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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.
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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.”
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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.
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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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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“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.”
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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.”
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Post Malone has steadily been showcasing new music from his upcoming country album F-1 Trillion (out Aug. 16), and piling up country collaborations over the past several weeks. He previously earned a six-week No. 1 hit on Billboard’s all-genre Hot 100 with the Morgan Wallen collab “I Had Some Help” and teamed with Blake Shelton […]
Like a lot of independent record shops, Nashville-based Grimey’s New & Preloved Music and Books sometimes offers giveaways for customers, with prizes such as tickets to local shows and vinyl pressings. But given its location in the creative hub of East Nashville, Grimey’s co-owner Doyle Davis says those giveaways have led to some unusual moments.
“We’ll take a picture of the winner and tag them on social media when they pick up their prize,” Davis tells Billboard. “One time, we posted a photo of a guy showing off his prize — and [rock icon and former Led Zeppelin lead singer] Robert Plant was walking up the aisle right behind him. When we posted that [photo], all the comments were like, ‘Robert Plant photo-bombed your guy.’”
Grimey’s has been a hotspot and refuge for music lovers — celebrity or not — for 25 years. The East Nashville store is Grimey’s third location: it was launched in 1999 in Nashville’s Berry Hill area, before moving to 8th Ave. S. and finally to its current location at 1060 East Trinity Lane in 2018.
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“John Prine used to shop here regularly, especially at our old location. We were right down the street from [meat-and-three restaurant] Arnold’s, where he would get his meatloaf every week,” Davis recalls, also noting artists such as Kacey Musgraves and Emmylou Harris stopping by Grimey’s over the years.
Grimey’s is housed in a former Pentecostal church that offers a homey vibe, with stained glass windows; arched, wooden ceilings; a performance stage (Davis remodeled the area into a space for more intimate musical performances); and two floors filled with vinyl, CDs, books and more. The 4,000-square-foot space continues to be an essential component of Nashville’s music community, with Davis estimating that roughly 70% of the store’s sales come from vinyl, with the other 30% coming from books, CDs, DVDs, etc.
Based in the heart of East Nashville’s creative community, the store counts Americana as its best-selling music genre, with the store’s best-selling artists being Jason Isbell, Musgraves and Sturgill Simpson.
“We recently did a signing with Kacey and her [2024] Deeper Well album and it was the only signing she was doing for the whole album release cycle,” Davis says. “We had over a thousand people and she signed for four hours. That was the most records of a single new title that I’ve sold in one week. Jason Isbell was my previous record at 850.”
Grimey’s
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Davis co-owns Grimey’s with the store’s namesake and founder Mike Grimes, who launched the store in a small Berry Hill-area home. In 2002, Davis, who had been an executive at another Nashville record shop, The Great Escape, joined Grimes as a co-owner. At the time, Davis suggested that they focus on selling new vinyl.
“Nashville had great record stores. The Great Escape was a great record store, but it was all used [records],” Davis says. “If people wanted new records, they either mail ordered them or you bought them at Tower Records. Tower had a pretty lame selection, in my opinion, at the time, and it took them forever to restock something if they sold out of it. Being a real record store guy my whole life, I just thought, ‘There’s a niche we can fill here. We’ll carry all the cool indie music the chain stores don’t carry.’ We really centered on new vinyl, and this was when Steve Jobs had just opened the iTunes store, Napster was on the wane, and they were finding new ways of legally selling digital music — everything was gravitating to no physical media.”
In 2004, Grimey’s relocated to the 8th Ave. S. location, where it quickly became an indie music hub. The live music venue The Basement (founded by Grimes) was located downstairs, while the building at the time also served as office space for Thirty Tigers and indie radio station WXNA. As Grimey’s expanded on 8th Avenue, they leased the building next door and opened the bookstore Grimey’s Too.
At the same time, Grimey’s began supporting artists through in-store performances that allowed bands to promote their new records. In 2008, rock band Metallica recorded the album Live at Grimey’s at The Basement before their performance at Bonnaroo Music Festival.
“We carried it for 10 years until it went out of print,” Davis recalls, also noting that Nashville resident and Americana luminary Isbell once played a show in the back parking lot of Grimey’s, with more than 1,000 people in attendance.
