(CelebriityAccess MediaWire) —
After 30 years at Sony Music, formerly CBS Records, Margie Hunt is departing the company to launch Hunt Music Services, Inc. d/b/a Sound Ideas. The new firm will utilize Hunt's extensive background in all aspects of the recording industry. Integral services of the new company will include, but are not limited to, creative marketing and the utilization of masters through re-packaging, compilations, box sets, film, television and corporate advertising opportunities.
Over the past three decades, Hunt has been instrumental, both in A&R and marketing, in the recording careers of Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, Marty Robbins, George Jones, Tammy Wynette, Earl Scruggs, Travis Tritt, Montgomery Gentry, Rodney Crowell and Patty Loveless. Her marketing efforts on the Dixie Chicks' debut album Wide Open Spaces yielded the Marketing Achievement Award from Music Row Magazine.
In 1994 Sony Nashville tapped Hunt to create an outlet for the utilization and exploitation of the vast country catalog, which includes over 50,000 masters in the Columbia and Epic repertoire. The catalogs spanned over 90 years of hits, running the gamut from Gene Autry to present-day artists and distinguished Sony as the first label in Nashville to actively pursue a catalog for use in film and television. Hunt has been instrumental in the inclusion of Sony Nashville music in numerous movies, television series, specials and soundtracks such as "Runaway Bride," Sleepless in Seattle," "Forrest Gump," "Touched by an Angel," "Friends," "Honeymoon in Vegas," "It Could Happen To You" and most recently "The Dukes of Hazzard."
In addition, Hunt has been instrumental in the development and direction of re-packages, box sets and compilations that have included the enormously successful Super Hits line, which has generated over 16 million in sales. Other product lines have included The Essentials, 16 Biggest Hits, Greatest Hits, and box sets for Charlie Daniels, Willie Nelson, Tammy Wynette, Marty Robbins and Johnny Cash. As Executive Producer for the Grammy-winning Vocal Collaboration, "Same Old Train" from Tribute To Tradition Hunt was honored by NARAS. –Bob Grossweiner and Jane Cohen
