Airplay Direct Archives - Bluegrass Today

Rebel Records delivers 10 deep catalog recordings to global radio

Charlottesville, VA based Rebel Records has linked up with AirPlay Direct, the premiere digital delivery/distribution provider of bluegrass music for worldwide radio. Their agreement will see several back-catalog titles released during the next year.

Initially, ten ‘deep catalogue’ recordings have been made available.

Mark Freeman, the President of Rebel Records, elaborates ….

“Here at Rebel Records we are excited to be collaborating with AirPlay Direct to not only share new music from Rebel Records, but also to get some of our most beloved titles from our deep catalog out to global radio! To kick off our partnership, we are presenting ten essential albums and artists that exemplify Rebel Records.

One cannot tell the story of Rebel Records without telling the story of Ralph Stanley. My Life and Legacy is an 18-song collection featuring many of Dr. Stanley’s most beloved recordings.

The Country Gentlemen and Rebel Records came of age together, and 25 Years is a ‘best of’ collection that commemorated the 25th anniversary of the Country Gentlemen’s first show.

John Duffey, a founding member of the Country Gentlemen, would later head up another integral DC area bluegrass band, The Seldom Scene. The Best of the Seldom Scene, was the first CD Rebel issued in the mid-1980s. Tony Rice is widely considered the greatest bluegrass guitarist of all time and his album Guitar made pickers everywhere sit up and take notice.

Larry Sparks & The Lonesome Ramblers have recorded over 30 albums with Rebel, and Classic Bluegrass is a compilation of some of his most well-known titles. At age 17, Keith Whitley and Ricky Skaggs recorded Second Generation which was released in 1971, and to this day remains one of Rebel’s most consistently selling albums. Del McCoury’s Classic Bluegrass features the best material from the three albums he recorded for Rebel fronting his first band, The Dixie Pals.

J.D. Crowe is recognized as one of the finest banjo players and band leaders in bluegrass, and Blackjack is one of the most memorable and instrumentally tight bluegrass recordings of its time. Nearly a decade after signing with Rebel, the Lonesome River Band hit its peak when it recorded Carrying The Tradition, which won the coveted IBMA Album of the Year Award in 1992. Rounding out this batch of essential Rebel recordings is another IBMA Album of the Year winner, It’s a Long, Long Road by supergroup Blue Highway.”

Recently, Freeman was named AirPlay Direct’s “Iconic Innovator” for 2020.

Of that award Lynda Weingartz, CEO, AirPlay Direct, said…..

“Mark’s keen eye for talent, and unique approach to business has and continues to help competently shape and define the bluegrass genre of today. His skill and ability in navigating through disruptive changes in the industry is a true testament, and a commendable example of how to not only survive, but how to thrive in the digital-era. As President of Rebel Records, Mark’s many notable successes and achievements over the years puts him in a class reserved for only the very best in our industry. AirPlay Direct is pleased and proud to honor Mark Freeman with our ‘Iconic Innovator’ Award for 2020.”

Mark Freeman responded ….

“What an honor to be named the 2020 AirPlay Direct ‘Iconic Innovator’. When I started working alongside my father, David Freeman, in 1998, we could not have imagined what the music industry would be like today. Thankfully, we at Rebel have been able to keep pace with the changes in part thanks to the good and important work of AirPlay Direct.”

AirPlay Direct is a digital delivery system developed for artists, radio programmers, and music industry professionals. It allows artists and labels to send secure broadcast-quality music and digital press kits to radio stations, booking agents, promoters, and music supervisors worldwide.

Bluegrass Today announces alliance with AirPlay Direct

Bluegrass Today is proud to announce a strategic alliance with AirPlay Direct, the premier online radio distribution service for labels and independent artists.

The company, founded by Robert and Lynda Weingartz, has found tremendous success in getting digital tracks directly to radio at no cost to programmers, and at a very low cost to artists. For dramatically less than mailing out CDs and promotional packages to radio, AirPlay Direct gets your music in front of 11,000 show hosts and program directors, and offers templates and a mail server at no additional charge that allow you to contact them directly. These stations exist for every imaginable style of music, in more than 90 countries around the world.

42,000 artists/label members are currently using the service to get their music to radio, as have publishing companies, radio promotion firms, and publicity and media relations outfits worldwide.

Our CEO, Terry Herd, speaks very highly of AirPlay Direct, a service he regularly employs in his other life as a successful syndicated DJ for his own show, Into The Blue, and for our weekly and monthly Airplay Charts.

“From the inception of Bluegrass Today, we’ve worked closely with AirPlay Direct to provide instant access to recordings for our chart reporting stations. Robert and Lynda’s industry leading dedication to providing the gold standard for music delivery to radio is unsurpassed, and we’re truly excited about tapping into their vast experience, as we move forward with development of the Bluegrass Today brand.”

