Resurfacing in a Pandemic: Why Radio Re-Embraced Parmalee. It All Begins with a Song
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
2021 March 15 CountryInsider.com | Sign Up For Daily Email Here Resurfacing In A Pandemic: Why Radio Re-Embraced Parmalee. It all begins with a song. When Steve Stewart, director of operations for Cox Media Group Orlando and PD at “K92.3” WWKA, first heard Parmalee’s “Just the Way” feat. Blanco Brown in October 2019, he knew the band had a hit on its hands. It took more than a year for other stations to agree. Parmalee, who first played Stewart the song on a tour bus after an Orlando show, is No. 1 on this week’s Mediabase country chart — eight years after last topping the chart with “Carolina” in 2013. The band released “Just the Way” December 2019 and WWKA became the first station to add it the following month. (Continued on page 4) COUNTRY INSIDER TOP 5: “Things A Man Oughta Know” Singer Lainey Wilson’s Journey To Nashville And The Airwaves. Country Radio Consultant Joel Raab Offers 10 Tips For Helping Your Air Talent Shine. FGL’s Tyler Hubbard Releasing Collaboration With Country Rapper Lathan Warlick This Friday. Garth Brooks’ “Inside Studio G” Returns; Trisha Yearwood Shows Off New Dinnerware Collection. Morgan Wallen Earns Ninth Week Atop Billboard 200. CountryInsider.com MARCH 15, 2021 | 1 Amy James Lonnie Middays Napier “K102” KEEY 5 Favorite Reba 5 Favorites On The Executive Producer Minneapolis, MN American Country Countdown McEntire Songs: Charts Right Now: with Kix Brooks” 1. “What’s Your Country 1. “The Night the Lights Went Song” - Thomas Rhett Out in Georgia” 2. “Just the Way” - 2. “The Greatest Man I Parmalee/Blanco Brown Never Knew” 3. “Settling Down” - 3. “I’d Rather Ride Miranda Lambert Around With You” 4. “All Night “ - 4. “And Still” Brothers Osborne 5. “Till You Love Me” 5. “Hell of a View” - Eric Church Tyler Hubbard, Rapper Lathan Warlick Team Up For “My Way.” First there was “Undivided” with Tim McGraw. Now Florida Georgia Line’s Tyler Hubbard is releasing a collaboration called “My Way” with rapper and TikTok sensation Lathan Warlick. “My Way,” out Friday, is one of the songs Hubbard wrote while isolating on his bus with COVID-19 last fall. Warlick has previously released collaborations with Matt Stell and RaeLynn, contributing to 5.6 million streams for the developing artist. He will release his first country EP this spring on RECORDS Nashville / Columbia Records. Garth Brooks’ Weekly Facebook Live Show Returns Tonight. Garth Brooks’ “Inside Studio G” returns to Facebook tonight after the singer briefly suspended the show while wife Trisha Yearwood recuperated from COVID-19. Brooks will update viewers on his future plans, which include a Friday appearance on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show.” This past Friday, Yearwood showed off her new Gwendolyn dinnerware collection in an unboxing video on Facebook. The stoneware collection has embossed patterns based on icing designs Yearwood’s mother, Gwen, made for cakes she created and is available exclusively via Williams Sonoma. Yearwood also recently announced a cookbook, “Trisha’s Kitchen: Easy Comfort Food for Friends and Family,” that will be published in September. Grassroots Promotion’s Business Manager Scott Whitehead Passes. Scott Whitehead, business manager for Grassroots Promotion and FanTheJam.com, passed away suddenly Friday, March 12. Whitehead was the husband of Grassroots managing partner and co-owner Nancy Tunick. He also was a songwriter, producer and manager, as well as a former member of Hometown News, a duo that charted two country singles in 2002. No funeral, but the family plans to hold a celebration of life later this year. Sister Duo Tigirlily Sign With Monument Records. Monument Records signs sisters Krista and Kendra Slaubaugh, the duo announced Friday on Ty Bentli’s Apple Radio show. The news follows the February release of Tigirlily’s single “Somebody Does,” which topped both the iTunes Country Songs and iTunes All Genres Songs charts. “Monument is our dream team,” Krista said in a release. “After years of being independent artists, we are so excited to be part of a label that brings out the best in their unique artists.” CountryInsider.com MARCH 15, 2021 | 3 Radio Re-Embraces Parmalee. (Continued from page 1) Stewart immediately saw the streaming numbers come and when a couple get convinced, then others get in, he says. When lockdown hit in March, “Just the Way” convinced.” remained in steady rotation. Parmalee isn’t the only act reemerging in 2021. Brooke “When we went into COVID, Eden and Chase Bryant have resurfaced, while veteran people were looking for acts Clay Walker and Joe Nichols eye their return to something to feel