How bad has the music business gotten? We seem to be living in an age when record labels are sinking like the Titanic, when fewer and fewer artists can get a label deal, when the gate to radio is harder to get through than St. Peters Gate.
On the Americana scene, labels like Bloodshot and a few other independents seem to have found a formula for, if not swimming in streams of gold, at least making a living and staying afloat. But the true story is more like venerable bluegrass/roots label Sugar Hill, which has all but folded. Frequent Houston visitor Scott Miller was on Sugar Hill for a while before the Welk Group shut down its Nashville songwriting section and let Miller walk.
Miller kicked around Nashville a while looking for another label, but finally concluded, "I can go broke by myself just as fast as I can being on a label that doesn't get it."
Miller's new single "Cheap Ain't Cheap" from his Freeform Americana Radio chart-topping LP For Crying Out Loud went out to radio last week. In the video (above), we catch a glimpse of the glamour of being the boss of one's own label.
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