NashvilleMusicGuide.com 1 NashvilleMusicGuide.com 2 NashvilleMusicGuide.com 1 48 Arcadius 71st Iroquois Steeplechase Executive Editor & CEO Randy Matthews Contents Letter from the Editor [email protected] 50 Memphis in May Nashville Music Guide had Nash- Field and have a lot of kid-friendly activities going on. We Managing Editor Amanda Andrews Got the Blues on Beale St. ville singing the blues at Winners on are involved in a celebrity tournament on Thursday, June [email protected] Features May 17th. The First Annual Blues 7th at Hard Rock from 2 til 4. It is for a new game called 52 NMG Blues Jam Jam rocked. The event was standing ‘You’ve Been Sentenced – Country Edition’. It will be a Director, Sales & Marketing Janell Webb 4 Heartland Idol Midtown Nashville [email protected] room only and was a huge success. We blast. Come out and play. Lauren Elizabeth Sings the Blues should do it every week.... well, that Sales & Marketing Hannah Ryans 5 Outlaw Country would contradict calling it our First Bonnaroo is this week as well, so the roads to Manches- [email protected] 54 Healing Power of Music Annual, now wouldn’t it? ter will be slow, but the musical line-up is just crazy. And Jason Roberson Intimate Evening with We would like to thank the Nashville I mean crazy good, not crazy insane, or ate too many Accounts Rhonda Smith Missouri’s Sweetest Blues Society, Strum Magazine, Jive, brownies that tasted funny - crazy. Check out our spread [email protected] 6 Darryl Worley Winners and HobNob Nashville for on Bonnaroo in this issue. Jacqueline Rose your support. Contributors Phil Sweetland, Preshias, 7 A Work In Progress It was truly a Jam. Paris Delane jammed with everyone We would like to say a BIG thank you and welcome to the Rick Moore, Andrew Miller, Leslie Arm- Departments stong, Brion Dixon, Jessica Northey, Hank Kenny Cook and was phenomenal. We had The Blues Connection, Pino Nashville Music Guide’s newest member, Krys Midgett. & Edna Beach, Bronson Herrmuth, Krys Squillace, Matt Mackey, John William Hayes, Tyrone Car- She and Amanda have done the lay-out for the last two Midgett, Dan Wunsch, 8 Looking For Success reker and anyone who wanted to get up and jam. Watch for issues and have done a really great job. Also, thanks to 2 Editor’s Letter our next Special Edition issue and our shows. Preshias Harris for all she does to help us out, not only Photography Kyler Wilson, Bob Coan, Lauren Sutton for her monthly news but her advise and tips. Our cover Jerry Overcast, 10 Lee Greenwood 14 Songwriter’s Nights Welcome to Nashville, Country Music Fans. I hope you this month is Stephen Cochran. He has a new video out were able to get your autograph tickets for your favor- and a song called ‘Pieces’. The Stephen Cochran Project is HOW TO REACH NMG Penning A New Book and Open Mics ite artists. There is so much to do this week. Be sure to something he started to help raise awareness and educate Press releases, CD Reviews 11 JHB Outlaw 16 NMG’s Sounding check our spread on the CMA Music Festival and make about Post-Traumatic Stress. He is a Marine and has quite [email protected] Justin Heskett Board your event schedule. This is going to be a hot week, have a story. Read it in here and also read the in-depth article Advertisement/Rates your sunblock and water handy. If you forgot it, there are online. [email protected] 12 Stephen Cochran 17 NSAI a couple stores on Broadway where you can get them at a Wear sunscreen.....Drink lots of water....Have Fun!!!!!!!! Pieces reasonable price. The CMAs have a great line-up for LP Event Submissions Advanced Song Camp Randy Matthews [email protected] 18 Bonnaroo 22 Nashville Music General Info Nashville Sends a Decade of [email protected] Music to Bonnaroo Venues NMGRadio.com 23 Save the Music America 24 Inside Track on [email protected] 45-Artist Strong Support Music Row NMG Radio Delivery Serivce 26 Dreamwest NMG RDS [email protected] 36 Experience Music & Fashion Compilation Information Nashville Music Guide CMA Music Festival 1700 Hayes Street, Suite 103 28 40 Producer Spotlight Nashville, TN 37203 It All Started 40 Years Ago Dean Miller 615.244.5673 615.244.8568 43 2012 Guitar Summit Office Fax Born To Love Country Presented by TSU 44 Disclaimer: Nashville Music Guide, Inc Music is not liable for any inaccuracies submit- 46 A Perfect Mix ted by freelance