Cat’s Is Out Now
Director-writer Rick Korn’s award-winning documentary, Harry Chapin - Cat’s In the Cradle: The Song that Changed Our Lives is out now on digital streaming services (iTunes and Amazon). Produced by Harry Chapin’s son, Jason Chapin, the film celebrates the timeless song’s indelible impact on music and culture over five decades. Includes excerpts from Billy Joel, Darryl McDaniels (Run-D.M.C.), Pat Benatar, Judy Collins, Dee Snider (Twisted Sister), Mandy Patinkin, Robert Lamm (Chicago), Whitfield Crane (Ugly Kid Joe), Jimmy Vivino, Mark Barden, and others. See more at youtube.com/watch?v=mKcSSaBGXQM.
Guild Honors Mannis-Gardner
The Guild of Music Supervisors awards Deborah Mannis for Best Music Supervision in a Docuseries for her work on season one of Hip Hop Was Born Here, including clearing 30 requested songs, 27 additional songs and 65 videos (including Lil Kim, MC Lyte, Da Brat, Salt-N-Pepa, Roxanne Shanté). See gmsawards.com.
ASCAP Composer Nominees
The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) sends congratulations to all of the 2026 ASCAP Composers’ Choice Awards nominees, as selected by the composer community, recognizing composers who scored the top films from last year. Categories include Film Score of the Year, Television Score of the Year, Television Theme of the Year, Video Game Score of the Year, Documentary Film Score of the Year, and Documentary Series Score of the Year. Details at ascap.com/composerschoice.
Georgia Tech Finalists
Final selections of musical innovators from six countries advance to Georgia Tech for the final round of the 2026 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition. Competing for $10,000 in prizes, each finalist has a compelling story behind their next-generation instruments. More at guthman.gatech.edu/2026-finalists.
THSA Honors Legends
Dedicated to preserving, promoting, and celebrating the legacy of Texas songwriting and its culture through education, recognition, preservation, and by cultivating a vibrant creative community, the 501(c)(3) non-profit Texas Heritage Songwriters Association welcomes four beloved writers into the Texas Songwriters Hall of Fame. Dan Cook, Keith Gattis, Miranda Lambert, and George Strait were each honored for their musical contributions and influence within Texas and beyond, with Lisa and Freddy Fletcher (founders/owners of Arlyn Studios) awarded the Darrell K. Royal Texas Music Legend Award for their dedicated support of songwriters and the musical community at large. An evening of awards included performances from Brooks & Dunn, Jamey Johnson, Parker McCollum, Randy Houser, Natalie Hemby, Ashley Monroe, Dean Dillon, Waylon Payne, and Bubba Strait.
Primary Scoops Spears
SESAC artist Britney Spears has sold her catalog to Primary Wave for a rumored $200+ million. That said, she doesn’t own her masters (those remain at Sony through Jive/RCA) or have full writing credits, so she doesn’t own sole publishing (she is a co-writer). The sale may prove to be a lump-sum for royalty streams.
Rising A.I. Debate
Calling on the music industry to reject the Suno A.I. platform, a group of creators has penned an open letter speaking out against Suno’s machinery, stating that it was trained on unauthorized human artists’ work. The ‘Say No To Suno’ message includes signatures from Chris Castle (Artist Rights Institute), Helienne Lindvall (songwriter/President of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance), and Ron Gubitz (ED of the Music Artist Coalition). Lawsuits continue from labels and rights organizations, with the RIAA filing ‘mass infringement’ cases against Suno and Udio in 2024 on behalf of Universal, Sony, and Warner Music (Udio has since settled with Universal and Warner, and Warner has settled with Suno). Arguments continue across both sides of the debate between A.I. technology and technical evolution, the anti-Suno crowd emphasizing royalty pool dilution for legitimate artists due to the A.I.-generated flood. Deezer data shows 60,000 A.I.-generated uploads and 39 percent synthetic content each day on the platform.
Courage In The Chaos
Blues-rock guitarist Jonathon “Boogie” Long began in gospel church. He studied with Mark Wascom, worked with Henry Turner Jr., Luther Kent, and has performed with B.B. King, ZZ Top, Robert Cray. Despite shady deals, shelved records, pressure to reinvent, he stayed himself. Courage In The Chaosout on DSPs.
