nashville
Page: 2
The results of the Greater Nashville 2024 Music Census were disclosed today during a press conference in downtown Nashville with many creatives and industry members voicing concerns surrounding the cost of living, low pay rates, opportunities for younger artists, and gender and racial disparities.
The census was produced by Sound Music Cities and surveyed the Greater Nashville region, which includes the 14 counties in and around Nashville. The census, held from March 1 – April 1, drew 4,256 respondents, with music creatives making up 61% of respondents, industry members making up 31% and venue/presenters making up 7% of respondents. In terms of musical genres, 28% of respondents work in country music, with other genres including American Roots (16%), rock (12%), pop (8%) and alternative (5%). Respondents from other genres including gospel/contemporary Christian, rap and R&B were less than 5% per genre. Industry category respondents primarily work as agents/business services (20%), marketing (14%), production support (13%) and music publishing (10%).
Respondents in the creative category noted that their primary concerns are “cost of living” (48%), followed by “pay rates not increasing” (38%) and “lack of music work” (26%). Creative respondents also noted that they spend an average of $13,559 annually on music-related expenses for a total of $58 million, with 52% of that money being spent locally.
Trending on Billboard
The majority of respondents noted that they have never received financial assistance (76%) and are most eager for tax incentives/relief. The census also noted that Davidson County respondents also struggle more with rent or mortgage (30%) versus respondents from other counties (20%). Davidson County respondents are also less likely to own their own home (59%) than respondents from other counties (75%). Additionally, 83% of respondents indicated they were concerned with low pay, while 65% found lack of benefits such as health insurance and retirement a challenge.
The census noted a need for greater representation of Black, African-American, Hispanic and other minority groups in local and independent music scenes. The census’s results showed that Nashville’s music ecosystem is made of primarily white/European persons (85%), which is higher than this segment in Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area’s general population (71%). Black, African and African-American representation is at 6%, lower than the Nashville MSA general population (14%). Hispanic representation in the Nashville music ecosystem is at 4%.
Men made up 61% of the Nashville music ecosystem across all census respondents, while women made up 37%. One percent of respondents preferred not to reveal their gender, while another one percent use a different term than male or female. Among industry members, women led at 55% of respondents, with men at 44%. The creative sector revealed the most stark disparity, with men at 71% and women at 26%.
The average household income for respondents is $93,000 annually, while respondents note that income direct from music-related work is, on average, $52,000 per year, per respondent.
Local performances and touring are the major sources of income for creative professionals at 27% and 20%, respectively. Recordings and studio work also offer supplemental income, with 27% of respondents earning some income from recordings and 25% from studio work. A little over a third of respondents noted they earn very little income from songwriting, while 23% reported that they earn some income from songwriting.
The nearly 300 venue/presenters respondents offered an average of 172 events per year, collectively offering over 26,000 annually. Most are live music venues (31%) or independent promoters (15%). Aid for independent venues was also identified as a key need, including increasing the number of local independent venues that book artists and providing financial/policy support for independent venues to purchase real estate (68% of live music venues rent their spaces) and avoid displacement due to rising property values, such as models used in Toronto and Sacramento.
In terms of efforts that would help creatives continue to stay in the Nashville area, 41% say that tax incentives/relief would be helpful, followed by 37% of respondents saying creative/music-friendly policies such as parking and loading zone policies would be helpful.
Also, work is needed to increase the pipeline for new talent and diverse genres. Increasing opportunities for talent ages 18-24, developing mentorship programs and platforms for younger artists, and increasing performance spaces/opportunities for various musical genres, as well as addressing gender imbalances within the independent music ecosystem, especially for creatives, and enhancing representation of Black, African-American, Hispanic and other minority groups in local and independent music scenes were all cited as much-needed solutions to attract new talent.
Among the other music-friendly cities in the Sound Music Cities cohort are Dallas, Chicago, Minneapolis, New Orleans and Chattanooga, Tenn.
For the full census results, visit greaternashvillemusiccensus.org.
The Tennessee Titans don’t appear on the NFL’s Sunday Night Football schedule for the entire 2024 season, though Nashville will still be well represented on the NBC telecast.
Not only is Middle Tennessee resident Carrie Underwood the voice and onscreen talent for the theme song, but the music for that high-profile opening — which has its season debut on Sept. 8 — is produced by Nashville’s Chris DeStefano (Chase Rice, Chris Young) using Music City musicians at the Soultrain Sound Studios (formerly Scruggs Sound) in the Berry Hill neighborhood.
It makes sense that the piece gets cut in Nashville — “Underwood, obviously, is one of the biggest determining factors,” SNF creative director Tripp Dixon says — though the recording’s origination in Music City is not particularly well known.
Trending on Billboard
NBC has, in fact, produced the theme in Nashville for well over a decade. It was already being cut at Starstruck on Music Row when Dixon began working on the theme in 2012, the last year that Faith Hill sang the iconic piece.
