Feature Story: Billy Johnson Never Left the Service Industry

Never Left The Service Industry

By: Kevon Pryce Photos Courtesy of Recording Academy® Atlanta Chapter Crossover Entertainment Group, like many businesses here in Atlanta, is operated by one of the most genuine, hardworking, and innovative people in the city. His name is Billy Johnson. Hailing from Tulsa, Oklahoma, born of a mother who was a trained pianist and a father who had a knack for sales, Johnson had an upbringing that surely shaped him into the man he is today. From moving from Tulsa to multiple cities across the United States while he was a grade schooler, Johnson finally settled in Atlanta at the tender age of 12. Having moved nearly every year up until this point, Johnson formed a passion for cultivating lasting relationships with every new person he met. With this attitude, he was able to foster and nurture relationships in the music business that would last for decades.

His journey into entrepreneurship was not one straight path. From working in bars and clubs, he was able to hold on to the two things he cared about most: music and people. During this time he was able to learn the ropes of live audio and gain control of the live acts that performed at the clubs. From booking to setting up the lighting and leasing out audio equipment, Johnson had found his purpose. He went as far as learning to broadcast these live performances in the club directly to the radio. Everything began to come together; Crossover Entertainment Group was forming without Johnson even knowing it yet.

Crossover is now a true one-stopshop that many artists call home. It consists of a 20,000 square-foot rehearsal and production facility that also sports recording studios and a live music equipment rental house. Artists come to Crossover and are given everything they need, as well as receive an experience of hospitality that is unmatched. Since being officially in business since 1992, Johnson makes it a priority to make artists feel at ease.

Oz: Tell us about how Crossover got started.

Johnson: After working with the band Tom Grose & The Varsity as their production manager in the late 80s, right before they went on tour, we couldn’t find any rehearsal space here in Atlanta. We had to travel to Nashville to get the space we needed. While in Nashville I discovered all of these rehearsal places that were basically for major touring artists. I asked the owner of one of the studios if I could pick his brain about this part of the music business. He took me around the studio and showed me all the ins and outs. After this I definitely saw the need for a space like this in Atlanta. The timing was perfect because during this time LaFace Records was just getting to town. My partner Luther Randall and myself went on the hunt for a building that we could do production and live rehearsals in. We found the building we’re in today and bought the building and to our benefit, Robocop 3 was filming in Atlanta. Production decided to rent the building for 6 months and they went ahead and upgraded the electrical, plumbing, and security system. When they gave us the keys back it was pretty much where it needed to be. We then partnered with LaFace Records to do a showcase for their parent company Arista records, where we turned our large Studio A into a showcase room for acts such as Goodie Mob, Outkast, TLC, Toni Braxton. The timing is really what launched us.

Oz: What made Atlanta the home for Crossover?

Johnson: Nashville is the music city and for the most part all the record labels and all the recording studios are really in a small area. At one time there were probably 35 music labels on Music Row, and several recording studios, and down the street from that were the clubs artists would perform in. Everything was consolidated. The city of Atlanta is different; it’s spread out, and during the time we all, in general, lived in different parts of what they call Metro Atlanta but there weren't a ton of people living here at the time. For example, when you look at New York, there’s this entertainment circle you have to penetrate, but once you’re in you’re exactly where you need to be. Now, Nashville was known for a few

genres, there was Christian and Country, but Atlanta has several different genres: there's Gospel, Jazz, Hip-Hop, R&B, and Rock. There are all these different circles. They’re kind of like the Olympic rings and you have to choose which one is which one you want to penetrate. This was the perfect city to tackle all of those genres.

Oz: If you were to describe Atlanta’s music scene in one word, what would it be and why?

Johnson: Dynamic, because it’s constantly changing for the better. One of the things I noticed was that no one person is responsible for this growth, it’s everybody. You see this in Hip-Hop especially. People here are proud and love their city. The people who live here are so creative, I can’t really explain what that is, it’s huge. I’m doing what I do because I didn’t want to be sitting in an office, sitting in the same place for 30 years, but guess what? I’m here 30 years later doing that same thing at Crossover, but everyday is different. It’s the people. Everyday I’m around 20 or 30 creatives and I feed off their energy, and to me that’s amazing.

