The Business Side of Music Youtube Channel

The Business Side of Music Youtube Channel




Keeping Your Music Business Legal Part 1
Gregg Seneff, Sr., Esq.

Gregg Talks About:

Trade Marks
Name and Likeness
Rights to Property
Copyrights
Contracts
And Much More.......

Part 2 is avalilbe as permium content. Go To Page2management.com and click on premium content

Nashville ‘Discover Me’ Open Mic and Live Broadcast

You’re invited to showcase your songwriting or singing talents at our weekly “Discover Me’ open mic and live broadcast! The events are every Saturday from 2-5 PM CST in our video studio in Nashville.

Why showcase?

• NEW FANS! Add the live StreetJelly viewers to your fan base/mailing list!
• GET GIGS! Invite venue managers and booking agents to see you perform live regardless of where they are!
• STAY IN TOUCH WITH CURRENT FANS – Invite your fans to view your showcase matter where they are in the world! It keeps you in the forefront of their minds.
• MEET NEW SONGWRITERS! Find new co-writers from the other performing writers/artists!
• SELL MORE MUSIC – If your music is for sale online, we’ll direct the viewers to it!
• GET ACCUSTOMED TO PERFORMING IN FRONT OF CAMERAS - If you’ve never performed in front of the camera, this is your chance to get some no-pressure experiEnce!
• GET A GREAT MULTI-CAMERA, HD LIVE VIDEO OF YOUR PERFORMANCE– This is ideal for promoting your live shows as well as for posting on your website and YouTube. There is a charge for this based on your individual needs. Contact Ray@mediadesignservice.com

Date/Time
Every Saturday, 2013
2:00 PM CDT - 5:00 PM CDT

Address
120 Donelson Pike, Ste. 201
Nashville 

Tennessee

37214
United States

Conversations: Duane Allen/ Duane Tells it like it is........

POSTED ON SEPTEMBER 6, 2013 BY KYLE BOREING

Conversations: Duane Allen

CONVERSATIONS, INTERVIEWS

This installment of Conversations finds us speaking with Duane Allen.

Duane is no stranger to gospel music. He is  a classically-trained vocalist, accomplished songwriter, respected business man, and patriarch to a very musical family. Oh yeah, he’s also a 47-year member of one of the most well-respected musical acts in both country and gospel music, The Oak Ridge Boys.

When the Conversations feature was first conceived for Musicscribe, I knew that the very first person I wanted to talk to was Duane. I have always appreciated his willingness to discuss nearly any topic with openness and honesty. Even at 70 years old, he remains very active in touring, running the business aspect of the group, and also taking the time to interact with fans via social media.

I want to thank “the Ace” (as he’s known within the group and among fans) for taking the time for this interview.

KYLE BOREING: As the 1970′s dawned, and The Oak Ridge Boys were among the top gospel acts, gospel music was going through some major changes. You seemed to embrace these changes, rather than fight them. What do you think were among the biggest changes that you witnessed during this time?

DUANE ALLEN: In the ‘70′s, the Oaks were riding high on the success of “Jesus Is Coming Soon.” We were having a great run of success. I embraced the message of that song, as I embraced the messages in all of our songs prior to that. I saw the top level of gospel music at that point, however, I also saw the top level of jealousies beginning to raise their ugly heads, too. We were totally in favor of growing gospel music. As we got stronger and stronger, we were put into another grouping of people who did not like what we were doing, how we were growing, or how we looked. This started in the early 70′s and grew stronger each year until it eventually ran us off from the gospel music business.

However, do you would like to know “in what direction” The Oak Ridge Boys wanted to “grow” gospel music? Then, listen to Light, and in that album you will find your answer. We worked all across Canada, practicing every day, then down the west coast, where we found out that all of our California dates had been canceled. So, we asked Nelson Parkinson to book us at the last minute in as many churches as he could. The dates were appreciated by the Oaks, but they were not very good dates, money-wise. Only one of the week of church fill-in dates was good. I remember well, because I decided that I would wear the same shirt until we finally had a good date. I wore it for a week, and it was ready to stand in the corner by itself. On the last day, we had a good date, and I wore a clean shirt…..

