Sony Music Publishing has promoted Greg Prata to chief financial officer, effective March 31, the company announced this week. Prata, who will remain based in New York, will report to SMP chairman and CEO Jon Platt as he steps into the role previously held by Tom Kelly, who is retiring after a 35-year career.

In his new position, Prata will oversee the publisher’s global financial operations, including reporting, accounting, budgeting, administration and IT. Prata joined Sony in 2012 as senior vice president of financial planning and analysis following a tenure at EMI, and he was elevated to evp of finance and corporate strategy in 2019. His background includes more than a decade in private equity and investment banking.

“I’m honored to step into this role at such an exciting time in the company’s evolution,” Prata said, thanking Platt for his support and acknowledging Kelly’s mentorship. “I look forward to working closely with the entire team as we continue to develop our capabilities and generate opportunities for SMP songwriters.”

Platt called Prata a “trusted leader,” adding, “I’m pleased to see him step into the CFO role as we advance our next stage of growth.” He also praised Kelly’s long service, noting that his leadership “set a high bar for excellence.”

Kelly has served as global CFO since 2019 and previously held senior finance posts at both Sony/ATV and EMI Music Publishing, where he began his industry career in 1991.

The transition comes amid strong momentum for Sony Music Group, which recently reported double‑digit quarterly revenue growth and a 14% rise in publishing revenue. SMP has also topped Billboard’s publisher rankings for three consecutive quarters.

When The Listening Room celebrates its 20th anniversary on March 3 with HARDY, Mitchell Tenpenny and Jo Dee Messina, the party will take place, ironically, away from The Listening Room.

With seating for nearly 2,400, the Ryman Auditorium provides almost 10 times the capacity that The Listening Room can pack in for any single show. Even more importantly, The Listening Room may owe its name to a location, but the interest in the Ryman show — which is purportedly sold out — suggests the brand that owner Chris Blair has built is bigger than its home building.

“I get letters from people all over the world,” he says. “People just don’t get to experience this.”

“This” is an attraction that’s practically an only-in-Nashville kind of business. The Listening Room presents two-to-five shows daily, seven days a week, focused almost exclusively on songwriters. From Feb. 20-27, as an example, more than two dozen composers with top 10 credits will take the stage in groups of three or more, including Ben Williams (“Tennessee Orange”), Ben Burgess (“Whiskey Glasses”), Brent Anderson (“Bottle Rockets”) and Jeff Hyde (“Springsteen”). Sprinkled in are a handful of artists, including Dillon Carmichael, Eric Paslay, Shane Profitt, Lucas Hoge and Old Dominion guitarist Brad Tursi.

It works like the Grand Ole Opry, weekly Nashville music revue Whiskey Jam or periodic Americana attraction Music City Roots, using a revolving lineup from one of the globe’s most plentiful musical pools. Like the better-known Bluebird Café, Blair’s enterprise draws from the songwriter portion of that talent pool that’s used to working in small rooms.

The Bluebird Café, established in 1982, is older and better known than The Listening Room, and it remains located in the same strip mall where it was founded, serving fewer than 100 patrons a show. Blair, who played numerous songwriter rounds after he moved to town in 2003 to record for Lyric Street, was surprised to discover that the Bluebird didn’t really have serious competition in its songwriter/restaurant niche. And as he embedded himself further in Nashville, he quickly realized that few venues showed much respect to the writers who contribute significantly to the city’s creative culture.

“I’m a numbers guy,” Blair says. “I was sitting on the stage at multiple places, and going, ‘Okay, I’m up here playing songs. I’m not getting paid to do this.’ And I’d count heads in the audience, and half of them were listening, half of them weren’t. And I’d see how many beers they were drinking, and how many of them had food. And I’m doing the math in my head going, ‘All right, this bar just made $15,000 tonight while we’re sitting in here, giving them music, and they can’t pay us gas money.’ It just wasn’t right.”

That inequity, Blair says, was the “driving factor” behind The Listening Room. He’d worked as a kid at his father’s four restaurants, so he had a basic understanding of the two industries — food service and music — that he was joining together.

Still, no one — beyond Blair, perhaps — would have thought he could make the business last two decades. The thing was a struggle from the start. The initial operation was a six-nights-a-week attraction in suburban Franklin, a community that boasts plenty of creative residents but is far enough out of town that it couldn’t rely much on tourism. He moved to Cummins Station downtown, where the room seated about 125 patrons. And where Blair ended up sleeping on the floor.

“I lost my house,” he remembers. “I had a house in Sylvan Park, and I had the [option] to pay my mortgage after being late month after month after month, or keep the business. And I believed in The Listening Room. I lost my house to try to keep The Listening Room alive.”

On May 16, 2010, just two weeks after a historic flood soaked the downtown, Blair brought his band back together as songwriters Bridgette Tatum (“She’s Country”), Danny Myrick (“I Love This Life”) and Jeffrey Steele (“Me and my Gang”) helped him raise money for the bar, and for local charity Hands on Nashville. That show didn’t, by itself, get The Listening Room out of the red — Blair was so overcome by the moment that he gave all the proceeds to Hands on Nashville — but the goodwill arguably generated good karma. The venue slowly edged into profitability, it moved a short time later to Second Avenue, and now the stage lives comfortably in the SoBro district.

