Benson Music Group
Provident Music Group
741 Cool Springs Blvd
Franklin, TN 37067
1 (615) 261-5909
Provident Music Group is owned by Sony Music Entertainment, Inc.
MUSIC GENRES:
Contemporary Christian, Southern Gospel
RECORD LABELS:
Heartwarming, Impact, Greentree, Paragon, New
Pax, Milk & Honey, New Dawn, Zondervan/Singcord, Supreme Productions
ARTISTS ON VARIOUS LABELS INCLUDED:
Mickey & Becki Moore, Twila Paris, Farrell
& Farrell, Bill Gaither Trio, Michael Card, Gaither Vocal Band, Doug Oldham, the Rambos, and
many others.
HISTORY:
The John T. Benson
Music Publishing Company was founded in
1902.
Benson’s record labels in the 60s and 70s
included Heartwarming and Impact. Heartwarming was Southern Gospel; Impact more contemporary.
Bob Mac Kenzie joined the Benson company in 1966 as creative director and produced almost every album released by Benson. Mac Kenzie utilized some of Nashville's finest musicians and studios to improve the quality of the recordings. Album masters were taken to London to add orchestrations, many notably arranged by Rick Powell and Ronn Huff.
Bob Mac Kenzie left Benson in 1975 to partner with Bill Gaither in forming Paragon Associates.
Benson Music
was acquired by Zondervan in 1980 for $3.6 million. At the same time, Zondervan formed a partnership with
Paragon Associates to jointly operate Benson, which was renamed The New Benson Company.
Bob Mac Kenzie of Paragon was named President. Zondervan owned 51%, Paragon 49%.
Ownership by Paragon and Zondervan put the Benson
Music Group name on the Greentree, Milk & Honey, Paragon, Power
Disc, New Dawn and NewPax labels.
In 1984 (or 1983), Bob MacKenzie and Bill Gaither ended their business partnership with the sale of Paragon's interest in Benson to Zondervan, but the two remained very close friends. The company’s name reverted back to The Benson Company.
In 1988, the Zondervan Publishing House was purchased by
Harper & Row for $56.7 million.
THE NINETIES:
The following is contributed by Greg Seneff who was Director of Legal Affairs at Benson for a number of years in the ‘90s.
Mr. Seneff's The Seneff Law Office in Nashville, TN represents Christian recording artists, independent record labels, film and video production companies, publishers, etc. Mr. Seneff has also served as General Counsel for both the Gospel Music Association (GMA) and the Christian Music Trade Association (CMTA). He is an adjunct professor, contributes to magazines, serves on the board of a non-profit ministry, conducts seminars for industry conferences, and still finds the time to create a podcast called Artist Insider.
In 1992, after a sales slump with layoffs and unsuccessful hopes for a buyout, Zondervan, which was acquired by HarperCollins Publishers (Harper & Row) in 1988, decided to exit the music business. Benson was sold in November to Music Entertainment Group, Inc. (MEG) which was overseen by two long-time music industry executives, Wes Farrell and Steve Fret.
Mr. Farrell entered the music business as a songwriter at the famous Brill Building. He wrote hits such as “Hang On Sloopy” made famous by the McCoys, the Wayne Newton classic “Danke Schön,” co-wrote a song the Beatles recorded on their first U.S. album entitled “Boys,” as well as numerous other well-known hits of the 1960’s & 70’s. Mr. Farrell was tapped to be the producer of many of the Partridge Family albums.
Mr. Farrell founded The Wes Farrell Organization which had a very large publishing catalog. He worked with a number of music stars including Neil Diamond, whom Mr. Farrell signed to his first publishing agreement. He formed his own record company, Chelsea, to release Wayne Newton’s first top-10 hit, “Daddy, Don't You Walk So Fast.”
Mr. Farrell scored several motion pictures, including the Academy-Award-winning Midnight Cowboy (1969), and at one time was married to Frank Sinatra’s daughter, Tina. Mr. Farrell was the chief executive and president of Music Entertainment Group.
Mr. Fret worked in a number of positions for major record labels, assisted in the sale of the Chappell publishing catalog to Warner Brothers and worked at SBK, the original label for Vanilla Ice and Wilson Philips.
When Jerry Park, who was president of Benson when MEG purchased it, left the company, Steve Fret became the acting president. Mr. Park went on to act as the Executive Vice President and Group Publisher for the Nelson Christian Books Group.
When Mr. Farrell died of cancer at the age of 56 in 1996, Mr. Fret continued the management of MEG, including the Benson Music Group, as president.
In 1997, Music Entertainment Group sold Benson Records to Zomba Music Group.
At the time of purchase by Zomba, Benson Music Group owned some 46,000 music copyrights and over 18,000 master tapes.
Benson Music Group became a part of Provident Music Group which was created by Zomba in 1997 as an umbrella for its Christian labels. Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing was established as Provident’s publishing arm.
In 1999, Benson switched to being a new
artist-focused label. However, new artist releases did not sell as much
as anticipated and in January 2001, the
Benson label was shut down.
In September 2002, German media giant Bertelsmann AG acquired Zomba, which then became a unit of BMG, Bertelsmann’s worldwide music business. Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing was moved into BMG Music Publishing.
In 2007, BMG Music Publishing, which includes Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing, was acquired by Universal Music Publishing Group from Sony BMG.
This page last updated April 11, 2010.