And DeStefano has become a key contributor as “Waiting All Day for Sunday Night,” adapted from Joan Jett‘s “I Hate Myself for Loving You,” undergoes an annual evolution within a narrow stylistic window. Its role is to energize home viewers for the last football game of the weekend; thus, a panoply of options is unavailable for the production. It’s a safe bet, for example, that SNF will never open with a slow jam.
“We really want to push that energy without going too far over the top,” DeStefano says.
“But,” he adds, “sometimes we need to go over the top.”
DeStefano landed the job initially because of his success as a songwriter. He’s penned several Underwood hits, including “Good Girl,” “Something in the Water” and “Somethin’ Bad,” a Miranda Lambert duet that emerged as the SNF theme for two years, beginning in 2016, after it was rewritten as “Oh, Sunday Night.” DeStefano was tapped to co-produce with Mark Bright (Underwood, Rascal Flatts), who had already been on the job for several years.
For one year, in 2018, NBC used “Game On” for the open before returning to “Waiting All Day.” Along the way, DeStefano became the sole producer, in part because of his multitude of skills. Co-writers have, for years, marveled at his ability to play multiple instruments and swiftly maneuver plug-in technology to create demos on the fly during sessions. As a one-man shop, he’s able to assist the NBC team in finding a new musical framework each year, develop the demo on his own, then oversee the production when the network executives descend on Nashville for the recordings each summer. It’s a foundational role in the ultimate SNF product.
“A lot of this process does start with the music,” Dixon says. ” ‘Waiting All Day’ has kind of been the bedrock of this piece since the beginning, but I think each one of these successive new arrangements has, in turn, influenced what we do visually. It starts with that musical discussion.”
Those first discussions, DeStefano says, took place last December, when the playoffs were still in flux and Nashvillians were grousing about the Titans’ decline. By January, he was already creating a core demo for the 2024 theme, playing — or programming — all the instruments and recording vocals that would later provide a guide for Underwood, who jointly approves the final creative direction of the package with NBC Sports.
This year, his production experience came into play as he suggested restructuring the theme. It has traditionally started with two verses after a short intro, but DeStefano suggested leading with the chorus, allowing some new dynamic changes. That move alters the peak energy points in the 90-second production, changing the placement of some of the strongest action onscreen.
In the end, artists who’ve played on numerous country hits — such as drummers Nir Z and Miles McPherson, guitarist Rob McNelley and bassist Tim Marks — have been tapped to turn DeStefano’s demos into the master SNF recording. DeStefano still plays a part or two, particularly any tweaks that are necessary in postproduction.
The actual recording session requires plenty of preparation. Underwood invariably gets the basic vocal performance — the “generic,” as the team calls it internally — in a short number of takes. But the generic is only a fail-safe. Sections of the theme are rewritten to reflect the teams or players who will take the field each week, and NBC preps a volume of potential options to cover every scenario. They might, for example, throw in a reference to quarterback Dak Prescott for a Dallas Cowboys game, but they also record one or more backup options in case he’s injured when game day arrives.
Complicating the process, the NFL uses flex scheduling beginning in October, meaning the Sunday-night game could change in 14 of the season’s 18 weeks. They compile options to cover every scenario, and Underwood sings through them all in one massive session.
“I actually couldn’t even tell you how many iterations of the matchups there are,” DeStefano says. “There’s a lot. It’s like three typed pages, so there’s quite a bit, but it goes so fast, just because we get into the zone. Carrie’s in the zone, and everybody’s locked in. We just crush it.”
As a result, they avoid any need for a midseason overdub — even if the game gets changed during a flex week and features two teams whose biggest stars are out for the season.
In every one of those versions, it’s the Nashville music team’s job to get the viewers excited.
“It’s got to still make people turn their heads,” DeStefano says. “If they’re at a bar and it’s loud, there’s still got to be that element of ‘Oh, wait. What’s happening? I got to watch this.’”
Subscribe to Billboard Country Update, the industry’s must-have source for news, charts, analysis and features. Sign up for free delivery every weekend.
Dierks Bentley held court at Nashville’s Bridgestone Arena, calling the 20,000-seat venue “the biggest honky tonk on Lower Broadway.” He should know—he’s played many of Nashville’s tiny clubs early in his career, perhaps most notably the iconic bluegrass room The Station Inn, cultivating his mix of country, rock and bluegrass-tinged music, before breaking through with his 2003 debut single “What Was I Thinkin’.”
His comparison with Lower Broadway’s ever-growing slate of honky-tonks (including his own Whiskey Row, which opened in 2018) was apt, as the evening was filled with many of the hallmarks of any number of club-sized venues dotting downtown Nashville, including guest artists dropping by, ‘90s cover songs aplenty and even some karaoke moments.
Two decades into his career, Bentley has earned 18 Billboard Country Airplay No. 1s and 15 Grammy nominations. Veering along country music’s sonic sweep of sounds, encompassing rock, ‘90s and 2000s country and rock, and bluegrass, Bentley offered hits including “I Hold On,” “A Lot of Leavin’ Left to Do,” “5150,” “What Was I Thinkin’,” “Black,” and “Livin’.”
“My hope for the show is that you find a moment where you feel like you’re living,” Bentley told the crowd.