Symphonic-Vocana Partnership
Indie-only streaming platform founded by music lovers and indie-music veterans to strengthen the artist-fan relationships, the system integrates user-centric payments, direct artist-fan connection, human-led discovery, and transparent, actionable artist-level data, enabling fans to support their favorite artists directly, and letting artists truly understand their audience. Retaining ownership of their music and underlying rights (just like DSPs), artists have a new level of access to their fanbase, with first-party fan data on every stream and direct-messaging capability. A fan subscription, user-centric royalty model, means payments are not pooled and pro-rated. The subscription amount of each fan is distributed between the artists that fan is actually listening to, helping newer artists grow sustainably while maintaining creative and financial control. Vocana emphasizes verified artists, real fan relationships, human creation, and human curation (rather than algorithmic recommendations).
Vocana’s partnership with Symphonic Music (handling content management and distribution, global royalties and split payments, and is 100 percent independent), brings a presence in Nashville, Los Angeles, Miami, Canada, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil, Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Europe, the U.K., and Africa, with a roster that has included Imogen Heap, Sublime, Sixpence None the Richer, Jon Batiste, Doechii, DJ Muggs of Cypress Hill, Ani DiFranco, and many more. Visit artists.vocana.co.
Prepare for the Past
ASCAP/Deems Taylor Award-winning music journalist-musician Brian Cullman (Rua Das Pretas) releases memoir How to Prepare for the Past: Travels in Music & Time.Intimate anecdotes include stories of Nick Drake, Lester Bangs, Tim Hardin, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Big Joe Turner, and more. On Amazon now.
EW&F Receive HOF
BMI’s Earth, Wind & Fire earn SoundExchange Hall of Fame Award for the most streams. Founded in 1969 Chicago by Maurice White, EW&F navigates jazz, soul, gospel, pop, rock, blues, folk, disco, with has Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2000) and Kennedy Center Honor (1999) distinction. See earthwindandfire.com.
Zimmerman Adds RIAAs
With debut Religiously. The Album arriving as the biggest ever streaming album in country music history, multi-platinum Bailey Zimmerman has added eight new RIAA certifications to his catalog. Certified titles include “Rock and a Hard Place” (8x Platinum), “Fall in Love” (6x Platinum), “Where It Ends” (3x Platinum), “Backup Plan” (Platinum), “Holy Smokes” (Platinum), “House On Fire” (Gold), “New To Country” (Gold), and “You Don’t Want That Smoke” (Gold). The latest additions add to Zimmerman’s existing gold, platinum, and multi-platinum certifications.
Fogerty’s Mercer Award
GRAMMY-winning (1998) SHOF inductee (1993) John Fogerty receives the Johnny Mercer Songwriting Award at a ceremony in June. The singer-songwriter-guitarist-arranger-producer wrote “Proud Mary,” “Born on the Bayou,” “Fortunate Son,” “Bad Moon Rising,” and “Have You Ever Seen the Rain” for Creedence Clearwater Revival.
Romania Goes Global
Romania-based Global Records has exploded, with a double-digit growth forecast for the year following $75 million in revenues for 2025 and over 40 billion cross-platform streams (following 25 billion in 2024). Revenue grew from roughly $17 million in 2022 to $54 million in 2024). The indie label’s artist roster includes INNA, Minelli, Carla’s Dreams, Antonia, Holy Molly, Alina Eremia, Irina Rimes, with divisions that now include recorded music, publishing, live events, brand partnerships, and film and TV placements. This includes the co-founding of urban music festival Beach, Please! In Costinesti, Romania, which brought in 500,000 attendees over five days in 2025, and attracted talent including Travis Scott, A$AP Rocky, 21 Savage, and Wiz Khalifa.
In addition to internal growth, Global acquired Honua Music, there have also been worldwide music chart positions, and just launched the Global Records Academy as an intensive artists development program (inspired by K-pop models).
Weary Ramblers’ Honors
The 22nd Annual International Acoustic Music Awards (IAMA) gives top honors to Iowa acoustic folk group Weary Ramblers (Chad Elliott on guitar and Kathryn Fox on fiddle) for song “Kentucky Never Seemed So Blue,” and awards them Best Bluegrass Award. Full list of 2026 IAMA Winners at inacoustic.com/winners.
New Event Platform
Helping freelancers leverage their music and revenue, Soundcheck Live is a platform that handles tracking and coordination of contracts, payments, schedules and crew across multiple tools to help freelance creatives (and small teams) manage their data, scale, negotiate, and get paid fairly for their live events and performances. The idea is to help independent artists maximize their output while streamlining their business management. Learn more at soundchecklive.io.
