John,

I have tried to do just that. I posted a "Yes Virginia Deals still Happen" thread a couple of weeks ago, which tell the story of Julie Moriva, who has just signed with Big Machine(Taylor Swift's publishing company) and is on her way to making a name for herself through her writing partners Steel Magnolia, who did George Lopez's TV show last night, are nominated for a ACM award and their single is number 18 this week on the country charts. They are the fastest rising duo in country history. Julie has written with them and their best friend.

Also I have talked about Frankie Ballard, an artist that I worked with last year who got signed to Warner Brothers, and has his first single coming out in April. I have done my best to tell as many stories that I have personal knowledge on over and over and am often shouted down by "Nash Bashers" who claim that it is all crap and that it doesn't exist.


In Taylor's case, she wrote some very interesting songs by herself in Pennsylvania. Her Father, a fairly well off banker with Merril Lynch supporter her dreams and she and her Mother came to Nashville. She had a development deal writing for a couple of years, but was dropped. Through her time in Nashville, she hooked up with a few writers most prominately Liz Rose, who had been around for a while with little success. Many people wrote her off as another "child trying to be a big star." We get them every day.

An exectutive with Sony, Scott Borchetta, was interested in her career, particularly one of her first songs, "Tim MaGraw, that Taylor had written by herself for a school talent show. Scott believed in her when everyone else dismissed her. When he wanted to work with her, he was told it would never fly because they would have to have a "BIG MACHINE" behind them. They named their publishing and record company "Big Machine."
Scott quit his job to produce and manager her full time. She had returned to Penn. to write and made trips to Nashville. She played talent contests, local and regional venues and was constantly in the public eye. Being a teenager, one of her natural skills was Face Book, My Space, Twitter. She had built a fan base of around 100,000 people by the time she was offered a "partner ship" deal with her label and Sony.
Record companies now wait until artists have started the ball rolling and if they deem them marketable sometimes take them the next level.

There was a great groundswell of attention about her, which led to magazine articles, news shows, and other things that built her publicity, like a snowball effect. Her CD debut was large and she begin to get airplay and sweep like a wildfire through the teen community who did the modern equivalent of "Tiger or Teen Beat Magazine did in the 60's and 70's. They told their friends.

She had intersesting songs, they were shaped well by more experienced people, her live show rocked, even though from time to time hitting some clunkers, but overall it was just one thing feeding on another.

Today as all things, she has detractors, but the most of them are just mad because she beat them to the punch with an intellegent girl that was the whole package.

As I have been told, that is what happened. I think we should learn from success and try to emulate that instead of always being as negative toward what someone else does.

MAB

Last edited by Marc Barnette; 02/12/10 04:44 PM.