Inside Track on Music Row with Preshias Harris: July 2020 Music News Column

OPRY NEWS:

Both the legendary Grand Ole Opry House and historic Ryman Auditorium have reopened their doors to the public for daytime tours. Backstage tours of the Grand Ole Opry House will reopen beginning on July 2, for an intimate look at the people, places, and stories behind the show that made country music famous. Self-guided tours of the ‘Mother Church’ – The Ryman – will be available Tuesday-Sunday from 10 a.m. – 3 p.m., offering guests another way to experience one of the most active and celebrated venues in modern music. Together with parent company Ryman Hospitality Properties, best-in-class safety procedures and training are being implemented at both venues to help promote guest safety. Guests, like staff, are required to wear masks during tours. Both Ryman Auditorium and the Grand Ole Opry House will strictly adhere to operating plans developed with the Company’s wellness partner Vanderbilt Health that meet or exceed CDC and local health department safety guidelines. Full details at https://ryman.com/  and https://www.opry.com/ 

OUTLAW MUSIC NEWS:

“You Lied Our Love Away” is the first single delivered to radio off the Outlaw Billy Don Burns, The Country Blues album released by Country Rewind Records with physical distribution by Select-O-Hits. The new recordings are available for streaming and download on all digital music platforms including Apple Music, iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music, Google Play, Pandora and more here.  “Happy that Country Rewind Records liked it enough to release it and that Shooter Jennings liked it enough to endorse it,” shared Billy Don Burns.  “He sings about the truth and hard times, but he tells a tale of warning and a tale of heart with this album,” exclaims Shooter Jennings. The album is about the life of a honky tonk singers’ fifty years on the road and he’s still doing it 250-300 days a year. His songs have been recorded by the old guard, Willie Nelson, Mel Tillis, Connie Smith and others, and lots of new up and coming artists like Cody Jinks, Colter Wall. More info at http://www.countryrewindrecords.com/   

PR NEWS: 

Having experienced successful solo careers on the heels of each embarking on reality show journeys, artists Craig Wayne Boyd, Casey James and Adam Wakefield announced have now formed their new group, Texas Hill. This marks the first time three individual artists, all from different reality shows (Wakefield and Boyd competed on separate seasons of NBC’s ‘The Voice,’ and James on ABC’s ‘American Idol’), have collaborated to form a trio.  The news first broke with Billboard, who premiered the trio’s debut single “Darkest Sky” written by Ryan Beaver, Mike Walker, and James LeBlanc.  It is the first of several songs written, recorded, and ready to go.  Listen to “Darkest Sky” at https://ffm.to/darkestsky   “We all saw the benefit of bringing three different audiences together from a touring perspective, but none of us were committed to the band until we sat down and actually started making music together,” James told Billboard.  They’ve co-written dozens of songs and have recorded a 6-song EP (including “Darkest Sky”) which is expected for release later this summer. Music and tour info at https://www.texashillofficial.com/  

RADIO NEWS: 

There’s a new service offered to radio stations that play or feature Americana or Triple A music. CDX is now offering a Weekly Music News Update focusing on Americana and Triple A artists. The feature is offered free with no contracts. This short :90 segment features news and interview sound bites from the biggest artists in the formats as well as the new artists to look out for. Hosted and produced by Shannon McCombs, it’s written so that stations can either intro her – (to sound live and part of the air-staff) or the segment can stand alone in a commercial break or between songs.  Short enough for any day-part, the Weekly Music News Update is ideal content for voice tracking. Stations can air the feature as many times as they like, in any daypart without restrictions. The show’s host, Shannon McCombs, is a National Radio Hall of Fame nominee and also hosts the CDX Country News feature. She has been seen and heard on CMT, CBS, ABC, TNN, GAC, XM Radio and more. See the CDX Download Center at https://www.cdxcd.com/ NOTE: So excited to share this radio news about my best friend in high school. J  

RIAA NEWS: 

Congrats to Valory’s Brantley Gilbert on his album Bottoms Up that surpassed the 5 million sales mark by the RIAA on 6/18/20. Also on June 18^th, Chris Lane has surpassed the 500,000 mark for his single giving him the “Gold’ nod for “Big, Big Plans.” Ingrid Andress scored over 1,000,000 for her massive hit “More Hearts Than Mine” a little more than a year after it released in April. Morgan Wallen also celebrates a Platinum “daze” on 6/18 with his 1,000,000 certification of “Chasin’ You” on Big Loud Records.