journalists, advertisers, The Past with a Pesonal publicists, and/or persons using this issue Film Festivals, Conferences for the free publicity and/or any royalty and Music Touch payments or fees due to the publication of material in the form of a press release, 45 Allison Clement events, publicity, or advertising. The Present with a 28 Personal Touch 57 Biz Buzz @NashMusicGuide Get Ready for Country’s Hottest Season 58 Nashville Country Club NashvilleMusicGuide.com 2 NashvilleMusicGuide.com 3 age. They didn’t want me in those environments at 13 or 14 years old.” Jason Roberson In the places that she could perform, she ex- “I’m hoping to God that I don’t drop you, because I couldn’t be in a celled. She was twice worse spot on this dang river,” Jason Roberson says to me over the runner-up in the local ra- phone. “Just my luck.” dio station’s Heartland He’s just wrapped up a shift on the tugboat where he earns his Idol competition. living. He gives me the number to the boat in case we get disconnected Now that’s she’s old while talking about his first passion: music. enough, she’s started per- “I was pretty much introduced to music at a real early age,” Rob- forming in the bars she erson says. “My dad was a big Hank Williams fan. My first four chords where she wasn’t allowed were A, C, F, G7. You can play a lot of Hank Williams songs with those before, and she’s looking chords.” to make a name for herself Roberson was a natural, and music became his passion. He loved as a singer and performer. playing and he loved performing. But as he grew older, he gave it up as an act of rebellion. She hopes that will allow “My dad, he tried to push it on me,” he says. “I kind of resented it for a minute there during my teenage years. I her to do what she loves started rebelling against it, saying, ‘I ain’t playing the guitar, and I don’t want to do this no more.’ ” for the rest of her life, and He would return to music years later, not as a guitar player, but as a singer. on her own terms. “I kind of drifted away from it, and then I kind of got back into it again, and as the years have gone by, just life “I want to be famous, has taken me away from it,” says Roberson. “I met my wife, got married, got a job, mortgage and all that stuff, and it all but I still want to be a started taking a backseat. I always had my eyes and ears on the music with the dreams, but I never really went after it like good entertainer,” she most people have to.” says. “I don’t want to be Until recently, that is. The last few years, Roberson has devoted more time to writing and his music, and he is cur- famous just to be famous. rently working on his debut album. He still has his daily life to contend with, but his music has become more of a priority. I want to be famous be- Roberson’s first track from the album, “I Just Saw Red,” is available online along with two other demo tracks. In cause I want to do what I the future, he hopes that his music can be an even bigger part of his life. love and get paid for it.” “All I know is I enjoy writing songs and singing and playing them for people,” he says. “I have big dreams, but mostly I want to be able to make a living doing what I love to do.” Story by Andrew Miller Heartland Idol’s Lauren Elizabeth “I’ve always loved to sing. When I house, and she would take me to the was like three, I started singing to the nursing home,” Lauren remembers. Cops theme,” says aspiring country “[My grandmother] would play the singer Lauren Elizabeth. “I couldn’t piano, and I would always sing to the even say the words, but my mom has nursing home residents. That’s pretty me on video singing the theme to much how I got started.” Cops. It’s hilarious.” Those performances showed her the Singing the rap-reggae theme to an path that she wanted to follow, and early 90s reality show was just the she’s been at it ever since. She didn’t beginning for Lauren Elizabeth. It even need a stage. didn’t take long before she was belt- “I was the type of person that if you ing out the country radio hits: asked me to sing I would sing on the “By the time I was a kindergartener, I spot at a young age,” she says. “I would sing ‘From This Moment On’ loved the attention.” by Shania Twain.” She did take the stage from time to Lauren Elizabeth’s musical roots ran time, at church, at the local fair, and deep on both sides of her family.