[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 94 (Wednesday, June 20, 2012)]
[Senate]
[Page S4361]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
TRIBUTE TO FRANCES WILLIAMS PRESTON
Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, I would like to pay tribute to Frances
Williams Preston, a trailblazing businesswoman, a dedicated
humanitarian, a mother, a grandmother, a great-grandmother, and a
friend. I was saddened when she passed away on June 13.
Frances began her career as a receptionist at a radio station in
Nashville, TN. She quickly moved up within the music community, and in
1958 she was hired to open a regional office for Broadcast Music Inc.,
BMI, in Nashville, representing songwriters and composers. Glass
ceilings had no chance at constraining Frances. In 1964, she became
Vice President of BMI, reportedly making her the first woman corporate
executive in Tennessee. In 1986, she became CEO and remained CEO of BMI
until 2004.
Her work at BMI transformed not only the company, but also the
hundreds of thousands of songwriters and composers BMI represents. She
tripled the revenues at BMI and advocated for strong copyright
protections to benefit artists. BMI under her tenure also helped the
city of Nashville to blossom into the leading center for songwriters
and the arts that it is today.
Frances's dedication to the songwriters and her industry, and her
passion for ensuring they could make a living in their chosen
profession, was unrivaled. Kris Kristofferson famously dubbed her the
``songwriter's guardian angel.''
I worked closely with Frances and the songwriting community to ensure
that the rights of composers are protected, but I will remember her
most for her humanitarian efforts. She was president of the T.J.
Martell Foundation for Leukemia, Cancer and AIDS research, and her name
precedes the research laboratories at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer
Center.
I could go on at length about the various music and humanitarian
awards and honors Frances has received, from being inducted into the
Country Music Hall of Fame in 1992 to twice receiving the Humanitarian
Award from the International Achievement in Arts.
The current president of BMI probably best captured her essence by
simply describing Frances as ``a force of nature.'' She will be missed
by those who knew her, and remembered always by those whom she nurtured
as songwriters and composers.
The music industry has lost a legend and I ask unanimous consent that
the Wall Street Journal article ``From Receptionist to Music-Royalty
Guarantor'' by Stephen Miller be entered into the Record.
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
[From the Wall Street Journal, June 14, 2012]
From Receptionist to Music-Royalty Guarantor
(By Stephen Miller)
Frances Preston rose from radio-station receptionist to
chief executive of Broadcast Music Inc., a performing-rights
group that helps guarantee that songwriters and music
publishers get paid when their songs are played on the radio
or in places like restaurants.
Ms. Preston, who died Wednesday at the age of 83, founded
BMI's Nashville, Tenn., office and signed up thousands of
artists, many of whose careers she shepherded personally.
The deals she struck helped nurture country, rock 'n' roll
and jazz, emerging genres that the American Society of
Composers, Authors and Publishers, BMI's older rival, had
neglected in favor of traditional pop music.
By the time Ms. Preston retired in 2004, BMI represented
300,000 music composers and copyright owners and disbursed
more than a half-billion dollars to them annually.
``They never paid royalties to the songwriters for
performances until Frances Preston came along,'' country star
Eddy Arnold told The Wall Street Journal in 2004. ``She put
the hammer on!''
``A lot of them didn't realize that they could get paid for
having their music played,'' Ms. Preston told Amusement
Business magazine in 1991. She built a fanatical following
among Nashville's performing elite.
Singer-songwriter Kris Kristofferson, whom Ms. Preston
signed to a $1 million songwriting deal in the 1970s, once
called her ``our guardian angel.''
Raised in Nashville, Ms. Preston studied at George Peabody
College for Teachers. But shortly before taking a classroom
job, she went to work at WSM, the radio home of the Grand Ole
Opry, where her duties included answering Hank Williams's
mail. She moved on to running the station's promotions
department and got to know the country stars of the era.
In 1958, she founded BMI's Nashville office--at first in
her parents' garage. A few years later she opened a new
office on fledgling Music Row. Thanks in part to BMI's
presence, it soon became the home to recording studios and
music publishers and the hub of the Nashville country scene.
Ms. Preston moved to BMI's home office in New York City,
where she became chief executive in 1986. She oversaw the
transition to the digital age as complex new media like the
Internet and ringtones joined radio and television as major
sources of revenue. She also lobbied Congress as copyright
laws were changed.
``It's a constant fight to educate those people [that]
music is not just out there in the air for you to pick out
for free, because if the creator isn't compensated, there's
not going to be that music,'' she told Billboard in 2004.
Ms. Preston was lionized in Nashville, where she was a
glamorous personification of the business side of the music
industry. When she was inducted into the Country Music Hall
of Fame in 1992, it dubbed her ``the most influential
country-music executive of her generation.''
Always one to keep things in sensible perspective, Ms.
Preston was proud to be remembered as the author of a
Nashville motto: ``It all begins with a song.''
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