Oz: You’ve seen live shows over the past few decades get pretty immersive. Where do you think the future of live music lies?

Johnson: Personally, I think live music will never go away. I was surprised that it was able to even be stopped in these past two years of COVID. I’ve seen live music change when the world decided to shift from analog to digital, so I know that technology is a big part of changing the live visuals. With the switch from analog to digital, when people were able to now buy songs for $1 instead of buying a $21.99 CD, the music business now had to work harder for their money. This worked out for Crossover because the business began focusing more on live performances. I prepare people for tours, I do festivals, I rent equipment to festivals, and people rehearse here prior to going to those same festivals. I view live [music] entertainment, kind of like I do a sporting event. When you go to a football game you know that it’s going to be a historymaking event because nothing is going to be repeated in the same way even though they have the same players, same time allotted, same referees, etc. Live music is also a history-making event; the concert you went to and someone else didn’t, you’re going to experience something they never experienced because it’s history making. They might play the same songs in a row, but each time they perform it’s different. Also what I noticed during these live shows is that we keep setting the bar higher and higher and that’s great because it creates competition. For example, when Beyoncé comes out and she has a hologram flying through the air, now Lady Gaga has to top that. We’ve created competition for the entertainment dollar. As technology advances, everyone has to adapt and the benefactor of that is that fans are now getting some of the most entertaining shows. The next show fans go to, they’re expecting a little bit more and the artist knows this.

Oz: How has the pandemic made you adjust?

Johnson: Everything I told you so far was all pre-pandemic thinking. What the pandemic did to the music industry was force entrepreneurs to think outside of the box. We here at Crossover had to think of new ways to generate revenue because everything that we did was affiliated with a live component. Every aspect of our revenue stream went away completely. I furloughed all of my employees and I took the time to look at what was really going on in the industry and noticed that some people were able to jump onto things from a visionary standpoint. I began to notice people would livestream from their homes. That’s all well and good except now you’re looking at the fireplace with the deerhead on the mantle, the cats running around the background, you’re just inside people’s homes. Visually there is nothing there to really hold you. After seeing that, I wanted to change the visual part of these livestreams, so then I did the scariest thing in the world, which was to spend money when there was no business at the time. I decided to upgrade our internet upload speed, bought new lighting setups, and turned my studios into appealing sets to see on camera. At the time, we couldn’t have too many people in the building so I began inviting local solo artists to come in and test it. We were doing multiple of these to just get the word out that we had the capability of doing this. As time progressed to where we could start getting more people in, I started getting calls from my clients saying they had tours that were ready to launch, so they would come down and livestream with us. The pandemic was an opportunity for a restart. A lot of the ideas I had in my head, such as thinking I had to do more things on the technological side, the pandemic forced me to actually do it. People would say to me at times, “You only did this out of fear.” Fear is when you step off the curb when the bus is coming and you freeze. Survival is when you step off the curb when the bus is coming and you jump over to the other side. I was in survival mode.

Oz: What does the average day look like at Crossover?

Johnson: Our hours of operation are 10am to 12 midnight, 7 days a week. So, in a sense, I run two shifts here. I manage to stay in the music business and work a normal 9-5 job, and I created it that way. I come in and I open up myself. The atmosphere in each room, the cleanliness, the scent is what I care about. My whole thing is, and I learned this in the club business, is that I come in here and I walk from the front all the way to the back. I walk in like I’m a client, if there are fingerprints on the front glass doors,

I’ll wipe them off. I go to the bathrooms, I set the lights the way they need to be set, I get everything set up as if this were a restaurant opening for lunch. After everything is set, I go to the calendar to see who’s coming to the facility next, see if I have a load-in for a tractor trailer, and instruct my staff on what we need to prepare for the day. Also a lot of my day is spent advancing technical riders, the client gives us the stage plot, then my people lay all of the equipment out exactly as it is on the stage plot. Our idea is when the artist walks in the door, they can immediately get started doing their sound check. We do all of the behind the scenes production work prior to the artist coming. The calendar really dictates how the day goes. If there’s any down time at all, I research what tours are coming up and start laying the groundwork to have them come to the facility. If all the studios are booked, every 20 minutes or so I’ll pop my head in and ask if there’s anything I can do for the client. I really learned this from the service industry; it really taught me attention to detail.

