View From The Front Porch-Stan Hitchcock-December 3, 2012

The record industry lost one of the good ones last week, and I lost another friend. Rick Blackburn, passed away in his sleep at his home in Nashville, and further reduced the survivors of the old time music men of Music Row.

I first met Rick during my years of recording for Epic, and in 1966 he was brought in to Epic, from Mercury Records, ending up a year later in the New York office of Epic as the Director of Merchandise for the label. In 1976 Rick was in Nashville, at the CBS records division and in 1980 took over as Manager of the Nashville Operations.

In 1984 when I was doing the startup of CMT, Rick was the first Record guy to see the potential of video and become my advocate in a big way. Later he took over as head of the Nashville operation of Atlantic Records and continued to support what I was trying to do with CMT. Up to the time I left CMT, in 1990, Rick encouraged and advised me on many business decisions. Rick helped form Leadership Music and brought me on as one of the 50 members of the first class in 1990.

Rick was a true music and record man of the old school, but with a very cutting edge vision for where the industry was heading. He treated artists with respect and gave them freedom to express their talent.

He was my friend and a man I admired and trusted. Music Row was greatly affected by this record man, in a positive way, and I will miss him, as I do all the true men of music that built a World Class street of Music on 16th Avenue South, Nashville, Tennessee.   -Stan