Now Hear This Entertainment

Pianist, composer, producer, and arranger who last month released three full Christmas albums and has a fourth coming next month in the form of an audiobook. Under the banner of Studio 55, he also offers music production services, songwriting workshops, and record label services for aspiring musicians. He is a Hammond and Steinway Certified Artist and has also founded a non-profit called The Lighthouse Project, which he talks about here. His top five songs on Spotify alone have a combined total of almost 6.7 million streams and he was previously a guest on this show two years ago on Episode 510.

GRAMMY-nominated and Juno Award-winning producer and composer with a diverse career spanning various genres. He has worked with renowned artists such as Kris Kristofferson, Billy Joel, Michael McDonald, Vince Gill, Linda Ronstadt, Jackson Browne, B.B. King, Gloria Estefan, Johnny Mathis, Dan Hill, and many more. In celebration of his 60th anniversary as a musician and nearly 50th anniversary in the music industry, he has just released a book titled, “Unplugged: Stories and Secrets from a Life Making Records, Scoring Film, and Working with the Legends of Music,” which is available in hardcover, paperback, eBook, and, of course, as an audiobook, with him doing the narration. His Disney album work as producer/artist in the children's music realm has reached sales of over three million units and he is Disney's most successful instrumental lullaby album artist. He was the guest on this show on both Episode 412 and 474.

Award-winning singer, songwriter, guitar player who released a new single at the beginning of this month. A song of hers that she released at the end of March is up for GRAMMY Consideration. She is a CMA member and has made multiple appearances at CMA Fest. She is based in Nashville, but earlier this month the Texas Sounds International Country Music Awards honored her with the title of Female Rising Star. She has performed at venues and events nationally and internationally, including a story she has about performing with Carrie Underwood. She has a combined social media following of approximately 100 thousand and her top five songs on Spotify alone have a combined total of approximately 300 thousand streams.

Singer, songwriter, guitar player who has had over 175 of his songs cut with artists such as Garth Brooks, George Strait, Chris Stapleton, Hank Williams Jr., Randy Houser, Josh Turner, Reba McEntire, Lainey Wilson, and more. He is releasing his first music project as an artist in 20 years, but his songwriting hits include #1 songs by Jon Pardi and by Gary Allan, while also garnering a CMA nomination for Song of the Year with a Randy Houser single. He is based in Nashville where he is signed to Sony Music Publishing. And, he is also the founder of The Back to Back Foundation, a nonprofit established to meet the needs of families in three Kentucky counties, primarily during the holiday season. Next month he will be performing at the FloraBama as part of the 41st annual Frank Brown International Songwriters Festival.

Los Angeles-based engineer, producer, and writer who has worked with top companies such as Atlantic Records, Sony Music, Interscope, and Spotify, as well as household names such as John Mayer and Gwen Stefani. She has done everything from play drums as she approached her teen years to, more recently, giveaways, raffles, seminars/workshops, and live stream reviews, and even sold her sound kits, and offer her services to help set up home studios, and she even offers remote video consultations.

Los Angeles-based writer, multi-instrumentalist, recording artist, and an RIAA Certified Platinum Producer. He is also one half of a record label called The Undefeated. He wrote & produced Charli D'Amelio’s debut single, “If You Ask Me To,” which landed national commercials and charted on Billboard Airplay and produced Kyle’s RIAA Certified Platinum “To The Moon.” He has produced and written for several hot 100 artists as well as helping run the studio where this interview was recorded. In addition, in early 2018 Gibson recognized his prowess with guitars and selected him as one of its brand ambassadors, as well as signing a deal with Native Instruments as one of their “Artists on the Rise.”

An Emmy Award-winning vocalist and composer and a British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) affiliated composer and orchestrator who, seven weeks ago, released an album that was recorded live at Abbey Road Studio 2. This new project is up for GRAMMY consideration for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album. They have written more than a thousand works together for an enviable client list including BBC, HBO, Audio Network, ITV and Samuel Goldwin, among others. They have scored and composed for documentaries for film and TV, and their music has been used on every major network and streaming company around the globe. They most recently co-authored and mixed the score for Daughter Of The Bride with Academy award winner Marcia Gaye Harden and Aiden Quinn.

This interview was just recorded 13 days ago, and tragically, Brett James is now no longer with us, following a plane crash six days ago – exactly one week after he participated for this episode. He was a GRAMMY Award-winning singer, songwriter, guitar player, producer, and publisher who had written an astounding 27 number 1 songs. He had more than 800 of his songs recorded by some of the biggest artists in the world, with his songs having appeared on albums with combined sales of over 110 million copies. He was named ASCAP's country songwriter of the year in 2006 and 2010, and Music Row Magazine’s Songwriter of the Year in 2015. He received more than 40 ASCAP hit song awards in country, pop, Latin and Christian genres. In 2020 he was elected to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame. As a producer his credits included Taylor Swift, Jessica Simpson, Danielle Bradberry and Kip Moore. At the time of this interview, he had close to 19 thousand monthly listeners on Spotify, where his top five songs alone had combined for more than six million streams, and his official YouTube channel had over a half-a-million combined video views.

A super special edition to celebrate the one thousandth episode hosted of Bruce Wawrzyniak’s podcasting career. In this special release, there are excerpts from all of the shows he has hosted over the years: Now Hear This Entertainment, Catholic Sports Radio, TASCAM Talkback, Capture Your Art, and the PBLA Podcast. Below are links for easy access to go hear any one or more of either the specific interviews featured here or just the podcast(s) in general. It took over eleven-and-a-half years to get to this point, but this is indeed a truly special milestone worth commemorating in this way.

Multi-award-winning singer, songwriter, guitar and bass player. Kenny Chesney, Brooks & Dunn as well as multiple bluegrass artists have brought his original songs to number 1. In addition, he has seen continued songwriting success with songs recorded by such artists as Wynona Judd, Jake Owen, Lee Ann Womack, Dan Seals, Don Williams and many others including three songs recorded on Chris Stapleton’s multi-platinum selling album “Traveller.” One single won the ACM award for “Song of the Year.” The album received the ACM and CMA award for “Album of the Year” as well as a Grammy award for “Country Album of the Year.” As an artist, the International Bluegrass Music Association has awarded him Male Vocalist of the Year, Song of the Year, Album of the Year, Gospel Performance and Recorded Event of the Year multiple times for each category. He’s also been awarded Songwriter of the Year from the association. As a vocalist, he has recorded with various artists including, Alan Jackson, Alison Krauss, Vince Gill, Ricky Skaggs, Lee Ann Womack, Chris Stapleton, and John Fogerty, among others.