Working together, the two companies will assist each other in promoting both brands, and working together in the future on a number of projects that will provide benefits to our readers, and to the companies that advertise with us, in addition to all the aspects of AirPlay Direct.

Lynda Weingartz shares our pride in this new agreement.

“This is a very special, on-going partnership for AirPlay Direct that has now grown to include a deep relationship with our boutique consulting division, Collective Evolution. There are some very cool projects we are developing together that will be introduced in the coming months.

The award-winning founders of Bluegrass Today, Terry Herd and John Lawless are a perfect example of what you can contribute to the growth of a global community if your intentions, heart and mind are true to the cause.”

Our first joint venture will be developing a new Bluegrass Today weekly airplay chart for Grassicana, music that isn’t really bluegrass, but which should appeal to Americana and acoustic music lovers as well as fans of progressive grass. Like our current charts, this one will poll radio hosts across the country and report what they are playing in this evolving musical format.

For the sake of the new chart, we are defining Grassicana as…

What is Grassicana? It is music that lies between the progressive sounds of bluegrass and the vast genre of Americana. While possessing a connection with bluegrass, it is defined as the “branches,” as opposed to the “roots” of bluegrass. Typically played with acoustic instruments traditional to bluegrass, it may also include drums and other instrumentation not always associated with bluegrass. More than instrumentation however, it is the style in which the music is played that ultimately defines the new genre of Grassicana.

Any DJs or programmers who would like to contribute to this new chart when it launches are invited to express your interest here.

Artists who would like to have their recent recordings considered for inclusion in our reporting survey should contact our business office here. Projects released within the past 18 months will be eligible.

More details coming soon!

Free Airplay Direct tutorial for registered members

For the past few years, Airplay Direct has been a crucial part of the radio distribution efforts of bluegrass artists, labels, and radio programmers. It allows for a simple, free exchange of MP3 files directly to radio hosts, saving the labels the cost of shipping manufactured CDs, or the risk of breakage or damage in the mail. Non-US programmers love the service, as the costs of international shipping has found many labels unwilling to ship promo copies overseas to any but the most influential stations.

The network is not limited to any type of music, and the bluegrass industry in particular has embraced what they have to offer.

Airplay Direct, managed by the husband-and-wife team of Lynda and Robert Weingartz, now have more than 10,000 radio members in 90 different countries, and they recently surpassed 42,000 artist and label subscribers. Programmers are able to download tracks at no cost once they have been verified as bona fide, and artist/labels pay a small fee for each album they make available, or a blanket license to cover a larger volume of projects.

With the rapid and steady growth in the number of artists utilizing the system, Airplay Direct has scheduled several free online tutorials for users to help them get the most out of the system. Lynda Weingartz says that they regularly get complaints from radio users about incomplete information included in the listings, which is the responsibility of the artist or label uploading the tracks. The stations can’t play the songs without the material they need for reporting to the PRIs, and that means no money for the artists and songwriters.

There will be four of these two-hour tips and tricks seminars each month through October, and attendance is limited to registered members. Presenters will cover the basics of the system, demonstrate the tools available to users, and accept specific questions from those in the seminar.

Dates are as follows:

August 9, 12, 23, 26
September 13, 16, 27, 30
October 11, 14, 25, 28

To register, simply send your artist profile URL to Lynda by email, along with your preferred dates. Only 10 members will be registered for each tutorial to ensure that everyone is able to ask questions. These spots should fill up fast, so don’t wait if you have an interest in attending.

Ken Irwin takes AirPlay Direct Award

Ken Irwin photo at Podunk Bluegrass Festival in 2014 © Ted Lehmann

Last week (on March 7, 2017) AirPlay Direct announced that they had honored Ken Irwin with their “Iconic Innovators” Award for 2017.

The award is presented annually to the member of AirPlay Direct that has demonstrated vision, and most effectively executes the opportunities that digital innovation in the music industry has and continues to create.

AirPlay Direct’s CEO Lynda Weingartz stated…

“Ken is a very unique combination of savvy business man and artist; a true music impresario. His accomplishments and awards speak for themselves; and the man that Ken is. We look forward with great anticipation to our continued successes and creative future with Ken and Rounder Records.”

As an integral component of the “Iconic Innovators” Award, AirPlay Direct is honoring Irwin with a $50,000 AirPlay Direct Marketing & Awareness Campaign to accelerate his ongoing brand development and global radio distribution footprint for Rounder Records’ new releases and catalogue.

While Irwin points out that while the award is in his name, “it certainly is in recognition of the work done by all of us at Rounder Records,” the label that Irwin, Marian Leighton Levy and Bill Nowlin founded nearly five decades ago.

