Songwriters Hall of Fame and Hal Leonard Publishing Partner for Special Songbook Collection

From the press release:

New York, N.Y. – July 16, 2009 – The Songwriters Hall of Fame (SongHall) has announced a partnership with Hal Leonard Publishing, a world leader in the music print industry. The partnership with the legendary music publisher includes the creation of a series of branded songbooks for the Hall of Fame, and and innovative link between the Hall of Fame’s digital Virtual Museum and Hal Leonard’s vast library of song sheets and folios.

“We are excited about this new partnership,” said Hal David, “because it permits us to extend our mission of honoring the world’s great songwriters, by offering sheet music, both in print and online, to the public. The partnership also will result in direct financial support for the Hall of Fame by Hal Leonard, permitting us to continue our many educational activities.”

Hal Leonard has created the first in a forthcoming series of Songwriters Hall of Fame songbooks highlighting the songwriting gems of 38 inductees from 2003 – 2009, including Jon Bon Jovi & Richie Sambora (“You Give Love A Bad Name”); Desmond Child (“Livin’ On A Prayer”); Loretta Lynn (“Coal Miner’s Daughter”); David Bowie (“Fame”); Queen (“We Are The Champions”); Van Morrison (“Brown Eyed Girl”) and many more. This premier Songwriters Hall of Fame Songbook features bios and photos of each artist, along with an introduction by SongHall Chairman/CEO Hal David, and is being sold at music and bookstores nationwide.

Hal Leonard’s SheetMusicDirect.com has now been made available as a SongHall online affiliate. Options to download sheet music from Hal Leonard’s SMD are available on hundreds of inductee web pages within the Virtual Museum at http://songwritershalloffame.org/. This new feature enables links to hundreds of thousands of pages of digital sheet music and song folios by everyone from Johnny Mercer, Sammy Cahn, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein to Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Hal David and Burt Bacharach. The Hal Leonard SMD program is easily accessible and user-friendly, loads quickly, and takes customer service to a new level, customize viewing experiences with a variety of options on every page.

About Hal Leonard Corporation
Founded in 1947, Hal Leonard Corporation (http://www.halleonard.com/) is the world’s largest music print publisher, producing songbooks, sheet music, educational publications, reference books, DVDs, CD-ROMs, children’s music products and more. In its more than 120,000 available publications, the company represents in print some of the world’s best known and most respected publishers, artists, songwriters and arrangers. The Hal Leonard Corporation has been a formidable presence on the Web since 1997, the year it launched SheetMusicDirect.com (SMD), a worldwide website for downloading legal and accurate sheet music. For more than a decade, SMD has been and remains a leading online destination for musicians seeking printed music.

About The Songwriters Hall of Fame:
The Songwriters Hall of Fame celebrates songwriters, educates the public with regard to their achievements, and produces a spectrum of professional programs devoted to the development of new songwriting talent through workshops, showcases and scholarships. Over the course of the past 40 years, some key Songwriters Hall of Fame inductees have included Desmond Child, Dolly Parton, John Fogerty, Isaac Hayes and David Porter, Steve Cropper, Richard and Robert Sherman, Bill Withers, Carole King, Paul Simon, Bob Dylan, Billy Joel, Sir Elton John, Bernie Taupin, Brian Wilson, James Taylor, James Brown, Curtis Mayfield, Hal David and Burt Bacharach, Jim Croce, Phil Collins, Alan and Marilyn Bergman, Jimmy Webb, Van Morrison and Cy Coleman among many, many others. The Songwriters Hall of Fame was founded in 1969 by songwriter Johnny Mercer and publishers Abe Olman and Howie Richmond.

Full biographies and a complete list of inductees are available at the Songwriters Hall of Fame’s Virtual Museum at http://www.songhall.org/.