We were rehearsing every day, and on the week before we recorded Light, we were rehearsing every day with our band. We had some new songs,that show where we wanted to take gospel music. Andre Crouche had given us some of his new songs, and we had an album full of great songs, all practiced, and ready to be recorded. We got a room in the world famous Whitney Recording Complex, and for five days, we fine-tuned all of the songs with our band in a rehearsal room. We were ready. Then came the best part, recording at Whitney, where so many huge hit records were cut…..Whitney Studio is built around the largest pipe organ in any recording studio, and we loved having that organ on our Light album.

We added two musicians from LA, and with our four musicians we recorded my dream album in gospel music – Light. That album was recorded with our band, and that is how I always wanted to record. It won either four or five Doves, so that album shows where I wanted our music to go….but, that just made it harder for us to grow because the “holier than thou” crowd that wanted to take the business in another direction was just more critical of everything we were doing. The people loved us, but the “self-righteous” people in the business world did not like us not adhering to their direction. So, the struggle for doing our kind of gospel music began in the early 70′s.

We rode the popularity of “Jesus Is Coming Soon” and followed it with two more major gospel hits, “I Know”, and “King Jesus”. Both of these songs were huge hits on radio and for us, but only made the jealousies, and trashing from the other element of the business get more and more intense. We wound up our gospel music career with 35 top charted singles on the Singing News magazine charts. I will always be grateful to those who supported our gospel career.

I have always looked at gospel music business as entertainment, but there was this element that was determined to turn it into what they perceived it to be, and if we did not do it the way they wanted it done, we got trashed, criticized, and eventually black-balled from the gospel music business. When we were black-balled, we eventually got the message. We left the gospel music business because the gospel music promoters quit booking us. When we left, we never looked back at the business of gospel music.

KYLE: Was your transition to country music an over-night decision, so to speak, or was it something that was a long-time in progress? Was there ever a time where you said, “Wait, let’s give gospel music one more shot”?

DUANE: The transition started when we had so much success with trying to “grow” gospel music that the criticism and trashing just grew and grew more and more intense. The promoters stopped booking us, so we had to book most of our dates on our own, and many of the promoters we used were not experienced, so most of those dates were not great, just survival dates. The change started for us after we had released several songs as singles that we felt were good enough to be played on country radio…but, the country DJ’s did not take us seriously, until we cut a country song, “Y’all Come Back Saloon,” and an entire album of “country” songs. They took us seriously then, and for almost two decades, we enjoyed country music hits, with over 50 charted singles in 5 different decades, according to Billboard magazine.

We never turned our back on gospel music – in fact, you can find gospel songs on almost all of our country albums – but, we did leave gospel music “business” because they black-balled our group. We got the message and we went to country music, where we were welcomed with open arms. I never looked back. I still haven’t. We don’t do business with the gospel music “business”, but, I have always loved gospel music…..that part never changed.

When our country contracts were up [in the late 1990’s], the first person I called was Bill Gaither’s company, Spring Hill. I wanted to record a gospel music album, and that was around 2000. We were inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame that year, [and] lots of the older people who had trashed us were no longer living or in charge, so we were finally treated with respect, and we will always be grateful for that. We have never “returned to gospel music;” we never left gospel music. We left the gospel music business because they rejected the direction we were going. We never quit singing gospel music; we just quit doing business with those who stopped doing business with us. We had to leave the gospel music business because we had to make a living to support our group, our families, our band & their families, our staff & their families, and our crew & their families. We found a welcome mat for The Oak Ridge Boys from some of the most wonderful people on earth, in country music. They never told us we could “not” sing gospel music, and we never did “quit” singing gospel music.

KYLE: You have stated on multiple occasions that you did not keep up with gospel music for a number of years. Once you started to “get back into it,” so to speak, did anything surprise you about gospel music after so many years of being out of the loop?

