Wars Jedi: Survivor), Singularity Songs founder/president Andre Marsh and Cue the Creatives founder Qiana Conley Akinro.
Lindsay Wolfington and Joel C. High
Khalid Farqharson
Just before the keynote speech, the ongoing challenges facing music supervisors during the WGA/SAG-AFTRA strike were addressed by incoming GMS president Lindsay Wolfington and High. Speaking to the attendees, the pair referenced a page in the conference booklet featuring a list of resources for strike-impacted workers. The intro to the page said in part, “Music supervisors do not have a union and the AMPTP and Netflix continue to refuse to recognize a Music Supervisior union. We continue in our fight … and GMS fully supports this mission.”
It was also announced that Heather Guibert is the GMS board’s new vp.
Here are a few more highlights from GMS’ 2023 State of Music in Media Conference:
‘The Showstopper’
Walking onstage to rousing applause, James riffed on a phrase from the Salt-N-Pepa classic “Shoop” (“Here I go, here I go …”) then asked the audience a question. “Can we not call me the keynote speaker?” said a smiling James. “That makes me nervous. I just came here to talk to you.”
And that she did, taking the audience back to her growing up on Motown and jazz in Brooklyn. Then she heard The Sugarhill Gang on the radio in 1979. Before segueing into an impromptu audience rap-along to that group’s “Rapper’s Delight,” James said, “I fell in love even more [with the fledgling genre]. There was something about it that just grabbed me deep in my heart.”
After sharing milestones that the Grammy Award-winning group has achieved during its barrier-breaking 38-year career, starting with 1986 debut single “The Showstopper,” James noted, “I remember the question journalists used to ask in the beginning, ‘Will hip-hop last?’ Now we’re here 50 years later, growing from a novelty genre into a whole entire culture. Hip-hop started a whole movement from fashion, movies, politics and beyond to becoming the music of a generation. I would go so far as to say it’s actually shaping generations.”
Drawing a through line between hip-hop’s evolution and that of music supervision, James concluded her keynote by adding, “I know we all can relate to having good intentions and then possibly becoming jaded in our different vocations or callings. But when something is our calling and it gets hard, we have to just put one foot in front of the other and keep going because this is what we’re called to do.”
The Next 50
“The Global Impact of Hip-Hop: Passing the Torch for the Next 50 Years” was the first in the day’s quartet of sessions dedicated to the genre and the fact — as noted in the conference booklet — that “hip-hop has proven itself to be a soundscape for any genre of music and can be used to tell any story.” Kobalt Music Publishing’s senior vp of global creative Chris Lakey moderated this panel, orchestrating a conversation between artist Igmar Thomas, Peermusic Publishing vp of A&R Tuff Morgan, En Homage artist/producer Camille “Ill Camille” Davis and artist/educator Medusa aka The Gangsta Goddess.
Lakey questioned the panelists on a variety of subjects from their first inkling of hip-hop’s international reach beyond its Bronx birth to trends/hybrid sounds they’re seeing on the horizon. Asked to share some of the hottest areas they’re most excited about in terms of hip-hop’s evolving sound, the panelists shouted out locales such as Ghana, Nigeria, Johannesburg, London, Mexico City and Jamaica. “Every single piece of music that’s out today has undertones of hip-hop,” said Morgan. “It’s influenced every genre at this point.”
Global Impact of Hip Hop
Jay Farber
Medusa and Davis also advocated for more female presence in the hip-hop arena. “I definitely want there to be more reverence for female producers and MCs,” said Davis. “I want more women to experiment with the music. There are women that I revere, the same way that I revere [late hip-hop producer] J Dilla, who are constantly making music but you don’t hear about them. I would like more women to make DJ and MC collectives. I just want more of that energy where we take more ownership, and autonomy over the sound, the brand, the look; you feel us and see us in everything. I want more women in hip-hop to put their flag down.”
