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Texas Music icon, Jerry Jeff Walker, dies at 78

Country music singer Jerry Jeff Walker, the man behind "Mr. Bojangles," died Friday after a battle with throat cancer. He was 78. "He was at home until an hour before his passing," his wife of 46 years, Susan Walker, told the Austin American-Statesman. "He went very peacefully, which we were extremely grateful for."

Born Ronald Clyde Crosby in New York in 1942, Walker cut his teeth in the folk music scene of Greenwich Village in the '60s. After spending a night in a New Orleans drunk tank in the mid-60s, Walker wrote "Mr. Bojangles," which would go on to become a hit and attract several covers by other famous artists including Bob Dylan, Harry Belafonte and Sammy Davis Jr.  After moving to Austin in 1971, Walker had an outsize impact on the country music scene there, helping to create genre known as "outlaw country" — a sort of blend between rock and folk — which was also popularized by Willie Nelson and others around the same time.

 

9000+ Artists Back ‘Justify At Spotify’ Campaign, Demanding Increased Payments, Transparency

More than 9000 have signed a Union of Musicians and Allied Workers petition demanding a radical change in how Spotify calculates and pays royalties.  Increased including royalty rate to one cent per stream payments is a central demand in the “Justify At Spotify” campaign.

 

Facebook Ads. Why Is It So Hard For Musicians To Promote Their Music?

Facebook Ads provide musicians with a powerful and effective tool to promote their music in a sustainable way, but unless Facebook changes it’s advertising guidelines to help musicians this opportunity will be wasted. In this guest post, Major Labl founder Mark Knight urges Facebook to simplify the progress, be more accountable and revisit their advertising policies to ensure musicians retain their freedom of expression.

 

5 Techniques For Marketing Your Music Video

Once you’ve poured your heart and soul into crafting the perfect music video, the next step is actually getting it front of an audience. Here, we look at five ways you can market your music video to ensure it actually gets seen.  Music videos are an artist’s visual key to sharing their story. Think about it. You put all this time and effort into creating an incredible song—one that you hope will touch people, or get them dancing, or in some way make their lives better. And then, you put it out there, and you have to just hope that people switch on the audio and listen.

 

5 Things You Must Know About YouTube Royalties

Although YouTube can be a huge boon to artists, understanding the ins and outs of how the platform works (and how it makes you money) can be challenging. In this piece, we break down exactly what you need to know about earning royalties from YouTube.  Many musicians benefit from YouTube royalties. Sometimes, however, it can be difficult to navigate. Do you know where your royalties are coming from? We’re here to break it down, so you know exactly what works and what doesn’t. — Here are 5 things you should know about earning royalties on YouTube.

 

Sync Licensing: It’s Much Bigger Than TV, Film, and Commercials

Sync licensing is a major source of income – and exposure – for both well-established acts and the stars of tomorrow. But contrary to the commonly held belief, there’s much more to the fast-growing music industry sector than film, television, and commercials.  To summarize, sync licensing refers to the process of matching your music in any type of visual media. Carefully selected songs bring video games’ fast-paced battle sequences to life and complement most every film’s credits, for instance.  And with platforms like Hulu, Netflix, HBO, and Amazon continuing to ramp-up their content production in the streaming age, additional sync opportunities are becoming available to artists. Another key component of sync is its obtainability for all creators.

 

Johnny Bush, ‘Whiskey River’ Songwriter and Texas Country Singer, Dead at 85

Johnny Bush, the Texas country-music veteran who wrote Willie Nelson’s signature opening number “Whiskey River,” has died at 85.  Born in Houston in 1935 as John Bush Shinn III, Bush received his big break from Nelson, who helped him land a job as a drummer in Ray Price’s band, the Cherokee Cowboys. Nelson would go on to bankroll Bush’s debut single, 1967’s “Sound of a Heartache,” and vouched for Bush’s talent in a message on the back cover of the album of the same name. “Johnny Bush is a great singing talent,” Nelson wrote, “as you will discover after hearing his first album Sound of a Heartache.”  Throughout Bush’s career, his kinship with Nelson remained a constant. “It seemed that one day I had never heard of Johnny Bush and then on the next day I had always known him,” Nelson wrote in 1968. “We’re that good of friends.”  Services will be held Friday, Oct. 23, at 1:pm at Trinity Baptist Church in San Antonio.

 

Guide Making Online Event Attendees Happy, According To Attendees Themselves

As the pandemic persists and winter draws nearer, online and virtual events are here to stay, like it or not. Fortunately, more than half a year in, we’ve had a chance to gather some feedback on what makes these events work – from the actual attendees themselves. As COVID-19 has forced us into our homes and out of event spaces, we’ve gotten used to a new normal. Zoom and Facetime have replaced our dinner parties and yoga classes, and while we’ve all felt some growing pains while adjusting, it turns out that online events actually have some benefits. We asked our event attendees via a survey to tell us how they really feel about shifting from bottomless brunches and run clubs to virtual meditation and online tasting events, and gathered some tips and tricks along the way that will help you host your best online event yet.

 

What Makes A Great Cover Song Great?

Performing and recording has long been a staple of the industry, but what exactly makes these recreations of familiar songs great? Here, we try and expose the framework of what makes a great over so good.  Now here’s a question that’s bound to create some conversational controversy…What makes a great cover song? Is it playing every note as close to the original as possible, creating a carbon copy? Or does a great cover require a reimagining of the source material in your own style? And if that, then where are the limits of going “too far” on the spectrum of interpretation?  Whatever your feeling is, this brand new podcast episode digs deep into some of our own favorite cover versions, and attempts to come up with a framework for what, ultimately, makes a great cover so special.

 

Is It Still Worth It for Musicians to Have a Website?

In the age of social media, do musicians still even need a website?  You’ve worked hard to build up your online presence, and the daily effort you put in to keep up engagement across different channels can sometimes feel like a full-time job in itself. So why bother adding an artist website to your list?  Here are just a few of the reasons why it’s smart for musicians to have their own website — and how you can turn it into one of your best sources of income.

 

Is Your Metadata Complete? Muso.AI Wants to Fix the Industry’s Credits Problem by Verifying the Data With Creators Themselves

Despite the accumulation of millions in unpaid royalties and the emergence of several purported solutions, missing credits remain a major problem in the music industry.  Even decades into the digital age, outdated systems and antiquated crediting procedures (email chains and pen-and-paper logs among them) continue to prevent musicians, songwriters, producers, and other contributors from properly getting recognized and paid. That goes for many musicians behind some of today’s most popular tracks, many of whom aren’t receiving their due credit and compensation.  Logistical obstacles and the sheer volume of data associated with crediting compound these difficulties, and the situation’s unfortunate statistics speak for themselves.

 

3 Quick Tips for Your Rough Recordings
As much as we’d like to admit it, not all of our songs are going to be worth spending the kind of money and time that professional recordings require. In order to know whether or not your song is - or can be - worth that investment, song critiques are invaluable. In order to get your song up to a “listenable” level, though, you’ll need to make a good rough recording. And, even though your rough recording won’t be the final, finished product, it’s still important to give your listeners the best representation of your song that you can. To that end, I’ve put together a few quick tips to help you avoid some of the speed bumps that have nothing to do with the quality of your song, but can distract your listener and prevent them from giving you a constructive critique.