June 29, 2020, Issue 711
Play It Again Skips Ahead
Plans for artist management and record label expansion – led by the addition of CEO Ryan Dokke – prove publishing wasn›t going to be enough for Play It Again founder Dallas Davidson. In fact, the company’s existence shows even an absurdly successful songwriting career wasn’t going to contain his passion for country music. Instead, Davidson and company have set their sights on fast forwarding the development process and pressing repeat on his success with a new generation of artists and writers. “As a writer, I’ve had some great publishers, but I also saw things I would do differently, so I started my own company,” Davidson says of PIA’s 2015 origin. Opening his own shop doesn’t seem like much of a gamble when even a partial listing of his credits is heady stuff: “All About Tonight,” “Gimmie That Girl,” “If Heaven Wasn’t So Far Away,” “Just A Kiss,” “Runnin’ Outta Moonlight,” “That’s How Dokke and Davidson Country Boys Roll” and more than a half-dozen Luke Bryan No. 1s including, of course, “Play It Again.” Davidson wasn’t interested in resting on laurels, however. “I’m not 21 anymore, and what’s going to keep me current is surrounding myself with young kids,” he says. “As a writer first, but also from the standpoint of helping people the way I was helped. We opened and ran Play It Again in a commonsense fashion and started having success – adding writers and getting a vision of greater things. There’s a lot more I want to give to the music.” Team Building Exercise: Enter Dokke, who left a six-year run with Curb in April. “I was looking for a boss – a CEO,” Davidson says. “We went through some changes at the publishing company and never really had the right fit to take that load off of me so I could focus on writing songs. Finding someone with experience like Ryan’s – radio, promotion, running Curb – I’m tickled I even got him on board.” (continued on page 9)
Here & Wow: The Warner Music Nashville team celebrates Kenny Chesney’s chart-topping “Here And Now” with a few drams of rum. Pictured (l-r, top) are Shari Roth and Diane Monk, (middle) Kristen Williams and Kate Myers (bottom) Stephanie Hagerty and Ray Mariner.
Garth’s Drive-In: Ask Me How I Know More than 350,000 people – according to organizers – made the pilgrimage to their nearest participating drive-in theater to see Pearl’s Garth Brooks in concert Saturday night ... sort of. The first-of-its-kind show featured a pre-recorded full-band show from Brooks produced by Encore Live at more than 300 drive-in theaters nationwide. Though the closest theater to Nashville was in Lewisburg, TN, I elected to make the drive east
Garth Brooks
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