He’s also forged a concert style that blends hits, a genuine onstage ebullience that easily outpaces many of today’s newcomers, and intentional audience engagement (such as bringing one fan onstage for a beer-chugging challenge and offering another fan a karaoke moment). Bentley’s crack band, including Charlie Worsham, Ben Helson, Tim Sergent, Steve Misamore, and Cassady Feasby, provide a perfect foil for Bentley, not only musically, but they easily match his often goofball humor, such as their humorous, hockey-themed band intro video and when Bentley repeatedly jumped in front of bandmate Worsham during Worsham’s take on Garth Brooks’ “Callin’ Baton Rouge.”
The wide range of music in Bentley’s show–gobs of ’90s country covers, Bentley’s own two decades of 2000s hits and music from many of today’s buzziest newcomers–chronicled the evolution of country music’s soundscape.
Opening for Bentley was Bluegrass/Americana newcomer Bella White, who offered up songs from her album Among Other Things, including songs about fizzled relationships (“Break My Heart”) and dirtbag men (“Marilyn”), as well as a sterling version of Lucinda Williams’ “Concrete and Barbed Wire.,” which drew devoted applause from the concert’s early arrivals.
Meanwhile, fellow opener Chase Rice offered up a set filled with personal meaning for the singer-songwriter. The acoustic guitar he played was one his father had given him when Rice first started learning music. Noting that his father died two years after he was given the guitar, he honored his father’s memory by performing one of the first songs he played for his dad, John Denver’s “Take Me Home, Country Roads.” Rice was first known as a songwriter, contributing to the Florida Georgia Line’s “Cruise,” before he notched his own pop-country hits including “Ready Set Roll” and “Eyes on You.” He included all of those in his Bridgestone set, but best highlighting his talents were his newer songs, such as “Haw River,” that will be on his new album Goin’ Down Singin’ (out Sept. 20), showcasing his more roots-leaning, rawer sound and matured songwriting.
In his own set, Bentley welcomed The Red Clay Strays lead singer Brandon Coleman, as well as country singer-songwriter Zach Top.
Here, we look at 5 top moments:
Dierks Bentley’s Decade-Old Hit Still Resonates
Blake Shelton and his longtime label home of two decades, Warner Music Nashville, have parted ways. Beginning with his 2001 debut, five-week No. 1 Country Airplay single “Austin,” Oklahoma native Shelton has gone on to notch 28 No. 1 Country Airplay hits, including “All About Tonight,” “Honey Bee” and “Some Beach.” He’s won 10 CMA […]
Porter Wagoner‘s golden, rhinestone-crusted bootsand intricately stitched wagon-wheel cuffs provide some showbiz flash for the cover.
But inside photographer Ed Rode‘s coffee-table book Songwriter Musician: Behind the Curtain With Nashville’s Iconic Storytellers and Players, a series of static images captures a raw sense of dozens of creators affiliated with Music City.
The Chicks make goofy faces for the camera, informal Luke Bryan plays guitar with his shoe scuffing a couch, Dolly Parton gets lost in personal nostalgia, Dierks Bentley strikes a pose next to the mud-covered pickup that brought him to Nashville, and George Strait flashes a smile under a blue clear sky, though his eyes suggest a bit of sorrow or weariness.
People operate in a dynamic world, and through constant movement, convey multiple feelings at a time. When they reveal a little more than intended, a shift in expression or a gesture can cover the deep emotions when they rise to the surface. But a still photo, taken at the right moment, can capture a fleeting window to something intangible in the subject that might have been perceptible for a millisecond.
Given the emotional disposition at the heart of music, Rode’s portraits bring depth to a range of familiar artists and not-so-public songwriters and musicians. Self-published Aug. 20 by Ed Rode Photography, Songwriter Musician is more than 30 years in the making, drawing on the thousands of music-related photos he’s accumulated since moving to Nashville in 1990.
Trending on Billboard
“The way I like to shoot photos — as a photojournalist, as a documentary photographer — is capturing moments, capturing people as they are, trying to reveal personalities, trying to really tell a story,” Rode says. “I want to tell a story with one photo.”
Writing about music, it’s been said, is like dancing about architecture — words can never fully capture the pitch of an A-flat or the snarl of a Telecaster. Likewise, a photo can’t convey the spiritual tone of a scintillating mandolin or the raucous volume of an amped-up honky-tonk. But Rode’s photo of bluegrass icon Bill Monroe, leaning against a tree as he plucked his Gibson F-5 Master, provides a sense of Monroe’s relationship to his instrument. And a two-page spread of Keith Urban and Steven Tyler jamming in front of a packed house at Tootsie’s Orchid Lounge captures the exuberance in the room, even if the page itself is silent.
Rode relates to the joy in the Urban-Tyler club collaboration and to the necessity that drove Monroe to play for 10 minutes impromptu for an audience of one in a Tennessee field.
“When he started playing, it was [like] breathing,” Rode says. “That’s the way I feel. I wake up every morning and I want to pick up a camera, I want to go make a photo. I want to capture a moment that won’t be repeated again. I dream about it. To me, I’m the luckiest SOB in the world. I do something that I absolutely love.”
