Trace Adkins Leaves Capitol b/c of Bleve Brushup?

Trace AdkinsIt was announced yesterday that Trace Adkins’ new album Cowboys Back in Town will be released on August 24th. Adkins, who spent his whole 14 year career with Capitol Records Nashville, suddenly decided to switch labels in February, and is now signed to the Ford Truck Man Toby Keith’s “Show Dog-Universal” label.

When Trace made the label shift, American Music Channel said the it “came as a major surprise to Nashville insiders.” The Boot said the move had “jaws dropping on Nashville’s Music Row.”

Publicly Trace says he decided to switch labels when touring with Toby last summer. The timing makes sense, but during the end of that tour when Trace made his decision, another major event was going on in the Trace Adkins world. Independent label Bleve Music was trying to release the single “My First Ride” by Ronnie Milsap that Trace appeared on. Bleve received permission from Capitol to allow Trace to appear on the single, and even paid royalties back to the label. But since Capitol was unhappy with the timing of the single release, they sued Bleve.

The kicker? The Bleve label is a charity organization set up to help the families of firefighters killed in the line of duty.

So Ronnie Milsap struck back and struck back again. But as Ronnie was running around Nashville with a bullhorn, Trace, on tour with Toby, was completely mum on the subject.

Music Row and the media may have forgotten about this story, and were “shocked” by the Trace move. But I will never forget, and will do my best to make sure the country music fan doesn’t either. Out of all the errors and excesses I’ve reported on about music row, Capitol Records suing a charity tops the list.

READ MY LETTER TO CAPITOL RECORDS NASHVILLE.

Still no word on the legal outcome of the Capitol lawsuit against Bleve. I tried to contact the Trace Adkins camp to get an official comment, but they did not reply to my emails. However The Ford Truck Man Toby Keith did send me a few videos that he said would explain everything:

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