Blair fortunately doesn’t sleep on the floor at his workplace anymore. He has around 100 employees, and one of them is a full-timer devoted strictly to booking the ever-changing cast of performers.

It’s an eight-block straight shot from the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, so on most nights, tourists make up about 85% of the audience.

On occasion, Blair has sent a congratulatory text to an artist after a big awards win, only to have the act flip it on him in the response. The Listening Room, back in the day, paid them enough that they made their rent at a key moment as they pursued their dream. It’s a scenario that Blair, distanced from the days when he slept on his business’ concrete floor, understands.

“I hope,” Blair says, “we’ve got another 20 in us.”

Actor Robert Carradine is being remembered by his many co-stars after the actor best known for playing Lewis Skolnick in Revenge of the Nerds and dad Sam McGuire in the Lizzie McGuire Movie and series died on Monday (Feb. 23) after a long battle with bipolar disorder.

A member of the Carradine acting clan, Robert was honored in a statement issued by the family to Deadline, in which they wrote, “It is with profound sadness that we must share that our beloved father, grandfather, uncle, and brother Robert Carradine has passed away. In a world that can feel so dark, Bobby was always a beacon on light to everyone around him. We are bereft at the loss of this beautiful soul and want to acknowledge Bobby’s valiant struggle against his nearly two-decade battle with Bipolar Disorder. We hope his journey can shine a light and encourage addressing the stigma that attaches to mental illness. At this time we ask for the privacy to grieve this unfathomable loss. With gratitude for your understanding and compassion.”

According to reports, Carradine died by suicide.

Among those paying tribute to Carradine was Lizzie McGuire star Hilary Duff, who posted photos of the pair on the set of the early aughts Disney Channel series in which he played her father. “This one hurts. It’s really hard to face this reality about an old friend,” she wrote. “There was so much warmth in the McGuire family and I always felt so cared for by my on-screen parents. I’ll be forever grateful for that. I’m deeply sad to learn Bobby was suffering. My heart aches for him, his family, and everyone who loved him. 💔”

Actress Martha Plimpton (Task) also paid tribute to her beloved uncle, writing on Instagram, “My Uncle Bobby was the best one of all 8 brothers; blood, adopted, and step. Out of all of them, he was the absolute best. He was the one who cuddled me when I came to visit my father in LA for the first time at 8 or 9 years old. He cuddled and kidded me for being the only Carradine from New York. ‘Come ova hee-ah! Maw-thuh! Get ova hee-uh!’ He did a terrible New York accent. I was an alien and Bobby joshed me about it, and I adored him for it.”

Not for nothing, Plimpton also said he was “the best actor” in the storied family — which also included father John Carradine (The Grapes Of Wrath), half brother David Carradine (Kung Fu) and brother Keith Carradine (Pretty Baby) — writing, “By a THOUSAND MILES. Don’t believe me? Just watch him. In The Cowboys, his first movie with John Wayne. Or in The Big Red One. Or in Coming Home. He’s honestly, in fact, the best actor of all of them. And I think I know why. Because he was KIND. He had inherent KINDNESS in him. He was dear, and loving, and nonjudgmental. And he loved honestly. He made mistakes like anyone else, like any human. But he never lost his decency, or his heart.”

Speaking to Deadline, Keith Carradine said the family wanted to be frank about his brother’s mental health struggles. “We want people to know it, and there is no shame in it,” he said. “It is an illness that got the best of him, and I want to celebrate him for his struggle with it, and celebrate his beautiful soul. He was profoundly gifted, and we will miss him every day. We will take solace in how funny he could be, how wise and utterly accepting and tolerant he was. That’s who my baby brother was.”  

Born on March 24, 1954, Carradine was the youngest son of John Carradine and actress Sonia Sorel. Encouraged by his brother David to get into the family business, Robert auditioned for the 1972 John Wayne film The Cowboys, which became his first movie role. He went on to score a small part in Martin Scorsese’s iconic 1973 gritty drama Mean Streets and then a series of B-movies and cowboy films before landing the role that would become one of his most iconic: computer science geek Lewis Skolnick in 1984’s beloved Revenge of the Nerds, and its three sequels, as well as playing himself in Robert Altman’s 1992 Hollywood send-up The Player.

He continued working into the 2000s, appearing in the Lizzie McGuire Movie in 2003, as well as Quentin Tarantino’s Django Unchained in 2012. His TV resume was equally lengthy, with appearances on Bonanza, Kung Fu, Police Story, The Fall Guy, The Twilight Zone, several Revenge of the Nerds TV movies, ER, Robot Chicken, Law & Order: Criminal Intent and many more.

Deadline also reported that despite having no formal training and never learning to read music, Carradine had a passion for playing guitar, frequently performing with brothers Keith and David at the Sheridan Opera House in Telluride Colorado, as well as performing with friend and childhood hero Peter Yarrow (of Peter, Paul & Mary) and folk icon Ramblin’ Jack Elliott. In the late 1980s, he formed a band with actress Mare Winningham, The Waybacks.

If you or anyone you know is experiencing suicidal ideation, reach out to the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by calling 988 or visiting the website for free, confidential support that is available 24/7, 365 days a year.