Nashville’s Capitol Records, Sony/ATV/Tree Publishing To Change Hands
November 11th, 2011
If a deal reported as almost certain by the Wall Street Journal goes through as expected, the music landscape could shift in Nashville and worldwide. As in our neighbor Capitol Records would be owned by Universal Music Group, which also owns MCA & Mercury Records. On the publishing side, EMI would be owned by Sony, which owns Nashville’s Sony/ATV/Tree Music. It’s all due to the long-anticipated sale of music giant EMI Group finally coming to fruition.
The Journal report says, “EMI’s recorded-music unit will be sold to Vivendi SAs Universal Music Group for $1.9 billion, the companies confirmed Friday. A group spearheaded by Sony Corp.s music division is to buy the publishing operation for $2.2 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. The publishing deal, bringing the total value to $4.1 billion, could be announced later Friday.”
Capitol Announces EMI Records Nashville
March 12th, 2010
According to Music Row, Nashville’s music business trade publication, “EMI Music’s Capitol Nashville is forming a new imprint. Designed to be a sister label to Capitol Nashville, which includes artists Dierks Bentley, Luke Bryan, Eric Church, Lady Antebellum, Little Big Town, Darius Rucker, Keith Urban and Emily West, the new imprint, to be called EMI Records Nashville, will be a new home for talent, with a dedicated team to support a new roster of country artists. Read the rest of this entry »
Trace Adkins Switches Labels. Goes to Show Dog-Universal Music.
January 14th, 2010
In a surprise announcement attached to a scheduled press conference about a label merger, we learn that Trace Adkins is moving from Capital Records to Show Dog-Universal Music, the merger of which was the original subject of the gathering!
Trace explained it this way, according to website, All About Country: “While touring together this past summer, Toby Keith and I had some time to get to know each other. Just watching him on stage every night acting like a 12-year-old on Christmas morning, really fired me up, and I said to myself, ‘I want some of that!’ I knew it wasn’t an act, ‘cause Toby ain’t much of an actor.” The room exploded into laughter.
Trace has been with Capitol Records Nashville since the time he got his first record deal. He was signed by then Label President Scott Hendricks.