DUANE: I quit listening to gospel music because I had to get our career on track in country music, and some of the gospel music people were so nasty to us that I did not want to let anything they said have any value, so I blocked the negative “holier than thou” people and let them live in their own negative world. I paid no attention to how they kept trashing us. It meant nothing to me. When some person would come up to me and say, “What do you think about what this gospel artist said about you????” I would just say, “It’s ‘not’ what I think about what they said; I don’t think about them at all. What they say about me has no value and I pay no attention to their words of hate.” So, I blocked them out of my mind, for over two decades. Many gospel artists came and went during that time, and I did not have a clue who they were. It made no difference to me because God was richly blessing The Oak Ridge Boys in country music, and we were making so much money that we were having to find places to spend it. I had over 10,000 cattle somewhere in Texas that I never saw, oil wells all over Indiana that I never saw. Our career was exploding, and I had no time for the negative people who were now trying to claim us and calling our office asking for free tickets and backstage passes. We honored every one of them, and I looked right into their eyes and told them it was good to have them at our show. I never once mentioned to them that I knew all about the negative garbage that they said about us. Instead, I did not treat them like they treated us – I treated them as special guests.

I called Gov. Jimmie Davis when we were trying to get a country hit. I asked him if he could give me any advice. He said, “Cut a country song.” I said, “We have been cutting songs for country radio but the DJ’s will not play them…” He said, “You are not cutting country songs! If you want country airplay, cut country songs.” I said, “But Gov. Davis, what will the gospel music people think about this? They are the only support we have…” He said, “When you have your first hit, they will be the first to claim you as friends” I said, “What if the song doesn’t hit?” He said, “You know how that feels now!” and he laughed really big. Well, he was 100% right. When our country songs started hitting, the “holier than thou” gospel people wanted to come to our shows and show us off to their friends. I just smiled, and comp’d all of their tickets. I knew exactly what some of them had said to us and to our backs, but you see, I had already forgiven them. I just smiled and welcomed them to our show.

KYLE: Likewise, was there anything you saw in today’s gospel music that made you say, “Yep, that’s exactly how I remember it,” even after so many years?

DUANE: I don’t need anyone to “shake” my memory bank. I experienced the good and bad of gospel music business, first hand. I just learned to deal with it in a spiritual way, something that was entirely different than the way some of these “holier than thou” gospel artists treated us. I learned my “forgiveness theory”. It is in three steps:

1. I asked God to forgive me for anything I may have ever done that caused the gospel music people to trash me.

2. I asked God to forgive those who trashed me, and to give me the ability to forgive them, too. Even if those gospel “holier than thou” people did not ask for or seek to be forgiven, I forgave them anyhow. I had already blocked them out, but it still hurt when I heard the awful things they were saying about us. I needed God to help me look at it in a completely different way. I studied the Bible and I realized that God had the answer. You may have heard someone say, “I forgive you, but, I’ll never forget”. Well, that is not what God told us to do. The Bible tells us that we “must forgive, and we ‘must’ forget, because that will make a place where love can bloom again. So, from that Bible teaching, I developed my forgiveness “three’s;” now, here is the final third step……

3. We forgive our self, and those who may have caused us harm, then God will “free” us of all of those negative things and give us “freedom” from them. So, I now live in total freedom.

There is no hurt left, there is no anger, and there is no desire to “get back or get even” with anyone. I harbor no ill will towards any human being in the gospel music business. I desire nothing that they may or may not possess. I live in freedom from their negative way of thinking. I want nothing that they have. It is not how I look at life or God’s teachings. God is my source of forgiveness, and it covers all those who trashed The Oak Ridge Boys, or me, personally.

KYLE: Looking at today’s gospel music industry, we have so many different styles (contemporary, pop, rock, rap, P&W, inspirational, southern gospel….). Do you feel like you played a part in the acceptance of these various styles?

DUANE: I don’t spend any time wondering how I will be accepted by anyone but God. I am very humbled and honored at how many of the young gospel artists come up to me and tell me that I am the reason that they are in gospel music.