“[Jason] did an in-store performance with us for every solo album he ever released until the pandemic hit, and he wasn’t able to do that one,” Davis recalls. “We had The Black Keys early on when they were still playing clubs. Years ago, the band fun. did an in-store, and then Black Pumas did an in-store performance, and six months later they were huge and on the Grammys. I had always hoped we would get Wilco to play here, and they finally did in November 2019, right before the pandemic.”
After the landlord did not offer Grimey’s a long-term lease on the 8th Ave. location and noted the building would be put up for sale, Grimes and Davis knew they needed to scout a new site for Grimey’s, which led to its current location.
“My real estate agent showed me a photo of the building and it was the right size, it was beautiful, and it was affordable,” Davis recalls, noting that he did have some concerns at the time about relocating to East Nashville, where the area was already home to at least two other record shops, The Groove and Vinyl Tap.
“What I hoped might happen seems to be what happened: that the customers coming over to East Nashville to visit our store would also visit the other stores,” Davis says, noting that in the ‘90s, he visited London’s Berwick Street, which was known as “Record Road” for its large number of record shops. “Each store had its specialty and if you’re an omnivorous music fan, you would hit all the shops. I know from talking to folks that on Record Store Day, for example, lots of people will hit Grimey’s, Vinyl Tap and The Groove, because we’re all in the same neighborhood.”
Paramore + Doyle & Grimey
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While streaming rules the modern-day music marketplace, vinyl has seen steady growth over the past nearly two decades, something Davis attributes to the popular Record Store Day that started in 2007. Grimey’s focuses on buying from original source distributors but also uses one-stop distributors, with Davis estimating the shop has approximately 12,600 new vinyl records and 3,000 used records.
“By 2010 or 2011, we were seeing 30% and 35% increases year over year — and that’s broadly, not just in my store,” he says. “Vinyl was back, but it wasn’t mainstream at the time.” Since the pandemic began, Davis says vinyl has “reached a whole new tipping point,” nodding to pop artists such as Taylor Swift and Olivia Rodrigo moving large numbers of vinyl units.
“We’re selling tons of Taylor records and Olivia. For a while, we couldn’t keep enough Harry Styles records in stock,” Davis says. “That’s new to me. We’ve got high school kids coming into the store. We’ve always had some percentage of college students, the early adopter kids. Vinyl was seen as a hipster thing for quite a while, but I don’t see anybody looking at it that way. If anything, it’s seen as a pop trend.”
While Davis does acknowledge commerce challenges in pricing and direct-to-consumer sales, he sees indie record shops as an enduring part of the music ecosystem.
“If you can only afford one record a month, just due to prices, then even the used ones are not cheap,” Davis says. “You’ve always had the dollar bins, but records that were straight to the dollar bin previously are sometimes $5 records. I also see the direct-to-consumer initiatives, but we’ve faced that pretty much most of the way. And there’s an experience in a record store you can’t get online — it’s a physical space, with like-minded people; I love watching my employees interact with customers. If you’re really into this culture, there’s nothing like an independent record store, as far as experience goes.
“Vinyl never went away and it’s here to stay. I do believe that,” Davis says of the future of the format. “We’ve seen steady growth now for well over a decade, and it’s already moved into a new generation. Now you have kids [buying vinyl] whose parents did not grow up with vinyl — their parents were CD and digital natives. Vinyl is a way to slow down. You get the lyrics, the inserts, the art — the artist’s whole vision.”
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Post Malone is bringing his biggest hits and new music to Nashville next month.
One month before the release of his debut country album F-1 Trillion on Aug. 16, Post Malone will give Music City a preview of the album when he teams with Bud Light for “A Night in Nashville,” on July 16, an evening of music for fans 21 and older which will feature Post Malone performing not only new music from the album, but also many of his biggest hits.
“Bud Light has rocked with me for a while now, and I really can’t thank them enough for all the love and support they’ve shown through the years,” Post Malone said in a statement. “July 16th is going to be a kick ass night and I can’t wait to share what I’ve been working on with everybody.”
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Fans can direct message Bud Light’s Instagram or Facebook “A Night in Nashville” for information on the process for entering for a chance to win tickets for the show via Bud Light’s Easy Wishes platform.
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“Post Malone is the hottest artist in the world and a loyal Bud Light partner and true fan of the brand. Bud Light has been so lucky to have a front row seat to his remarkable career over the years and we couldn’t be more excited to embark on this new era with him,” Todd Allen, Sr VP, Marketing for Bud Light, said in a statement. “Bud Light is bringing the best of country music to fans all summer long and ‘A Night in Nashville’ is the epitome of a true once-in-a-lifetime country experience we know fans will never forget.”