Rode’s younger years set him on a path that’s obvious in hindsight. He grew up in a Midwestern home where Chet Atkins and The Beatles were frequently on the turntable. He had an affinity for drumming that ticked off his teachers and his Catholic-school principal, who was able to monitor classes from his office.
“I would be there banging the heck out of the desk,” he remembers, “and over the loud speaker, I’d get, ‘Rode, stop drumming.’ And to me, that was like fuel.”
He apprenticed at The Grand Rapids Press in Michigan, learning his craft while shooting photos at rock concerts, car wrecks, political speeches and basketball games. Shortly after accepting a job at The Nashville Banner in 1990, he got an assignment to cover a No. 1 party, where he met Atkins, the same guy whose albums were part of his childhood soundtrack. Atkins took a liking to Rode and had him over to his Music Row office a number of times. And, as Rode got enmeshed in the city’s creative community, Atkins encouraged him to think about doing some sort of documentary on Nashville’s songwriters and musicians.
Within a few years, Rode went freelance, shooting album covers, Music Row parties and concerts, and he built a significant catalog of candid shots and official portraits. He pitched the coffee-table book to publishers periodically, but never got a bite. Finally, with the aid of several investors, he designed and released the book on his own, uncertain of its commercial value but convinced of its historical importance. It captures plenty of familiar faces — Taylor Swift, Willie Nelson, Loretta Lynn and Chris Stapleton, just for starters — but also features a number of “insiders,” including songwriter Bob McDill (“Good Ole Boys Like Me,” “Amanda”), guitarist Mike Henderson, songwriter Dennis Morgan (“Smoky Mountain Rain,” “River of Love”) and producer Chris DeStefano (Chris Young, Chase Rice).
Rode holds an affinity for his subjects’ work.
“I feel like we both start with blank slates,” he explains. “Back in the day, you put a blank roll of film up and you’d shoot. You start with nothing. And when you’re writing a song, you got a piece of paper in front of you and a pencil or whatever and you start with nothing, and then out comes something. And I kind of felt that kinship a little bit.”
Rode is selling Songwriter Musician from his website, but even though his 30-year project is complete, the work is not.
“I haven’t stopped shooting songwriters,” he says. “The day I step off this earth, you can probably call my career done. But up until then, it’s really easy to pick up that camera and carry it with me everywhere I go.”
Subscribe to Billboard Country Update, the industry’s must-have source for news, charts, analysis and features. Sign up for free delivery every weekend.
Twenty-five years ago, singer-songwriter Shelby Lynne was done making her way through Nashville’s Music Row system. She’d released her first album, Sunrise, a country project produced by Bob Montgomery and Billy Sherrill, in 1989. Her sophomore album, Tough All Over, spurred top 30 Country Airplay singles with the title track and “I’ll Lie Myself to Sleep.” Lynne began contributing writing on her fourth and fifth albums, but longed for creative freedom.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Then, she made the career-shifting decision to move from Nashville to California, crafting her liberating 2000 project I Am Shelby Lynne which perhaps served as her true debut. The album marked her foray from country into soul and R&B, with her commanding vocal and writing perspectives shining through every track. I Am propelled her to win new artist of the year at the 2001 Grammys, and marked her first project to debut on the Billboard 200.
Trending on Billboard
This year sees the celebration of I Am Shelby Lynne’s silver anniversary, celebrated through the re-release of the project’s vinyl and digital versions. As her decampment from Nashville to California propelled her breakthrough those years ago, Lynne’s return to Music City two years ago has heralded her latest reinvention — as she also releases her ninth studio album, Consequences of the Crown, which arrived Aug. 16 via Monument Records. The album marks her first since 2021’s The Servant.
After living in California for the better part of three decades, Lynne relocated back to Nashville to live closer to her sister, fellow singer-songwriter Allison Moorer, and to her nephew.
“I just wanted to get back to the South after all that time,” Lynne tells Billboard, noting songwriting — not recording — was her primary goal. “My original plan was to scooch into Nashville real quiet and find me some folks to write some songs.”
But Nashville’s creative community ultimately had other plans. Her friend Waylon Payne offered to introduce her back into Nashville’s writing circles. The first person Payne brought over was Ashley Monroe. “We were instantly drawn to each other and actually wrote a couple of songs on the first day,” Lynne recalls.
From there, her community of collaborators kept expanding, with Monroe bringing her Pistol Annies cohorts Angaleena Presley and Miranda Lambert — and soon, Little Big Town’s Karen Fairchild was brought into the fold. It was Fairchild who set Consequences of the Crown into motion, first becoming Lynne’s manager and then encouraging her to record the album and landing Lynne a deal with Monument Records.
“She’s just an amazing woman,” Lynne shares. “Karen said, ‘Well, we need a new record from you,’ and I was like, ‘Oh, no. I think that part of my career… I think I’m done. I just want to write songs.’ But she made some calls and Katie McCartney at Monument [Records] said, ‘Let’s make a record.’ So here I am.”
