craighavighurst

In the past ten years, at least 25 Nashville record labels have shut their doors, while others have downsized or consolidated. That’s caused a lot of pain, but it’s also launched a new wave of music business entrepreneurs.

In part one of our series Music City Remixed, WPLN’s Craig Havighurst reported that falling CD sales are severely pinching the ability of Nashville’s record companies to invest in emerging musical talent. Today, he has the story of two labels and an emerging band — with clues about where the artist development process might be heading.

The recording industry is eight years into the worst downturn in decades, shaken by a revolution in how people discover and obtain music. That’s left Nashville’s star-making major labels in a precarious position, while a new music business is being born on and off Music Row.

The Nashville Symphony kicks off its new season tomorrow night with a concert beginning and ending with music by George Gershwin. And in between: more George Gershwin. In fact the Schermerhorn Symphony Center will be so full of Gershwin, there won’t be room for any other composers.

Few subjects in country music history have received more attention than Hank Williams. So when the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum approached a new exhibit featuring the legendary singer/songwriter, its curators faced the challenge of framing his story in a fresh way. They did so by designing the exhibit around the Williams family and its three generations of artistic brilliance, personal turmoil and everyday domestic life. WPLN’s Craig Havighurst reports.

When Walter Hyatt died in the 1996 crash of ValueJet Flight 592 in the Florida Everglades, Nashville lost one of its most unique and uncompromising singer/songwriters. According to many who knew him, Hyatt was an extreme case of an artist better understood and appreciated by his musical peers than the general public.

Since the tragedy, Walter’s widow Heidi has been trying to complete the album he was working on at the time. Now, with the help of dozens of musical friends, she has, as WPLN’s Craig Havighurst reports.

Soprano Karen Parks has released a new CD whose title, Nobody Knows, is intended as a double entendre. Half of the album consists of vital and well-known Negro spirituals. But Parks is also calling attention to the unknown composer and singer who brought those spirituals into the American mainstream more than 100 years ago. WPLN’s Craig Havighurst reports.

Bobby Braddock made it to the songwriter’s hall of fame on the strength of hits like “He Stopped Loving Her Today” and “Golden Ring.” These days, however, he says he’s more excited about writing prose, specifically the story of his colorful life. This year, he published the first volume of his memoir and mastered the transition from one kind of writing to another, as WPLN’s Craig Havighurst reports.

The second trade mission this year from Tennessee to China has just returned, but one signature Nashville export – country music — wasn’t represented on either delegation to the world’s most coveted new marketplace. But when WPLN’s Craig Havighurst recently traveled to China, he met Cathy Chen, a one-woman promotional machine for country music. She wishes the industry here was more interested in what she’s up to, and she’s not the only one.

Since he arrived in Nashville in the mid 1960s, Tom T. Hall has brought unprecedented literary sophistication to country songwriting, even as he enjoyed enormous commercial success as an artist and writer. Now retired from mainstream country, Hall and his wife Dixie have become one of the first couples of bluegrass. They nurture emerging talent at their home studio, and Hall’s first new album in ten years is an all-bluegrass affair, featuring songs he and Dixie wrote together. WPLN’s Craig Havighurst reports.