good about,” radio. Joe Nichols reportedly will re-emerge this spring Stewart tells Country Insider. with Quartz Hill Records, reuniting with Benny Brown, “That song already had a place who ran Broken Bow when Nichols recorded for its on our radio station and was Red Bow imprint. Nichols, like Parmalee, last charted already seeing consumption in 2017. Walker last charted in 2012 before returning numbers coming in. We just last year with “Need a Bar said, ‘Let’s put this all the way Sometimes” on Show Dog up to power and see what Nashville. happens.’” Show Dog Nashville SVP/ Stewart says “Just the Way” did Promotion Rick Moxley well for the station on every metric and had a positive says working “Need a Bar response from listeners. “This is a song that has earned Sometimes” has been an its way permanently onto our library and permanently uphill battle. Moxley, who first into our research,” he says. worked with Walker as a Giant Records Southeast regional, WWKA was an early champion, but sister “Y100” KCYY says introducing any new song San Antonio waited a full year to add “Just the Way.” to radio during a pandemic has Stoney Creek Records used the song’s streaming been difficult. numbers, consumption stats and the band’s story to help generate buzz at radio. “It is hand-to-hand combat for us since day one,” he says. “The music has to lead,” BBR “You have to knock down some Music Group SVP JoJamie doors with veteran artists.” Hahr says. In Walker’s case, people know “It took a really long time a catalog of hits dating back to [for ‘Just the Way’]. When the ’90s. Touring has remained you see the numbers, the a staple throughout his career, consumption, the social and and he’s now embracing the digital marketing work TikTok. With more than 730,000 on a song, it’s probably followers and 4.8 million likes going to translate to radio.” on the video-sharing platform Hahr credits Parmalee’s work ethic and radio he’s seeing a resurgence of older hits with a younger relationships for helping propel the song. “When a audience while introducing his latest single. Moxley programmer needs them for something at their station, says the label’s pitch to radio was always Walker’s “big they’re there and they always have been,” she says. familiar country voice, big catalog of hits, big single and “They have a great reputation for that.” big star.” He cites Premiere Networks’ Bobby Bones as an early believer of “Need a Bar Sometimes,” with United Stations’ Radio Network “Backstage Country” Walker visiting “The Bobby Bones Show” ahead of the talent relations consultant and Country Insider single’s add date. iHeartCountry also named Walker a columnist John Shomby says artists rarely return to No. spotlight artist for its digital Artist Integration Program 1 after spending years off the charts. in January. “There’s a hesitancy to jump out on a band that hasn’t “We feel he’s still very relevant,” Moxley says. “If it really had a hit in eight years,” Shomby says. “It took a while is about the music, (Continued on page 8) to convince programmers that this one was for real 4 | MARCH 15, 2021 CountryInsider.com “Things A Man Oughta Know” Singer Lainey Wilson’s Journey To Nashville. Everything Lainey Wilson needs to know about life she says. While the song, which appears on her Jay Joyce- learned in Baskin, LA. produced Broken Bow album “Sayin’ What I’m Thinkin,’” refers to such traditional masculine tasks as shooting “I’m from a town of 300 people — 299 when I left,” she guns and hooking trailer hitches, “it’s not really about says of the town in the northeastern part of the changing a tire,” she says. state near Monroe. “A caution light, no red light, and a bunch of farming. It made me who I am At 19, Wilson bought a Flagstaff bumper-pull and what I believe. I grew up around a lot of trailer and boldly moved to Nashville. blue-collar folks who believe in working hard and providing for their families.” Her mentor has been Baskin native Jerry Cupit, a veteran songwriter and producer. She shares a bit of that homespun “My grandfather gave him $300 to move to wisdom in her single, “Things A Man Nashville to get started,” she says. “As a Oughta Know,” which includes the favor in return years later, he let me live lyrics, “If I can’t have it, I can do in his studio parking lot for free with my without/ I can hang a picture same as camper. I can take it down/ And how to keep it hidden when a heart gets broke/ “I knew I would have one person in my Yeah, I know a few things a man corner in Nashville. That made the oughta know.” decision to move easier, but it was still terrifying.” Eight months after going to radio, “Things a Man Oughta Know” broke She lived in that trailer for three of her Mediabase’s Top 50 last week at No.