Bruce Burch has had success in many facets of the music business including being a hit songwriter, operating his own publishing companies of hit songs, working for a major music publishing company, as well as being an artist manager.
As a songwriter, Burch cowrote two #1 singles for Reba McEntire, “Rumor Has It” and “It’s Your Call”. These two songs were also the album titles for two of Reba’s most successful albums. Burch also cowrote songs on two other Reba albums, all of which have gone multi-platinum, selling well over 15 million records and CDs. He has also had top 10 songs on Billy Joe Royal (“Out Of Sight and On My Mind”), and T. Graham Brown (“The Last Resort”), a Top 20 song “Train Of Thought” recorded by Barbara Mandrell, and a Top 40 single “You Can’t Keep A Good Memory Down” recorded by John Anderson. Bruce has also had platinum and gold album recordings by George Jones, The Oak Ridge Boys, Collin Raye and Dan Seals.
As a music publisher, Burch operated two companies, Burch Brothers Music and Bruce Burch Music. These two catalogs contain songs cowritten by Burch and recorded by Aaron Tippin (Top Twenty Hit, “I Got It Honest”), T. Graham Brown (Top 40 hit “Wine Into Water), Faith Hill (Multi-platinum album recording “I’ve Got This Friend”), and his second Collin Raye recording (“It Could Happen Again” on Collin’s critically acclaimed Christmas album w/ Johnny Cash providing narration).
Bruce has also had songs recorded by artists as diverse as Wayne Newton, Cledus T. Judd, Tommy Roe, Slim Pickens as well as many others. Burch discovered, co-managed, and masterminded the beginning of Cledus T. Judd’s comedy career. Cledus has gone on to sell close to a million CD’s.
Bruce served as Creative Director at EMI Music Publishing, the world’s largest music publisher with over a million songs in it’s vast catalog. During this time he worked with artists such as Brad Paisley, Phil Vassar, Jamie O’neal, Darryl Worley, and Joe Nichols. He has gotten songs placed as a songplugger on projects by Travis Tritt, Tim McGraw, Kenny Chesney, Alan Jackson, and Aaron Tippin among others. Burch also worked with EMI’s older catalog songs and has gotten cover recordings of the classic tunes of Willie Nelson, Kris Kristofferson, Todd Rundgren, and Tammy Wynnette. He has gone in the studio with Mac Davis, Billy Swan, and Tony Joe White (“Rainy Night In Georgia”) to produce new demos of many of their hit songs from the past to bring them up to date for possible placement in today’s market.
Bruce also authored a book “Songs That Changed Our Lives”. Two chapters of this inspiring book were picked to be included in the “Chicken Soup For The Soul” series of books. Amy Kurland, the owner of the Bluebird Café also asked Bruce to write a chapter for her new book on the history of the Bluebird that has recently been released by a major book publisher.
Burch was inducted into the Atlanta Country Music Hall of Fame in November 2003.
Recently Burch began a new chapter in his career as he was named Director of the Joel A. Katz Music and Entertainment Business Program at Kennesaw State University.