Mark Montgomery

06/03/2026

life. moves. forward.

05/19/2026

The final installment of this year's AMIR spring semester is in and it's a doozy! Mike Dungan is a legend in this business. Read on!

Before algorithms, there were people like Mike Dungan.

People who trusted taste.

People who broke records by sheer force of belief.

People who built careers on reputation and instinct instead of dashboards and data.

This one is less about nostalgia than it is about what gets lost when art becomes volume.

New AMIR story: The Last Record Man.

Mike Dungan spent forty years inside the highest levels of the music business, trusting instinct over consensus and watching the entire system reinvent itself in real time.

05/12/2026

Hot off the A Minor in Reality presses! Bart Herbison never planned to become one of the most influential advocates for songwriters in America. A kid from Cottage Grove, Tennessee who started in local radio ended up spending three decades fighting in Washington to change how creators get paid. This is the story of persistence, policy, and the quiet battles most people never see behind the music business.

How persistence—not power—reshaped the economics of songwriting.

04/21/2026

One of my fav's of all time, Beth Nielsen Chapman never chased the industry. She followed the work. From a childhood in constant motion to writing through grief and helping others find their voice, her career is built on one thing: staying close to the truth inside the song. From your friends A Minor in Reality!

Loss, movement, and a lifetime of listening shaped Beth Nielsen Chapman’s quiet, enduring career...

04/14/2026

Hot off the A Minor in Reality presses! He had number one hits. Then he walked away from songwriting. Not because he had to—but because he understood the long game. John Ozier’s story is about discipline, timing, and knowing when to trade what you love for what lasts.

He built a career where creativity meets capital—and refused to choose between them.

04/07/2026

Rejected. Re-routed. Reinvented. From political ads to C-SPAN to running the CMA, Sarah Trahern built a career the same way she leads—by understanding the system, betting on people, and moving when it’s time. The path wasn’t clean. That’s the point.

Sarah Trahern is one of my favorite people, so much wisdom, and - our feature this week on A Minor in Reality!

A career built in motion—how instinct, timing, and relationships shaped the leader behind the CMA

04/01/2026

A quick update from my world, hosting a live event at the Center for Entrepreneurship at the end of April with my pals Sam Davidson, Mark Tavern and Rondal Richardson. 100 years of music entrepreneurship in Nashville. Not to be missed. Some founder news (LFG Charlie Jordan!), and a new A Minor in Reality drop featuring Beth Nielsen Chapman - getchasome!

"How Nashville Became Music City" + VITL + Beth Nielsen Chapman

03/17/2026

Fresh off the A Minor in Reality presses! Jarred Kessler built his career on one simple truth: relationships compound. From writing scripts for MTV producers to Wall Street to building and rebuilding companies, the throughline never changed. Network matters. EQ matters more. And persistence isn’t optional—it’s the job.

Jarred Kessler built his career on a simple truth: networks compound faster than almost anything else.

03/11/2026

photo dump from the past minute.

03/10/2026

Chris Paterno moved to Nashville to write songs. Like most writers, he spent his days in sessions and his nights chasing the next idea. But something about the music business kept bothering him. Everyone talked about the numbers—streams, followers, engagement—but very few people actually understood what they meant. So he started studying the data himself. That curiosity eventually turned into a company called Heard. New story in A Minor In Reality.

The unlikely path that led Chris Paterno to build Heard.