With A Bullet
Here's a story on the seamy side of the record business, straight from Nashville's famed Music Row. The Tennessean reports that prosecutors began building their case against the accused murderer today on allegations he shot a young music chart researcher for Cash Box magazine 15 years ago on Music Row because the young researcher, Kevin Hughes, was "trying to reform a crooked business."

Back in the late '80s, music charts were compiled by hand rather than by computer - making it easier to falsify the results. Some promoters working mostly for small, independent labels allegedly offered gifts to radio programmers in exchange for airplay, or they would bribe chart researchers for a ''bullet,'' signifying the song was climbing the charts. Sammy Sadler, a country singer who was wounded in the attack by a masked gunman, testified that he had songs on the chart without performing or selling any of his records.

Well that explains it. After 15 years of reading about this case, I now know why I had never heard of "country singer Sammy Sadler." But are you really a "country singer" if you don't perform or, you know, try to sell some records?

Here's some more info on the case.

UPDATE 9/24:Here's the latest on the Music Row Murder trial, from Nashville City Paper

Prosecutors contended Tuesday that Cashbox was "totally corrupt" under Dixon’s direction, noting that the magazine had become an illegitimate "money-making operation" when Hughes was named chart director. They say that Hughes was uncomfortable when he realized that the magazine was not accurately reporting record standings, and that he was killed when D’Antonio and Dixon realized he might expose them.