Newsletter November 1999

International Country Music Association

www.radiocountry.org intlcma@aol.com Fax: 615-882-9213

By: Kathy Sue Loudermilk, Vice-President

One of our Danish Founding Members is working on putting together a bunch of American non-major label artists to perform at a series of festivals. Selected singers will work one or more of the many country music festivals, across Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Germany. Most non-major label artists can not take an entire summer away from their regular jobs, so different artists will be working various festivals. Festival season begins in May and continues through the end of October. If you would like an all expense paid European vacation and some spending money, you might want to send a promotional package. It is usually best to send a good photograph, a CD, brief biography, dates you will be available, and salary expectations. Please remember Europe uses a different format for video. Their videos are in the PAL format, and most of their equipment can not read American video. Be sure to mark the customs clearance form, "Promotional Material, No Cash Value, Gift". European countries are very highly taxed. If you insure the package or place a cash value on it, foreign countries will require import taxes to be paid, by the addressee. This will prevent most folks from accepting your package. Send your promotional package to Johnny Nielsen at Marievej 24 – DK 5700 Svenborg – Denmark

One of our Dutch Founding Members and one of our African Founding Members need your music, for their radio shows. They have several country music, bluegrass, and gospel radio programs. They need non-major label country, bluegrass, and gospel music, for those programs. Rein Wortelboer is mostly country, but does have a bluegrass program and a weekly gospel program. Job Gathemia is mostly gospel, but does use some country and bluegrass. I once saw figures that said Job’s gospel program reaches more English speaking people, than any other radio station on the planet. There are radio stations in Asia that reach more people, but not English speaking people. Remember the tax situation and do not place a cash value on your CD. If you want a reply, do not send American stamps. They are no good in other countries. You can buy an international postage voucher, but it is easier to just drop a dollar bill or two in the package. Let them buy the return postage. American dollars are accepted all over the world. American stamps are not accepted outside the U. S. Mail your recordings to these addresses. Rein Wortelboer – Akelei 10 – 5803 CA Venray – The Netherlands and/or Job Gathemia – Box 49256 – Nairobi – Kenya

Jessica Culpepper Music, B. M. I. was one of the first Nashville publishing companies to recognize the television and movie market, for good songs. With hundreds of television channels and tens of millions of video players, the American television and movie markets have a tremendous appetite for high quality songs. Most small to midsize music publishing companies make little or no effort to develop contacts in those industries. They are usually too busy wasting their time beating on major record company doors. Major record companies have their own publishing companies, and it is very rare for them to use outside material. Explaining this fact to most small publishing companies is similar to trying to teach a pig to sing. "It’s impossible and it aggravates the pig." Jessica Culpepper Music is an exception to this rule. Their submission rules are as follows. Send no more than three songs. If you only write lyrics or only write music, they may be able to put you in touch with a co-writer. One of their co-writers has had more than 100 songs recorded, by major label recording artists. Send your three best songs to, Jessica Culpepper Music, B. M. I. – P. O. Box 271656 – Nashville, TN 37227 – 1656

If you are available to travel the U. S. A. next summer, you might want to send your promotional package to these folks. They will be involved in several festivals across the U. S. A. Their mailing address is, GraceLand Entertainment – 9 Music Square South # 409 – Nashville, TN 37203

If you are involved in country music, this is the place for your web page. It is the one spot for all things related to non-major label country music. Record companies can promote their artists, products, and their services. Unsigned artists can promote themselves and offer their music for sale. Publishing companies and songwriters can pitch their songs. Promoters, photographers, producers, press agents, booking agents, and managers can explain and advertise their services. Radio shows can use the power of the internet to reach the entire world. There is even a special place for festivals to advertise. There is a great place to find instruments, audio equipment, etc. There is a wonderful western wear store that sells the most complete line of native American art, weapons, and jewelry I’ve ever seen. If you already have a web page, chances are you get less than 5, 000 visits per year. Move your page to the premier non-major label country music site on the internet, and you can increase your visits by a factor of 10 or more. With the only server on the internet dedicated solely to non-major label country music, you can have streaming MP3 and streaming RealAudio fed through a T-1 line. This means your visitors get fast clear audio without long waits for downloads. With hundreds of members promoting the site, print ads in "Music City News", "Songwriters’ Monthly", and other publications, plus many of our 400 + radio programmer members playing the musical slogan, and this newsletter it is the most heavily advertised non – major label country music site on the internet. With a dedicated web master working to keep it near the top of all the major search engines, it even gets lots of visitors who are just surfing the web. Do a search for country music organization, and see what you find! If you don’t already have a web page, why are you waiting? Put the power of the internet to work for you! Email sales@radiocountry.org. Lock in your page, before the number of visitors and price goes up.

