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Country Update BILLBOARD.COM/NEWSLETTERS DECEMBER 2, 2019 | PAGE 1 OF 19 INSIDE BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE [email protected] Chart Numbers On Aldean’s 9 The Ken Burns Series: The Short- And >page 4 Long-Term Benefits Of A 2019 Landmark iHeart Deepens Nashville Ties The year that Old Crow Medicine Show frontman Ketch Secor sort of understanding that Secor gained about the Civil War >page 9 turned 12, he made his first TV appearance while answering may ultimately be the most impactful part of the eight-part phones along with fellow sixth graders in Harrisonburg, Va., documentary’s long-tail effect on country. for a local PBS fundraiser. As Burns’ projects tend to do, Country Music covered the Public TV’s big attraction that year was Florentine Films’ genre’s development from its inception to the year 1996, John Zarling’s The Civil War, and while other 12-year-olds in 1990 might have exploring both its creative roots and its connection to the New Firm hoped to meet American culture >page 9 Vanilla Ice or Joe in which it was Montana, Secor’s born and raised. aspirations were It reached 34.5 a little more million unique Wayne, Swons, u n u s u a l : H e visitors during Janson On Parade wanted to meet its eight-night >page 10 Ken Burns. run, Sept. 15-18 “Living in and Sept. 22-25, the Shenandoah with an average Makin’ Tracks: Valley meant that audience of 6.8 Underwood’s the Civil War was million viewers. my backyard,” Additionally, ‘Drinking Alone’ MATTEA SECOR SKAGGS >page 14 explains Secor. it generated 4 “Everything from million streams a shopping center to a subdivision to our high school, to the on PBS digital platforms and 1.5 million engagements on rivers, to the counties, was all named for the heroes of the war. Facebook and Twitter. Country Coda: You just felt the echo everywhere, and I didn’t really understand It certainly had a short-term effect on sales. After their Garth Brooks’ until Ken, until the movie came out, about how much I cared. appearance in the series, such heritage titles as Patsy Cline’s First No. 1 I was drawn to the history, but he connected it for me to the “Crazy,” Dolly Parton’s “Jolene,” George Jones’ “He >page 19 human story.” Stopped Loving Her Today” and Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Two months ago, more than 30 million people reportedly Fire” topped 2,000 downloads in a single week, with some tuned in to see Florentine’s latest production, Country of those songs’ sales increasing by more than 350% over Music: A Film by Ken Burns, according to Nielsen. That same the previous week. It made a difference in streaming, too, CRACKERFARM SECOR: STERCHI. RETO MATTEA: BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE DECEMBER 2, 2019 | PAGE 2 OF 19 as several titles exceeded 1 million weekly streams, including Parton’s “9 to 5” and Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues.” A number of others that didn’t break the 1 million mark still experienced streaming increases of at least 50%, including Waylon Jennings’ “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way,” Hank Williams’ “I Saw the Light” and Kathy Mattea’s “Where’ve You Been.” The benefits did not stop with a one- or two-week digital wave. Ricky Skaggs, who figured prominently in the story arc of Bill Monroe and bluegrass music, says he’s playing to bigger crowds. “I know we’re selling more tickets, and I think it’s not just me that’s seen it.” Skaggs polls those crowds from the stage, and invariably more than 75% of his audience watched the Burns documentary. But he feels the impact in more mundane parts of his life, too. “People are coming up to me on the street or coming up to me at Kroger or wherever I’m at, and [say], ‘I saw you in the film, and it’s just so great,’ ” The final installment of Morris Higham Presents at The Bluebird Cafe he says. “I mean, doctors, bricklayers, every walk of life.” raised more than $2,600 for ACM Lifting Lives. From left: singer- Mattea’s booking agent has told her to expect her 2020 tour calendar to songwriters Brandon Lay, Carly Pearce, Brett James and Johnny Dailey. fill up, based on early outreach from talent buyers who saw her in the series, and Secor has had an uptick in interview requests from journalists, he says, “because there’s been more scholarship on the subject.” Still, the biggest benefits from the series are likely to be less about numbers than about the extra boost of confidence and relevance it seems to have given the genre. Country has held a significant place in mainstream culture for decades, slowly evolving from a