[embedded content]
Lynne began those writing sessions last Spring, with the deal with Monument happening in August. When it came time to record the album, the all-woman creative collective naturally fell together: Lynne, Fairchild, Monroe and engineer Gena Johnson.
“We found ourselves in there together, and we just decided we’d go four ways on this thing,” Lynne says. “We met when the four of us could meet, because we found that we would never work without the four of us together, because it just didn’t feel right. The songs we were writing were good songs. I’d look around my living room and see these amazing, talented people. I felt loved and kind of taken in.”
The album’s pop-fused, yet stripped-back instrumentation, features Lynne not only on vocals, but on bass, acoustic and electric guitar, percussion, and drums. Monroe played a range of instruments including keys, piano, organ and acoustic guitar, while Fairchild contributed percussion and background vocals, with Johnson also handling percussion and programming. Also on the project is Eleonore Denig on strings, while Lynne’s sister Moorer offers background vocals.
Monroe is a co-writer on all but one of the songs on the album, with Fairchild contributing to five of the songs. Other writer credits scattered throughout the project include Payne (“Keep the Light On”) and Presley (“Keep the Light On,” “Over and Over”), as well as Meg McRee, Carter Faith and Jedd Hughes.
In the process, Lynne found a camaraderie and safe space for free-flowing collaboration and emotional excavation. Music led the way in the studio, leaving room for unexpected twists and turns, spoken-word moments, vocal howls and sonic shifts. The new album also nods to the work of I Am Shelby Lynne, as “But I Ain’t” interpolates “Dreamsome” from that seminal album — another mark of that impulsive studio vibe.
“When I’m on the mic and I’m hearing the music, letting things happen, it just kind of fell down because it was so real and we had to keep it,” Lynne says.
The album opens with “Truth We Know,” which Lynne calls “a sketch of words that I had written down right in the middle of my heart breaking.” Songs including “Shattered,” “Consequences” and “Over and Over” offer up the nuanced process of navigating a breakup and the work of healing and moving on.
[embedded content]
“It was a little bit devastating for me, and I was in a sad kind of a way,” Lynne says. “These songs are little chapters of the pain I was going through when I was breaking up with somebody, and I compare it to all of my crappy relationships, but they can fit in through all of the broken hearts that we’ve had.”
The Nashville Lynne has returned to has both changed and stayed the same. It’s notable that in that time, the Nashville country music scene has moved from the height of the “bro country” era dominated by hip-hop-inflected country songs recorded by white males, and the spark of “Tomatogate” that continues to see women artists fighting for a precious few slots on male-dominated mainstream country radio. Currently, traditional-leaning artists including Lainey Wilson and Cody Johnson are making waves, while as country audiences take to streaming, Americana and folk-oriented artists such as Zach Bryan, The Red Clay Strays, Tyler Childers and Allison Russell are surging, and Shaboozey’s genre-blending anthem “A Bar Song (Tipsy)” is dominating.
“Of course, Nashville’s grown into this huge city, so that’s different,” Lynne says of the changes she’s seen in Music City. “But the good old boy network still runs — it’s just another set of boys. So that exists.
However, Lynne, who is gay, also acknowledges that Nashville has changed in other important ways: “How can I put it? Queers have come in and we just f—king run everything. And so, Nashville has had to embrace all of the changes — and look at this eclectic group of people we have, like Allison Russell, Fancy Haygood… people that are saying, ‘I’m doing this.’
“I’m proud of musicians just taking over and saying, ‘F—k you. This is who I am. I’m country. Kiss my a–,’” she continues. “I don’t think genre really matters anymore, because everybody’s doing exactly whatever in the hell they want to do, musically. I love the variety, and the mixed bag of what country music truly is — I don’t listen to mainstream music much, but I guess they’re Americana artists.”
Consequences also serves as a potent reminder of Lynne’s own trailblazing, genre-blending ways, as she melded different styles long before it was the “in” thing to do — though she’s quick to recognize that fearless spirit in others, such as Beyoncé. Lynne is a fan of Beyoncé’s country-influenced Cowboy Carter, a project she calls “well done and brilliant. I couldn’t wait until it came out because I love her and I said, ‘This is not just a country album, but it’s an album for the country.’ It’s an uplifting, creative experience.”
Ahead, Lynne has select shows, including what is sure to be a homecoming of sorts at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium on Sept. 26. But for now, she’s celebrating the creative community that has formed around her, as she’s open to exploration on her next ventures.
“I’m still kind of blown away that everything happened the way it did, because it’s just proof that you don’t need to plan everything — just get out of the way,” she says.
[embedded content]
This time of year, Tony Brown is frequently reminded of his work with Elvis Presley.
On Aug. 16, 1977, he was at the Nashville Airport with several other Presley band members waiting for a plane that would take them to Portland, Maine, for a show. Instead, Colonel Tom Parker sent word that the tour was off and they should go home. In his car, Brown heard on the radio that Presley had died. If the DJ had teed up Presley’s then-current “Way Down,” Brown would have heard himself playing piano even as his world tipped over.