Post Malone just revealed the official music video to his new collaboration with Blake Shelton, “Pour Me a Drink,” and has spent five weeks at No. 1 on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart with his Morgan Wallen collaboration “I Had Some Help.” The song also spent five weeks atop the Hot 100, marking Post Malone’s sixth Hot 100 chart-topping hit.
The Wallen and Shelton collabs aren’t Post Malone’s only hit collaborations this year; his song “Fortnight” with Taylor Swift spent two weeks atop the Hot 100 earlier this year, while his collaboration with Beyonce, “Levii’s Jeans,” reached No. 16 on the Hot 100.
Post Malone also recently made his debut performance at revered Nashville venue The Bluebird Cafe, where he performed in the round alongside reigning CMA and ACM entertainer of the year Lainey Wilson and hit songwriter Ashley Gorley, as well as with guest Ernest.
Jon Bon Jovi‘s newly opened, five-story bar and music venue in downtown Nashville, JBJ’s Nashville, has permanently installed a new hologram unit featuring the iconic singer.
The unit, which features Jon Bon Jovi as a 4K hologram, was installed by Proto Inc. in partnership with the venue and Big Plan Holdings. Later this year, a second Proto unit will be installed with more members of his namesake band, Bon Jovi, appearing in hologram form. JBJ’s Nashville will also have the ability to beam in surprise guests as live holograms that can be seen and heard by fans in the club, just as if they were there in person.
This is the first time a Proto hologram unit has been permanently installed in a dedicated music venue or restaurant.
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A Proto hologram unit featuring Jon Bon Jovi was used in January when the singer was honored during the MusiCares Person of the Year event during Grammy weekend in Los Angeles. Other artists who have used Proto include Kane Brown, Walker Hayes, Jewel, Elton John, Olivia Rodrigo, Tanya Tucker and will.I.am. Proto units have also been installed at Jimmy Kimmel’s Comedy Club in Las Vegas, Four Seasons Hotels & Resorts’ Beverly Wilshire hotel, JFK Terminal 4 and more.
“This innovative addition of the Proto Hologram of Jon at JBJ’s exemplifies the commitment to delivering unforgettable experiences here on Broadway,” said Matthew Bongiovi of Bon Jovi Management in a statement.
Jon Bon Jovi
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“The enthusiastic response online to Jon’s Proto hologram highlights the excitement for what we bring to the table,” added Josh Joseph, founder/CEO of Big Plan Holdings. “JBJ’s Nashville is positioning itself as a leader in groundbreaking live events.”
“I’m thrilled to see Jon Bon Jovi integrating Proto Hologram technology into JBJs Nashville,” said David Nussbaum, founder of Proto Hologram. “Our technology transforms live performances into a ‘Runaway’ experience, allowing artists like Jon Bon Jovi to connect with their audiences in a way that’s never been possible before. It’s an honor to be part of such an innovative project, and I can’t wait for fans to experience the magic firsthand.”
Earlier this month, Bon Jovi played a surprise, five-song set at the grand opening of JBJ’s Nashville. The 37,000-square-foot venue features a stage on the ground floor and walls featuring photos of the group that span its three-decade career.
June also saw the release of Bon Jovi’s new album, Forever, and the Hulu series Thank You, Goodnight — The Bon Jovi Story.
The Country Music Association’s CMA Fest has been experiencing a growth trend ever since it relocated to Downtown Nashville in 2001.
Last year, the festival hit 90,000 visitors a day for the first time, and local media reported that it equaled those numbers in the 2024 edition, held June 6-9.
But the growth most evident at this year’s festival was the bulging presence of “barroom takeovers.” From Spotify to iHeartMedia to Warner Music Nashville and even Billboard, at least 11 labels, booking agencies and other organizations rented out performance spaces — or even entire buildings — for a range of extracurricular concerts. In some cases, artists played shows at those venues on top of their official CMA Fest activities. In other instances, artists dropped into the side bars without appearing at a sanctioned CMA event.
The uptick in these ancillary events is a natural outgrowth of the booming business in artist-affiliated bars. In the last year alone, Garth Brooks, Eric Church and Morgan Wallen have all opened the doors on new clubs along Lower Broadway, and Lainey Wilson took over the FGL House from Florida Georgia Line, rebranding as Bell Bottoms Up. Bon Jovi even opened a new bar during the run of the festival.
