Music News (1/4/17)

Blackstone Acquires SESAC

Private equity firm Blackstone has purchased the nation’s third-largest performing rights organization SESAC from Rizvi Traverse Management. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction is expected to close by the end of the first quarter of 2017. Read more at MusicRow.com.

Still Working Music, Kobalt Sign Gordie Sampson

Pictured (Back Row, L-R): Kimberly Holcombe (Kobalt), Stephanie Cox (Kobalt), Brooke Yancey (Kobalt); (Front Row, L-R): Sara Beal (Still Working Music), Chuck Fleckenstein (Still Working Music), Jesse Willoughby (Kobalt), Gordie Sampson, Laura Alexander (Kobalt), Chelsea Kent (Still Working Music), Tommy Lee James (Still Working Music) Not Pictured: Alex Orbison (Still Working Music)

Nashville publishers Still Working Music and Kobalt have signed songwriter Gordie Sampson to an exclusive global publishing agreement.

Sampson’s hits include Carrie Underwood’s “Jesus, Take the Wheel,” Hunter Hayes’ “Storm Warning,” and Eric Paslay’s “Song About a Girl.” His songs have been recorded by Florida Georgia Line, Keith Urban, Rascal Flatts, Miranda Lambert, Blake Shelton and more.

Sampson moved to Nashville from his native Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, Canada, in 2005.

Kobalt Inks Dierks Bentley, Elvis Estate

Pictured (L-R): Willard Ahdritz (Kobalt founder/CEO), Merril Wasserman (EVP, Business Development), Dierks Bentley, Richard Sanders (President, Kobalt North America), Laura Alexander (Senior Creative Director), Stephanie Cox (VP, Creative), Jesse Willoughby (GM, Kobalt Nashville).

Dierks Bentley has inked a deal with Kobalt Music Copyright for representation of his back catalog, including hits such as “I Hold On,” “Home,” “Drunk On A Plane,” “Sideways,” and more, MusicRow has confirmed. Kobalt will also handle administration for Bentley’s future compositions. Bentley was previously in a co-publishing deal with Sony/ATV.

Additionally, Kobalt Music Publishing has inked an administrative agreement with Authentic Brands Group (ABG) and Elvis Presley Enterprises, LLC. Effective January 1, 2017, Kobalt will administer and provide publishing services for a vast majority of the Elvis Presley catalog of more than 1,000 songs, including classics such as “All Shook Up,” “Jailhouse Rock,” “A Little Less Conversation,” “Return to Sender,” “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” and many others.

Word Music Publishing Signs Jonathan Lee

Pictured (L-R, back row): Rod Riley, Joel Timen, Janine Appleton, Trevor Mathiesen, Josh Bailey. (L-R, front row): Jonathan Lee, Jonathan Mason

Word Music Publishing has signed a worldwide exclusive songwriting agreement with worship leader and Dove-nominated songwriter Jonathan Lee.

Formerly with Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing and Centricity Publishing, Lee’s songs have been recorded by for King & Country, Newsboys, Selah, and Phillips, Craig & Dean. Lee is a co-writer of for King & Country’s “Proof of Your Love.”

As part of this new partnership, Lee will write songs to lead and release through his own recordings as well as for other artists as a staff songwriter for Word Music Publishing.

As We Ascend Signs with Vital Records/Daywind Music Publishing

As We Ascend

Newly formed rock band, As We Ascend, has partnered with Vital Records and Daywind Music Publishing, a division of Daywind Music Group, distributed by New Day Christian Distributors.

Comprised of guitarists Justin Forshaw and Jake Jones (both former guitarists of We As Human), and Robert Venable on drums, As We Ascend has already released their first single, “Wash Away” to radio, where it is currently climbing the Billboard Christian Rock chart.

The forthcoming debut album, Farewell To Midnight, is slated to release in early 2017.

MusicRow.com Profiles Tony Martin’s Four Decades In Song

Tony Martin

Tony Martin‘s first cut was a No. 1 record. George Strait’s 1988 single, “Baby’s Gotten Good At Goodbye,” was “My first demo, the first cut, the first hit, the first single, it was all the same song,” recalls Martin.

The son of Nashville songwriter Glenn Martin, Tony directed his own writing talent to the journalism field, working for a Chicago daily newspaper and later for The Tennessean. He amused newsroom colleagues with parody songs, then his father challenged him to write a serious tune. On his tenth try, Tony composed “Baby’s Gotten Good At Goodbye.”

“When I saw my first check, I thought, ‘This is how much I made this year as a reporter. I think I’ll switch,’” Martin says.

Read more at MusicRow.com.