“My first thought was, ‘Now what am I going to do, man?’ ” Brown recalls. “ ‘I already spent the money I was going to make on that tour.’ ”
Brown’s doubts about his future were understandable, though with hindsight, they were temporary. He got a job in the RCA A&R department, and in a few short years, Brown led the MCA A&R department, where he became one of country’s leading creative figures, pushing the genre’s edge through his 1980s work with Steve Earle, Lyle Lovett and Nanci Griffith. He would also play a significant role in shaping ’90s country — still very much in vogue in 2024 — through his productions of Vince Gill, Wynonna, Reba McEntire and George Strait.
Trending on Billboard
The Academy of Country Music will recognize Brown’s influence on the format’s direction on Aug. 21, as he receives the ACM Icon Award during the ACM Honors at Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium. During the event, to be hosted by Carly Pearce and Jordan Davis, trophies will also be bestowed upon the likes of Lainey Wilson, Chris Stapleton, Luke Bryan, Trisha Yearwood and Alan Jackson.
“Getting this award just sort of gives me, I don’t know, credibility in my mind that I’m not an old-timer,” Brown confesses.
He is, to be certain, in a different part of his career. Working at a label, particularly before laptop technologies and the internet became dominant, provided an opportunity to be at the hub of the creative activity, and it fed the extroverted part of his personality.
“Everybody would come to your office to play songs, and even the artists would come to your office to listen to songs together,” he says. “Now you need to call them up and say, ‘Do you want me to come to your place to listen to songs? Are you going to come to my place?’ And they go, ‘Just send them to me.’ It’s a whole different dynamic, and I’m not used to that. I’m a face-to-face kind of guy.”
The North Carolina-bred keyboard player grew up in a gospel environment — his evangelist father forbade him from listening to secular music. Studying with a piano teacher in Louisiana one summer as a teenager, he got introduced to country — particularly through Ray Charles’ Modern Sounds in Country and Western Music — and pursued that direction professionally. He played piano with Presley, The Oak Ridge Boys, Emmylou Harris and Rodney Crowell’s Cherry Bombs, and ultimately landed on Music Row, where his gospel background applied nicely. Gospel is a format defined by the words more than the sound, and Brown was keenly focused on lyrics as he signed singer-songwriters and picked material for his production clients. He frequently demanded song pluggers supply lyric sheets when they pitched material.
“I love the melodies,” he says, “but I really follow the lyric.”
Brown’s impressive rèsumè includes, just for starters, Crowell’s Diamonds & Dirt, Stapleton’s “What Are You Listening To?,” Wynonna’s “No One Else on Earth,” Yearwood’s “How Do I Live,” Gill’s “I Still Believe in You,” Strait’s “Blue Clear Sky,” David Lee Murphy’s“Dust on the Bottle,” Chely Wright’s“Single White Female,” Gary Allan’s“Smoke Rings in the Dark,” Steve Wariner’s“The Weekend,” Sara Evans’“A Little Bit Stronger” and Brooks & Dunn’s “Believe,” which infused Brown’s gospel history in both its sound and its lyric.
“I still cry, man,” Brown says of the recording. “It just makes me cry.”
But McEntire’s “Fancy,” he suggests, is probably the most famous of his productions. More than 30 years after its debut, its swampy tone — enhanced by Steve Gibson’sslide guitar — still feels current.
“Just before he walked out of the studio, he said, ‘Hey, let me put some slide Mac Gayden kind of thing on there,’ ” Brown notes. “It was kind of like an afterthought overdub. He put it on there, and it gives it that snaky kind of Deep South, snake-oil thing.”
Brown survived a horrific ordeal in April 2003, suffering a head injury when he slipped at a Santa Monica, Calif., restaurant. His mother died while he was hospitalized, and it left him with plenty to process as he began appearing in public again roughly two months later. He eventually discovered he was mired in depression.
“Depression is a strange thing — it’s hard to know you got it,” he says. “I didn’t realize it until I went to a therapist, and he figured it out. It’s nice to get out of it.”
Working in a freelance capacity, Brown admittedly doesn’t produce as many albums as he did at the height of his career, though he’s hardly finished. He oversaw a diverse-sounding 2023 album, Gaither Tribute: Award-Winning Artists Honor the Songs of Bill & Gloria Gaither, featuring Ronnie Dunn, Josh Turner, CeCe Winans and Jamey Johnson, among others. Brown also co-produced several of the tracks on Strait’s Cowboys and Dreamers, due Sept. 6, and he’s producing a portion of McEntire’s next project.
The ACM Icon Award is a welcome confirmation amid that renewed activity. The fear he had when the Presley gig came to a tragic halt isn’t much different from the uncertainties he still feels about his future as an independent contractor. When he was producing 13 albums a year, he took the work for granted. Now he has enough time between commitments to savor just how fortunate he has been — and to know he’s not ready to stop.
“I am totally pumped that this [award] popped up right now,” he says. “It’s a big deal.”
Subscribe to Billboard Country Update, the industry’s must-have source for news, charts, analysis and features. Sign up for free delivery every weekend.
