Ben Vaughn, a beloved determine within the Nashville music neighborhood who served because the president and CEO of Warner Chappell Nashville, has died. He was 49.
The reason for loss of life was not revealed in Thursday’s announcement by the publishing firm’s co-chairs Man Moot and Carianne Marshall.
Vaughn joined Warner Chappell Nashville in 2012, rising to the highest publish on the satellite tv for pc workplace which constructed a status for nurturing songwriting expertise in nation music and past. Beneath Vaughn’s management, Warner Chappell Nashville earned dozens of honors from throughout the music house, together with awards from the Grammys, ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, the CMA and ACM awards, amongst different organizations. Warner Chappell additionally boasts eight inductions into the Nashville Songwriters Corridor of Fame.
Vaughn grew up within the small Kentucky city of Sullivan. A life-long nation music fan, he landed a job at his native radio station, WMSK, the place he obsessed over the liner notes within the CDs that arrived on the station’s workplace.
After graduating from Nashville’s Belmont College, Vaughn reconnected along with his former center faculty laptop trainer, who had turn out to be a employees songwriter at Warner Chappell, getting him a job as an intern to Kurt Denny, then a artistic supervisor.
Whereas nonetheless at college, Vaughn took an internship at Warner Chappell’s accomplice firm, Huge Tractor Music, discovering himself the corporate’s head at 21 years previous for the corporate’s proprietor on the time, Scott Hendricks, who was head of Capitol Information Nashville and a serious producer.
After six years at Huge Tractor, Vaughn took a job at EMI, the place he would spend the subsequent decade. At 34, he was one of many youngest executives in Nashville to go a serious publishing firm when he turned EVP and GM at EMI, signing a number of newcomers — like nation star Thomas Rhett — to their first publishing offers and dealing with employees songwriters. Throughout his tenure, he oversaw all artistic and business actions throughout A&R, administration, enterprise growth, finance and human assets, till a sequence of mergers led him to depart.
Following a six-month sabbatical, Warner Chappell tapped him to guide its Nashville workplace, returning to the corporate the place he started as an intern.
Vaughn was a fierce advocate for songwriters, talking of rights safety initiatives and the financial challenges of the craft and lending his experience to these locally.
Learn the memo despatched by Moot and Marshall in its entirety under:
To everybody at WMG,
It’s with damaged hearts that we share the unthinkable information that Ben Vaughn, President & CEO of Warner Chappell Nashville, handed away this morning. Our deepest condolences are along with his household and plenty of pals.
Ben has led our Nashville group since 2012, and we all know that lots of you around the globe received to know him through the years. Anybody who had the pleasure of working with him will likely be as shocked and saddened as we’re.
In the beginning, Ben was a unprecedented human being. He met everybody with enthusiasm, heat, and generosity. His smile was enormous, and his humorousness was infectious.
He was all the time a passionate advocate of songwriters and a topflight music writer. The Nashville neighborhood has misplaced one among its best champions, and he will likely be profoundly missed by so many throughout our firm and all the business.
We’re planning to go to the Nashville group very quickly and thanks all for serving to help them by way of this terrible tragedy.
With love, Man & Carianne
