2000- Today
With the millennium, a new frontier for music publishing arrived, shaped by technological advancements, shifts in consumer behavior, and evolving business models. The rise of the Internet and digital technology revolutionized music production, distribution, and consumption. Online platforms, streaming services, and digital downloads not only became dominant channels for accessing music but also opened the business for independent artists and songwriters to market themselves. New revenue streams also took over more traditional income flows with synchronization licensing across all mediums, and pitching for film, television, and commercials became more important.
TRO Essex Music Group was rebranded and restructured internally, adding new marketing, licensing, and A&R initiatives, finding great success with its back catalog in samples by a variety of artists, including Jay Z, G Unit, Fat Boy Slim, Mary J. Blige, Ludacris, Shooter Jennings, Black Eyed Peas, Kanye West, Eric Church, Nicki Minaj, and Beyonce.
In 2005, TRO began representing the catalog of Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, and three years later, the catalog of her daughter Toshi Reagon. Dr. Reagon, singer, song leader, civil rights activist, and scholar, has profoundly contributed to African American culture for over half a century. Though perhaps best known as the founder of the women’s group Sweet Honey in the Rock, Bernice Johnson Reagon is also a noted political activist, Distinguished Professor at Washington’s American University, and a curator emeritus at the Smithsonian Institution.
Toshi Reagon has been described as “a talented, versatile singer, songwriter, and musician with a profound ear for sonic Americana—from folk to funk, from blues to rock” by critic/blogger Eva Yaa Asantewaa (InfiniteBody). “She masters each of these genres with vocal strategies that easily spiral and swoop from the expressively sinuous to the hard-charging, a combination of warmth and mischief.”
Toshi finds home on any musical stage and has had the pleasure of working with Lenny Kravitz, Lizz Wright, Ani DiFranco, Carl Hancock Rux, Nona Hendryx, Pete Seeger, Chocolate Genius, and many other amazing artists, including her favorite collaborator, her mom, Bernice Johnson Reagon. In 2021, Toshi was awarded the Herb Alpert Award in Music, and in 2023, Toshi went on tour with an opera co-written with Bernice Reagon based on Octavia E. Butler’s "Parable of the Sower."
At the 2008 inauguration of President Barack Obama, Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger performed "This Land Is Your Land" at the US Capitol. In 2012, a yearlong celebration culminated with the opening of the Woody Guthrie Center in Woody’s hometown of Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Center celebrates not only Woody’s contributions to folk music, but also those of Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Lead Belly, Oscar Brand, and many others.
On January 18, 2010, WoodSongs Old-Time Radio Hour celebrated Brand’s upcoming 90th birthday and the 65th anniversary of his radio career before an audience from Lexington, Kentucky, where host Michael Johnathan and guest Josh White, Jr. performed with Brand and talked with him about his life. On February 7, 2010, CBC Radio’s Sunday Edition celebrated Brand’s life on the occasion of his 90th birthday.
Awards throughout the millennium (to date) have included Lead Belly elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2004); David Bowie elected to the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2005); Black Sabbath elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2006); Woody Guthrie received the first Pioneer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame (2012); Moody Blues elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2018); T. Rex elected to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (2020); and the 50th Anniversary of "Dark Side of the Moon" (2023).
In 2023, another sample, Bad Bunny’s "Monaco," reached the Top 10 on the Billboard charts and TRO Essex launched its own recording arm, Shamus Records, to release reimagined recordings of the iconic back catalog and signed 30 new writers and artists to the catalog.
The TRO Essex legacy built by the songwriters continues to flourish while embracing the times it lives in. Celebrating its 75th anniversary in 2024 as one of the oldest and biggest independent publishing catalogs, TRO Essex stands on the shoulders of the writers who have continued to inspire generations of writers, artists, and fans.
Howie Richmond passed away on May 20, 2012. When interviewed at the first Songwriters Hall of Fame Induction ceremony in 1983, the organization he founded with Johnny Mercer and Abe Olman in 1969, Howie reflected:
"Really, I’m just a fan."