Oz: If you were to have known Atlanta would be this big in the music scene when you began, what would you have done differently?

Johnson: I would have pursued multiple genres at a time. Kris Kross was my first rehearsal, Jermaine Dupri was 18 and the boys were 12. At the time, I didn’t know that Hip-Hop and R&B would grow so fast. During the time what was touring here was Rock, Modern Rock, R.E.M., Edwin McCain, Shawn Mullins, and Indigo Girls. Again, I’ll say the timing was perfect because LaFace Records was just getting started here. What I ended up discovering was the actual name of the company coming true. The name of the company is Crossover and I pursued what I thought was right at the time and realized going forward that there are so many different genres operating in Atlanta. I used to think that whatever was hot at the time, I had to go after, and that was a mistake because there were all of those different genres to explore.

In the beginning I pursued the band R.E.M. I had a fax machine, I looked up who their management was, and faxed them a layout, an overview, and photos of the business. A year later, I got a call from R.E.M. saying that they wanted to come here and rehearse before they recorded their record. They were going to rehearse here then go record in Miami. When they got here, after being here for only two days, they came into my office and said they wanted to record at Crossover. At the time, we weren’t a recording studio and they told me not to worry, they’ll cover everything, they just loved how the room sounded. They locked down the building so they could record; I only had one other room that I could rent at the time. I then booked this group called Arrested Development for the other room. I was thinking these are two totally different genres of music and they would never understand each other. After about a week of them both being in the facility, R.E.M. comes out and asks me who’s recording in the other room and I tell them Arrested Development. Michael Stipe, the lead singer said to me “You mean Speech?” I said, “Yeah.” He said, “I love him, can I meet him?” I then asked Speech, “Have you heard of the band R.E.M.?” He said, “Michael Stipe?” I said, “He wants to meet you.” He replies “Oh my God.” They then spent the next 3 hours in the lobby talking about music. At that moment I realized that this is Crossover.

Public Relations Influencers

Mitch Leff and Melissa Sanders, cofounders of the Georgia Entertainment Public Relations Alliance (GEPRA), shared with us their words of wisdom when it comes to working in Public Relations. Leff and Sanders, coming from independent PR firms, have combined their expertise to create a diverse team of PR professionals to better serve clients with all types of needs. Their careers are driven by their main inspiration: following their passions and integrating what they love into their work.

MITCH:

My journey to a career in public relations took a circuitous route. My undergraduate degree was in finance, which might have sent me to a career in banking or financial services. But I’d spent several years in college running all sorts of on-campus activities, from concerts and dances to travel excursions and film screenings. All of that came with all the accompanying marketing and PR.

My first job was as an account coordinator at Cohn & Wolfe Public Relations, then the largest public relations agency in the Southeast. I worked on a range of accounts in sports (Goodwill Games, Olympic Games, several Super Bowls), technology, healthcare, and consumer products. The sheer variety of clients got me hooked and here I am more than 30 years later!

I grew a strong expertise in writing and media relations and in a few years I was the agency’s Media Relations Supervisor, working on clients around the country.

MELISSA:

As a musician and athlete, my two passions were always music and sports. But I was also a good writer and found I had a flair for it when I was in high school. I must admit, when I settled on studying journalism in college I wasn’t focused on public relations, but advertising — I didn’t really know what PR was at the time. I ended up in the PR sequence at The Ohio State University as a backup when the Journalism school reorganized. Fortunately, I quickly realized I was in the right major.

While at OSU I also joined the Public Relations Student Society of America (PRSSA), hoping it would bring me some clarity of where I should focus my career. After a meeting one evening, I went to look at the internship bulletin board and I saw a pink flier for BalletMet, who was looking for a PR intern and it all clicked for me. I realized I could do what I loved for something I was so passionate about — I got that internship and enjoyed every moment. I also interned with a PR agency (which I was not fond of because the clients were not inspiring for me), and then finally interned with my PRSA mentor at the opera. That’s when I knew I was in the right place and wanted to work in the performing arts. I only applied for performing arts jobs, and after MUCH persistence and MANY interviews all over the country, I was offered a dream job with the New York Philharmonic. The rest, as they say, is history.

