Toby Keith photo courtesy of Show Dog Nashville.

A little over three years since he launched his own Show Dog Nashville label, Toby Keith unleashed his newly merged Show Dog-Universal Music Wednesday during a press conference at BMI in Nashville in which his appreciation for risk underscored much of the discussion.

The music business is in a strange transition in which the album, which previously funded the business, is selling in smaller numbers each year while single tracks are increasingly becoming the way the public buys pre-recorded sound. Companies are required to pay the same amount to market their material as in the past, but with less than a tenth the per-unit income they previously received.

A number of people lost jobs in the merger, though the new company is larger than the previous version of Show Dog. And Toby — whose income stream includes songwriting royalties, concert fees and income from film work, a fashion line, horse racing and his I Love This Bar & Grille chain — is in a position to roll the dice on a label.

“When I opened Show Dog,” Toby said, “I told my staff, ‘You know, I don’t have to make money off any sales. As long as it ain’t costin’ me money to run this label, you can use all the money I make on record sales and let this thing go.’ I’m gonna need a staff. As long as I’ve got my single runnin’ up the charts, and I can go to my tour and play three new songs every summer in the cities that we play in, then that’s where I generate my income from… I will always have some kind of a promotion staff and a marketing department if it’s just five or six people that I pay to do it just for me. We don’t know what’s left of album sales, but we plan to find out. If there’s something still here in two or three years, me and [label president] Mark Wright will be involved in it.”

Mark, a prominent producer and executive, combines the acts he brings from Universal South — Joe Nichols, Phil Vassar, Randy Houser and the Eli Young Band, among them — with Show Dog’s roster: Mac McAnally, Trailer Choir, Carter’s Chord and Mica Roberts. The label also announced the signing of Trace Adkins.

Mark has produced some of the biggest hits of the last decade, including Lee Ann Womack’s “I Hope You Dance,” Gretchen Wilson’s “Redneck Woman” and Brooks & Dunn’s “Only In America.” He gives Toby’s acts better access to songs in Nashville through his established A&R department. Toby provides some unique marketing opportunities for some of the Universal South artists, including the ability to quickly hitch a ride as an opening act on one of his tours or easily book showcases at Toby’s restaurant chain.

“There were things missin’ at our company, things that were missin’ at his company,” Mark said. “Put ‘em together and you get a full company. It’s really a perfect match.”

Mark co-produced Toby’s current single, “Cryin’ For Me (Wayman’s Song),” but their history goes back further to the period when Toby hadn’t yet introduced his first single, “Should’ve Been A Cowboy,” in 1993. Mark was immediately struck by the quality of the songs he was hearing when they first met, and he predicted at that point that they would work together in the future.

Neither of them could have forecast this new type of association; recording artists in the early ‘90s didn’t even consider owning their own labels. Universal went to the mat to make sure it would happen.

“They’ve made me — as Roger Miller would say — an offer I cannot understand,” Toby quipped. “It’s a beautiful opportunity for me and my staff. It’s every single thing that you could think of in your mind that you would want in an agreement like this. They didn’t waver on it. They gave me every single thing that I could ask for and more.”

Universal is gambling quite a bit on Toby’s music-business savvy. He in turn will be risking his investment on other artists, and he intends to give them plenty of space to take their own risks in making music for an uncertain marketplace.

“My career changed when I started dressin’ out of my closet and… released the songs that I wanted to do and put my career on the line and bet it,” he explained. “When you bet it all and win then, it’s a prouder moment for you. I had that big ‘How Do You Like Me Now?!’ moment, and when that happens, it makes you want to even bash it harder and try harder to cut your own path. [There’s] a lot of traffic in the middle of the road, and I think that’s a huge mistake.”

And for Universal South, there’s another risk: Toby’s distaste for his original relationship with Mercury Records is well known. Mercury is distributed by the parent-company Universal, and though he showed none of his previous rancor during the press conference, his go-it-alone attitude was clearly on display in one humorous exchange as they set up the announcement of Trace to the roster.

“I have a Show Dog contract right here,” Toby said.

“You have a Show Dog-Universal,” Mark corrected.

“Show Dog-Universal, yeah,” Toby continued. “I have a Show Dog-Universal contract here, and I have a new act that I’m gonna sign.”

“We’re gonna sign,” Mark jumped in.

Every new relationship has its hitches.

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