Lorrie Boula, Chuck D and Carol Dunn
Jay Farber
Rounding out the day’s quartet of hip-hop sessions: “Fight the Power: How Hip-Hop Changed the World” featuring Channel Zero.net co-founders Chuck D and Lorrie Boula with Human Worldwide’s Carol Dunn as moderator; “The Origins of Hip-Hop” featuring James, Berklee College of Music’s John Paul McGee, artist/Likwit Radio’s King T, Salamani Music’s Amani “Burt Blackarach” Smith and composer Jae Deal; and “The Golden Age of Hip-Hop: A Cultural Phenomena” with moderator/Moonbaby Media’s Angela “Moonbaby” Jollivette, television host/activist Ananda Lewis, veteran A&R executive Dante Ross, Universal Hip-Hop Museum OM/curator SenYon Kelly, DJESQ’s Paul Stewart and Rich + Tone Productions’ Rich & Tone Talauega.
Close-Up on Daisy Jones
One of the afternoon’s popular offerings was the session spotlighting the hit television series Daisy Jones & the Six, adapted from Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novel of the same name about a ‘70s band. The session centered on what’s involved in “preparing for successful on-camera performances” as outlined in the conference program. Moderator/music supervisor Amanda Krieg Thomas of Yay Team Inc. was joined by Daisy Jones’ music supervisor Frankie Pine of Whirly Girl Music and Lauren Neustadter, president of film & TV for Reese Witherspoon’s Hello Sunshine production company. Among the show’s nine 2023 Emmy Awards nominations are nods for outstanding limited or anthology series, outstanding music supervision and outstanding sound mixing.
Neustadter spoke first about the show’s origin and the challenge of doing on-camera performances. “My husband read the book and created the show. But we had no idea really of how to do a project that was music driven in the way that this is. But we also knew that we had carte blanche from Taylor. She said, ‘I’m excited for you guys to work with experts in the music field to actually bring the soundtrack and the different albums in the book to life on screen.”
So the next move was to bring in showrunner Will Graham. “We chose him for a bunch of reasons,” said Neustadter. “But one of them was he had worked on Mozart in the Jungle, so he knew how to do a show that had a huge music component. And the first person that Will introduced us to was Frankie.”
Picking up the story, Pine said, “The first thing that I did was put together a list of executive music producers that I thought would be right for the time period; to be able to give us that ‘70s vibe, but also not pigeonhole us too much into that world where these songs [can] kind of live outside of the ‘70s. After reading the book, the one thing I wanted … was for this to feel organic and real. I wanted everybody that watched it to think literally in their minds, ‘This band was in the ‘70s? I swear I missed this band.’”
Pine also shared a major lesson from her experience. “The sooner you can get [started] with an on-camera project the better. Because that gives you all kinds of time to curate and work not only on the music but to also take your time in assembling the right music team and giving your actors [enough] time. That really is the key to a successful run.”
Hired in March 2019, Pine initially wanted to spend four months with the actors. Then she and Neustadter received an unexpected extension when their April 2020 shoot start was delayed by the pandemic. So music lessons were done instead over Zoom. In addition to explaining the genesis of the on-camera performances in two show clips that were shown, Pine and Neustadter touched on several other topics such as Pine collaborating in the casting and writing process as well, mic tips and why trust is an important factor.
“What we witnessed was these actors becoming musicians and these musicians becoming a band,” said Neustadter. “It was totally awesome.” She also noted that Pine will be working with Hello Sunshine on two more productions, one of which is Run, Rose, Run. Starring Dolly Parton, the upcoming show is an adaption of the same-titled book by Parton and James Patterson. Parton also released a companion album to the book in 2022.
Morrison Hotel Gallery, the brick-and-mortar and online fine art music photography destination, is changing hands and looking to expand.
Original founders/owners iconic music photographer Henry Diltz, former music executive Peter Blachley and former music retailer Richard Horowitz started the gallery 22 years ago, and later were joined by noted photographer Timothy White. The quartet has sold MHG to private markets investor Grand Mountain Partners, former Sony and Amazon executive Adam Block and former Concord CEO Scott Pascucci for an undisclosed price.
