In a recent list put out by MusicRow, the top 100 songwriters of 2018 were named. Of the 100 listed, several Belmont alumni are featured. Those listed included graduates of Belmont’s songwriting and music business programs, among others.
Coming in at number four on the list is Ashley Gorley, a 1999 Belmont alum who has been a noted songwriter for several years. Gorley recently won the ASCAP Country Songwriter of the Year award for the sixth time.
The list also includes alumni such as the singer-songwriter duo of Florida Georgia Line, Tyler Hubbard and Brian Kelley. Other alumni who made the top 100 list are Nicolle Galyon, Hillary Lindsey, Jordan Reynolds, Russell Dickerson, Casey Brown, Parker Welling, Justin Wilson, Ryan Hurd, Justin Ebach and Jacob Durrett.
Devin Dawson speaks to Belmont students.
Graduates of Belmont’s songwriting program on the list include CJ Solar and Devin Dawson.
MusicRow’s Top 100 songwriters list was made based on a song’s airplay, digital downloaded track sales and streams. They also looked at songwriters who were featured on MusicRow’s top songwriters chart.
Andy Erwin and his brother, Jon Erwin, are the directors of the movie “I Can Only Imagine,” one of the top grossing biopics of all time. But their journey to that position was not easy, Erwin shared with students on Belmont’s campus recently. Through sharing his story, Erwin hopes to encourage students to live out their faith through what God is calling them to do.
After almost choosing a different career path and becoming a missionary, Erwin was encouraged by a friend to see how he could use his talents with a video camera. He and his brother started a production company and came to Nashville where they were hired by Michael W. Smith to make a music video. The brothers were successful in the music video industry allowing them to pursue film further.
But their new path into the movie industry was not easy and brought about a lot of struggles and some failures. But when speaking to students, Erwin encouraged them to see the “importance of failures in finding your voice and your success.” “I’ve found more in my failures and by embracing the struggle.”
Moving past their struggle and continuing to focus on what God could do through their films, the Erwin brothers found success in their newest film “I Can Only Imagine.” The film focuses on the story behind MercyMe’s song of the same name.
“This film allowed a message of hope to spread naturally,” said Erwin. “We tell stories that are not an exclusion to the audience but an invitation.”
Erwin closed his talk to students by encouraging them to live out their faith as well as remember that “failures don’t kill you and successes don’t define you.”
Lauren Poole, a Belmont College of Law alumna and associate attorney at Taylor, Pigue, Marchetti and Blair PLLC (tpmbLAW), received the 2018 Nashville Bar Journal Contributor of the Year Award at the Annual Meeting and Banquet in December.
The award recognizes a Nashville Bar Journal committee member who went beyond the call of duty to ensure the success of the publication. Poole, who was recently named co chair of the Nashville Bar Journal Editorial Committee, practices civil litigation including bankruptcy and creditors’ rights at tpmbLAW.
“Going above and beyond the expected is how Lauren works,” said Gino Marchetti, Jr., attorney and managing member at tpmbLAW. “This award is a reflection of her commitment to the law and to the dedication she brings to her legal work, both for our clients and our profession. We are pleased to see her honored in this way.”
Poole earned a B.A. in Political Science and a B.A. in Studio Art from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. She earned her J.D. from Belmont University College of Law in 2016. An active supporter of the arts, she currently serves on the Board of Turnip Green Creative Reuse. She has also been published regularly. Her editorial, “An Overview of the CFPB: Past, Present, and Future,” was published in the Nashville Bar Journal’s June/July 2018 Issue. Her article, “The Nuts & Bolts of Bankruptcy Law,” was featured as the Nashville Bar Journal Online Article of the Month in March 2018.
Fourth year honors neuroscience student Crystal Lemus recently presented her traumatic brain injury research at the American Neurological Association (ANA) Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia. At a time when support for basic and translational science is in need of a strong voice and the burden of neurological disease grows, the ANA serves as the champion of neurological research and the ally of all physicians and scientists who strive to make a difference through careers that combine discovery, education and clinical care. The ANA is a leading voice within the field of neuroscience and has counted the world’s leading academic neurologists as members.
