LOS ANGELES, August 9, 2011 -- The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum’s All for the Hall fundraiser will return to Los Angeles for a third consecutive year. The event, which will take place on Tuesday, September 13, at Club Nokia, will again follow a “guitar pull” format featuring performances by Country Music Hall of Fame members Vince Gill and Emmylou Harris, and Sheryl Crow and Zac Brown.
The evening offers a unique opportunity to see these acclaimed singer-songwriters interact with one another as they take turns swapping songs, stories and personal recollections. The “guitar pull” is a Nashville specialty; it originated in the homes of Nashville songwriters who gathered to try out new compositions for their peers. Nashville’s most storied guitar pulls were hosted by Johnny and June Carter Cash. The hallmarks of a great guitar pull are spontaneity and camaraderie.
The Museum launched All for the Hall, its first-ever non-bricks-and-mortar fundraising campaign, in 2005. The campaign addresses the Museum’s need for long-term financial security and will provide a safety net for the institution and its work. This is the fifth year the Museum has taken its “annual giving” event on the road, hosting previous All for the Hall events in New York in 2007 and 2008 and in Los Angeles in 2009 and 2010.
“California, with its rich country music history, has proven to be a supremely appropriate and welcoming location for this event,” said Museum Director Kyle Young. “Our 2009 All for the Hall Los Angeles debut gave us an opportunity to focus on West Coast country music history and remind our guests that these artists and executives and their songs are a part of the story we both preserve and teach at the Museum. We built on that with last year’s event, during which we announced that the Museum’s next major exhibition will focus on Buck Owens, Merle Haggard and the Bakersfield Sound. We are very grateful for our warm welcome the past two years and look forward to seeing old friends and making new ones in September.”
Last year’s event, also held at Club Nokia, featured performances by Gill, Harris, Kris Kristofferson, Lionel Richie and Taylor Swift. Describing last year’s show, Randy Lewis of the Los Angeles Times wrote, “[It was] an intimate, living-room-like atmosphere…the mood felt less about competitiveness than mutual admiration, as 74-year-old Kristofferson and 61-year-old Richie grinned broadly while Swift delivered solo acoustic versions of her latest single ‘Mine’ and one of her biggest hits, ‘Love Story.’ The life experience that Kristofferson, Harris, Gill and Richie brought made for a fascinating juxtaposition with Swift’s songs of starry-eyed love.” (9/25/10).
All for the Hall Los Angeles patrons are offered their choice of seating for 10 for $10,000, or seating for five for $5,000. Individual tickets are available at $1,000 per seat. A cocktail reception and dinner will precede the guitar pull. To purchase tickets, patrons may contact Rachel Shapiro at rshapiro@countrymusichalloffame.org or telephone (615) 416-2069 or(800) 852-6437.
All for the Hall Los Angeles is chaired by AEG Live Chairman Tim Leiweke and produced by CAA’s Rod Essig, Vector Management’s Ken Levitan and BMI’s Jody Williams. The event is made possible by the generosity of AEG Live and Club Nokia LA Live. The 2011 host committee for All for the Hall Los Angeles includes Mark Bloom (UBS Financial Services), John Frankenheimer (Loeb & Loeb), Gary Haber (Haber Corporation), Neil Portnow (The Recording Academy) and Bob Romeo (Academy of Country Music).
About the Performers:
Georgia native Zac Brown is the leader of the Grammy-award winning Zac Brown Band. The band’s debut major label release, The Foundation, was one of Billboard’s Top 20 albums of 2009, and yielded five #1 hits, including “Chicken Fried” and “Free.” The band’s follow-up album, You Get What You Give, which was released in September 2010, debuted at #1 on theBillboard 200 chart and was recently certified platinum by the RIAA. The band’s honors and accolades include “Best New Artist” wins at both the 2010 Grammy Awards and the 2010 CMA Awards, and a 2009 “Top New Vocal Group” nod from the Academy of Country Music.
Free-spirited, fearless and fierce, Sheryl Crow has garnered nine Grammys, released seven studio albums, which sold more than 35 million records worldwide, is a cancer survivor and passionate humanitarian, and has performed for President Obama. This year Crow unveiled her soul stylings on her seventh studio set, 100 Miles from Memphis. Raised in Kennett, Missouri, 100 miles from Memphis, Crow grew up listening to the irresistible soul sounds on the radio coming out of Memphis in the late ’60s and early ’70s, all of which shaped the artist she is today. Crow is a passionate supporter of a variety of environmental and health-related charities, including the NRDC, the Breast Cancer Research Foundation and the World Food Program. This year saw the opening of the Sheryl Crow Imaging Center in the Pink Lotus Breast Center in Los Angeles.
Country Music Hall of Fame member Vince Gill possesses an achingly beautiful tenor, award-winning songwriting skills and virtuoso guitar chops. Together, they’ve earned him millions of record sales, 20 Grammys and 18 CMA Awards. He was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2007. Gill is also regarded as one of country music’s most generous humanitarians, participating in hundreds of charitable events throughout his career, including All for the Hall, the campaign to support the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. Gill, president of the Museum’s Board of Officers and Trustees, was also the Museum’s 2009 Artist in Residence. His new CD, Guitar Slinger, will be released on October 25 on MCA Records.
Emmylou Harris introduced country music to a broader audience by building bridges to folk, gospel, rock and alternative music. She has sold millions of albums worldwide and claimed 12 Grammys in a career that now stretches over four decades. Elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame in 2008, she remains an inspiration to new generations of artists. Harris is a champion of many humanitarian causes, including landmine removal and animal rescue. Her latest album, 2011’s Hard Bargain, features 11 songs written or co-written by Harris.
About the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum
Accredited by the American Association of Museums, the Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum is operated by the Country Music Foundation, a not-for-profit 501(c)(3) educational organization chartered by the state of Tennessee in 1964. The Museum’s mission is the preservation of the history of country and related vernacular music rooted in southern culture. With the same educational mission, the Foundation also operates CMF Records, the Museum’s Frist Library and Archive, CMF Press, Historic RCA Studio B, and Hatch Show Print®.