Block will serve as the new CEO, while Pascucci will be executive chairman focused on strategy and development. Block was encouraged to take on the role after Pascucci, whom Block calls “the mastermind behind the acquisition,” told him their first order of business “’is make sure we do absolutely no harm,’” Block recounts. “’The foundation is solid. We want to see it continue to build and grow in the spirit that it’s existed for so long.’”
That answer resonated with Block, who was most recently global head of catalog music at Amazon Music, but is best known for his 25-year tenure at Sony Music Entertainment where he rose to president of catalog division Legacy Recordings. Under his guidance, Legacy amplified the prestige of icons such as Miles Davis, Michael Jackson, Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Elvis Presley, A Tribe Called Quest, and others.
At MHG, he sees the opportunity to do the same for some of the most legendary images in existence, including Bob Gruen’s 1974 shot of a cross-armed John Lennon in a sleeveless New York City t-shirt, Jim Marshall’s portrait of a defiant Johnny Cash flipping the bird, and, of course, Diltz’s Morrison Hotel album cover for the 1970 Doors LP.
Henry Diltz
“What these guys have been doing for 22 years is telling stories and celebrating the legacies of music, artists, photographers and art and it just felt like a real natural continuation of work that I’ve loved doing for most of my professional life,” Block says.
MHG operates retail locations at Los Angeles’ historic rock and roll hotel the Sunset Marquis and on Prince Street in New York’s Soho neighborhood. A third location at Mick Fleetwood’s restaurant and bar in Lahaina, Maui was destroyed in fires earlier this month.
“It’s absolutely our intention to remain in Maui,” Block says. “Beyond that and before that, we’re just trying to figure out how as extended members of that community we can be helpful.”
An immediate goal is to expand galleries into more cities with either permanent or pop-up locations, with an eye towards Nashville, Tokyo and Mexico City. “It’s part of a very rough roadmap that’s being sketched out now,” Block says. Mall locations have been ruled out. “It’s not my intention to see this become a cookie cutter mass market,” he continues. “Part of the beauty and success is the uniqueness of it from market to market.”
Block says there are also plans to expand MHG’s “relatively new” online business, which is “growing quite nicely. We see a huge upside there.” White, who will remain with MHG as creative director, will help develop a most robust website and online sales business. “The Morrison Hotel Gallery is a living testament to the power of music and the moments that define our culture. I am so excited to be a part of this next chapter under new stewardship, and the guidance and direction of Adam Block,” White said in a statement. “His visionary leadership and expertise will be instrumental in shaping the gallery’s future and continuing its enduring legacy. I’m excited to work alongside him as we continue to create an experience that resonates deeply with music fans and collectors across the globe.”
Marketing the gallery, the photographers and the work by enhanced storytelling is also an area for future development, Block says, including through a greater social media presence. “It’s making sure that the legacies of these photographers, the subject matter and the work itself continues to be celebrated,” he says.
Block also plans to add more photographers and areas of coverage. “Going forward, we’d like to continue to diversify both our roster and the subject matter that we’re offering,” he says, adding the gallery now features more than 120 photographers. “Morrison Hotel Gallery is and will always be the rock music gallery, but beyond that we’re seeing that our community and our customers are interested in music more than just rock music.”
To that end, both the New York and Los Angeles galleries currently feature exhibits celebrating the 50th anniversary of Hip-Hop, highlighting some of the most famous photos from the genre featuring Jay Z, Beastie Boys, Run DMC, Tupac and more.
“It’s exciting to me to have the opportunity to find ways to be more relevant to more people and celebrate more art that speaks to different kinds of people. I think there’s a huge upside to us,” Block says. “It’s really important that we become recognized as champions of younger photographers who are speaking to a different generation of potential customers. There’s a role that the gallery can play in encouraging and even accelerating some of that.”
Longtime National Public Radio (NPR) programming executive Anya Grundmann will leave the network after nearly 30 years, the media organization announced Monday (Aug. 21). Grundmann will step down from her post as senior vp of programming and audience development at the end of the year. “It’s been the best kind of roller coaster ride,” Grundmann […]