I was humbled when Glen Payne told other people that I was the best singer in gospel music….that pretty much floored me! Recently, I was at the funeral of Jim Foglesong, the man who signed us to our first country contract, we sang “Farther Along” at his funeral at his family’s request. Just before the funeral began, our manager, Jim Halsey, called me over to the side of the church and told me that Mr. Foglesong told him that I was the best singer in country music. I almost fell over. Tears filled my eyes and I really had to fight back tears to sing for Mr. Foglesong….

So, I have had my share of applause. That always feels good. We have been inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame, the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. I have been inducted into the Texas Gospel Music Hall of Fame, and just this week, I learned that I will be the new inductee into the Texas Country Music Hall of Fame in August of 2014……so, I have been honored many times, and I humbled to the core any time someone chooses to honor me, but, I am most humbled and honored every single day that God keeps blessing me with good health so that I can continue doing what I feel I was put on earth to do, and that is sing to people to bring some measure of happiness into their lives, if only for that period of time that they are listening to our music. I believe all gifts and all forms of music are gifts from God, so, it is up to us to use it as God, through His divine direction, leads us to do. I have never doubted that God is in control of The Oak Ridge Boys for our entire career. It took all of our experiences in gospel music business, good and bad, to pave the way to what God had in store for us. I give all the thanks to God, first, to my partners, to our families, and our employees. I also thank God for all of the fans who have supported us in all of our musical directions, and still do. We are very blessed men.

KYLE: Who among today’s gospel music artists would you say are among your favorite to listen to?

DUANE: The only kind of artist, no matter the field of music, that I enjoy listening to is the artist that “gets to me”. I have seen so many fake artists in my life that many of them just fall off me like water on a duck’s back. Many years ago, I realized that God gave me the gift of discernment, to go along with my musical gifts, and business ethics, so I can see a fake artist a mile off, and I can feel an artist that is “for real” as soon as I see or hear them. I give my ear to those who touch my heart. I listen to them, and I communicate with their gift. I have no time for the “pretend” artists. I have heard enough of that to last for the rest of my lifetime, and since they will probably not make heaven, I have heard enough of them for eternity…..HAHA!

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Affordable Care Act for Self Employed

Affordable Care Act for Self-Employed Individuals According to SBA and the
Department of Labor

Does anyone really know what Obama Care means? NO? Well, I suggest we look very
carefully into the pros and cons of the legislation. The SBA has presented information
about the Implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
According to the Individual Shared Responsibility provisions of the Affordable
Care Act each individual must have basic health insurance coverage (known
as minimum essential coverage), qualify for an exemption, or make a shared
responsibility payment when filing a federal income tax return as an additional
tax. Individuals will not have to make a payment if coverage is unaffordable,
if they spend less than three consecutive months without coverage, or if they
qualify for an exemption for several other reasons, including hardship and
religious beliefs. Minimum essential coverage includes, at a minimum, all of
the following categories: Employer-sponsored coverage (including COBRA and
retiree coverage), coverage purchased in the individual insurance Marketplaces,
Medicare Part A coverage, Medicaid coverage, Children's Health Insurance
Program (CHIP) coverage, certain types of Veterans health coverage, and
TRICARE. It does not include certain specialized coverage such as only for
vision or dental care, workers’ compensation, or coverage only for a specific
disease or condition. (Source: SBA.)

