https://www.pollstar.com/article/carrie-underwood-a-quiet-steward-for-women-137846
really great article, click on it and read it, tweet it, post it on facebook
here's a taste
talking about the 'Ill Stand With You ' performance at the ACMs
"As so often happens at the network level, Carrie Underwood – a woman of impossibly high TVQ – got the call. And as the inexhaustible mother of two so often does, she said. “Yes.” But her “yes” isn’t a show up and stumble through, it’s a full-on commitment to bring it. As Clark explains, “She was the music driver who knew how to fold all those women into this song – and give them their moment. Their moment is what’s important to her, and you can feel it the second the performance starts.
“Edgar Struble (music director) and Raj Kapoor (co-executive producer) realize it. But in the end, it comes down to those women singing this song, expressing this sentiment. For the country music community, it’s about women coming together. Without Carrie, it doesn’t have the same impact; but she invested in it, and that amplified everything.”
Amplifying is, perhaps, what Underwood does best. Though it’s tempting to take the fresh-faced superstar for granted, the numbers don’t lie. She has sold upwards of 65 million albums, scored 15 No. 1 country singles, won seven Grammys, 14 Academy of Country Music Awards, 13 American Music Awards, 10 Billboard Music Awards and seven Country Music Association Awards, a show she’s co-hosted for the last 11 years."
"At a time when young women struggle to make even the lowest rungs of country radio playlists, the format’s biggest superstar is bringing “Girl In A Country Song” duo Maddie & Tae and newcomers Runaway June on tour with her. If she loses the built-in “back announcing” bump that comes with carefully sifting through rising artists with building chart success, Underwood isn’t bound to that kind of promotion to sell out.
Jeff Frasco, Underwood’s longtime agent at CAA, sees the engagement as a win. “It was pretty simple. Carrie wanted to help some female artists, and I think empowering a generation of young women artists (and fans) is everything she’s about. It makes a statement about empowerment from a woman who sells out arenas anywhere she plays.”
UMG Nashville President Cindy Mabe laughs, then says emphatically. “Who has the biggest Q Factor in country music? Carrie Underwood! They don’t build TV shows in this format, or outside this format without her. It’s not about metrics, or how many butts someone can put in seats, because she’s going to do that. She may not be as loud as I am, but she’s going to keep using her platform to make a difference, to keep bringing women onstage with her.”
and this part just made me sad
“She’s always been here to compete,” Mabe recalls. “Anywhere we went right after she came off the show, there’d be 300 people, all wanting autographs. When she couldn’t sign them all, the names they’d call her. At the [2005] CMAs in New York, some of the other artists [weren’t friendly]. But Carrie just went in the bathroom, threw up, came out and crushed her minute-thirty – and we went on to sell 8 million records!”
really great article, click on it and read it, tweet it, post it on facebook
here's a taste
talking about the 'Ill Stand With You ' performance at the ACMs
"As so often happens at the network level, Carrie Underwood – a woman of impossibly high TVQ – got the call. And as the inexhaustible mother of two so often does, she said. “Yes.” But her “yes” isn’t a show up and stumble through, it’s a full-on commitment to bring it. As Clark explains, “She was the music driver who knew how to fold all those women into this song – and give them their moment. Their moment is what’s important to her, and you can feel it the second the performance starts.
“Edgar Struble (music director) and Raj Kapoor (co-executive producer) realize it. But in the end, it comes down to those women singing this song, expressing this sentiment. For the country music community, it’s about women coming together. Without Carrie, it doesn’t have the same impact; but she invested in it, and that amplified everything.”
Amplifying is, perhaps, what Underwood does best. Though it’s tempting to take the fresh-faced superstar for granted, the numbers don’t lie. She has sold upwards of 65 million albums, scored 15 No. 1 country singles, won seven Grammys, 14 Academy of Country Music Awards, 13 American Music Awards, 10 Billboard Music Awards and seven Country Music Association Awards, a show she’s co-hosted for the last 11 years."
"At a time when young women struggle to make even the lowest rungs of country radio playlists, the format’s biggest superstar is bringing “Girl In A Country Song” duo Maddie & Tae and newcomers Runaway June on tour with her. If she loses the built-in “back announcing” bump that comes with carefully sifting through rising artists with building chart success, Underwood isn’t bound to that kind of promotion to sell out.
Jeff Frasco, Underwood’s longtime agent at CAA, sees the engagement as a win. “It was pretty simple. Carrie wanted to help some female artists, and I think empowering a generation of young women artists (and fans) is everything she’s about. It makes a statement about empowerment from a woman who sells out arenas anywhere she plays.”
UMG Nashville President Cindy Mabe laughs, then says emphatically. “Who has the biggest Q Factor in country music? Carrie Underwood! They don’t build TV shows in this format, or outside this format without her. It’s not about metrics, or how many butts someone can put in seats, because she’s going to do that. She may not be as loud as I am, but she’s going to keep using her platform to make a difference, to keep bringing women onstage with her.”
and this part just made me sad
“She’s always been here to compete,” Mabe recalls. “Anywhere we went right after she came off the show, there’d be 300 people, all wanting autographs. When she couldn’t sign them all, the names they’d call her. At the [2005] CMAs in New York, some of the other artists [weren’t friendly]. But Carrie just went in the bathroom, threw up, came out and crushed her minute-thirty – and we went on to sell 8 million records!”
