Epic Records is an American record label owned by Sony Music Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Corporation of America, the American division of Japanese conglomerate Sony. The label was founded predominantly as a jazz and classical music label in 1953, but later expanded its scope to include a more diverse range of genres, including pop, R&B, rock, and hip hop.
Fred Luther Foster was an American record producer, songwriter, and music business executive who founded Monument Records. As a record producer he was most closely associated with Roy Orbison, and was also involved in the early careers of Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson. Foster suggested to Kris Kristofferson the title and theme of "Me and Bobby McGee", which became a hit for Kristofferson, Roger Miller, and Janis Joplin, and for which Foster received a co-writing credit.
United Artists Records was an American record label founded by Max E. Youngstein of United Artists in 1957 to issue movie soundtracks. The label expanded into other genres, such as easy listening, jazz, pop, and R&B.
Sony Music Entertainment (SME), commonly known as Sony Music, is an American multinational music company owned by Sony Entertainment and managed by the American umbrella division of multinational conglomerate Sony. It is the recording division of the Sony Music Group, with the other half being the publishing division, Sony Music Publishing.
Sony Music Publishing is the largest music publisher in the world, with over five million songs owned or administered as of end March 2021. US-based, it is part of the Sony Music Group, which is itself owned by Sony Entertainment. The company was formed as Sony/ATV in 1995 by the merger of the original incarnation of Sony Music Publishing and ATV Music, which was owned by late entertainer Michael Jackson. Jackson had purchased ATV Music, which included the Lennon–McCartney song catalog, in 1985.
Sony Music Entertainment (Japan) Inc., often abbreviated as SMEJ or simply SME, and also known as Sony Music Japan for short, is a Japanese music arm for Sony. Founded in 1968 as CBS/Sony, SMEJ is directly owned by Sony Group Corporation and is operating independently from the United States-based Sony Music Entertainment due to its strength in the Japanese music industry. Its subsidiaries include the Japanese animation production enterprise, Aniplex, which was established in September 1995 as a joint-venture between Sony Music Entertainment Japan and Sony Pictures Entertainment Japan, but which in 2001 became a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Music Entertainment Japan. It was prominent in the early to mid '90s producing and licensing music for animated series such as Roujin Z from acclaimed Japanese comic artist Katsuhiro Otomo and Capcom's Street Fighter animated series.
Arista Nashville was an American record label that served as a wholly owned division of Sony Music, operated under the Sony Music Nashville division. Founded in 1989, the label specialized in country music artists, including Alan Jackson, Brooks & Dunn, Brad Paisley, and Carrie Underwood. The label had operated three sister labels: Career Records, Arista Austin, and Arista Texas/Latin.
Hickory Records is an American record label founded in 1954 by Acuff-Rose Music, which operated the label up to 1979. Sony Music Publishing revived the label in 2007. Originally based in Nashville, and functioning as an independent label throughout its history, it has had several distributors.
The Chicks are an American country band from Dallas, Texas. Since 1995, the band has consisted of Natalie Maines and sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer. Maguire and Strayer, both née Erwin, founded the band in 1989 in Dallas, Texas, with bassist Laura Lynch and vocalist and guitarist Robin Lynn Macy. They performed bluegrass and country music, busking and touring the bluegrass festival circuits and small venues for six years without attracting a major label. In 1992, Macy left and Lynch became the lead vocalist.
"There's Your Trouble" is a song written by Mark Selby and Tia Sillers and recorded by American country music band Dixie Chicks. It was released in March 1998 as the second single from the band's fourth studio album, Wide Open Spaces (1998), and peaked at No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot Country Singles & Tracks chart. The following year, the song was released in the United Kingdom and became the band's highest-charting single there when it peaked at No. 26.
Syco Music, originally and formerly S Records, was a division of Syco Entertainment founded by British entrepreneur and record executive Simon Cowell, at the time in employment at Bertelsmann Music Group (BMG), that was active from 2002 to 2020.
Paul Worley is an American record producer and session guitarist, known primarily for his work in country music. Formerly a vice president at Sony BMG, he later joined the staff of Warner Bros. Records' Nashville division as chief creative officer. Since leaving Warner in the early 2000s, Worley has worked mainly as a record producer for other acts, such as Big & Rich, as well as an occasional session guitarist. He is most widely known as the co- producer of the self-titled debut album of Lady Antebellum (2008) and as one of the producers of their second album, Need You Now (2010). He also discovered the Dixie Chicks and, with Blake Chancey, co-produced their first two albums.
Shane Lamar McAnally is an American country music singer, songwriter, and record producer. McAnally has written, and/or produced over 50 number one songs. Writing and producing for artists such as Walker Hayes, Kacey Musgraves, Kelly Clarkson, Sam Hunt, Kenny Chesney, Reba McEntire, Luke Bryan, Lady A, Keith Urban, Thomas Rhett, Brothers Osborne, Old Dominion, Dierks Bentley, Miranda Lambert, Kelsea Ballerini, Midland, and more. He has received Billboard’s Trailblazer Award for his work both in country music and in championing voices in the LGBTQ community.
Sony Music Nashville is the country music branch of the Sony Music Group.
Playlist: The Very Best of Dixie Chicks is the greatest hits album from American country band the Dixie Chicks. The album consists of twelve songs personally selected by the Dixie Chicks from their fourth through seventh studio albums. It was released in the United States on June 1, 2010. The group supported the album by touring with The Eagles in 2010. It is a part of Sony BMG's Playlist series. It was also re-released on Sony's midprice sub-label Camden entitled Wide Open Spaces: The Collection in 2012.
Joanna Smith is an American country music singer. Before graduating from Vanderbilt University in 2018, she attended Auburn University for one year before pursuing a music career by playing with Mustang Sally at age eighteen. After leaving the band she began songwriting and recording demos. After signing to a publishing contract with Big Borrassa Music, she wrote two songs for other artists, including "Flying By", which was recorded by Billy Ray Cyrus on his 2007 album Home at Last. Also in 2007, Smith's rendition of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" was included on the Song of America compilation album.
Let's Love While We Can is the thirty-seventh studio album by American pop singer Andy Williams, released in the U.K. in 1980 by CBS Records. For this project Williams eschews covering well-known pop hits and standards and relies mostly on original or lesser-known country songs.
"Pretty Paper" is a song written by country music singer-songwriter Willie Nelson in 1963. After being signed to Monument Records, Nelson played the song for producer Fred Foster. Foster pitched the song to Roy Orbison, who turned it into a hit. Nelson later recorded his own version of the song in November 1964.
Caitlyn Elizabeth Smith is an American singer-songwriter and musician. She was raised in Cannon Falls, Minnesota. Smith's debut album Starfire was released on Monument Records on January 19, 2018. Her second studio album, Supernova, was released on March 13, 2020. Her third album High & Low was released on April 14, 2023.
Jason Owen, is an American music manager, record executive, and Tony-nominated producer best known for launching artist management company Sandbox Entertainment and leading the careers of Shania Twain, Kacey Musgraves, Faith Hill, Little Big Town, Dan+Shay, and Kelsea Ballerini among others. In 2015, Owen was named one of Billboard's “40 Under 40: Music’s Top Young Power Players”, and has since been included twice in the trade magazine's "Power 100" industry ranking.
