Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Baste Records owner, Chris Wallin in studio to talk about his role at the company and what an A&R position entails.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed the Head of A&R for Baste Records, Chris Wallin in studio to examine new AI called ChatGPT and what effect it could have on the songwriting industry.
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed singer-songwriters Alexis Wilkins, Chris Wallin, and Gary Chapman in studio to talk about working with liberal songwriters and keeping politics out of the writing rooms.
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Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed Baste Records own Chris Wallin in studio to discuss how Los Angeles has influenced Nashville’s music culture and the craft of songwriting.
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee- After hearing her on Sirius XM the Highway and seeing her fun and vibrant social media posts, I was instantly drawn to Ashley Cooke. I was excited to feature her in my column.
After winning the coveted Country Showcase at Belmont College, the communications major was just starting her new career path when the pandemic hit and forced the recent college graduate to temporarily move back home.
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Friday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed legendary Christian music country artist, Gary Chapman in studio to talk about how he writes songs and reminisce about how the song Tennessee Christmas came to be.
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Project Supergroup is a first-of-its-kind music competition series that implements a new and innovative “build a band” from scratch concept that showcases exceptionally talented musicians who play, write, and sing. It will soon be premiering on MTV and Fave TV.
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As much as I may like an artist’s music, their story often intrigues me more. When I heard that Johnny Day recently left a job working in the Colorado oil fields to move to Nashville, I wanted to learn more.
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Adam Warner hails from the farm country of southern Illinois, quite near to where my mother and her family lived. This area is so consumed by farming, specifically corn and soybeans, that you really do feel as if you are in the middle of nowhere.
Just like my mother and aunts, both of Warner’s grandmothers played piano and sang at church. His mother was involved in theater and singing as well. He was certainly not the only one in the family who did music but would be the only one who chose it as a career path.
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With Tyler Braden’s newest hits, “Try Losing One,” and “Seventeen”, he has proven that his star is on the rise. You will be hearing a lot more from this singer/songwriter in the future.
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Dennis Quaid concluded his fall musical tour on November 15th when he played the Nashville City Winery to a sold-out crowd.
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Ryan Weaver is a high-energy, all-American, rockin’ country music artist who proudly served as an active-duty Black Hawk Aviator, Chief Warrant Officer 3 in the United States Army.
Although he had a short history of playing the violin as a child/teen, everyone in his family was in the military so that is the path he initially chose for his career. (Weaver’s grandfather was in WWII and his dad was a Marine along with two brothers and a sister who also served.)
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CreatiVets is one of the most important non-profits I have come across. It shows first-hand how music and art can help to heal our wounded veterans.
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee- The first time I heard Tyler Kohrs sing was on an Instagram video. He has a beautiful, bright voice and his country covers were spot on. But that wasn’t unusual. What was unusual was that he sounded country and talked with a slight southern accent, but is actually Asian-American. That piqued my interest so much that I contacted him directly.
Those of you who watch The Voice may recognize Tyler Kohrs from his tryout this past March. He didn’t get through, but he still did very well where people remarked about it. The story he shares about his experience is one you will want to hear.
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One of my favorite type of artists to interview are “Highway Finds” from SiriusXM The Highway. The Highway plays new mostly unheard artists on their weekend show, On the Horizon and if they get enough response from their subscribers, they move the song over to their weekly rotation.
Even though Drew Parker has had a #1 song as a songwriter, Jake Owen’s “Homemade”, he has never been on the radio as a performer until recently when Sirius radio introduced him to the world with his title track to his up and coming EP, While You’re Gone.
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What happens when you take a person who was raised in a bluegrass family and give him a degree in jazz/classical guitar? Jordan Tice, a musician’s musician, is what you get.
Tice grew up in Annapolis, Maryland where both of his parents played bluegrass. His mother played fiddle and his dad played banjo and they were involved with the local bluegrass scene.
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I first saw Trannie Anderson at the Listening Room when I went to see Levi Hummon and his dad, Marcus Hummon. I immediately liked her that night. When I went to see the Song Suffragettes a few weeks later and she sang a song she had written with/for Gabby Barrett, I knew I wanted to learn more about her.
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At 15-years-old, Ava Paige proves that cancer and the Coronavirus are just bumps in the road for this singer/songwriter and soon-to-be superstar.
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NASHVILLE, Tennessee – I first interviewed Emily Hackett in October 2018 when she was featured in my Music Spotlight column. There has been a lot of shifts in the music world since then and we were able to talk about how that is affecting her/the industry.
As mentioned in my column, in 2018 Hackett released her EP By the Sun, and in 2019 she released its counterpart By the Moon which landed her as one of CMT Next Women of Country for 2019.
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Nashville, Tennessee- You may have heard of the story Longwood Symphony Orchestra which is a symphony comprised exclusively of Boston physicians and health-care professionals. The link between music and medicine is well-documented. So when 117 Entertainment Group asked me to interview a traditional country crooner from Tulsa named James Robert Webb who happened also to be a renowned radiologist, I was eager to hear his story.
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I’ve known Regie Hamm for many years and my husband grew up with him. I even know the highlights of his amazing career, but what I didn’t know was his “where I came from” story. So finally after nearly three years of entertainment reporting, I decided it was time to sit down with this remarkable songwriter/artist/blogger.
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Nashville, TN Levi Hummon is a rarity when it comes to singers and songwriters. He was actually born and raised in Nashville, Tennessee, “literally on ‘The Row’” as he explains. His father, Marcus Hummon, was and still is an accomplished songwriter and he wrote songs like the Grammy Award Winning “Bless the Open Road” (Rascal Flatts), “Ready to Run” and “Cowboy Take Me Away” (Dixie Chicks), “Born to Fly” (Sarah Evans) along with songs for many country music artists, including Top 40 singles for Tim McGraw, Wynonna Judd, and Alabama. His mother, Becca Stevens, runs a non-profit, Thistle Farms which helps women who have survived trafficking, prostitution, and addiction get a second chance at life.
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Greg Friia provides an in-depth understanding of what it is like to be a songwriter in Nashville.
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