Billboard Country Update 12-4-14

Country BILLBOARD.COM/NEWSLETTERS

INSIDE Makin’ Tracks: Brantley Gilbert’s ‘One Hell Of An Amen’ >page 2

Stark Report: ‘Song Suffragettes’ >page 3

Questions Answered: WhyHunger’s Bill Ayres >page 4

Brooks & Dunn Reunited >page 4

David Nail’s ‘Kiss’ Lasts At Radiofeedback >page 8

EDITED BY TOM ROLAND, tom.roland@billboard.com

MIDWEEK UPDATE

DECEMBER 4, 2014 | PAGE 1 OF 8

WADE JESSEN wade.jessen@billboard.com

McGraw Rides ‘Shotgun’ To No. 1; Boyd Salutes Cash, Mills On ‘Voice’ Tim McGraw scores his first No. 1 in nearly four years on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs — and his first on the list since it switched from measuring core country radio audience to a sales/airplay/streaming hybrid two years ago — with “Shotgun Rider” (McGraw/Big Machine), which steps 2-1 to become his 25th career leader. McGraw last reached the summit when “Felt Good on My Lips” began a three-week reign on the Jan. 8, 2011 chart. After three weeks at its No. 2 peak on Country Digital Songs, “Shotgun” ranks at No. 3 with 33,000 downloads sold du r i ng t he t rack i ng week (down 7 percent), with total sales of 232,000, according to Nielsen.

Following a No. 20 peak on last week’s Country Streaming Songs tally (dated Dec. 6), the track dips to No. 23 with 667,000 total U.S. streams, down 10 percent.

Nashville resident Craig Wayne Boyd, a contestant on NBC’s The Voice, storms Country Digital Songs at No. 1 with “I Walk the Line” (Republic), following a Nov. 24 performance of the 1956 Johnny Cash classic on the show. Boyd’s cover

starts with 46,000 downloads sold and earns the Hot Shot Debut at No. 15 on Hot Country Songs. The track enters the Billboard Hot 100 at No. 84, where it’s the song’s first appearance since Jaye P. Morgan’s cover reached No. 66 in 1960.

Dating to the launch of Country Digital Songs (January 2010), Boyd is the third TV talent-show contestant to debut at No. 1 on that chart — Scotty McCreery did so in June 2011 with “I Love You This Big,” followed by Cassadee Pope’s “Over You” in December 2012.

Boyd’s Voice performance was an emotional one. He borrowed Cash’s song, but not the classic boom-chicka-boom tempo of the original, and recast it as a slow, soulful ballad. Before the performance, Boyd handed his coach, Blake Shelton, a replica of a necklace worn by their mutual close friend and mentor Wayne Mills, a Nashville-based singersongwriter who was killed a little more than a year ago (Oct. 23, 2013) after being shot in the head at a Nashville nightclub. In addition to mentoring Shelton and Boyd, Mills was an early supporter and mentor of Jamey Johnson, among others.

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BILLBOARD COUNTRY UPDATE

QUE STIONS

Answered Bill Ayres

Executive Director, WhyHunger

When WPLJ New York air personality Bill Ayres met pop artist Harry Chapin in 1975 through his show On This Rock, they found a commonality that led to the establishment of WhyHunger. The agency does a major Hungerthon every year at Thanksgiving through SiriusXM, and a number of country acts have donated prizes to help its auction at CharityBuzz: Kenny Rogers was an early financial supporter. Since Chapin died in 1981, Ayres has kept the program running faithfully for the last three decades.

This year, you have had Martina McBride and Jason Aldean auction items. How significant are the country things for you?

Very significant. Especially the country acts that have flyaways.

You know, you get a pair of tickets and you fly to whichever city you choose on their tour and you get to meet them. Jason Aldean. Eric Church. Luke Bryan is in there. Martina McBride is a little bit different. You got two tickets to her concert in Red Bank, N.J., on Dec. 5.

Plus, she has her own show on SiriusXM satellite radio, so you get to go on the show with her.

