FORMER B&T ENTERTAINMENT VP RESIGNS FROM MUSIC BIZ ASSOCIATION

The chairman of the Music Business Association, STEVE HARKINS, has voluntarily resigned his position, days after making a bad-taste joke about women artists who performed at the organization’s Music Biz conference, held in Nashville May 5-8, 2019.

Shortly after the Country Music Association put on a presentation at the conference May 6 which saw three female artists — Kassi Ashton, Cassadee Pope and Danielle Bradbery — each performing two songs that Monday morning, the Music Biz Assn. chairman, Steve Harkins — formerly vp/GM of music for Baker & Taylor and now with Ingram Entertainment — took the stage to talk about the association’s scholarship program. But he began with an apparent reference to presidential candidate Joe Biden’s inappropriate behavior with women, and after acknowledging the artists’ talent suggested to “smell their hair” of the women who had just performed.

As a consequence of what some said was a degrading joke, when it became obvious to Harkins that some were offended, he resigned from the post on May 8, and, sources say, apologized to the CMA. Harkins was viewed as an interim chairman, having replaced Facebook’s Fred Beteille, who had been chairman since 2014 but resigned in mid-December 2018 due to workload, according to sources.

More @ https://doitemedia.com/2019/05/13/music-business-association-chairman-resigns-following-annual-conference/

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/people/article/80514-cully-to-retire-from-baker-taylor.html

PW reports-

Cully to Retire from Baker & Taylor

After only two years, David Cully, who has seen Baker & Taylor through a number of transitions since joining the company in 2008, will retire at the end of August. B&T parent company Follett Corp. said Cully will be succeeded as president by Amandeep Kochar, who has been promoted to executive v-p of B&T. Kochar had been in charge of the company’s public library sales and technology teams.

Cully who sold B&T's Entertainment business to Ingram Entertainment, is currently overseeing the wind down of B&T’s retail wholesaling business, which is expected to be largely completed by the end of the summer. In May, Follett announced that it was closing B&T’s retail wholesaling arm, which supplies books to bookstores and other retailers to focus on its library operations, a move which better aligns B&T’s business with Follett.

When Cully first joined B&T he was in charge of its retail and merchandising functions, and in that role oversaw the purchase of Bookmasters and played a large role in integrating B&T into Follett following the company’s purchase in 2016 and George Coe's departure. He was named B&T president in 2017.

https://www.bookweb.org/news/ingram-entertainment-buys-baker-taylor-entertainment-assets-109558

Bookweb reports the following-

On Monday, January 14, 2019 Baker & Taylor announced that it has sold certain assets of its entertainment product distribution business to Ingram Entertainment Inc., effective January 11, 2019.

“The sale of our retail entertainment assets to Ingram Entertainment will allow both companies to bring greater value to customers through the strengths of our respective wholesale distribution businesses,” said David Cully, president of Baker & Taylor. “For Baker & Taylor, that means delivering the most innovative and efficient content distribution services to our retail, public library, and publisher service customers everywhere.”

Included in the sale are customer agreements for the wholesale purchase of pre-recorded DVD, Blu-ray, and audio music CD and vinyl record products; the sale relates only to entertainment products and does not involve book products.

“Baker & Taylor has been a respected competitor and a valued contributor to the home entertainment products distribution business for many years,” said Bob Webb, president and CEO of Ingram Entertainment. “Ingram Entertainment looks forward to the opportunity to increase our sales of products to video, audio music, and online retailers.”

Steve Martin and the Steep Canyon Rangers | “THE LONG-AWAITED ALBUM”

Actor, comedian and bluegrass musician Steve Martin plans to release The Long-Awaited Album on September 22nd through Rounder Records. On his latest LP, Martin reconnects with his backing band the Steep Canyon Rangers, who previously contributed to 2011’s Rare Bird Alert, 2013’s Love Has Come for You and 2014’s Live.

Martin also unveiled his record’s lead single. “Caroline” is a banjo-slathered number that manages to be unfailingly jolly even as it dissects a brutal break-up. The song opens not long after the title character has unceremoniously dumped Martin’s narrator, and he’s still hung up on her: “Can you tell me why you left me standing in the parking structure/ Caroline, I was the almost-perfect boyfriend ever for you/ And you even said that to me one time at the Olive Garden.”

David Bowie A New Career In A New Town 1977-1982 Boxed Set Arrives September 29

Parlophone Records has announced DAVID BOWIE A NEW CAREER IN A NEW TOWN (1977-1982), the third in a series of boxed sets spanning his career from 1969.

The follow up to the award winning and critically acclaimed David Bowie Five Years (1969 - 1973) and David Bowie Who Can I Be Now? (1974 - 1976) will be released on September 29 and will contain a brand new remix of the 1979 album Lodger by long time Bowie producer/collaborator Tony Visconti.

The eleven-CD box, thirteen-piece vinyl sets feature all of the material officially released by Bowie between 1977 and 1982. It includes the so-called "Berlin Trilogy" of albums on which he collaborated with Visconti and Brian Eno as well as the Baal E.P., appearing here for the very first time in its entirety on CD, and is closed by Scary Monsters (And Super Creeps).

Lana Del Rey Shares "Groupie Love" off of new "Lust for Life" album

Lana Del Rey has shared a new song with A$AP Rocky, called “Groupie Love;” along with the track list for her new album.  Listen Groupie Love  below from B&T, below.  The track is one of two new Rocky collaborations on her upcoming Lust for Life album, following “Summer Bummer,” which also features Playboi Carti.  Her new release, out July 21, includes the previously shared “Lust for Life,” “Love,” and “Coachella - Woodstock in My Mind.”  As you may recall, before this new work, Lana and Rocky joined up in 2012 for the “National Anthem” video. In it, Rocky played John F. Kennedy and Lana played Jackie Kennedy.

Manchester Orchestra's "A Black Mile to the Surface" Out This Month

Manchester Orchestra will release their new album A Black Mile To The Surface on July 28, 2017 via Loma Vista Recordings. First single “The Gold” premiered earlier this month on SiriusXM’s Alt Nation and its accompanying video — an evocative and surreal animated collage by directors Mike Dempsey and Johnny Chew — can be seen below. http://found.ee/MO_TheGoldYT-r.  A Black Mile To The Surface is available for pre-order now at Title Source 360

Always a band to push themselves creatively with each subsequent release, Atlanta-based Manchester Orchestra has expanded their dynamic sound to peak form on the cinematic and epic A Black Mile To The Surface. The album — featuring production by Catherine Marks (Foals, PJ Harvey, The Killers), John Congleton (St. Vincent, Explosions In The Sky, Angel Olsen), and their longtime studio partner Dan Hannon — showcases a band that rethought, deconstructed, and rebuilt their songwriting process to propel their music into a new emotional arena, drawing on singer/guitarist Andy Hull and co-writer/multi-instrumentalist Robert McDowell’s unique experience scoring the 2016 Sundance hit film Swiss Army Man (directed by The Daniels).

“We’re a band that loves to use heavy, crunchy guitars,” says Hull. “We wondered how we could limit the use of that, so that when the guitars come in they can be creative and impactful. For Swiss Army Man we had to make seventy minutes of music with our hands tied behind our backs. When you’re creating all the sounds you need just from the human voice, it allows you to rethink what is possible, and determine what is really needed. We wanted to make an album in a ‘non-Manchester’ way if there is such a thing.”