Danny Gokey has signed on with a management team out of Nashville:
Danny Gokey, who placed third on last season’s American Idol, has signed with Nashville-based RLM/Mission Management.
‘As a huge fan of American Idol, I couldn’t be more excited,’ remarked RLM/Mission Management’s Tracy McGlocklin. ‘Danny has an amazing gift and Rendy and I feel very blessed to have the opportunity to help guide his career.’
‘This is our first opportunity as a management team to work with the 19/RCA staff,’ said Rendy Lovelady. ‘In our initial meetings, we have been extremely impressed with their vision and passion for Danny as an artist.’
via Music Row
RLM Mission also manage country singer, Darryl Worley and Can You Duet winners, Caitlin and Will.
Caitlin & Will are actually no longer a duo as of recently: source But I don’t know about their status with their management.
Danny will probably be their biggest act from a sales standpoint. Darryl Worley has a great voice and still can score a hit or 2 but he’s not selling many records anymore.
I think it’s probably a good thing that Danny obtained separate management. I hope these folks aren’t as “wet behind the ears” as he is though. He needs guidance from seasoned veterans, imo. And, I wish him the best.
I’m glad that more news is starting to come out about the team working with Danny. They seem to have had a strategy the past few weeks of keeping very quiet about most of the details, beyond Danny’s tweet confirming his producer is Mark Bright who’s well-known for working with Carrie Underwood and on other successful albums.
We really don’t know much yet at all about Danny’s upcoming songs, except that he’s been busy in the studio and completed several songs for the album. I hope they start letting a few teasers slip soon about songwriters and other collaborators for his CD.
I’ve never heard of these guys – are they any good? Its not like Gokey doesn’t have potential, but lord knows he needs a management team that can teach him how to not misstep so much.
I also think its good Danny has management other than 19; they don’t have the best track record with all Idols-haven’t they been sued before- or is that just rumor?
Doesn’t Darryl Worley have a charitable foundation also? Wonder if that is how Danny wound up with this company.
I think it could be a good thing, and it makes sense that Danny would want to work with someone based right in Nashville and who’s handled a successful solo male country artist. They must be interested what they can do with Danny to build off his AI fanbase.
There’s a darrylworley twitter account (probably legitimately related to him somehow since one of the management reps is following it) which doesn’t have even 3000 followers on it. Danny currently is over 104,000.
Just for clarification….oftentimes the decision to go outside of 19M for management is not singer driven but 19 driven. If they don’t want to manage you they will send you out to find someone on your own…and the reverse can also be true.
Personally, I don’t think that Danny “fits” into the 19 stable, real well, if you look at who else they manage. So this will ultimately be a better fit, IMO.
Now that Danny has legit management it will take a lot of the burden off of his shoulders…and hopefully will segment his singing from his foundation. At this point they really should be wholly seperate…because as much as Danny lives and breathes Sophia’s Heart, casual music fans may not want to embrace it and I would hate it to become a bone of contention in his path. Good luck, Mr. G.
I am happy to read that Danny has signed with a management company in Nashville. I am not too fond of 19M and they don’t have such a good track record with previous Idols. This seems like a better fit for Danny. Darryl Worley is a platinum selling artist and I hear him on the radio a lot. Don’t know too much about Caitlin and Will. Other than Mark Bright (Carrie’s producer), I haven’t heard many other details regarding songwriters, etc that Danny is working with. I know his fans are anxious for news but with a single due out in November, it hopefully won’t be too long before more details are known.
Danny’s album is really being kept under wraps as compared to the press Adam, Kris and Allson have been receiving.
I’d love to hear more on what Danny is doing apart from SHF. Seems like it is top-secret at the moment.
19M has had a pretty good track record with Carrie Underwood and Chris Daughtry. They usually part company with most of the people who are signed with 19R, so I don’t know if we can judge their track record. In fact, I think the only other idol alums who are currently signed with them are David Cook, and the three who signed this year. Fantasia and Jordin used to be with them, but now have outside management, and they never signed Archie.
I would rather Danny have outside management because I don’t think 19M would do well by him. If they are already managing Carrie, Daughtery, Cook, Kris, Adam and Allison, I’m not sure they would have much time for Danny. The management company Danny signed with seems very excited about working with him.
Here are some tweets from Tracy McGlocklin
@tgmcg33 Mission Management Gets Gokey via @Musicrow http://f4tsq.th8.us
@tgmcg33 SSOOOO excited about our new client!!! Busy, busy, busy…
Finally some info on songwriters:
Mathew West is a singer/songwriter who had a number one hit of his own. He wrote a song for Rascal Flatts and along with submitting a song for Danny’s album, he wrote a song for country artist Jo Dee Messina’s upcoming album.
http://www.mlive.com/entertainment/muskegon/index.ssf/2009/10/gospel_singer_matthew_west_has.html
Several other hits have followed over two more albums. But he has continued to write songs for other artists.