Who did you work with before you started your company, and what did you learn that you carry on today?

MITCH:

I worked for Cohn & Wolfe public relations, then Edelman PR, and GCI Group. In 1999, I was lured away from agency work to a position as Director of Public Relations for Turner Learning, the educational division of Turner Broadcasting Systems. There I managed PR for programs across many Turner properties, including CNN, Turner South, Cartoon Network, TNT, the Atlanta Thrashers, and Turner Classic Movies.

The agency work taught me how to manage client accounts and teams. Every manager I worked with taught me something: persuasive writing, creative event production, and the vital importance of attention to detail. One of the most important lessons was the power of creating and nurturing strong and lasting relationships with journalists.

MELISSA:

I started my career on the public relations team of the internationally-acclaimed New York Philharmonic (New York City, NY) handling PR for concerts, international tours, a record label, television broadcasts, and more. After moving up the ladder there during my 11 years, I moved to Atlanta to broaden my music scope and head up PR for the Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, as well its Youth Orchestra and Chorus. This included concerts, a record label, Carnegie Hall performances, Chastain concerts, and the opening of the Ameris Bank Amphtitheatre (formerly Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre). After 7 years there, I moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to work with another venue and even more diverse music at The Green Music Center (Sonoma County — yes, wine country. It was divine if you must know!). I oversaw communications, marketing, and promotions spanning genres of classical to country and jazz to rock across three venues including Weill Hall, Weill Hall and Lawn, and Schroeder Hall (which we opened while I was there).

When I left that last role we moved back to Atlanta so I could launch Tadpole Communications to truly expand to all sectors of entertainment PR. And truly, there really isn’t another city in this country where music, film/tv, and gaming/esports are all thriving at the same time in the same place. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if this was going to be temporary (until I found a “real job”), or long-term. Seven years later, here I am. I have learned so much from these experiences and the people I worked with, but what stands out is what has always been at my core: do what you love, do it for something you are passionate about, and always maintain your integrity. By following this my entire career, I am able to always offer my best because I truly love what I do and love those I work with — I think this shows in both the relationships with my clients and in the results we produce, whether it’s an esports event, a new album, or a venue opening.

Besides your own companies, which PR firm do you admire today and why?

MITCH:

CarenWestPR (www.carenwestpr.com) has built an impressive roster of lifestyle clients around the country and always impresses me with their creativity and results. Melissa Libby & Associates (www. thinkmla.com) is the agency I think of first for restaurant PR. Through ups and downs in a challenging industry over the last years, they’ve remained successful. PRecise Communications (www. precisecomm.net) is another agency I admire. They are well-known for excellent services focused on multicultural communications.

MELISSA:

Leff & Associates for sure! Honestly, I greatly admire Mitch and what he has built. I also really admire all of the independent consultants and small PR Agencies who do not have the infrastructure or financial backing of the bigger, more traditional PR agencies. Those are the agencies in it for the client and are fortunate to also make a living doing what they do, and doing it well. These folks may not win all the awards or get listed in all the “best of” lists, but you will always hear about them and the stellar work they do making a difference and impacting their clients in massive ways.

Talk about how you both ended up working together on some of your projects:

MITCH:

Melissa and I have known each other for many years, but we really hit our stride together in 2015. We created the Georgia Entertainment PR Alliance together, and began partnering on other clients including Georgia STAND-UP, PC&E, Esports Week, and many other projects.

Why do we sync so well? I find Melissa to be a top notch PR strategist, an excellent writer, and cursed with the same attention to detail that I need in a partner!

MELISSA:

When I moved to Atlanta (the first time) in 2008, I was introduced to Mitch through a colleague, so we’ve known each other now for many years. But when I moved back here from California in 2015 (the second time) and launched Tadpole, we connected in a different way as colleagues and friends. When Mitch shared his brilliant idea of creating what is now the Georgia Entertainment PR Alliance (GEPRA.net), it was a game changer. GEPRA is a collective brain, if you will, of about a dozen independent counselors or small agencies who collaborate to serve the entertainment industry not just in Georgia, but all over the country and world, from music and tv, to film and esports. This is where our partnership really grew into how we are working together with each other and our other PR colleagues today. We are very like-minded and carry the same integrity for our work, but also have a lot of fun.