Lemus’s poster presentation was titled “Thinking Outside the Box when it comes to Traumatic Brain Injury: Future Assessment and Early Management.” Her research was conducted in conjunction with the Brain Injury Association of Middle Tennessee where she has served as a mental health curriculum developer and the official nonprofit blogger for the past three years.
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is widespread and leads to death and disability in millions of individuals around the world each year. Overall incidence and prevalence of TBI are likely to increase in absolute terms in the future. “Tackling the problem of treating TBI successfully requires improvements in the understanding of normal cerebral anatomy, physiology and function throughout the lifespan, as well as the pathological and recuperative responses that result from trauma,” Lemus said. For her research, she examined the evidence base for the early management of head‐injured patients and suggested that he-critical care with protocol-dried therapy is associated with significant improvement in outcome for all patients with severe head injury.
“Whenever I attend national conferences, I always have to keep an open mind,” she said. “Science is so complex and interconnected, and I always end up leaving with new ideas about current research that I previously thought to be unimaginable. It is such a humbling experience knowing that I get to contribute my own little piece of knowledge with the world.”
Dr. Bradley Koch, a 2002 Belmont alumnus, recently led an innovative project for students in his Sociology of Music class at Georgia College, where he currently serves as an associate professor.
Each semester, Koch gives his class the option to do a traditional research paper or an alternative option that would excite and challenge his students to learn the complexities of the music business and sociology.
For the fall semester, Koch’s students opted to write, record and release an original song featuring sociological themes, and the impact was everything Koch hoped it would be. “The students seem to have been affected in a few ways,” he said. “First, and most importantly to me in my capacity as their sociology professor, is that they really wrestled with some timely social justice issues in the lyrics, most notably racism and economic inequality. They were able to stay true to the social nature of the issues while still making it an engaging, individual-level narrative. Second, the students had to confront the communal nature of music-making as well as the social-ness of marketing a product. Finally, the students were energized knowing that any revenue that the song generated would go to a good, local cause of their choosing.”
Proceeds from the completed song, “Stuck,” will help provide a free laundromat for families at a local elementary school.
The recording is available on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify and YouTube.
Koch came to Belmont for the music business program. While taking Introduction to Sociology to fulfill a general education requirement, Koch decided to change direction. In 2002, he graduated with a major in sociology and minor in music business.
“Even though I dedicated my professional life to sociology and higher education, music has always remained ‘serious leisure’ to me… I was able to draw on my studio production training from my time at Belmont in engineering and producing the record that my students just released. It really was the confluence of two seemingly-divergent parts of my life, both of which were fostered by my peers and the faculty at Belmont.”
Visit Koch’s website to learn more about the project and to listen to “Stuck.”
Professor of Music Business at Belmont University, Dr. Don Cusic, recently released his latest book, “Nashville Sound: An Illustrated Timeline.” The book, which was released towards the end of 2018, tells the story of music in Nashville beginning in the nineteenth century.
Cusic’s book release was covered in several media outlets that highlighted the topic of the book as well as Cusic’s expertise in music history. Locally, he and his book were featured on Business Williamson, WKRN News Channel 2, WSMV News Channel 4 as well as WSM-AM Radio. In addition, news of “Nashville Sound” was featured in several publications focused on the music industry and country music like Music Row, Maverick Country Magazine and The Country Note.
“Nashville Sound” is one of the more than 28 books Cusic has published about music and music history. Maverick, an independent country music magazine, calls it more than just a coffee table book saying the “stories and Nashville insider information make it much more and provide background of why the city is really known as ‘Music City U.S.A.'”
An article written by Belmont College of Law visiting professor, David Hudson, was recently published by the American Bar Association Journal. The article, titled “Is recording others legal, and is it ethical?,” focuses on whether lawyers recording their clients is legal and ethical. It is featured on their website and in the January magazine issue.
Hudson is a Visiting Associate Professor of Legal Practice and is teaching Legal Information and Communication at Belmont. He is the author, co-author or co-editor of more than 40 books and much of his career has focused on First Amendment issues.
