Exclusive: Downtown Music Publishing Purchases Interest In Wayne Kirkpatrick Catalog

Wayne Kirkpatrick

Downtown Music Publishing has acquired an interest in songwriter, producer, playwright, and musician Wayne Kirkpatrick‘s catalog. Highlights in the catalog include “Every Heartbeat,” and “Good For Me” (recorded by Amy Grant), “Place In This World” (Michael W. Smith), “Wrapped Up In You” (Garth Brooks) and “Change the World” (Eric Clapton).

“Downtown is thrilled to add the works of such an acclaimed and entrepreneurial songwriter to our catalog and it’s an honor to represent these iconic songs, spanning multiple genres, ” said Downtown Nashville’s Vice President, Steve Markland.

Kirkpatrick’s songs have been recorded by notable names such as Faith Hill, Garth Brooks, Babyface, Amy Grant, Joe Cocker, Eric Clapton, Tim McGraw, Kathy Mattea, Martina McBride, Wynonna Judd, Trisha Yearwood, Bonnie Raitt, Susan Ashton, Michael W. Smith, Jill Phillips, Michael Crawford, Peter Frampton, Casting Crowns and T-Pain. He has also been a writer and producer for Little Big Town, yielding four top 10 singles – “Boondocks,” “Bring it on Home,” “A Little More You” and “Little White Church.”

Of the announcement, Kirkpatrick remarked, “Downtown is the perfect home for these compositions. They are passionate and forward-thinking partners, something that is hard to find in a publisher.”

Downtown was represented in this transaction by Peter Rosenthal at Ritholz Levy Sanders Chidekel and Fields, LLP. Wayne Kirkpatrick was represented by Andrew Fromm at Fromm Consulting, LLC, and Gary Gilbert and Michael Rexford at Manatt Phelps and Phillips, LLC.

Since opening in Nashville in 2014, Downtown has signed agreements with songwriter/artists including Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Old Crow Medicine Show, and John Moreland and acquired the catalogs of Charlie Black, Ray Whitley and VLS Music, which includes Lady Antebellum songs written by Hillary Scott. Active songwriters including Andy Albert, Marc Beeson and Kelly Archer have written recent country hits for Blake Shelton, Josh Turner, and Cassadee Pope.