CRS 2021: The Virtual Experience will host a special session, sponsored by AllAccess.com, featuring two of Country Music’s newest, most prominent trailblazers, 2020 CMA Male Vocalist of the Year, Luke Combs, and 2020 CMA Female Vocalist of the Year, Maren Morris. During a rare and exclusive Q&A session, to be held Wednesday, Feb. 17 at 3 p.m. CT, Combs and Morris will open a conversation into how their roles as artists matter in the changing culture of Country music.
Ann Powers, NPR Music’s critic and correspondent and the Nashville correspondent for WXPN’s World Café, is set to moderate. Powers, Combs and Morris will discuss what Country music means in light of its complicated and often problematic past and how artists can hold themselves accountable in helping shape a genre that is as diverse as America itself.
Morris and Combs make up part of the expanded, four-day CRS 2021: The Virtual Experience agenda that is now available for viewing on the CRS 2021 pre-event site [here]. When visiting the site, attendees can now add agenda items directly to their calendars.
CRS 2021: The Virtual Experience is filled with many of Country Radio Seminar’s most anticipated events, including educational panels, virtual networking, and workshops designed to provide instant, actionable takeaways. The event continues to be the ultimate Country music showcase. Every registration includes access to the 2021 New Faces of Country Music® Show, featuring performances by Tenille Arts, Travis Denning, Hardy, Ashley McBryde, and Matt Stell; “Amazon Music Presents: Country Heat at CRS,” headlined by Tim McGraw (Big Machine Records) and performances by Kameron Marlowe (Columbia Nashville), Priscilla Block (Mercury Nashville), Shy Carter (Warner Music Nashville), and Track45 (Stoney Creek Records); Bob Kingsley’s Acoustic Alley featuring Thomas Rhett and Special Guests, Rhett Akins and Parker Welling; and two label lunchtime performances, sponsored by Warner Music Nashville and UMG Nashville. As announced yesterday, the Warner Music Nashville luncheon will be headlined by Dan + Shay with additional performances by Brett Eldredge, Cole Swindell, Drew Parker, Ian Munsick, Michael Ray, Robyn Ottolini, and Shy Carter
Country music superstar Luke Bryan will appear at the annual “CRS Artist Interview,” sponsored by BMI.
The first-ever Streaming Summit will feature a unique, intimate fireside chat with Kevin Allocca, Head of Culture & Trends for YouTube. It will be an entire day dedicated to industry professionals and platform experts providing insights on trends, strategies, and best practices to optimize digital assets and streaming platforms.
The annual CRS Research project will focus on how Country listening behaviors have changed during the COVID-19 pandemic, and what the “new normal” for the Country music industry means. This important study will be conducted and presented by NuVoodoo, and is designed to provide useful, tangible takeaways for all attendees.
Scheduled panels include PPP: Post-Pandemic Playbook, 21 Promotions in ’21, Talk Data To Me, Your 24/7 Brand, and TLC: Talent Loving Coaching, and ‘Til The Wellness Runs Dry: How to Handle the Anxiety of the Music Business with Elizabeth Porter, Founder and President of Entertainment Health Services. Porter will explain how anxiety affects us and will offer clues to identify workplace triggers while providing tips on how to be the best you for yourself, and others. More details surrounding panels and workshops are available here.
CRS is excited to provide CRS 2021: The Virtual Experience radio attendees with more artist content than ever before. Anyone in radio with a full CRS 2021 registration will have full access to artist liners from every major label, in addition to exclusive, carefully curated artist interview content available in audio and video form, for stations to use on air, on websites, or social platforms.
Registration for CRS 2021: The Virtual Experience is $199 per person and is available for purchase at www.CountryRadioSeminar.com. Country Radio Broadcasters have also made available an Unemployment, Student, and Young Professional rate (here). Registrants will need to select the rate they are applying for as the registration type to be considered for the discounted rate. Contact Ashley Bourque at (615) 329-2615 or ashley@crb.org for any questions about the application.