A lot of the disc jockeys that report to our chart, have requested additional music. It seems that most artists & promotion companies are sending product to various parts of our reporting radio base, but only a few companies are servicing the entire list. This has resulted in those companies having a very high number of spots, in our charts. In an effort to balance the charts and give everybody a level playing field, we are very pleased to announce a new service, for our recording artist members. We will distribute 400+ of your CDs to international radio program presenters, for only $800. This will totally saturate our current list of reporting disc jockey members, with your music. You will need to supply us with 425 CDs and 425 sets of printing, so we can service new reporting radio members and re-mail any that are damaged in transit. For additional information, please contact our board member, Ambassador Charlie Ray. His phone number is 615-252-8202.

Country singers will be forced to be more pop than ever, by Faith Hill’s success with her new album "Breathe" . It sold over 242, 000 copies, the first week out of the chute. This is the highest one week sales a Nashville record company has ever chalked up with a female singer. The album will debut in "Billboard" magazine as number one on their Top 200 Album chart. I love that, and I admire her success. Faith is one of the best female singers ever. However; I have a problem with the rest of the story. Her album will also debut as number one on "Billboard’s" Country Chart. The album is not country and should not be listed, in the country charts. Nashville’s major record companies and their chief flunky at the major label C. M. A. are taking credit for selling country music to pop fans. This is not only dishonest and self serving, it is absurd! Pop sales have always been bigger that country sales. Frank Sinatra out sold Hank Williams. Neal Diamond out sold Waylon Jennings. Elvis sold more records than George Jones. There is nothing new here, except the dishonesty and false labeling. The marketing whiz kids have not made country music appeal to pop fans. They have made pop music appeal to a few country fans. Garth Brooks, Faith Hill, Shania Twain, and The Dixie Chicks are a few of the Nashville based pop recording artists that have success with record buying teenage pop fans. They also appeal to a few country fans. There is a history of pop/rock recording artists having some appeal to a small percentage of country fans. Elvis is one very well known example of this. I suppose the world was a little more honest, because Elvis never called himself a country singer. It is all part of the world we live in, today. If our President can reach orgasm but refuse to call it sex, the marketing experts running Nashville can sell record numbers of pop albums and refuse to call it pop music. Nashville has never been comfortable with country music. Nashville’s business, government, and society leaders think of this city as "THE ATHENS OF THE SOUTH ". This is the reason they built a copy of the Parthenon. Our civic leaders want to live in a city filled with the social graces. They think of country music as a low class form of entertainment that appeals only to hicks and hillbillies. They are in the process of changing this city’s image to that of a more cosmopolitan urban center. In order to reach this goal, it is necessary to drive the hicks and hillbillies back to the sticks where they think we belong. They did this with bluegrass music, years ago. The center of bluegrass was once Nashville. Now, it is Owensville, Ky. Bluegrass music not only survived the change, it has thrived! It had to get away from marketing experts, lawyers, and accountants. It had to return to its roots to survive. The music types who couldn’t compete in New York and Los Angles moved into Nashville and found eager allies among Nashville’s civic leaders. Together, they forced out the bluegrass hicks. Now, they are trying to force out us country hicks. I believe country music will survive and thrive just as bluegrass has. It just won’t be based in Nashville. Country music has never been a mass market product. Like most niche market products it evokes strong emotions and loyal fans. If country music was a computer, it would be an Apple. It would not be an I. B. M. If it was a car, it would be a Packard or a Studebaker. It would not be a Ford or Chevy. Those loyal fans have not been beamed up, by Scotty. They have just left Nashville for Branson, Gatlinburg, and hundreds of little oprys scattered across the U. S. A. The incredible shrinking crowd at Nashville’s FanFair and the hordes of people flocking to King Eagle Festival, Branson, Gatlinburg, and Avoca, Iowa are predicting the future of country music. Faith Hill’s tremendous success with her new pop/rock album is predicting the future of Nashville. The success of future Nashville recording artists will be measured against her success. The only way to equal and exceed those sales records is to produce more pop/rock and less country sounds. No country artist can hope to sell 242,000 albums, in one week. The country music market has never been that big. Glenn Miller and Lawrence Welk outsold the country singers of their time. Faith Hill, Shania Twain, and The Dixie Chicks will out sell the country singers of their time. Country music has never been about truck loads of money. You sing country because you are country and love being that way! It’s a way of life and the music is a way of expressing that lifestyle. The only real conflict is that a core part of the country lifestyle is calling things what they are. We may love both cats and dogs, but it would never occur to us to call one the other. If that makes us hicks and the major label C. M. A. hip, so be it! I’d rather be an honest plain speaking hick, than to be a marketing expert who pats himself on the back for calling pop/rock country music! The major labels and their flunkies at the C. M. A. can call themselves anything they want. I know what my daddy would have called them. It starts with lying sons and rhymes with ditches! A lot of folks think they should change their name to the Pop Music Association, but I don’t believe it will happen. The P. M. A. would almost have to be based in New York City or Los Angles, and a lot of these clowns came to Nashville, because they couldn’t compete in those cities. If they started trying to tell Michael Jackson what to do, he could just buy their companies and fire them. He paid over $600,000,000 for one music publishing company. They don’t want to aggravate him. He might pull their britches down, and give them what they deserve.