How difficult is it to coordinate those kinds of events? We

don’t, really. Sirius does it for us. If you go to Hungerthon.org, you’ll see about 150 items there. Altogether it was about 170 items, but a lot of them have [closed] already. We have a Kenny Chesney one, too. That’s at $9,100. We have two tickets to the 90th-anniversary celebration of the Grand Ole Opry. Trisha Yearwood has signed a guitar for us. The Jason Aldean [bidding] is at $4,500. But what happens sometimes, at the end is people go in and do what is called “popcorning.” Boom, boom, boom; they kind of make waves and move [the prices] up.

DECEMBER 4, 2014 | PAGE 4 OF 8

How do the holidays affect a hunger organization? You do raise a lot

of capital during this time, and a lot of people want to volunteer, but why don’t you do it in the summertime when nobody wants to volunteer?

We don’t turn people away, but a lot of people donate this time of year, [and] then you don’t see them or hear from them again. People think hunger/Thanksgiving, and that’s great, except it happens 12 months of the year. So we are very fortunate in having all these radio stations help us and also having this program, Artists Against Hunger and Poverty. Bruce Springsteen raises money for us during the year. Michael McDonald is just finishing up a tour right now, and he raised money for us.

Do you feel like Nashville could get more involved? We would love to be

more involved with country artists. A lot of them are involved with Feeding America, which is a great charity. They work with a lot of grass-roots support organizations to get them food. We do other things. We help get them resources, we help get them a different quality of food than they are getting from food manufacturers, we help them get nutrition education programs. We also try to help emergency food providers move beyond emergency food into getting people out of poverty. So if any country artists are interested in getting at the root causes of hunger, which is poverty, we should be their game.

That seems related to what has been happening in Ferguson, Mo. Poverty and hunger go together, and if you can’t get a job, you’re not going have money. Yeah, give people jobs. There’s a radical idea. I just met a guy

yesterday. He runs this program called St. John’s Bread and Life over in Brooklyn, and we’ve helped them a lot. They started as a food pantry. Gradually they got to the point of providing a whole bunch of services because they ask the “why” questions. That’s why we call it WhyHunger. They’ll say, “Why are you here?” If they find out the person doesn’t have a job, OK. They don’t have a place to live, healthcare, childcare … it’s a multiservice, one-stop shop kind of place. That’s the kind of groups that we absolutely love to help, because they aren’t just giving people food — they help people get their dignity back. They help people get out of poverty. —Tom Roland

MIDWEEK NEWS UPDATE

BROOKS & DUNN RETEAM IN VEGAS Brooks & Dunn performed Sept. 2, 2010 in Nashville in what was billed as the final show in the duo’s farewell tour. But not every goodbye is permanent: Kix Brooks and Ronnie Dunn will reunite with former touring partner Reba McEntire for at least a dozen shows with Together in Vegas, a residency at Caesars Palace that launches June 24. Tickets go on sale on Dec. 4. An official release referred to the 12 concerts, currently scheduled through Dec. 12, 2015, as “initial dates,” suggesting more performances are possible.

Florida Georgia Line has been added to the lineup for New Year’s Rockin’ Eve With Ryan Seacrest from Times Square on ABC. Taylor Swift was already onboard for the year-end special, which now includes New York-based talent Magic and Idina Menzel; Los Angeles partiers Fergie, Meghan Trainor, One Direction and Charlie XCX; and Nashville performances from Gavin DeGraw and Lady Antebellum.

The holidays are definitely here. Chely Wright will take part in the national Christmas tree lighting at the White House Dec. 4, while Brenda Lee joins Nashville actor Eric Close as guests in the Dec. 5 Nashville Christmas Parade. Additionally, more than 10 acts have entries in the Opryland Parade of Trees, where fans can bid for them in an online charity auction . Contributors include Kenny Chesney, Dolly Parton, Little Big Town and Zac Brown Band.

LEE

Two acts that appeared in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade just announced tours for 2015. Dan + Shay launch the second leg of the Where It All Began Tour on Feb. 28 in Knoxville, Tenn., with concerts slated through April 25 in Chicago. Lucy Hale kicks off her first headlining run, the seven-date Road Between Tour, on Jan. 29 in Boston.