regional idiom to a national — and increasingly global — one. The music was often treated as a poor cousin to other formats, but Burns and his fellow producers, Dayton Duncan and Julie Dunfey, provided more context to its expression of blue-collar America. “For the longest time, I always felt like country music was kind of looked down [upon] to some degree, and the perception of what it was, was inaccurate generally,” said Vince Gill during a Country Radio Broadcasters webcast several weeks after PBS aired the series. “We’re a grateful bunch in that we Jameson Rodgers sang current single “Some Girls” when he visited finally feel like there was some dignity and a little bit of respect attached to the Academy of Country Music in Los Angeles. From left are Red Light what we’ve accomplished.” Management artist manager J.P. Durant, Rodgers, ACM executive vp “It was more an inner thing that happened,” agrees Rosanne Cash. “It’s finance & operations Tom Torii and Sony Music Nashville associate not about business at all. I’m not in the business of working my dad’s catalog director media Courtney Beebe. or trying to make him more famous. But I let it all down, and I talked to Ken honestly and told him things I don’t think that I’ve talked about in interviews before. And he treated us with such respect that it just put something to rest in me.” The series ably conveyed country’s storytelling tradition, unlocking the intensive labor at the heart of Rodgers’ “Mule Skinner Blues,” the personal drama behind Parton’s “I Will Always Love You” and the underdog inspiration beneath Dwight Yoakam & Buck Owens’ “The Streets of Bakersfield.” By investigating the real-life roots of Mattea’s “Where’ve You Been” — penned by husband Jon Vezner and Don Henry about Vezner’s parents’ battle with Alzheimer’s — it not only underscored the humanity in the music but the wisdom in its creation. “Allen Reynolds, who was my producer for many years and produced that record, he used to say, ‘Kathy, if you choose a great song and you sing it well, it will be timeless. It will not be locked to any time period,’ ” she recalls. Indie act Southern Halo performed when Charley Pride received the “With that record, that’s what I’ve gotten to know.” Crossroads of American Music Award at the Grammy Museum in Ultimately, because of the PBS series, existing country fans have gotten Cleveland, Miss. From left are Southern Halo’s Natalia Morris, Pride to know better why they care about the music. And some new fans were and Southern Halo’s Christina Morris and Hannah Morris. introduced to the genre, likely including students still envisioning what to do with their lives. Some of Skaggs’ younger relatives were moved by the series in a way they had not been previously. Thus, it’s probable that some 12-year-old, maybe in the Shenandoah Valley, connected so deeply with his own cultural history that instead of meeting Kanye West or Tom Brady, he or she hopes to meet Burns or Secor, and maybe has reason to build upon country’s musical foundation. So as 2019 draws to a close, there’s reason to believe that one of country’s most significant advances during the year came from a TV miniseries based on older music that somehow provides a blueprint for meaningful artists in the coming decades. People who missed it can experience it fully during an eight-week rebroadcast on Friday nights beginning Jan. 3. “It zeroed in on an ethos of Old Crow Medicine Show, which is to understand the past but not keep it behind glass,” says Secor. “The spirit of renewal — that’s not something specific to my band. Throughout the film, Colt Ford (right) received a gold single for his 2014 release “Workin’ you can see that the spirit of renewal is constant in country music, that we On.” He celebrates with (from left) guitarist Spencer Bassett, Average are always reappropriating or growing from the past.” Joes senior vp Doug Kaye and fiddler Justin Bertoldie. PHOTOGRAPY XTREME LEMONS JASON FORD: BOURQUARD. MICHEL RODGERS: BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE DECEMBER 2, 2019 | PAGE 4 OF 19 ON THE CHARTS JIM ASKER [email protected] 9 Is No. 1 As Jason Aldean Earns Seventh Top Country Albums Leader; Sam Hunt Returns To Country Airplay Top 10 Jason Aldean earns his seventh No. 1 and sixth No. 1 debut on Billboard’s Top August (29,000), becoming his first of nine top 10s to date. Aldean’s additional Country Albums chart (dated Dec. 7) as his ninth full-length studio album, top 10, Wide Open, entered the list at its No. 2 peak on the April, 25, 2009- appropriately titled 9 (Macon/Broken Bow/BMG/Broken Bow Music Group), dated chart with 109,000 copies sold.