Music News (7/2/14)

ASCAP’s Paul Williams speaks at the subcommittee hearing

After two hearings with a House Judiciary subcommittee, various music industry and digital industry leaders are still at an impasse on how to solve a complex and mangled licensing system, according to a recap from the New York Times.

In a second hearing on Wednesday (June 25), nine witnesses, including singer-songwriter Rosanne Cash, ASCAP’s Paul Williams, RIAA’s Cary Sherman, independent label Secretly Group’s Darius Van Arman and other record label executives discussed the various shortcomings and benefits of the complicated set of rules governing publishers, radio and royalties. This follows an initial hearing held on June 10. Read more at MusicRow.com.

The US Department of Justice is inviting additional public input from songwriters, composers, licensees, and service providers, to provide information and/or comments relevant to whether the BMI and ASCAP consent decrees continue to protect competition.

The deadline to receive comments is Aug. 6, 2014.

For information on how to file a public comment with the USDOJ, click here.

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BMG Chrysalis has signed up-and-coming multi-genre writer and producer Jonny Price. Based in Brooklyn, N.Y., Price attended the North Carolina School Of The Arts and was recently discovered at a Nashville pitch to publisher session where he presented a slew of solo-written songs for both the country and pop genres.

Pictured (L-R): Kevin Lane (BMG Chrysalis, Creative Director); Sara Knabe (BMG Chrysalis, Senior Creative Director); John Allen (BMG Chrysalis, Vice President); Jonny Price; Daniel Lee (BMG Chrysalis, Senior Creative Director); Kos Weaver (BMG Chrysalis, Executive Vice President).

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SESAC’s Music Row headquarters served as the setting for a reception for Razor & Tie Publishing. The event drew several SESAC affiliates and music industry executives all taking in the casual gathering on a warm summer night.

Pictured (L-R): Razor & Tie’s Sharon Tapper, SESAC’s John Mullins and Razor & Tie’s Craig Balsam and Lisa Johnson. Photo: Terry Wyatt

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Troy Verges

Rumors abound about the house near Music Row where songwriters Troy Verges and Brett James have set up shop. Maybe Kris Kristofferson stayed there when it was a boarding house in the ’60s. Perhaps Patsy Cline hid a secret lover next door. Was Kip Moore spooked by a ghost when he lived in the room upstairs? Regardless, one thing is undeniable about the more than 100-year-old building: the volumes of hit songs being created there.

It’s where Verges, Barry Dean and Hunter Hayes penned the artist’s current single “Tattoo,” which is scaling the radio charts alongside another Verges and Dean co-write, “Day Drinking,” penned with members of Little Big Town.

Verges and Hayes were first paired by Universal Music Publishing Group’s Cyndi Forman, who had a hunch her fellow Louisiana natives would hit it off. Following the success of their collaborations including 2013 BMI Song of the Year “Wanted,” the duo re-teamed for four cuts on the artist’s latest album.

Similarly, Verges’ writing with pals Kip Moore and Blair Daly led straight to No. 1, with Moore’s “Beer Money.”

“Hunter and Kip are two guys in town that I’ve worked with that have the most clear vision of themselves as artists,” says Verges. “It makes it easy to write songs with them because they know exactly what they want to sound like and what their message is. It frees you up creatively to follow their lead. By the time we wrote ‘Beer Money,’ Kip had already been touring and knew what his audience wanted. In those cases, the songs come out sounding like them, not me, which makes them great artists. And I get to help them shape that.”

MusicRow subscribers can read more here.