Talk about the difference between PR and Advertising:

MELISSA & MITCH:

In simple terms, PR is earned media and advertising is paid media, but the reality is that public relations encompasses so much more than working with members of the press to tell a story. We always say public relations helps to create and sustain an environment in which our client/ company/brand can achieve its goals most effectively. We do that in a number of tactical ways, but there is always a strategy built around that concept.

MITCH:

Some story pitches write themselves. A company introducing an innovative new product or service has very specific points that are very clear. But for some clients we’re creating more of an overall brand campaign, so the pitches become a bit more subtle, focusing on delivering “key messages” we’ve created for the client.

But some of our great success comes from proactively identifying story opportunities and connecting journalists with “subject matter experts.” One day that’s setting up an interview for a business professor for a story on inflation. The next day it’s an interview with a magazine with a studio CEO talking about the importance of Georgia’s film industry tax credit!

MELISSA:

It depends. Sometimes a great story is just staring you in the face; sometimes you have to dig to uncover one. But talking to people is absolutely necessary for a good story. Then I ensure it will help my client’s objective to tell this story, and be sure it’s engaging and appropriate for the outlet and journalist I’m approaching. Relationships are everything. Solid, genuine stories help. Never be afraid to pitch — the worst that can happen is they tell you “no thanks.”

Talk about the process of creating a media placement.

MITCH & MELISSA:

We start by identifying an angle we think will appeal to a journalist and their media outlet. The next step is to create a very short “pitch,” a way to offer the reporter the key points of the potential story as briefly as possible. We deliver that by email, text, social media DM, or in some cases even by an old-fashioned phone call!

When the reporter lets us know they want to do the story, we prepare our client for the interview (often with a little mock interview practice), and set up the interview in person, by zoom, or by phone. Often we’ll help provide photos or video to be used in the article, or facilitate the media outlet shooting their own.

What media placements are you most proud of to date?

from the San Diego Union Tribune in 1989! It was for an exhibition of Russian art sponsored by the city. In 1999, I placed a story in USA Today around an educational outreach for a new production of A Christmas Carol on TNT starring Patrick Stewart. And finally a story on the CBS Evening News with one of our business professors from the Goizueta Business School about the “great resignation.”

MELISSA:

There are a few, but one that stands out for me was The Late Show with David Letterman (when he was still there). I have always loved brainstorming and coming up with new ideas, and anyone who knows me knows I'll lasso the moon if you let me! In my first years at my first job, I had actually met a producer at The Late Show and kept pitching her the idea of having the New York Philharmonic play on the roof of the Ed Sullivan Theater. This went on for nearly two years and no one thought I would ever make it happen. When we named a new music director for the Orchestra, I reached out again to see if this new angle would make a difference. A few weeks later she called me and said: “Melissa, you’ll never believe it. It’s finally going to happen. They want the Orchestra to play on the roof!” I nearly fell out of my chair. It was insane pulling it all together, but it happened and it was an amazing experience. Creative persistence paid off.

How do you present the results of your work?

MITCH & MELISSA:

We like to do monthly summaries so clients can see what we accomplish month to month, and we often do wrapup reports at the end of a project (sort of like a case study) where we’ll summarize the number of placements and the size of the audiences reached. We do share media results (and related data), but often what we are tasked with is measured in ways beyond media coverage, so we prefer to look at our successful work more comprehensively.

Since social media came into the picture, was it a game changer? How do you integrate it with PR?

MITCH & MELISSA:

The addition of social media elements isn’t a game changer, but rather a “game

enhancer.” Earned media strategies continue to be a key tactic for most of our clients. We tend to view social media as a strategy in our PR plans and we collaborate with both the marketing and social teams (if the client has them) to ensure we are collectively going after the same goal and maximizing our efforts together. Social media has definitely been a catalyst for a shift in how we approach PR, but the digital ecosystem as a whole has been the real game changer.

What was your most creative and effective campaign?

MITCH:

As the COVID pandemic struck in March 2020, our client at the Construction Education Foundation of Georgia was literally in the middle of its largest annual event, a CareerExpo at the Georgia World Congress Center where 5000 students were learning about career opportunities in construction and skilled trades. As schools nationwide began announcing shutdowns to begin March 16, the event was canceled after the first day.

