SO, WHAT’S MARK NEWLAND UP TO THESE DAYS?

Nashville, Tennessie, USA. (SANEPR.com) September 11, 2007 -- He has established his own TV production company and a show called Music City Mix. He is managing several new artists, and is producing records and musical videos. And, most importantly to his fans, he is currently compiling a list of songs to record as he prepares to return to the recording studio in the very near future.


What’s Mark Newland up to? So much that it would make an ordinary person’s head spin. But there’s nothing ordinary about Mark, who is an extraordinary entrepreneur, as well as an award winning country music recording artist.

Since returning to Nashville a year ago, Mark has firmly planted his roots. “I love this town,” says Mark. “This is where I belong. I’m the happiest I’ve been in my whole life.”

In that year, Mark has opened Music City Dude Ranch and Guest Services. He has his own TV production, Music City Mix, which can be viewed on myspace.com/musiccitymix. Mark is producing records and musical videos, as well as managing the careers of several other promising country singers, and is busy compiling a list of songs in preparation for returning to the recording studio in the very near future.

In a recent interview, Mark told me about several exciting things that have taken place over the past several months. He recently spent a day horseback riding with Lee Ann Womack at Music City Dude Ranch/Cowboy Town. The day had had a rough start for Mark who found one of the two ranch cats dead that morning. Lee Ann’s cat had just had kittens so she promised him a grey one like the one he’d just lost. Mark now has a new kitten named Womack. “This one will be a house cat,” Mark said. He shared dinner with Lee Ann on the ranch that evening and sang his new song for her titled, I Still Love You, which he plans to record. Lee Ann said it has all the qualities of a hit song.

In July, MTV used the dude ranch to produce a segment of a show titled Should Have Been a Cowboy. Mark was interviewed on the show on which he also played a cowboy --that shouldn’t be too hard for him -- who was to rescue the heroine on a runaway horse. To everyone’s surprise and horror, her horse was actually spooked by something for real, and took off with her screaming and clinging to the saddle horn. Before Mark could reach her, one of his wranglers, Hannah Leigh, “came out of nowhere” and pulled the horse up short. “I was so proud of Hannah,” said Mark. “The simulated rescue became an actual rescue, and it produced some excellent footage for the show.”

Another exciting event in July was the filming on the ranch of the final 30-minute episode of a Nordisk Film production out of Norway, a TV series called Who’s the One for Tor? which will air in November. This show is much like The Bachelor aired in the U.S. Their bachelor, Tor Milde, is a famous Norwegian music personality and journalist. When the film company learned of Mark’s expertise and background, they asked him to host that particular show, building it around bringing the couple on a dream vacation to the States, where they rode horses on the ranch (neither had ever been on a horse before) and Tor surprised the girl he picked with two love songs sung by Mark. “I’m really honored they chose me to host their show,” Mark said.

Mark recently met with the “Music Mafia,” headquartered right next door to the ranch, about appearing on Music City Mix. In the planning stages is the filming of a poker tournament to take place in the Rattle Snake Saloon on Music City Dude Ranch. Among the stars who have expressed an interest are Big and Rich, Monty Powell who writes many of Keith Urban’s hit songs, and several other stars, as well.

Mark has discovered a new young talent, 16-year old Hannah Leigh, the very same wrangler who stopped the runaway horse on MTV. He will be producing a record and a musical video of Hannah who he says is “star quality, beautiful and sings like a bird.” There is a possibility that Mark and Hannah will be recording one song together called, Tell Me.

“The ranch is doing great,” says Mark. “I’m having the time of my life riding horses and playing cowboy in Wild West shootouts.”

Music City Mix will be shooting footage backstage at Nashville Star again this season. Currently airing are exclusive interviews with Lone Star, Diamond Rio, Tracy Lawrence, Chris Young, Michael Peterson, Keith Anderson and many more of country music’s greatest stars.

Mark talked a bit about the songs he hopes to record, stating, “I’m really looking forward to being back in the studio recording again.”

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