For more information, visit www.CountryRadioSeminar.com, and follow CRS on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
About Luke Combs: Luke Combs, who The New York Times calls, “the most promising and influential new country star of the last five years,” is a multi-platinum, ACM, CMA, CMT and Billboard Music Award-winning artist from Asheville, NC. His new deluxe album, What You See Ain’t Always What You Get, is out now on River House Artists/Columbia Nashville and debuted at #1 on the all-genre Billboard 200 chart as well as Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart. The deluxe edition features all 18 tracks from Combs’ RIAA double Platinum-certified, global #1 album, What You See Is What You Get, as well as five new songs including “Forever After All,” which debuted at #2 on the all-genre Billboard Hot 100 chart—the highest entrance ever for a male country solo artist. With the release, Combs also reached #1 on Rolling Stone’s Top 200 Albums chart, Top 100 Songs chart and Artists 500 chart—the first country artist ever to lead all three charts in the same week and first to top the Artists 500. Adding to a series of groundbreaking and historic years, Combs recently won two awards at the 55th ACM Awards, two awards at the 54th CMA Awards and three awards at the 2020 Billboard Music Awards. Moreover, Combs’ current single, “Better Together,” recently reached #1 on the Billboard Country Airplay chart. This is Combs’ tenth-consecutive #1 single—a first on the Billboard Country Airplay chart—and continues his triumphant run at country radio. Combs also recently made history as the first artist ever to have their first two studio albums spend 25 weeks or more at #1 on Billboard’s Top Country Albums chart—breaking Taylor Swift’s previously held record at 24 weeks. The achievement comes as What You See Is What You Get topped the chart for the 25th time, while his 2017 debut, This One’s For You, has spent 50 non-consecutive weeks at #1—tying the record for the longest reign atop the chart.
About Maren Morris: Maren Morris is one of the leading voices in music today, armed with incredible vocal stylings and songwriting chops, sheer talent, honest lyrics and an undeniable presence. Her triple Platinum single “The Bones” dominated 2020, topping the Billboard Hot Country Songs chart for 19 consecutive weeks—the longest #1 by a solo female musician ever and the first solo female multi-week #1 since 2012. The single earned Maren Female Vocalist of the Year, Single of the Year and Song of the Year for “The Bones” at the 2020 CMA Awards, plus Female Artist of the year and Music Event of the Year at the 2020 ACM Awards. Topping it all off, “The Bones” is nominated for a 2021 GRAMMY Award for Best Country Song. Her 2019 album GIRL shattered the record for the largest ever debut streaming week for a country album by a woman and was named Album of the Year at the 2019 CMA Awards, where Morris was the most nominated artist. GIRL arrived three years after Morris’ breakout, Gold-certified debut album HERO, for which she won a Grammy for Best Country Solo Performance, New Female Vocalist of the Year at the 2017 ACM Awards and New Artist of the Year at the 2016 CMA Awards. HERO features the much-lauded singles that launched Maren’s career into the stratosphere— the double Platinum “My Church,” Platinum “80s Mercedes” and “I Could Use A Love Song,” and Gold “Rich.”
About Ann Powers: Ann Powers is NPR Music’s critic and correspondent. She has been a pop critic and many publications including the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Village Voice. Her books include Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music, Weird Like Us: My Bohemian America, and (with the artist) Tori Amos: Piece By Piece. She is the co-editor, with Evelyn McDonnell, of Rock She Wrote: Women Write About Rock, Rap, and Pop, the first published anthology of women music writers. In 2017 she founded Turning the Tables, an ongoing NPR initiative recentering the popular music canon on marginalized, underestimated and forgotten voices. She lives in Nashville with her family and is now at work on a manuscript considering the life and work of Joni Mitchell.
About Country Radio Broadcasters, Inc.®: The Country Radio Broadcasters, Inc.® is a 501 (c) 3 non-profit organization founded in 1969 to bring radio broadcasters from around the world together with the Country Music Industry to ensure the vitality and promote growth in the Country Radio format.
About Country Radio Seminar: Country Radio Seminar is an annual convention designed to educate and promote the exchange of ideas and business practices in the Country music industry, with specific emphasis on issues relevant to Country Radio. Country Radio Seminar 2021 will be held Feb. 16-19, 2021. For more information, visit www.CountryRadioSeminar.com, and follow CRS on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
CRB/CRS Contact:
Christy Walker-Watkins – AristoPR – 615-269-7071 – christy@aristomedia.com
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