The FYI Bulletin: April 06 , 2023

By David Farrell

Royalties’ collection agency Connect Music Licensing has named IP lawyer Sundeep Chauhan as its new president.

Chauhan joins Connect from the Motion Picture Association (MPA), where he worked for 11 years in a variety of senior roles, including his most recent position as VP and Sr. Counsel, Global Content Protection. Prior to MPA, Chauhan was external legal counsel to Connect and VP and General Counsel for Re:Sound.  

He replaces Jackie Dean who has served as the organization’s president and CFO and now heads the branding agency Loft Entertainment.  

– Less than a week away from the Toronto Blue Jays home opener against the Detroit Tigers on April 11, local media will be given a tour today (April 6) of the newly completed “first phase” of the overall $300 million multi-year renovations to Rogers Centre. The official opening of the $570M multi-purpose venue with a retractable roof was on June 3, 1989. The event was broadcast by the CBC with numerous celebrities in attendance. Glass Tiger performed that day to a reported 50K onlookers. Upcoming summer concerts at the venue include Ed Sheeran, (June 17-18), Beyonce (July 8-9); Pink (July 24); and Guns N’ Roses (Sept. 3).

CTV has pictures and details on the upgrades, plus the following video.

– CIMA is calling out to the Canadian-independent music community to attend its inaugural Make It Music Summit. NYT’s bestselling author and forecaster Dr. Jane McGonigal will open the event, with further useful sessions that explain how to best algorithms, better your brand marketing, and capped with the annual Make It Music Awards. Further details, costs, and online registration are available here.

– Canadian Music Week and Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE) have announced the launch of the Scotiabank Arena Bursary Program, which will be given to 15 "aspiring music industry professionals" in 2023. In a news release, CMW topper Neill Dixon states: “After 40 successful years, we recognize the importance of investing in young professionals (and) this initiative is creating a platform for corporate social responsibility where sponsors and partners can invest and inspire qualified candidates to become the next generation of industry leaders.”

– Quebec-born francophone superstar Isabelle Boulay has the No. 1 album in her home province this week with Boulay chante Bashung. It's her 16^th long player and it honours French chansonnier Alain Bashung. Here’s a clip from the album…

– The surprise return of Amanda Marshall with a tour of soft-seaters has not gone unnoticed by fans. After two decades out of the spotlight and the resolution of legal entanglements, Live Nation has announced a 17-date, 16-city tour that now includes a second Massey Hall show, on June 17. Worldwide, the Amanda Marshall album has topped 6M copies since 1995 in the wake of seven Top 10 singles including Let It Rain, Dark Horse and Birmingham.

Here's her new single, I Hope She Cheats.

– Primary Wave Music has struck a partnership with multiple Grammy and Juno Award-winning Canadian singer-songwriter Sarah McLachlan. The deal has the company acquiring a majority stake in her songwriting and recorded-music catalogue. The NYC publishing acquisitor has, since 2006, gained partial or complete ownership of assets from artists such as Burt Bacharach, John Lennon, Alice Cooper, Ray Charles, Joey Ramone, Smokey Robinson, Whitney Houston, James Brown, Bob Marley, and Prince. To date, the investment firm has spent over US$1B in acquisitions.

– Since the release of their debut EP Wayward Daughter (Royalty Records) in summer 2022, Edmonton duo The Goddamsels— singer/songwriters Mallory ChipmanandFrédrique “Freddi” MacDougall—have become one of the most talked-about new voices within the Americana scene. Now, coming off a stellar appearance at the 2023 Folk Alliance International Conference in Kansas City, they are sharing Sorry, the latest single from Wayward Daughter, and the EP’s most electric track.

– Seal has added a 2^nd Massey Hall show to his N/A itinerary that includes Montreal and Vancouver shows on his 30th-anniversary tour that apparently has him performing all material from his first and second albums. Notable too is the fact that Trevor Horn is MD for all shows, accompanied by his backing the Buggles.

– Sultry CanCountry star Meghan Patrick makes her Grand Ole Opry debut on April 11. In front of, she has released Ours, a breakup song that’s as richly satisfying as a couple of deep-fried Mars bars.

– Mark your calendar: The East Coast Music Awards: Festival and Conference (ECMA) take place in Halifax this year with a five-day event showcasing the best and brightest Downeast musicians and songwriters. The shindig runs Wednesday, May 3 to Sunday, May 7.

– Former UMC and WMC exec Steve Kane now adds Sr. industry advisor for Sing to his already full complement of endeavours that include business development director at Make Music Matter and a board member at Songistry. Sing is an initiative associated with the Indigenous Science, Technology, and Society research program under the auspices of the U of Alberta that's connected to the global Sing Consortium.

– Brit-born Halifax-based T. Thomason (born Molly Thomason) has signed a record deal with Six Shooter Records. The first release is a cover of Bruce Cockburn’s Lovers in a Dangerous Time.

- Montreal prog-rock band Milanku has released the following as a tease for its fifth record, an EP entitled À l’aube. D7i has the album in N/A and Moment of Collapse in the EU.

Crown Lands shows more than modest favour for Geddy Lee and Zep on Lady of the Lake, the second single from the unit’s Fearless sophomore album, released March 31 via UMC. The attendant tour opened at Edmonton’s Winspear Theatre this past Tuesday.

