Physical description:

.25 l.f. including 1 video tape and 1 audio compact disc
 

Dates:

September 1993.
 

Provenance:

Donated to the Center in November 1993 by Amy Macy of MCA-Nashville.
 

Agency history:

Decca records established an office in Nashville Tennessee in 1958 which became MCA-Nashville in 1967 when MCA purchased the company. From its inception the office has had a strong presence in country music with such artists as Bill Monroe, Conway Twitty, Loretta Lynn, Glen Campbell, Waylon Jennings, and Ray Stevens, and Billboard magazine named MCA-Nashville as the top country label in 1985, 1986, and 1987.
 

Scope and content:

This group consists of print and audio-visual materials developed by MCA for use by sound recording retailers as part of the label's "comprehensive marketing plan" for promoting its artists during Country Music Month [October] 1993. Featured artists included Tracy Byrd, Mark Chesnutt, Mark Collie, Vince Gill, Wynonna Judd, McBride and the Ride, Reba McEntire, George Straight and Trisha Yearwood.

MCA distributed this material to retailers in a vinyl notebook containing an introduction with charts and graphs of the company's sales and of sales by specific MCA artists followed by six tabbed sections including:
 

"What's What": a description of the "Who It Is" contest being run by MCA on CMT; a related "What It Is" radio promotion; anticipated media activities including television appearances, magazine articles and a Tricia Yearwood special on the Disney channel; planned consumer advertising; and a discussion of sound recordings, photographs, flats and other materials being made available to radio stations and retailers by MCA;
 

"Who It Is" and "Who's Who": listings of sound recordings available, merchandising promos, media tie-ins, chart and sales histories and tour schedules for the nine featured artists;
 

"What's The Deal": a schedule of discounts to be given on specific products during the promotion and a list of front line, mid-line and budget audio and video products available for most MCA country artists.
 
 

Scope and content (continued):

The notebook also contained a compact disc (MCA3P-2840) with two cuts by each of the featured artists except Trisha Yearwood along with two cuts by Kelly Willis and Marty Brown and a brief video produced by Smash Advertising in May 1993 contrasting the "gray", "stale" "boring" image of Nashville with the bright, colorful, untamed reality represented by the MCA artists both visually and aurally.
 

Location:

The notebook is filed by accession number with other manuscript collections. The compact disc is filed by label and issue number (MCA3P-2840) with commercial compact discs. The video tape is filed with commercial video tapes under MCA.