Trace Adkins photo courtesy of Show Dog-Universal Music.

Trace Adkins and his family have been staying in their weekend home, a farm near Nashville, since a fire destroyed their home in Brentwood, Tennessee. Following the fire, Trace was flooded with offers of help from friends and fans alike. While Trace appreciates the outpouring of good will, he has asked that offers of help be directed elsewhere.

“We are blessed and very fortunate,” Trace told the Patriot Ledger. “We are not destitute. There are people who aren’t as fortunate as we are who really need help. In light of all the tornadoes and the flooding in the South this year, we wanted to make sure that my fans directed their generosity that way. I’ve already accepted that I probably lost everything that was in that house. All that really matters, however, is that we have a place to stay and the kids are safe. I have a saying, ‘Get out of the problem, get into the solution,’ which I’ve always believed was the right thing to do.” Continue Reading

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Toby Keith (l) signed Trace Adkins to his label, Show Dog-Universal Music, on Jan. 12, 2010. Photo courtesy of Show Dog-Universal Music.

Thanks to his song “Courtesy Of The Red, White And Blue (The Angry American),” Toby Keith was billed in some circles as a warmonger, but it turns out that one of the moments that bonded him to his new label president was a time when Toby took a peaceful stance during the Country Radio Seminar.

Toby’s Show Dog Nashville label has merged with Universal South to create Show Dog-Universal Music, with Toby as the principle and former Universal South chief Mark Wright as the president. The two actually go back a long way. Mark started out in the business as a songwriter, penning such hits as Mark Chesnutt’s “Your Love Is A Miracle,” George Strait’s “Today My World Slipped Away” and Alabama’s “Take A Little Trip.” He heard some of Toby’s songs before Toby ever released a single, and he was completely knocked out.

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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.

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