Lost Highway

Universal Music Group Nashville (UMGN) has relaunched Lost Highway Records in partnership with Oscar- and Grammy-winning songwriter/producer T Bone Burnett.
The first release from the new iteration isRingo Starr’s Burnett-produced country set Look Up, which was released last Friday (Jan. 10).

The revered label, which takes its name from the song made famous by Hank Williams, had been dormant since 2012 after being launched by then-UMGN head Luke Lewis in 2000.

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From the start, Lewis and his team curated a tasty roster focused on American-leaning music from artists including Willie Nelson, Lucinda Williams, Hayes Carll, Mary Gauthier and Lyle Lovett. It was also home to soundtracks, including the Burnett-produced, Grammy-winning O Brother Where Art Thou, Deadwood and Open Season.

Cindy Mabe had been interested in reactivating the imprint for quite some time, even before she ascended to the role of UMGN chairman/CEO in April 2023.

“It was always a mission that we were going to reopen Lost Highway,” Mabe says. “It just felt like something was missing from the marketplace. Lost Highway was 15 years before its time. Looking at what’s happening to music in general and people living for algorithms, you’re losing art, you’re losing stories.”

Other entities had approached her about using the name over the years, but she had kept it close, knowing the right time would come.

T Bone Burnett and Cindy Mabe

Chris Hollo

“None of those people felt like the right people to go into this because you either hold it at the regard of which Luke built it or you don’t redo it,” Mabe says. Then, when Burnett played her the Starr album, “It just hit me. I was like, ‘Hold on, full circle moment.’ O Brother was kind of where Lost Highway started. And he’s presenting this beautiful record and he was pouring all this joy that he had gotten from The Beatles back into Ringo. This is the mentality and this is where Lost Highway needs to be.”

Burnett, who is also known for his work with Bob Dylan, Elton John, Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, immediately loved the idea of joining forces. “I think it’s something that’s really needed at the moment,” he says. “There’s a need for an American music-focused record label that takes care of the good stuff.”

Though they aren’t ready to announce names, Burnett and Mabe say they have four or five artists they’re ready to work with, and they don’t discount that some of them may have a history with the label. Mabe says there are no plans to move any acts currently signed to other UMGN imprints to Lost Highway, which will remain a boutique label. Lost Highway will share some services with UMGN labels but will hire its own A&R, marketing and publicity staff.

“T Bone and I keep talking about the reason that we’re going to win is we’re going to put quality art back into the marketplace,” Mabe says. “It’s just missing. I’m not saying that there’s not some quality art out there, but it’s not always the goal. You don’t get artist development just by spinning the wheel and seeing how many ‘likes’ are out there. You actually have to make people feel something.”

Touring will be a big part of promoting the artists, as well as pairing them with producers who bring the same sensibility to the table. Additionally, Mabe says the film and TV component will remain a big part of the label and a way to bring attention to the roster.  “Can these artists have radio? They could,” Mabe says. “It’s not the intent. The intent is to put great back out there and find its way out. It’s not one specific way to market.”

Burnett, who will helm the label’s creative direction with Mabe, doesn’t have an official title yet, but adds, “I’m looking forward to the challenge. I feel like we’re in a really beautiful moment where traditional American music, American vernacular music, is ascendant in the culture.” He wants to curate a bespoke roster in the same legendary way that Mo Ostin and Lenny Waronker did at Warner Bros. in the ‘70s or Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun did at Atlantic Records in the ‘60s and ‘70s. “I want every artist to touch every other artist in some way so that it’s integrated as an esthetic,” Burnett says. “It’s not just commercial grabs from here and there, but it’s about people who play great and sing great and write great.”

By launching with Starr’s country album, Burnett says it sends the signal that Lost Highway is “not going to be constricted by somebody else’s definition of what American music is. When The Beatles came out, they were playing Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins. They were playing the canon of American music that everything since has grown out of,” he says. “We’re saying that this is going to be an inclusive label. It’s going to be what I call American music, which includes blues and rhythm & blues and country music and folk music and rock and roll music.

One of Mabe’s next steps is surveying the assets from Lost Highway’s first go-round. “We’re going to put out some of the catalog that’s existed before,” she says. “It’s taking shape. We’re looking at all the pieces that are going to put the lights back on.”