Clif Doyal Agency Celebrates 30 Years

Clif Doyal

The Clif Doyal Agency is celebrating 30 years. Originally formed in 1984 in Oklahoma City, the agency moved to Nashville in 1991. At the time the agency was already booking artists including Little Texas and a pre-stardom Toby Keith.

The Clif Doyal Agency also provided turn-key talent buying for venues across the country, overseeing shows by Merle Haggard, Waylon Jennings, Rascal Flatts, Martina McBride, Trisha Yearwood and others. Doyal, along with wife and business partner Kathie Bartel Doyal, also worked with Lonestar, Ricochet, Deryl Dodd, Pearl River and more.

“It was a very heady time,” reflects Doyal. “We were rocketing headlong into the last “boom” of the Country music industry in the 90’s and I soon found myself being courted by almost every label head and major booking agency in town to help them with their new artists. I would never take on an act that I didn’t believe in. I grew up in the live performance world and the honky tonk and nightclub circuits myself, and I knew if you couldn’t cut it there, you were going to have a hard time maintaining a career, so it was those kinds of acts that I looked for.”

They later formed a new division, Sedalia Productions, which acquired a collection of live concert videos originally filmed at Doc Severinsen’s on Oklahoma City. Sedalia Productions released Ray Price Live in Concert (later licensed and released as The Cherokee Cowboy).

In 2001, Kathie was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer, and the couple moved their Music Row offices into their Nashville home. Around the same time, Doyal’s business manager Clyde Bright introduced him to an artist in need of a publicist. From there, CDA Promotions-Nashville (now called CDA Publicity and Marketing) launched and served a roster of clients that has included The Roys, Thompson Square, Shawna Russell, Stella Parton and others.

After Kathie Doyal passed away in 2004, the booking and video divisions of the Clif Doyal Agency closed. In 2006, Doyal married Patti Lumbers and she joined CDA Publicity as photographer and editor. In 2008, Doyal co-founded the independent label Way Out West Records with Tim Russell and his niece Shawna Russell.  Russell was its flagship artist, followed by LiveWire, which signed in 2011.

In December 2011, the Clif Doyal Agency was acquired by Big Sky Media Nashville, and is now part of an umbrella of artist service companies that offers booking, management, publishing, publicity, marketing and label divisions, all helmed by Doyal, who serves as COO and Managing Partner. Big Sky Media has offices in Nashville and Oklahoma.