Those locales offer a ready-made spot at the edge of the festival’s footprint for businesses that want to market to core fans; thus CAA took over the weekly Whiskey Jam at the Skydeck for one night, Big Machine Label Group offered daytime shows at Wilson’s club, and Sony Music Nashville occupied Acme Feed and Seed with its Camp Sony at the same intersection where CMA Fest hosted its Hard Rock Stage and Riverfront Stage. It’s advantageous for the label, fans and the artists, too.
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“Being right there at the end where all the action is happening, it helps in terms of foot traffic,” SMN senior vp of marketing Jennifer Way says. “It helps in terms of catching artists that [play] a show and then can just pop up into the bar.”
Not that the adjunct shows are limited to the run of the festival or to the Downtown footprint. WME held its annual three-night Losers Live at a bar on the edge of Music Row, about a mile and a half away, June 3-5. Randy Houser, Brantley Gilbert and Mark Chesnutt headlined the three nights, all playing for free to make an impression on country-centric fans and other members of the industry.
“Many people arrive in Nashville prior to the official start of CMA Fest, and they travel from all over the world to hear live music,” says WME country music agent Carter Green. “So WME and Losers give the people what they want.”
The volume is impressive. While the festival itself yielded more than 300 artist performances, Spotify House trotted out 40 acts — including BRELAND, Tyler Hubbard and Dustin Lynch — during its three-day run at the Blake Shelton-affiliated Ole Red. SiriusXM booked 56 artists across four days at Margaritaville for performances and/or interviews, including Lainey Wilson, Jake Owen and Riley Green.
“This is surely the only genre who could pull this off the way we pull it off because all of the artists are so punctual, on time or early,” SiriusXM associate director of strategy, operations, and artist and industry relations Alina Thompson says. “We were on schedule all four days, and I was just so grateful to every artist and every artist team that came through the door.”
The opportunities, though, also represent a potential long-term problem. Several veteran music executives grumbled that the festival’s official daytime stages lacked some of the star power that they have boasted in previous years, though that’s a direct result of country’s current popularity. At least 50 artists — including Kenny Chesney, Luke Combs, Kane Brown and HARDY — played up to four out-of-town gigs during the four-day CMA Fest. Many were booked at the Carolina Country Music Festival, which overlaps with CMA Fest in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Some of those acts made it back for the Nashville event. Some did not.
That’s not a new development, but combined with the artists who choose to play the nearby clubs, it meant that the smaller stages had a higher volume of acts who were unfamiliar to many festival attendees.
That doesn’t mean the festival faces any sort of imminent disaster or that it represents a long-term trend.
“I think it changes year by year,” Carter says. “If people feel that way this year, it could change next year, and you could have all the biggest acts in country at that time playing during the day.”
Artists’ outlook on the festival is tied to their place in the food chain. It’s great exposure for acts who haven’t hit the commercial mainstream — Wyatt Flores and Puddin (K. Michelle), for example, garnered attention with multiple appearances. But the artists play for free, and the headliners are key to attracting the thousands of fans whose ticket expenditures assist music education charities.
“If you’re a newer artist, you need to be there,” says SiriusXM/Pandora vp of music programming — country Johnny Chiang. “A-listers or B-plus artists, it’s not so much a need for them to do it. It’s just a way for them to give back. There’s a different perspective.”
In most instances, the artists and the ancillary businesses seem to defer to CMA in booking artists, a sign that the industry supports the festival’s mission.
“The CMA typically gets all their stuff scheduled first,” Way says. “We don’t really confirm the exact unique fan experience or activation until the stages are booked, until the artist knows where they’re going to be.”
Meanwhile, if the barroom takeovers syphon off too much of CMA’s business, Chiang suggests it might be effective for the organization to “get in deeper” with the unofficial groups, many of which are already partners in some way.
“At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if it’s on one of their stages or one of our bar locations,” Chiang says. “What you’re talking about is still promoting country music and the CMA.”
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Just in time for CMA Fest, Morgan Wallen‘s This Bar and Tennessee Kitchen has a new opening date. The six-story bar, restaurant and music venue will open Saturday (June 1) at 11 a.m. CT in downtown Nashville. The venue’s original opening, set for Memorial Day weekend, was delayed, with a source previously telling Billboard that […]