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Atlantis Music Conference panel at Smith’s
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
It was early evening, but we were already on musician time at the Atlantis Music Conference. As any frequent concertgoer knows, that’s always a little behind everyone else’s clock.
At least the dimly lit upstairs room at Smith’s Olde Bar felt more appropriate for a discussion about the music business than a sterile hotel conference room.
Hit-making country quartet Little Big Town, the title subject of the evening and including Cornelia’s Kimberly Roads and fellow one-time Georgian Karen Fairchild, had to withdraw from the panel when country music television network CMT and Fleetwood Mac guitarist Lindsey Buckingham came calling. About three weeks ago, the band received the call to do one of CMT’s “Crossroads� programs, a live showcase that puts country and rock acts together. The taping took place in Nashville at about the same time the band’s manager Rendy Lovelady, Equity Records president Mike Kraski and label mate and North Georgia-bred country singer Mark Wills were discussing the group’s success on the Smith’s Olde Bar stage.
When the participants took their seats about 50 minutes after the advertised starting time, the audience was small but attentive. “We might not have the quantity that we wanted, but I can see the quality,� said moderator David Ross of Music Row Publications.
Since Little Big Town wasn’t on hand, the panel focused on the growing role of independent record labels in Nashville.
Kraski, a former executive at Sony Nashville and co-founder of Equity with Clint Black, spoke about the culture of fault at the major labels, where individuals departments would spend huge amounts of money to avoid taking the blame when an artist’s record didn’t hit. It was as if money equaled effort in the label bosses’ eyes. “Set ego aside and you can diminish the costs,� Kraski noted.
Wills, now on the roster at Kraski’s Equity Records alongside Little Big Town, spoke about another pitfall of the majors. They tend to put artists in boxes. “The label I was with before didn’t want to release ’19 Something,’ which spent seven weeks at No. 1, because I’d never had an uptempo hit,� When the conversation eventually turned to the absent Little Big Town, Kraski talked about why he signed the band that has now sold about 750,000 copies of it’s Equity debut “The Road to Here.� “It’s about passion and belief and talent,� said Kraski, who also worked with the band at Sony, the second of the three labels the band has been signed to. “And I watched my previous company screw it up. They were bullied into something that wasn’t their vision.�
Because of the panel’s late start, Wills only got to perform one song, but his acoustic take on “19 Something� demonstrated the talent and charisma that caught Equity’s ear.
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By markscottmusic.com
October 6, 2006 2:40 PM | Link to this
Great event and great information. Good networking too… small enough group that you actually got to meet and talk with the movers and shakers. The info and contacts I got will definately help me on my way.