The Song Placement Pros Songwriter community was established in 2017 as an indie songwriter’s opportunities division of the Award-Winning, Platinum Record selling Publishing and Artist/Songwriter Development Company "Merf Music Group". 

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(CEO) Ray Hamilton has been developing personal friendships as well as music business relationships with record labels, producers, music supervisors, hit songwriters, and signed recording artists across the United States and around the World since 1994 as a songwriter and producer. In 2007 He launched Merf Music Group on Music Row with the encouragement of his friend and mentor “Hall of Fame Songwriter, Indie Publisher of the year and at the time SVP of BMG Roger Murrah.

 

In 2016 the company landed their first major-label artist cut on Miranda Lambert’s Album “The Weight Of These Wings” The album debuted at No. 1 on the Billboard Country Albums chart and No. 3 on the all-genre US Billboard 200 chart and was certified Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In addition to winning Album of the Year at the 2017 ACM awards, it’s considered by several music publications as one of the best albums of the year. In 2020, the album was ranked at 480 on Rolling Stones' 500 greatest albums of all-time list.

 

In 2016 after spending a couple of years watching a phenomenal singer-songwriter work closely with his staff writers, and sing a few demos for the company, Ray made the decision to invest in this new up-and-comer and co-ventured in an artist/development and publishing deal with "Ashley McBryde" and Golden Vault Music and in 2018 she signed with Warner Bros. (WMN) and landed multiple cuts on her next 3 major-label albums.

 

Since then, the company has had music on 3 Grammy-nominated albums, celebrated an Emmy nomination for best performance on the CBS morning show with Ashley, and has had music on major label records that have received multiple CMA, and CMT nominations and wins. 

 

To date, our company has had 25 major-label cuts and multiple indie cuts with artists including, Trisha Yearwood, Eric Church, Thomas Rhett, Ashley McBryde, Sister Sadie, Pam Tillis and Lori Morgan, Randy Rogers and Wade Bowen, Trent Tomlinson, Country, and Christian Music icon Gary Chapman and more...

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We have also had the pleasure of working and placing music with several Artists from the "THE VOICE" including Gwen Sebastian, Red Marlow, Jesslee, Caeland Garner, and Taryn Papa, as well as multiple sync placements with the following networks including Netflix, CMT, TNT, A&E, FOX, ABC, CBS, and The Discovery Network. 

 

The MMG/ SPP staff and past and present team members have also facilitated co-writes and cuts with several major label Artists and Hit Songwriters including Allison Krauss, Craig Campbell, Thomas Rhett, Cole Swindell, Miranda Lambert, Dan Truman of Diamond Rio, William Michael Morgan, Dan Smalley, Aubrey Sellers, Gary Chapman, Shane McAnally, Mo Pitney and more, since the launch of the company in 2007.