In an effort to keep their audiences engaged, we decided that Facebook offered the best way to reach students, parents, teachers, and partners. We worked with the client to develop key messages, a schedule of guests for the year, and overall content strategy. Some months were entirely themed, some episodes connected to events such as “National Women in Construction Week,” etc. To host the series, we engaged Kayleen McCabe, a nationally renowned DIY TV host, contractor, and speaker, and titled the series “Lunch with Kayleen McCabe.”

MELISSA:

About a year after launching my agency, I was approached about a gaming festival coming to Atlanta for the first time. I’m not a gamer, mind you (do Candy Crush and Among Us count?), but I was thrilled to branch into another sector of the entertainment industry; and since they wanted an agency who specialized in entertainment PR, it was a great fit. A GEPRA colleague and I met with them and were ultimately hired to handle the PR to launch the event. That “event” turned out to be the Stockholm-based gaming festival, DreamHack (which is part of ESL Gaming, the world's largest esports and gaming lifestyle company). DreamHack had only been in one other U.S. city prior to that: Austin. We only had about six weeks to introduce, plan, promote, and launch a global gaming festival in Atlanta that encompassed everything gaming under one roof during a three-day, 24-hours-a-day event with 30,000 attendees — from professional and amateur esports, to a cosplay championship and music concert, to panels, screenings, an expo and more. I was officially indoctrinated into the gaming world with that event!

It was exciting, stressful, and incredibly satisfying. And, don’t mind if I do say so myself, we rocked it. I have since been fortunate enough to also launch and oversee the U.S. PR for DreamHack events in Denver, Anaheim, and Dallas, while also continuing festivals here in Atlanta, along with other ESL initiatives and projects. Esports is the fastest-growing sport in the world, so it’s amazing to have gaming companies on my roster among the music, tv/film, and non-profit clients. Covid certainly hit that industry hard (much like music and film/tv), shuttering events and forcing competitions online. This year, we will finally see a return to in-person events and I can’t wait to be a part bringing those back!

Have you ever had to manage negative media attention? Or how would you handle a PR crisis?

MITCH & MELISSA:

Absolutely. Issues management is a regular PR task that often goes overlooked; this is when we look to see if volatile situations and news trends could be connected to the client or company, and then prepare to respond if it does. Dealing with an actual crisis is a different beast — one we have each had to tame more than once. Sometimes we may have a lot of time to prepare for something you know will become a crisis (such as a pending labor strike), and sometimes they come out of nowhere (such as as a shooting). Regardless, we tend to approach them all from a place of honesty and integrity, and counsel clients to do the same. We hate the “spin doctors” out there who give the rest of us a bad name. Probably all of our colleagues agree with telling the truth and being honest. If you’re hiding something or lying, believe us — it will all come out eventually.

What is the best part of being a PR professional. And what is the part that makes you drink?

MITCH:

The best part is working with multiple clients on any given day. That’s also sometimes the part that makes me drink, when multiple clients have news to release the same week!

MELISSA:

The best part for me is just being in a field I’m passionate about. I truly love what I do and get to meet some of the most tremendous people, tell amazing stories, and see amazing events come to life. Sometimes that calls for a celebratory drink all on its own. But this can also be a super stressful field … to enjoy a glass of my favorite wine is often a nice close to a day like that.

If someone came up to you and asked, “how do I get into PR,” what would your recommendation/s be?

MITCH:

Find an industry that you’re passionate about and start there. That might be sports marketing, food, fashion, technology, or entertainment. Many agencies specialize in these industries. Look for internships during your college years.

MELISSA:

I think public relations is more about the kind of person you are. We PR people are natural storytellers, and we find stories in the most unusual places and at the most unusual times (and we love it); we are networkers who love running into our colleagues, journalist friends, and clients no matter the place or time; we love making connections among others so when the tide rises, we can all rise with it; we are strong writers and editors; and we are always “on” — whether it’s a 4am idea or a 5pm revelation. I truly believe you either have it in you to do this or you don’t. If you do, believe me, you’ll know. So take that skill, apply it to a field you are passionate about, and go lasso the moon.