Post Malone officially enters his country era, as his debut country album, F-1 Trillion has released.
Nearly a decade ago, the Texan was already predicting his country music journey, in a tweet that declared, “When I turn 30 I’m becoming a country/folk singer.” Now 29, Post Malone is already well underway with his plan. He’s posted covers of country classics for years, but now, he makes his full coronation into the country space with his new album.
He teamed with Morgan Wallen for the six-week Billboard Hot 100 chart-topper “I Had Some Help,” and his collaboration with Blake Shelton, “Pour Me a Drink,” is at No. 14 on the Country Airplay chart.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
Both of those songs are included on F-1 Trillion, alongside collaborations with Luke Combs, Dolly Parton, Jelly Roll, Tim McGraw, Ernest, Hank Williams Jr., Lainey Wilson, Brad Paisley, Sierra Ferrell, HARDY and Chris Stapleton. A few weeks ago, Combs joined Post Malone as they filmed a video for their song “Guy For That” atop a flatbed trailer as it rolled through downtown Nashville (Combs has two collabs on F-1 Trillion, “Guy For That” and “Missin’ You Like This”). Prior to that, he was joined by Wilson, Ernest and songwriter Ashley Gorley to perform a show at Nashville’s famed songwriter stomping grounds, The Bluebird Cafe, and then welcoming fans to a show at Nashville’s Marathon Music Works, where he played more songs from the album, including the tender ode to his daughter, “Yours,” while HARDY joined him for “Hide My Gun,” Shelton teamed up with Post Malone for “Pour Me a Drink,” and Sierra Ferrell joined for “Never Love You Again” (Post Malone also performed with Joe Nichols during the event).
Trending on Billboard
Earlier this week, Posty made another debut–his Grand Ole Opry debut–as he played a mix of his own songs from the album and other artists’ country songs that he loves. Paisley joined him for “Goes Without Saying” from F-1 Trillion, while Wilson joined for “Nosedive” and The War and Treaty joined him for “California Sober” (Chris Stapleton performs the song on Post’s album). Meanwhile, Vince Gill and John Michael Montgomery also collaborated with Post on the Opry stage.
Stream Post Malone’s debut country album F-Trillion below:
The Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame has revealed its slate of inductees for the Class of 2024, including Al Anderson, David Bellamy, Dan Penn, Liz Rose and Victoria Shaw.
Explore
See latest videos, charts and news
See latest videos, charts and news
This year’s inductees in the contemporary songwriters category are Al Anderson and Liz Rose, while Dan Penn and Victoria Shaw are feted in the veteran songwriters category, and Bellamy is honored in the veteran songwriter-artist category.
During a press conference held the Columbia A Studio in Nashville, Nashville Songwriters Board of Directors chair Rich Hallworth opened the announcement event, while Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame executive director Mark Ford announced this year’s inductees. Ford also revealed that singer-songwriter Brad Paisley is the winner of this year’s contemporary artist/songwriter category, but will be inducted as part of next year’s class, due to a scheduling conflict.
Trending on Billboard
“This is surreal, absolutely surreal,” Shaw said in reaction to the news. “I love this business. I love the art of songwriting. I’m still stunned and deeply grateful.”
Penn took the stage and said, “It’s a privilege to be inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame alongside so many of my friends.” He added, “I’ve had the blessing of writing with so many talented people here over the years…I’m grateful to be here and proud to be included in such fine company.”
Anderson could not be there in person, but accepted via video. “To be accepted into this group is such a privilege,” Anderson said.
Rose was not in attendance, but said via video, “Wow, I’m really blown away. Thank you so much to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. This is really sinking in right now and I’m so sad that I’m not there. I’m out of town writing songs. I’m really excited to be in this amazing group of the best songwriters in the world.”
Bellamy, known for his songwriting craft and for his work with his brother Howard as part of The Bellamy Brothers, took the stage, saying, “I’m still in shock. Thank you so much. I have to thank Howard because he was probably the best sounding board for a songwriter. He’ll tell you if he doesn’t like something. He’s always been critical of my work and it’s made it better.” Bellamy wrote many of the songs he recorded with his brother, including their signature 1979 track “If I Said You Had a Beautiful Body (Would You Hold It Against Me).”
Among Anderson’s writer credits are Tim McGraw’s “The Cowboy in Me,” Carlene Carter’s “Every Little Thing,” Trisha Yearwood’s “Powerful Thing” and “Trip Around the Sun,” recorded by Jimmy Buffett & Martina McBride. Shaw’s credits include “The River,” recorded by Garth Brooks, the Ricky Martin/Christina Aguilera collab “Nobody Wants to Be Lonely,” and John Michael Montgomery’s “I Love The Way You Love Me.” Rose earned her first hit in 2004 with Gary Allan’s “Songs About Rain” and then worked with then-newcomer Taylor Swift to craft songs including “Tim McGraw,” “Teardrops on My Guitar” and “White Horse,” with Rose’s credits also including Carrie Underwood’s “Cry Pretty” and Little Big Town’s “Girl Crush.” Penn’s credits include “Do Right Woman, Do Right Man” and “The Dark End of the Street,” among others.
