Ron Perry: Last News

Jem Aswad Senior Music EditorJohn Mayer — singer-songwriter, virtuoso guitarist, solo artist, member of Dead & Co and definitely the funniest speaker at Variety’s Hitmakers event last December — has signed with CAA in all areas globally.He has won seven Grammy Awards out of 19 nominations and since his 2001 debut album “Room for Squares”  has earned three No. 1 debuts on the Billboard Top 200, with the triple-platinum “Heavier Things” (2003), double-platinum “Battle Studies” (2009), and gold-certified “Born and Raised” (2012). He has sold an estimated 20 million-plus albums worldwide.

Jem Aswad Senior Music Editor Columbia Records has entered into a joint venture with former Capitol Records chairman-CEO Jeff Vaughn to launch Signal Records, the company announced Wednesday. The Los Angeles-based imprint will operate as a new label with Columbia Records of Sony Music Entertainment and begin operations immediately, with an artist roster to be announced in the coming weeks. As founder and CEO, Vaughn will lead the company’s creative direction and business development while utilizing Columbia’s marketing, promotion, and label services. Ron Perry, Chairman & CEO of Columbia Records, said, “I’ve admired Jeff’s work from afar for a while. He has incredible musical instincts, an infectious work ethic, and great passion. I’m looking forward to working together on this new chapter.”

Abou “Bu” Thiam has been hired as the company’s executive vice president.Thiam has been a power player in the music industry for quite some time. His brother – the award-winning singer, songwriter, and record producer Akon – brought him on as an A&R during negotiations for his first record deal.

Shirley Halperin Executive Editor, MusicAbou “Bu” Thiam has been appointed executive vice president at Columbia Records. Reporting into chairman and CEO Ron Perry, Bu’s position will straddle A&R and strategic initiatives across all genres for the label that’s home to Lil Nas X, Harry Styles, Adele, the Kid Laroi and many others.Thiam has been working closely with Perry and Columbia via a joint venture, Buvision, where he signed the artists KayCyy and Rican.

Shirley Ju Separately from each other, producers Mike Dean (pictured above) and Jeff Bhasker (below) are both synth gods in their own right. As a unit, performing their first show on Friday (April 1) at OffSunset in West Hollywood, the two were otherworldly.The intimate set reunited the Kanye West collaborators, who each have five Grammy Awards, and included an all-star guest list that both teased on socials prior to the event.

Jennifer Yuma editorGrammy-winning musician John Mayer might just have a future in standup comedy.While presenting the label of the year award to Columbia Records’ Ron Perry and Jenifer Mallory at Variety‘s Hitmakers event on Saturday, Mayer had the audience in stitches with his nearly four-minute speech.

Jonathan Cohen As 2021 draws to a close, to say the hits keep on coming for Columbia Records would be an understatement. At press time, Variety’s Hitmakers Label of the Year, led by chairman and CEO Ron Perry (pictured at left) and executive VP-general manager Jenifer Mallory (right), had the top three songs on Mediabase’s Top 40 chart (Lil Nas X’s “Industry Baby” featuring Jack Harlow, the Kid Laroi and Justin Bieber’s “Stay” and Adele’s “Easy on Me”).

A Tribe Called Quest‘s Q-Tip recently revealed that he tried to get Megan Thee Stallion signed three years ago, but labels passed due to her social media views.During a recent episode of Math Hoffa’s My Expert Opinion, the rapper said he invited Stallion out to New York City in 2018 after seeing one of her rap videos online. The intention was to get the then-unknown Houston artist signed to a label, but neither Columbia nor Def Jam were interested, despite Q-Tip’s own co-sign.“I said ‘I’m signing artists up at Columbia, I want to fly you [Stallion, her mum and her team] all in’,” he said.“The head of the company wasn’t there, Ron Perry, I guess he was detained, but we took the meeting anyway,” he continued.

Rani Hancock is headed back to Sony Music as Columbia Records’ executive vice president and head of A&R. A Columbia rep tells Variety that Hancock will join the company on August 1, based in New York and reporting to chairman-CEO Ron Perry.Under her tenure, Sire enjoyed a hit with Bryce Vine’s “Drew Barrymore,” but the label has not been extremely active and just six artists are listed on its official roster.

Shirley Halperin Executive Editor, MusicIf chart momentum keeps apace for Columbia Records in these final days of 2020, the label could lay claim to the No. 1 song in the U.S.