Edell Howard Interviewed by Nashville Business Journal on Future Redevelopment Along Music Row

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Adams and Reese Nashville Music Row Partner Linda Edell Howard was interviewed in an article by the Nashville Business Journal, “Identity Crisis: Debating Music Row’s future,” which discussed the redevelopment future of Music Row, which turns 60 years old this Fall.

The neighborhood, centrally located near downtown, two universities and interstate access, has become a prime target for redevelopment.

According to the Nashville Business Journal: For a growing sector of the industry, the prospect of sleek condos on Music Row — home to dozens of independent music-related businesses — is a death sentence, especially when it means knocking down some of the country’s oldest working recording studios. To drive the point home, in fact, someone has planted a simple wooden cross, emblazoned with the words “R.I.P. Music Row,” in a front yard along Music Square West, just off of Buddy Killen Circle, near the entrance to Music Row.

But for many business leaders across the city, including some in the industry, the push to “Save Music Row” rings somewhat off-key. The success of Nashville’s music industry, they argue, doesn’t lie with physical buildings, but in the people and the sense of community and collaboration they’ve fostered.

“Music Row can be a coalition, Music Row can be community involvement, it doesn’t have to be a location,” Howard said. “We can create a Music Row vicinity within our hearts, actions and love for what we are doing with one another.”

Howard, who is married to long-time Music Row executive Doug Howard, is one of many people who view Music Row’s physical break-up not as the end, but an inevitable next step. Nashville’s music industry is growing, even as the global music industry gets smaller. New talent is choosing Nashville over New York and Los Angeles, and a large company like Sony, which is moving to a high-rise in the Gulch, simply doesn’t have enough room to grow on Music Row.

“To me, it’s a dispersement based on a necessity of not having enough space. It’s certainly not an exodus,” Howard said.

At Adams and Reese, Edell Howard serves as the firm’s Entertainment and New Media Team Leader, has more than 20 years of experience in the areas of entertainment, new media and technology, and domestic and international intellectual property law, and has closed more than 50 asset-based copyright acquisitions/sales and multi-million dollar loans. She has been recognized among her peers as the only female Music Row attorney and one of four Music Row attorneys selected to the "150 Best Lawyers in Tennessee," a selection made out of 18,000 attorneys. She was also named to the Nashville Post's Top 101 Lawyers, as well as the Nashville Business Journal's Top 150 Lawyers. She is a frequent speaker on various intellectual property and new technology topics and has often served as a guest commentator for Billboard, Music Row magazine, the New York and Tennessee Bar CLE programs and various trade association Town Hall meetings. 

Nashville Business Journal has recognized Howard among the “Best of the Bar” in Entertainment Law. She is listed in Chambers USA as a leader in the area of Media and Entertainment, listed in Best Lawyers (by Levine Leichtman Capital Partners) - Entertainment Law, Intellectual Property Law, and has been recognized among Mid-South Super Lawyers (by Thomson Reuters) - Entertainment and Sports.