Since its founding in 1970, the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame has honored many of Music City’s top-shelf songcrafters, including Willie Nelson, Dolly Parton, Garth Brooks, Loretta Lynn, Don and Phil Everly and plenty more.
The new group of inductees will be honored during the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame Gala, slated for Nov. 6 at Nashville’s Music City Center, with additional honorees to be announced.
Music industry professionals are not, by definition, first responders, but they do have the ability to rescue people.
That fact alone may be a buoy for many music-affiliated workers who are suffering their own form of burnout, despondency or depression.
Reminding music professionals of their product’s impact is one of the finer points delivered during 24/7: A Mental Health in Entertainment Conference, presented Aug. 7 by Belmont University in Nashville.
“I’ll have individuals in the industry come to me and say, ‘Well, it’s not like we’re doing brain surgery. I know our place in the music industry isn’t that important,’ ” Entertainment Health Services president Elizabeth Porter said during the conference’s “Work/Life Unbalanced” workshop. “I say it’s more important … I say there’s two big influencers in the world: the entertainment industry and politics.”
Politics is all too often divisive. Music, at its best, can rally a group — or, at least, an individual. Porter’s Call founder Al Andrews remembered a “very dark and suicidal time” decades ago when he discovered Jennifer Warnes‘ “Song of Bernadette,” and he played it repeatedly, reveling in its healing message as he bounced back. During his work as a therapist, Andrews has encountered numerous stories about songs that led his patients back from the brink.
“We all have moments when we are rescued, moments where we were sinking and someone threw a rope to us and pulled us in,” he said during the day’s closing session. “Often music is involved. Hope is accompanied by a soundtrack. It almost always is.”
Trending on Billboard
The power of music is what pulls many into the industry’s labor force. But the experience of working daily with emotions — particularly when companies are understaffed and the job never seems to stop — makes music’s employees particularly vulnerable to burnout and depression. The allure of a vocation connected to fame and entertainment compounds the issue.
“We have a really unique industry because I think it’s one of the only ones that ties so closely to our personal identities,” C3 Presents festival director Brad Parker said. “The pandemic showed that to a lot of us. I kind of felt like part of me was stripped away whenever live music went away during the pandemic, and I did a lot of soul searching to really reinforce that people enjoy Brad Parker outside of the identity of ‘He’s the Bonnaroo guy.’ “
Parker recalled how he was more than willing, during the first five to seven years of his career, to take work-related after-hours calls, fearing that if he didn’t, others were standing in line to replace him. It’s that kind of fear that keeps many of the industry’s worker bees buzzing on the job into the evening.
“The industry is 24/7,” Shading the Limelight founder Cristi Williams said, “hence the title of this conference.”
Williams, in the event’s first presentation, explored the mindset of celebrities, whose emotions and behaviors influence their staffs and ripple outward across the rest of the industry. Fame, she said, is accompanied by two driving forces: a sense of unworthiness that creates self-imposed shame and a competing sense of entitlement that leads to unrealistic expectations. The celebrity’s outlook rides a pendulum, Williams said, that swings back and forth between those points. If that phenomenon goes uncontrolled, the pendulum can become a wrecking ball.
“Success is a lot harder to manage than failure,” she said, “and when the pendulum is oscillating further and faster, it tends to derail us.”
That pendulum — and others — are unavoidable. Mental health, Williams maintained, comes from controlling the swing and the emotional reaction to it.
In recognition of the industry’s fragility, Belmont’s Curb College of Entertainment & Music Business dean Brittany Schaffer announced plans to create a Center for Mental Health in Entertainment. She cited four leaders for a steering committee — Andrews, Onsite Workshops vp of entertainment and specialized services Debbie Carroll, Prescription Songs A&R manager Rachel Wein and Music Health Alliance founder/CEO Tatum Hauck Allsep — charged with shaping the program, which will eventually be housed in Belmont’s Music Row building, projected to open in 2028.
“Until then,” Schaffer said, “we are going to work on building out the team to support the center so that it can exist long before the building does.”
Warner Music Nashville co-head/co-CEO Cris Lacy laid out four issues that trip up the emotional well-being of artists and the industry around them: the tendency to compare their careers to their peers, negative criticism from social media, executives who prioritize self-promotion over their support role and a “texture of scarcity” that, presumably, leads to fear and depression.
One obvious solution for artists and the business as a whole lies in the industry’s own product. There is, Andrews suggested, a “noble purpose” in music, and every person in the business contributes to its influence.
“If you’re in the industry, every one of you is a part of getting the songs out there,” he said. “Everybody in this room has a song that saved their life, and you’re a part of the songs that get out there into people’s hearts. Some of those people, like you and me, are lingering on the edge or not in a good place, or maybe they’re just fighting a great battle, and you’ve brewed [hope]. I want you to believe that. I want you to embrace that. Be encouraged today for what you do.”
Subscribe to Billboard Country Update, the industry’s must-have source for news, charts, analysis and features. Sign up for free delivery every weekend.