Irwin added…

“It is truly an honor to be receiving this recognition from AirPlay Direct. I’ve recently enjoyed working with Lynda [Weingartz] and Robert [Weingartz] on two of their showcases and always appreciated their love and respect for catalog titles.

Receiving this prestigious award will enable and encourage me to go back through our catalog of over 4000 albums and select some of my personal favorites, which might not have received attention from radio when they came out or which might be new to those in radio today.

I look forward to looking back”.

In accepting the award Irwin understands that he is making a commitment. AirPlay Directs’ expectations are that …..

“I will curate monthly releases and re-releases of titles from the Rounder Family catalogs. The plan is to make nine titles from the catalog and one new release available each month, which will be digitally distributed to AirPlay Directs’ vast network of DJs around the world. The idea is to make the back-catalog titles, many of which either didn’t get much play from radio when they came out for one reason or another, or which were released long enough ago that the current DJs might not be familiar with them. This award has given me the incentive to go back to our catalog and select albums which I like, and feel others will enjoy, if they have the opportunity to hear them.

The AirPlay Direct Award includes a year-long marketing and awareness campaign which will help to accelerate the ongoing brand development and global radio distribution footprint for Rounder Records’ new releases and catalog. While not a cash award, this carries a multi-faceted marketing and promotion budget that will enable me to curate and promote these albums without the typical budgetary concerns.

The albums selected will be across a wide range of genres including bluegrass, old time, swing, blues, a cappella, Cajun, zydeco, roots rock, rockabilly, country amongst others.”

The annual award is for one year. The twelve months…

“will enable us to send out over 100 titles. Most of these have been available on CD, but hopefully there will be some that haven’t. There are some titles which I’d like to see distributed through this award including the first Boone Creek album and Al Jones and Frank Necessary which have never been on CD.”

Irwin was responsible for signing the previously unsung young bluegrass music talents like Alison Krauss, Béla Fleck, Mark O’Connor, Jerry Douglas, Ricky Skaggs (all of whom joined Rounder Records in the 1970s) and, more recently, the SteelDrivers and Sierra Hull.

A typical A&R man, Irwin works most often with bluegrass artists, in pre-production, recording, and mastering — or some combination thereof. Among those bluegrass and old-time artists that he has worked with are Hazel Dickens, James King, Del McCoury, IIIrd Tyme Out, neo-traditional group the Johnson Mountain Boys, Longview and many more.

He also helped to raise awareness of bluegrass’s first generation, producing and licensing a series of crucial reissues by some of the music’s legendary early figures, including Jimmy Martin, Bill Monroe, Jim & Jesse, Flatt & Scruggs and others — keeping this essential music in print when few other labels did so.

Also, Irwin has created many illuminating and best-selling compilations drawn from Rounder’s archive of over 3,000 albums, among them the remarkable O, Sister: A Women’s Bluegrass Collection (which doubled as a document of Rounder’s extensive efforts to promote female bluegrass musicians), Blue Trail of Sorrow and Bluegrass #1s.

Previous winners of AirPlay Direct’s “Iconic Innovators” Award include Bruce Iglauer, President and founder of Alligator Records, (in 2014); Sam Passamano II, President of Rural Rhythm Records (2015); and Blake Morgan, the CEO and Owner of the ECR Music Group (2016).

Levi Austin to Airplay Direct

Levi Austin, banjo player with Nu-Blu this past ten years, has left the band, moved to Nashville, and accepted the position of Director of Special Projects with Airplay Direct.

Owned and managed by Lynda and Robert Weingartz, Airplay Direct offers artists and labels an efficient and inexpensive way to distribute new music to radio. In turn, radio programmers can download new music directly into their production suites at no charge. The model has been widely accepted in our industry and the Weingartzs are so pleased to have Austin on board they are hosting him in their home as he makes the transition to Music City.

The North Carolina native says that he is beyond pleased to tackle this new opportunity.

“I could not be more excited and eager to take on the position! My experiences over the last decade as an internationally touring artist have given me an intimate understanding of the hard work and dedication required to cultivate one’s brand from the ground, up.

I am looking forward to working closely with the global AirPlay Direct membership to not only grow their brands and businesses, but to build strong, lasting, relevant business relationships and partnerships that contribute to our ‘Global Music Village’ as a whole.”

This new position will find him reaching out to artists, songwriters, record labels, management, radio promoters, publicists, studios, and producers to ensure that they are aware of the services available through Airplay Direct. Anyone interested in discussing the company with Austin is invited to email him at levi@AirPlayDirect.com.

