Living the Dream: Angela-Marie Lampton
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Name: Angela-Marie Lampton
Age: 26
Location: Austin, TX
Education: B.B.A. in Business Administration, Music Business from Belmont University in Nashville, TN
Job Title: President/owner of Sunfire Entertainment —a country-music radio promotions and artist management firm
What She Does: There are two main components of Angela-Marie’s business: radio promotion and artist management. As a radio promoter, Angela calls the programmers at approximately 80 country-based radio stations to get airplay for her artist’s current singles. “Basically I’m the person behind what the public ends up hearing on the radio,” says Angela. The artist management side of Angela-Marie’s business focuses on all aspects of a country-music artist’s career. Currently Angela represents rising country star Rich O’Toole, who has had three top 10s from his album Seventeen. This is no small feat considering this is O’Toole’s first album and the top 10 usually includes names like George Strait. “I now get calls from Nashville asking for my expertise in Texas,” says Angela-Marie. She also handles her artists’ day-to-day travel, bookings, press, and CD marketing.
How She Got Her Gig: Angela-Marie has always had a love for music, and grew up involved in music with the encouragement of her mother, who was a music major in college. After high school, Angela-Marie’s vocal coach encouraged her to get involved in the music business—something Angela had never given much thought to. With a dream of working behind the scenes in the music business, Angela-Marie enrolled in Belmont University’s Music Business program in Nashville, where country music thrives. “After college I worked for a small music company in San Antonio, but soon found that I was working for someone who was dishonest,” says Angela-Marie. “Nine months later, I was out of work and almost 1,000 miles from my hometown of Lee’s Summit, Missouri. The contacts I had made didn’t want to see me leave Texas, so they asked me to help them with their careers. That’s how, at only 23, I started my own company.”
Gentle Persuasion: People often ask Angela-Marie how she scores so many successful singles. She says her formula is simple. “It’s about having the right song at the right time, busting your ass, and creating and nurturing the relationships you have in radio,” she explains. “I often find that by gently leading radio programmers to attributes of the song or artist that first attracted me, they eventually come around and fall in love with the song themselves.”
For the Love of Music: “My workday doesn’t stop at five or six,” says Angela-Marie. “It’s 24/7, 365 commitment. I once got a call on New Year’s Eve and ended up driving from Lee’s Summit to Fort Worth to deal with a CD manufacturing issue. So this business does intrude on your life. You do it because you love it and you don’t know how to do anything else.”
This Job’s for You if: You’re detail-oriented, love the music business, and are able to devote your life to your career. Despite her demanding schedule, Angela-Marie loves her job. “It’s extremely rewarding to wake up every day knowing that you’re holding artist’s dreams in your hands,” she says. “You see them live out some of their proudest moments.”