This year was 2000. Y2K comes and goes, without any obstacles. The phone is still a novelty and has not been attached yet. An absolute simulation album is sweeping the country.

arrive Brother, where are you In December of that year, a record sold more than 8 million copies and won two Grammy Awards (including album of the year at the 2002 awards ceremony), and placed a record company called Lost Highway on the map. Its sound - a fusion of American, bluegrass and Appalachian standards - hits the chords. The company's lineup includes Willie Nelson, Lyle Lovett, Lucinda Williams, Elvis Costello and the eventual 23-year-old newcomer Kacey Musgraves, proving its energy at launch.

Lost Highway is ahead of the times in many ways. It identified professional artists who could thrive outside of the Nashville system and provided them with the freedom to explore their own musical path. This is largely thanks to the artist-friendly imprint, thanks in large part to its founder, the respected music director Luke Lewis, whose teeth were cut, such as Shania Twain's Doplato protein crush The woman inside meand signed up for people like Chris Stapleton.

"Lost Highway is a brand and label that I respect very much, is independent and sees their approach differently," said the Group Group, Chairman of InterScope Capitol Labels Group. “It’s very entrepreneurial, ((((((Gone)))) the opposite of what you usually do. As a fan, I bought the record from Lost Highway and loved the story of it.”

But, like many music industry stories, labels burn quickly and quickly. For a decade, it faced a new music ecosystem, and the same year Spotify arrived in the United States in 2012, Universal Music Group absorbed EMI and created an industry giant based on the bottom line. Lewis left, Musgraves moved to Mercury in Nashville, dormant the lost highway - until it recovered under the Interscope banner this year.

“It makes me happy to hear it,” said Lewis of Lost Highway Revival. “Casey is interested in especially – we keep in touch and I’m always proud of it.”

And there are good reasons. Musgraves was the last artist to sign Lost Highway until Mercury Nashville absorbed Mercury Nashville in 2013 and continued to be a true country star (Americana Bent), won eight Grammy Awards and sold the arena worldwide. Meanwhile, she relocated around the universal system, co-releasing her last two albums, through MCA Nashville and Interscope (the record label of Billie Eilish and Lady Gaga).

Staying under the Interscope banner is key to Musgraves as she now returns to Lost Highway as her first signing.

Moose Graves told thr Announce her lost highway signature in an exclusive digital cover story.

"She is exactly the kind of artist we are looking for," said Janick. We want to do the traditional things at the record label best, but always think outside the box. Everything I do is think within scope. Found great artists and supported them in various ways. It has nothing to do with the shortcut. It has nothing to do with the shortcuts; it is about the art of supporting them. You want those who are going to move and shape culture rather than follow it. ”

Musgraves' long-time manager Jason Owen, who works on the original Lost Highway and maintains close relationship with Lewis, brought the idea to Janick, whose passion has guided it to achieve it despite not having a formal role on the label. Janick appointed Robert Knotts and Jake Gear to join together the tags. Knotts worked with other Alt countries like Jason Isbell and Sturgill Simpson, and while working for the Thirty Tigers, Gear was from UMG Nashville, where he worked with artists including Tucker Wetmore.

The Lost Highway’s revival was when it came to release country music, and even when there were many choices in the release of country music in UMG. Last month, the world's largest music company announced a major turnaround in its Nashville division as it has now been renamed the American Music Company and played the role of UMG's formerly-same name. None of this is all about smaller UMG affiliate entities, such as Big Loud, the homeland of Morgan Wallen, whose music is distributed by the Republic. A source familiar with the matter told THR that there is a high amount of competition in the UMG system and that the Republic is collectively interested in the lost highway.

"It's natural," said Lewis, who is aligned with Interscope. "Don't do any dispersion of anyone, but the Republic is structured differently. Interscope has an employee who is skilled and capable of dealing with various artists, and it's not about getting promoted people to take them to the broadcast. So I feel like the lost highway ends in the right place."

“Everyone wants to sign up for great artists,” Janick said. We try to respect the genre of what we want to do in every music genre, but also don’t limit the artists and tell them where they should be.

Many Nashville music producers’ ideas are certainly authentic. Riding on Wallen’s stratosphere success, Wallen is a proven and perennial hit singer, and an unorthodox approach to live phenomena, besides crossover success like Post Malone (its “I Have Some Help” (“I Have Some Help” featuring Warren is one of the biggest songs of 2024), Coast is all the forms of Coasts in Country.

Lewis had heard of the record before, but he never thought of seeing a term that was so favorable to the artist, and certainly not at Universal Pictures. “When I quit, I didn’t feel Universal was about meeting the terminology that was offered by the company, or tending to make me think that the need to achieve such an artist-friendly deal,” he said. “I never dreamed that we could flip scripts in Universal and make 80-20 deals to artists’ favor.”

In fact, in life with his wife Lauren in South Carolina, former music publicity director Lauren did the last thing, he was "get a bunch of artists out of the deal," he shared. "I feel like I'm making people free, not making them tangled. Some people are back and I'm trying to be righteous as much as I can because I feel like I'm freeing them."

For ten years, Lewis still fought against his exports. "You got the mainstream country stuff, it's Maga, it's all decided by Country Radio, it's the evil step-brother of Maga Thing; it's one of the main reasons I quit." "I can't do it again. I don't know the audience. I don't want to. Shame on me? Maybe, but it's hard for me to promote things I don't appreciate."

In the decade since, UMG has seen a series of record labels in Nashville. Mike Dungan retired from 2012 to 2023, and his substitute Cindy Mabe left UMG in February, while Mike Harris took over. Before Mabe quits in February, she actually turned down the idea of ​​a highway revival in January, with T Bone Burnett related to her. The tag released Ringo Starr's Country Album look up.

Burnett brother Soundtrack.

“We started using lost highway records Brother, where are you? Soundtrack in 2000,” Burnett said in a statement. “As we were only able to release a fraction of what we had recorded at the time, I'm looking forward to working with the Lost Highway Team — Robert Knotts and Jake Gear, and of course John Janick and Steve Berman, to complete the work we started 25 years ago, and to get behind some of the extraordinary artists that emerged, and are still emerging, in this century in the deep world of American Music.”

Indeed, Burnett’s return and Musgraves do bring about the complete circle of the lost highway. Now, if they can get the vinyl version brother Arrived at the factory in time, consistent with the 25th anniversary of December. “It makes me feel old,” Lewis recalled the beautiful packaging designed for CDs and how business matters avoid spending. "I think it will be one of the records of people who might buy a CD every year, like a CD. They say we're over $350,000. I'm sure I'm pretty sure we'll break or even break. The soundtrack of the movie is selling for $600,000 to $70 million than the movie... We've never paid these people like they did, they've paid these people's treatment, these people's travels.