In 1989, 23-year-old Kevin Hughes was killed when he was ambushed by a gunman along Nashville’s famous Music Row. Hughes had been troubled that the country music record chart he worked for was accepting money under the table to manipulate the rankings of up-and-coming artists.

Hughes’s opposition to the dirty practice put him in the crosshairs of powerful independent music promoters who paid for chart positions to milk money from their unsuspecting clients. Detectives wondered if Hughes was executed because he didn’t want to play ball…and whether someone lured him into a deadly trap to get back on the chart with a bullet.

In the podcast “Music on Murder Row” from The Tennessean, host Keith Sharon explores who benefitted from Hughes’s killing, challenges the claims of the passenger in the car, and looks at the unscrupulous actions of promoters who prey on those dreaming of stardom. Sharon also tells the tale of the hit country music song “Music on Murder Row” and how it does and doesn’t fit in with the case.

OUR SPOILER-FREE REVIEWS OF "MURDER ON MUSIC ROW" BEGIN IN THE FINAL 14 MINUTES OF THE EPISODE.

In Crime of the Week: bust a gut!

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This show was recorded in The Caitlin Rogers Project Studio. Click to find out more.

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