Birthplace of Country Music joins with Airplay Direct

Though it may not be obvious to bluegrass consumers, those who work in the business from artists, writers, radio professionals, and record label staff, know what a major player Airplay Direct has become in the bluegrass world.

Formed in 2005 by Robert Weingartz and his wife Lynda, the Nashville company has grown into an online force in radio distribution, allowing programmers to quickly download new music into their playback systems, and saving artists and labels large amounts of money by not having to ship promo copies all over the world. Labels are comfortable working with Airplay Direct, as they only allow downloads by authorized radio personnel, and the costs are such than independent artists can afford the services offered as well as established labels.

Though not created specifically to service bluegrass music, Airplay Direct has been widely embraced by our record companies and artists. Rarely does a new bluegrass project release without a page at Airplay Direct. They also provide radio distribution services for country, rock, jazz, Christian, holiday, and Americana music.

But the large-scale buy-in from bluegrass has not gone unnoticed by the Weingartzes, who both attended and co-sponsored the IBMA World of Bluegrass convention earlier this year. They wanted to personally meet and thank the many people in our industry who work with their company.

As part of the ongoing effort to provide support to traditional music, Airplay Direct and the Birthplace of Country Music Museum in Bristol, VA announced a strategic partnership earlier this week. The two outfits will work together to further the museum’s goal of preserving and promoting Appalachian music of every kind.

Leah Ross, Executive Director of BCM and a recently-retired member of the IBMA Board of Directors, has high hopes for her organization working with the Weingartzes.

“Over the past several years, the Birthplace of Country Music has grown tremendously as we opened the Birthplace of Country Music Museum, a Smithsonian Affiliate Institution, celebrated 15-years of Bristol Rhythm & Roots Reunion music festival, and most recently launched Radio Bristol, a collection of three radio stations.

This partnership with AirPlay Direct is very exciting, because it allows BCM to work with industry experts at AirPlay Direct to build an innovative strategy to help establish and sustain Radio Bristol.”

And Lynda Weingartz, who serves as CEO for Airplay Direct, noted with pride the significance of where they met to sign their agreement.

“This new Strategic Partnership Agreement was inked in the historic Brentwood, TN office of the legendary Mr. Eddy Arnold, on the very same conference table he signed all of his professional agreements. The sense of history and relevance in this office was inspiring and most exciting.”

Also signatory to this agreement is Collective Evolution, an entertainment and media consulting firm based in Toronto.

Artists, radio programmers, and record labels can learn more about the services offered by Airplay Direct online.

Sam Passamano receives Airplay Direct award

Airplay Direct, the file-sharing system that serves artists, music labels and radio programmers, has announced Sam Passamano of Rural Rhythm Records as the recipient of their second annual Iconic Innovators Award. In addition to the honor, this award comes with a free Airplay Direct marketing campaign valued at $50,000.

It is meant to acknowledge decision-makers in the music industry who both recognize and implement new strategies available in the digital era. This, of course is the mission of Airplay Direct, allowing radio people a simple way to quickly preview and download broadcast-quality tracks in a wide variety of style. For most artists or labels, the company’s fees are far lower than the cost of mailing hundreds of CDs to stations, and the programmers have instant access to millions of tracks.

Rural Rhythm has always been focused on bluegrass and traditional music, a vision that Passamano retained when he purchased the business from its founder in 1987. In addition to releases from new artists, classics from their deep archives are brought back on a regular basis.

Lynda Weingartz, AirPlay Direct CEO, says that Sam was an easy choice.

“This year proved to have a very strong field of candidates for this award. However, the AirPlay Direct Selection Committee were all in agreement that Sam Passamano, II, President – Rural Rhythm Records was the perfect executive to be honored. His professional track record and that of his label Rural Rhythm Records clearly demonstrates that this award was earned by a true ‘Iconic Innovator’ in his prime.”

And Passamano reports being appreciative of this recognition.

“I am honored to be this year’s recipient of the “Iconic Innovators Award” from AirPlay Direct. After 37 years in the music business and being a second generation record guy, I have learned that success follows hard work, clearly defined goals, well thought out marketing strategies and last but not least, a constant eye on new and innovative ways to get our artists music to the right people in efficient and effective ways.

Several years back, Robert at AirPlay Direct and Sammy III (the third generation record guy in our family) at Rural Rhythm set up a new way for D.J.’s to receive new music in a digital format from our Rural Rhythm artists. Many years later, the service that AirPlay Direct provides artists and record labels has now become the industry standard that is used by major and independent artists and record labels.

Rural Rhythm recognizes and appreciates the foresight and importance of AirPlay Direct and we are extremely grateful to Robert, Lynda and their staff for all their contributions and hard work helping Rural Rhythm get its artists music into the right hands and ears over the years.”

Well done, Sam!