• Small Business Health Care Tax Credits
The small business Health Care Tax Credit helps small employers afford the cost
of health care coverage for their employees and is specifically targeted for those
employers with low- and moderate-income workers. The credit is designed to
encourage small employers to offer health insurance coverage for the first time
or maintain coverage they already have. Since 2010, businesses that have fewer
than 25 full-time equivalent employees, pay average annual wages below $50,000,
and that contribute 50% or more toward employees’ self-only health insurance
premiums may qualify for a small business tax credit of up to 35% to help offset
the costs of insurance. In 2014, this tax credit goes up to 50% and is available to
qualified small employers that participate in the Small Business Health Options
Program (SHOP). Eligible small employers can claim the current credit through
2013, and the enhanced credit can be claimed for any two consecutive taxable
years beginning in 2014 through the SHOP.
Small businesses with generally up to 50 employees will have access to the new
health care insurance marketplaces through the Small Business Health Options
Program (SHOP). Currently, small businesses may pay on average 18% more
than big businesses for health insurance because of administrative costs. SHOP
will offer small employers increased purchasing power to obtain a better choice of
high-quality coverage at a lower cost. Costs are lowered because small employers can pool their risk. To enroll, eligible employers must have an office within the
service area of the SHOP and offer SHOP coverage to all full-time employees. In
2016, employers with up to 100 employees will be able to participate in SHOP.
PROS:
ß According to Washington, 32 million Americans are currently without health
insurance. This act will allow a larger portion of the general population will now have
access to the coverage they need.
ß Patients with pre-existing conditions cannot be denied coverage by insurance
companies, and companies can no longer drop someone once they get sick.
ß College students can stay on their parents’ plans until the age of 26.
ß The federal government will pay the states to allow low-income individuals to
enroll in Medicaid
ß The Medicaid “doughnut hole” gap in coverage will be eliminated by 2020.
ß Each year, $125 million will go towards funding school-based health centers and
programs to reduce teen pregnancy.
ß States are required to set up insurance exchanges to make it easier to find the best
deals on private health insurance.
ß If an insurance company denies someone coverage, that person can go to an
external appeals process.
ß The number of bankruptcies caused by health-related issues will be severely
reduced.

CONS:
ß The intrusion of the federal government into the practice of medicine.
ß 18 million of the uninsured will be forced to go under Medicaid, while the rest
will have to accept another government program. Even so, millions will remain
uninsured.
ß By 2019, an estimated 4.8 million seniors will be forced out of Medicare
Advantage.
ß Medicare will be cut by $528 billion dollars.
ß Taxes will be increased (especially on high-income individuals).ß By forcing States to accept federally-mandated health insurance, the Act violates
States’ rights.
ß Some speculate that you can be thrown in jail for failure to pay your health
insurance taxes.
There must be a full understanding of this legislation before implementation. It seems
to have more “bugs” than Orkin and Terminix combined. Perhaps, the plan should be
delayed in its entirety, until it can be simplified and presented to the people to vote for
or against, what amounts to a total social medicine legislation. Washington, are you
listening to the people? 

The Business Side of Music Podcast

Michael Moore Interview
The Business Side of Music
With Tom Sabella and Traci Root
Recorded at Records on The Wall Studios Nashville, TN
Music by Mike Pachelli
Producer Bradley Raines
This podcast is part of Page2 Radio Network

Michael Moore Bio Summary
Michael Moore has topped the charts with 70 Gold and Platinum albums and 140 number one singles. His work has contributed directly to the sale of over $1 billion worth of recorded music. Now he offers the secrets to quickly developing a mass audience in his new book “Brilliant

To get a free copy of Michaels "A Plan For Your Music" go to www.volummonster.com code michaelmoore

For a free autographed pictures of Traci and the Guru go to www.volummonster.com code picture

www.moorehits.com
www.traciroot.com
www.page2radio.com

Podcast Awards

The Business Side of Music receives Nomination for Podcast Awards!

BIG NEWS!
The Business Side of Music Podcast has made it to the top 10 business nominated shows for the Podcast Awards!

A big thanks to all of you who participated!

It's not over yet! Now the voting begins!
Here's the details from the Podcast Awards site:

• Voting starts October 23, 2008 until November 6th, 2008.
• Each Person / IP address will be allowed to vote once a day in each category.
• 100% e-mail verification of all votes will take place, failure to click on a vote will result in no vote being placed. A verification e-mail with clickable link will be e-mailed to you so that you will have to verify the vote.

In case you were wondering, nominated podcasts were selected by the review committee on the basis of:

• Number of Nominations 40%
• Quality of Website Design 15%
• Quality of Sound 15%
• Quality of Podcast Delivery and Show Format 10%
• Relevance of Content 20%

The top 10 nominees in each category are posted on the Podcast Awards site, where the voting will be done.

Please, let others know about the Podcast Awards site. There are a lot of great shows out there that were nominated and deserve a listen!

Thanks again for your support!
Tom and Traci