Audrey Winters

Music City News Magazine; City Beat; Country Music Magazine; Public Relations

Audrey Winters landed a job at Music City News in the late 60's because the government declared that all mail had to have a zip code. Her part-time job at MCN was adding zip codes to the
mailing list for a few months until Faron Young, owner of the newspaper, asked her if she wanted a full time job. When the paper was sold, she became assistant editor, office manager, bookkeeper, wrote a column called Around Town and also sold advertising. An executive at MCA Records in New York taught her that to get advertising dollars from the major record labels she needed to approach the ad agencies before the end of the year when they make their budget for the next year. In a one week December New York trip, Audrey was successful in MCA, RCA, ABC/Dot and Columbia.

After that trip Music City News became one of the most influential publications in country music, with a very successful televised awards show. However, after eight years MCN was sold, and it closed. Audrey published a local magazine, City Beat, wrote a column for Country Music Magazine, started her own PR company, and Shelby Singleton hired her to do publicity and bios and pitch songs for his company. Through independent producer Huey Meaux she pitched Freddy Fender's "Before the Next Tear Drop Falls," to ABC/Dot Records, and it became CMA's Single of the Year at CMA, as well as at Billboard, Record World, Cash Box and MCN. After the success of that single, she garnered 10 additional cuts.