weekly August 21, 2023, Issue 872
Radio & Records: A Family Tradition
People whose career paths were inspired and/or influenced by family members working in the country music industry share their experiences with Country Aircheck: • iHeartMedia’s Tay Hamilton and father, National Radio Hall of Famer Sean ”Hollywood” Hamilton: TH: My first understanding of what my dad did was when he let me sit in the producer’s room to watch him and his co-hosts do their thing through the big glass window. SH: It was always a great show when Taylor hung out in the studio. One of the “bits” we had her do when she was a little girl was to have her read the weather. It was fun to hear Taylor try to pronounce “accuweather winter storm warning.” TH: In my early twenties I decided I wanted to give radio a try. My dad was over the moon and called Chris Pickett, the PD in Vegas at the time, to see if I could tour the iHeart studios. After begging Pickett to let me sit-in with the morning show, he finally caved for one show. I showed up every morning after that to learn how the board worked. After a few months, they offered me Saturday nights on-air and I Tay To Play: worked my way up from there. The Hamiltons, then and now.
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The Mountain: Capitol‘s Dierks Bentley plays Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, CA. Pictured (l-r) are KBAY/San Jose‘s Emily Harlan (with husband Ryan) and Isaac “Brooks” Wenzel, Bentley, the label‘s Katie Bright, KBAY‘s Bo Matthews and wife Vanessa with iHeartMedia/Monterey‘s Sam “Diggedy” Segovia.
Drew Baldridge In A Family Way
Artist-funded record labels aren’t unheard of, but Drew Baldridge’s Lyric Ridge (CAT 8/4) might be a product of country music’s new streamingforward era. With a promotion team hired and first single “She’s Somebody’s Daughter” impacting this week, Baldridge is all-in on radio and relationships. “We had this song take off in the last year-and-ahalf to the point where it’s got more than 100 million streams, and I would go into meetings with labels where it just wasn’t happening,” Baldridge says.
Drew Baldridge
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