Alison Brown has built a career pushing the boundaries of what people typically think the banjo is capable of. The GRAMMY-winning artist’s genre-bending approach to the five-string banjo draws from jazz, world music, and classical as much as bluegrass, resulting in a style that is uniquely hers. Brown recently released… Read more...
It would be hard to look at a list of current hit songs without noticing a trend: the growing use of featured artists. A featured artist is one who makes a guest appearance on another artist’s recording to create a collaboration. What’s the difference between a duet and a song… Read more...
BMI is saddened by the passing of three Outlaw-Country pioneers, Billy Joe Shaver, Jerry Jeff Walker and Johnny Bush. Shaver was the writer of some of country music’s greatest songs, including “Honky Tonk Heroes,” “Georgia on a Fast Train,” “Old Five and Dimers Like Me,” and “Live Forever.” Along with… Read more...
At my BMI Nashville Songwriters’ Workshops, I screen and critique songs from each attendee. When I find songs that I believe are competitive with those being written by today’s top hitmakers, I forward them to ten music publishers who have agreed to listen. After the last BMI Workshop, I forwarded… Read more...
Every country music fan knows that there are more than a few tales about country stars that sound almost too unbelievable to be true. These stories work extremely well with the film genre of animated documentary, which is exactly what it sounds like: an animated version of the truth. What… Read more...
BMI congratulates its affiliates Nile Rodgers, Chip Taylor, Seymour Stein and Nick Jonas, who are being celebrated at this year’s induction ceremony for the Songwriters Hall of Fame. Established in 1969, the Songwriters Hall of Fame serves as the bridge between music’s past and present, honoring the contributions… Read more...
Paying homage to the late George Jones comes easily to Shooter Jennings, who as a child became friends with George through his parents, BMI legends Waylon Jennings and Jessi Colter, who had a close friendship with “the Possum.” Shooter remembers vividly when Jones invited him to his tour bus, cut… Read more...
Country singer, publisher, studio owner and longtime Broadcast Music, Inc. member Tompall Glaser passed away Tuesday, August 13, 2013, at the age of 79. A pioneer of the outlaw movement alongside Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and Kris Kristofferson, Glaser rebelled against commercial, formulaic country and opened his own publishing company… Read more...
Traditional country music has no greater ambassador than Marty Stuart. Whether using his acclaimed RFD-TV show, The Marty Stuart Show, as a platform for the music’s best practitioners, or sending his vast collection of country memorabilia on the road, so that fans can get a tangible sense of the music’s… Read more...
Longtime BMI songwriter Liz Anderson has died. She was 81. The writer behind Merle Haggard’s “(My Friends Are Gonna Be) Strangers” and “Just Between the Two of Us,” which Haggard recorded with Bonnie Owens, Anderson also penned songs for Jerry Lee Lewis, Del Reeves, Roy Drusky, Waylon Jennings, and others,… Read more...