‘There’s a lot of Christian songs that focus on faith, which is good,’ he said. ‘But I’ve always written songs about everyday life simply from a Christian perspective. That works even for people who don’t walk through the doors of a church.’
West has a song on the upcoming release of country artist Jo Dee Messina, and another under consideration by ‘American Idol’ finalist Danny Gokey.
Mission Management for a man on a mission from God. I feel so much closer to Him just for having read this story.
From the title of their firm, possibly Mission Management may be run by some folks with a Christian perspective. Don’t really know but wouldn’t surprise me. There’s a lot of overlap between the country music and Christian music/faith communities in the Nashville area.
It’s not obvious on their website at all, though. They seem to be working with country artists, not gospel or CCM. I think that’s a good choice for Danny so his direction stays on focus for the first album or two.
In addition to Danny and Darryl Worley, Mission Management also represents groups called “Trick My Truck” and “Scrap Metal.” Seems they have a diverse set of clients.
Had to lol at those last two clients, Trick my Truck and Scrap Metal (A hard rock band).
Certainly is a diverse set, with mostly country and no CCM or gospel.
I didn’t take the Mission name to mean Christian, after all a mission can refer to a religious, political, business or military task!
Although Danny will always have a huge focus on SHF; I also hopefully this management team knows the best way of keeping them separate. Although I’m a SHF supporter and think its admirable what Danny is attempting, I agree most are primarily interested in his music.
I thought Trick My Truck was pretty funny also. (No offensive to those musicians, don’t know them — maybe they are just amazing.) But in combination with Danny, that was a lol.
There used to be a tv show called ‘Trick My Truck’ on cable, not sure if it is still running.
NOt so impressed with Danny’s new management based on how they handled caitlin and will. That duo was fabulous with a 6 song EP I downloaded from itunes that is better then any album I have in my possession, and I have a lot. Radio loved their “No Address In the Stars”, actually bypassed the first single Even Now and wanted Address. CMT entertainment writer said they were her favorite duo in country music right now. Their song has been on top 20 on GAC for a few wks, and Even Now was on CMT top 20. With all that, they didnt get exposure needed for the public to know them. Their label gave them excellent songs, great production and banging music on their EP but finally dropped them because of low sales I guess. For me, management just dropped the ball. Now they are solo again. Hope Danny has better luck.
Shouldn’t the promotion come from the label? I am a little unclear on who is responsible for promoting the artist. Is it the management team, the record label or both?
The President of RLM/Mission Management, Rendy Lovelady, is a former road manager for Van Halen Bon Jovi, and other internationally recognized bands. He also managed Jars of Clay and Little Big Town.
Shouldn’t the promotion come from the label? I am a little unclear on who is responsible for promoting the artist. Is it the management team, the record label or both?
The President of RLM/Mission Management, Rendy Lovelady, is a former road manager for Van Halen Bon Jovi, and other internationally recognized bands. He also managed Jars of Clay and Little Big Town.
I think once Gokey has a released single, if there is little interest 19 will drop him. They are testing the waters so to speak, but the reality is he just does not excite like Allison, Adam and Kris do. I saw him live on the AI8 tour and doubt I would buy a CD from him. I would like to see Anoop and Matt get a chance for a recording contract. They were exciting on AI tour show I saw.
I highly doubt SonyNash would drop Danny after one single, after all the work and money put into hiring a top producer like Mark Bright and assembling songs for an album.
To each his own, but it was pretty obvious from the tour that Danny usually received a reception equal to or better than Kris and Allison (and the best reception of the night in Milwaukee and Madison), so I believe he was pretty popular. I agree Matt needs a contract.
The cold hard fact is that all of the top 4 are in danger of being dropped from their label after their album if they don’t do well.
Tastes and specific tour dates may vary. Danny was the second-best received at the show I attended, with close to the same anticipation as Adam although in a more subdued style. That crowd also loved Allison and Matt. (It wasn’t a great night for Kris.)
Beyond his voice which I find very beautiful, Danny is a high energy performer which he has in common with Adam, Allison and sometimes Matt. Danny also has a lot of warmth and the ability to connect with audiences emotionally. With the right songs for his country album, that ability can serve Danny very well.
I hope all these folks will have their chance with their first albums, and an opportunity to tour to build their careers going into next year. In the country genre especially, touring is a big part of the picture along with music sales. Since Danny is a very good live performer, I could see him really benefiting from tour exposure to country music crowds around the country.