Event kicked-off Belmont’s annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. breakfast with keynote address
Bishop Vashi Murphy McKenzie, the 117th elected and consecrated bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church and the first woman to serve in the role, spoke to a packed crowd on Friday, January 18 as she delivered Belmont’s MLK Week Celebration Keynote Address in the Janet Ayers Academic Center Conference Room.
The event began with remarks from Metro Nashville Mayor David Briley, including a proclamation from the city officially welcoming McKenzie to Nashville. Director for Athletics Media Relations Kenisha Rhone introduced the Bishop, noting her recognition by the Huffington Post last year as one of 50 Most Powerful Religious Women in the World.
McKenzie began her address with a simple question – “When was the last time you took a stand for something,” she said. “For anything? For some cause greater than yourself.” Detailing the importance of finding and understanding our own convictions, principles and beliefs, McKenzie wondered if its our fears and our desire to hold onto earthly accolades that keep us from taking action against the causes that are put on our hearts.
The granddaughter of a Delta Sigma Theta Founder, Bishop McKenzie’s DST sorors attended the event in their signature red.
Quoting “To Every Man There Openeth,” a hymn written by John Oxenham, McKenzie described the “misty flats” we often find ourselves traveling — the times in our lives between the highs and lows where we might become too comfortable, complacent even. These ‘misty flats’ can be dangerous, she said, like “the ‘misty flats’ where having people speak well of us means more than our convictions. Where uncivil discourse is easier than real conversation…No one appreciates a person who tries to stand on both sides at the same time.”
So, instead, we find the areas we are being called to stand for — and we fight. Likening David’s fight against Goliath to Dr. King, Jr.’s fight for civil rights throughout his life, McKenzie highlighted commonality among the two men – a sense of audacity to step in when necessary. “It wasn’t [David’s] fault, but it became his fight,” she said. “It wasn’t [Martin’s] case, but it became his call. When you take a stand, you don’t have to go looking for the fight. The fight will find you.”
“We might not have been there when it happened,” she said, motivating listeners to forgo unnecessary conversations surrounding whether or not they witnessed the wrongdoing they are called to combat. “But now it’s our fight.”
“Audacity is believing you have something to offer than no one has yet given,” she said. “Look past your perceived disadvantages and make them work for you…David did. Martin did…Martin was audacious enough to step into the fight that wasn’t his fault and became his fight, and everything changed forever.”
But her time with attendees didn’t end there – she went on focus on the importance of each listener, highlighting the way God has called each for a unique purpose – a unique fight. “God wasn’t looking for anybody – God was looking for you,” she said. “You are the one that is needed for such as time as this…when God has opened the door for you, how dare you close it in the face of someone else.”
Ending the way she began, Bishop McKenzie’s closing words were clear. “So,” she said. “Who will take a stand?”
Belmont University’s College of Pharmacy first-year students,82 in total, received their white coats on January 11, a practice that symbolizes their transition into pharmacy practice experiences in institutional and community settings. The Tyler Duke family received the Friend of the College Award in recognition of their sustained support through the Tyler Duke Endowed Scholarship and support of student missions.
Dr. Condit Steil, professor of pharmacy, received the Professional Stewardship Award which recognizes a health care professional who has answered the call to service that comes with professional standing in the community.
The Being Belmont Award is given each year to a person or entity that has exemplified what it means to uphold the values of the University and has benefitted students and the pharmacy program. Belmont’s Counseling Services received this year’s award.
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Condit Steil, the Professional Stewardship Award Winner
Counseling Services, the Being Belmont Award Winner
The Duke Family accepts the Friend of the College Award
Dr. Eric Hobson, professor of English, recently served as the featured speaker for the Experimental Aircraft Association’s 2019 kick-off dinner in Knoxville, TN. His presentation was titled, “Demonstrating Aircraft’s Value to Science in Extreme Settings: The Matto Grosso Expedition (1931),” and explained the role the expedition’s aircraft played in the expedition’s success.
He also discussed the part the aircraft played in establishing aircraft as essential tools for geographic, archaeological, and ethnographic exploration.
The recording is available on Amazon, iTunes, Google Play, Spotify and YouTube.
