Born & Raised Music Podcast Garrett Thomson & Kent Oglesby

The one and only Charles Alexander joined us to talk us through how artists get paid through streaming, how to use streaming and other tools to grow your fan base, and what the Music Modernization Act means for artists and songwriters when it takes effect this year. Charles is the founder of label services and music marketing companies, Systemic and Outside The Box Music. He’s been an in-demand speaker at events and conferences like South by Southwest, Music Biz, CD Baby DIY and the Americana Music Festival and an adjunct professor at MTSU in its recording industry program. With a resume like that, it’s no wonder he was able to give us so much great info on this episode, and we were thrilled and honored to have him on. A LOT of great nuggets of wisdom in this one!

Current New Mexico volunteer fireman and frontman of the band Jubal, Taylor Kress joins us to talk about their newly pressed special edition burgundy 180g vinyl for their album 'County Ball.' It's the very first record on our very own Beer Me That Vinyl label! We talk a lot about the album, what the band has been up to this year, what it's like having band members living in different states, and of course, Taylor's chickens.

It’s that time of year again. Millions of Spotify users are showing their friends the year-end review of their own listening habits in well-designed sharable snippets. In this episode, we’ll talk about the power of a word-of-mouth generating marketing tool like Spotify Wrapped. As all of those stories are being shared, this is also the time of year in which many like to remind everyone that Spotify’s payment structure for artists is nowhere near what it should be. The second half of this episode digs into why that is and what, if anything, can be done to change it.

In an increasingly divided and polarized country, public figures who are nearly universally loved are an increasingly rare thing. Is it her philanthropy? Is it her angelic singing voice? Is it her down-to-earth personality? Many have posited that it's her natural aversion to 'getting political', but is that even the case? On this episode we discuss what's to love about Dolly, and trust us there is a lot. We also chronicle Dolly using her voice on political issues and lay out how she's able to do so without alienating significant chunks of her fan base. It may just be that she's a more skilled politician than anyone who holds public office...

In this episode, Garrett and Kent talk about what we're likely to see in terms of live music going into 2021. How long will it be until things are fully back to normal? Will there ever be such a thing as fully back to normal? What will the transition period of integrating shows back into our lives look like? How tenable are all the alternative concert ideas that we've seen in 2020 in a post-COVID world? We'll answer all these questions and more with as much optimism as possible!

The one and only Brian Clay joins the B&R Pod to talk about something we very rarely get the chance to talk about: Jazz. But more importantly we get to know Brian as he shares stories from his life and career in music that's taken him from Atlanta to (briefly) the midwest, and then right here to Knoxville. We also get some insight to how he used his Jazzspirations brand to help foster a vibrant Jazz scene right smack in the cradle of country music.