– Cowboy Junkies has announced the release of its 23rd album, entitled Such Ferocious Beauty.  What I Lost (below) is the lead track with singer Margo Timmins’ expressive vocal tracking the painful memory of dementia. The album comes out on June 2.

- Peter Burnside’s Pacemaker Ent., one of Canada’s oldest reissue imprints launched in 1992, has released A Million Pieces, the first solo album from former Ottawan Sherri Harding, co-written with Dick Cooper (Cooper Bros.) recorded with David Hood, Spooner Oldham, and the eponymously named horn section affiliated with Muscle Shoals Sound Studio. The title track (below) is the first single from the release.

– Meredith Moon, scion to Gordon Lightfoot, has steadfastly earned her rep without falling into the trap that begat Julian Lennon. Now True North Records has released her first album, a 10-song collection entitled Constellation. Here’s the official video for the title track.

– CanCountry singer and actor MacKenzie Porter will be in Austin, Tx, Sunday night for the Country Music Awards. She’s nominated in the best female breakthrough video for her 2022 Canadian No. 1 hit song, Pickup. It was her 4^th chart topper in Canada and nominated for a CCMA award in the video and songwriter of the year categories. She walked away empty-handed but recently signed with CAA, which promises to be a big win for her career. Big Loud manages alongside hat stars such as Morgan Wallen and Dallas Smith.

– Longtime Canadian Musician magazine editor Michael Raine can now be found at musicians’ resource hub DIT Music. His replacement at the Norris imprint is former Brock-U freelance entertainment scribbler, Matt Bauer.

Notable

Canada’s 2023 budget and the creative industries: Not much to cheer about: Not much to cheer about: Supporters of Canada’s creative industries—writing and publishing, music, filmmaking, the visual and performing arts—would be hard-pressed to find much to celebrate in the most recent federal budget unveiled on March 27. In a political landscape where the focus is on health care, climate change and energy transition along with security challenges such as the war in Ukraine, the creative industries didn’t get much of a look-in despite the fact they comprise about 3% of Canada’s GDP and provide almost 700,000 jobs. Among other things, hints of positive action in last year’s budget have failed to materialize leading to concerns that the government will not follow through on commitments to support educational book publishing, such as by enacting needed reforms to the Copyright Act… – Hugh Stephens’ Blog

Industry legend, James Campbell, shares his path to publishing at Slaight Music – Isabelle Speerin, CMRRA newsletter

The Taylor Swift-loving ‘car wreck lawyer’ planning to take down Ticketmaster: Is this music’s Erin Brockovich moment? – James Hall, The Telegraph

The Global Music Vault wants to preserve the world’s music in case of disaster: Roughly halfway between Norway and the North Pole lies Svalbard, a demilitarised Rorschach blot of rock (is) …the Arctic World Archive, which stores historical and cultural documents including Dante’s original Divine Comedy manuscript, 3D scans of the Taj Mahal mausoleum, and more on specially treated film reels, all locked behind steel doors stamped with the archive’s abiding slogan: protecting world memory. Now, a Norwegian company wants to add musical recordings to the vault beneath the permafrost. – Will Pritchard, The Independent UK

Canadian Museum of Recorded Music & Culture: David Clayton-Thomas (born David Henry Thomsett, 13 September 1941) is a Grammy Award-winning Canadian musician, singer, and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist of the American band Blood, Sweat & Tears. Clayton-Thomas has been inducted into the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and in 2007 his jazz/rock composition "Spinning Wheel" was enshrined in the Canadian Songwriter's Hall of Fame. In 2010 Clayton-Thomas received his star on Canada's Walk of Fame. What follows is his story.

Jimmy Buffett, the beach bum billionaire: Buffett, 76, has built a career—and a ten-figure fortune—distilling carefree island vibes into hit songs, merchandise, a chain of restaurants, resorts, even gated communities. Those five decades in the sun have paid off: Forbes estimates Buffett’s current net worth to be $1 billion. (He declined to comment on his fortune.) – Lisette Voytko, Forbes

Singing the news of Death: Execution Ballads in Europe 1500-1900 – U of Melbourne prof Una Mcllvenna explores the macabre crime and execution songbooks popular in Europe between 1500 and 1900. Ted Gioia gets into the psychology and history behind gallows songs here.

The CD turns 40: Inside the meteoric rise and fall of the shiny disc that changed music: Over the years, U.S. music lovers have purchased 14.9 billion CDs since the format's arrival, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. – Mike Snider & Ramon Padilla, USA Today

Hip-Hop media power ranking: Who has the most power in hip-hop media? From rappers to radio hosts to YouTubers to Twitch streamers and everyone in between, here is our inaugural power ranking of hip-hop media personalities.– Complex

Ever heard of the Blues Beatles? I can’t say I had until I looked at an NB blues festival line-up the other day. After a bit of research and I found out the Brazilian five-piecereleased its debut CD, Get Back to The Blues, in 2016. The Blues Bros.-style ensemble has since released another album, both populated exclusively with Fab Four songs. It’s pure schtick of course, but notable nonetheless.