About Ten Ten
Music Group

Born in Dunedin, New Zealand¹ and raised in Christchurch, Coburn was son of bandleader/arranger Merv Coburn, whose Merv Coburn Orchestra was broadcast weekly on Radio New Zealand.²

In 1967, just 17, he landed a job as record store sales and radio promotion rep based in Christchurch covering the southern part of New Zealand for distributor/pressing plant MDC, handling the Blue Note, Capitol, Elektra, PolyGram, Roulette and Verve labels.²

An avid music collector and music trade publication follower, the young Coburn became at age 19 the Australia/New Zealand correspondent for UK pop/rock musician magazine Beat Instrumental Monthly, also writing columns twice a year.²

In 1969, Coburn worked two years as Sales Promotion and A&R manager at label/publisher Viking³, the leading independent in New Zealand, representing the Elektra label. He was given his own label Viking Ventura.⁴

Coburn’s professional start came as a tour manager for New Zealand promoter and stage producer Harry Miller.¹ In 1971, Coburn established his own Auckland-based concert promotion and artist management firm Coburn Artists Ltd., and also music publishing company Coburn Music Ltd. (BMI), serving as managing director of both firms.

Coburn Music Ltd. represented writers Tim Finn of Split Enz, Bruce Woodley (The Seekers), No Exit/Rear Exit Music (Capricorn Records’ publishing catalog), Gary P. Nunn and the McGarrigle Sisters. Representing Anna McGarrigle, Coburn’s separate Sundowner Music publishing company held the New Zealand sub-publishing on the title track on Linda Ronstadt’s Heart Like A Wheel album in 1974 as well as tracks between 1978-1988 by the Bellamy Brothers, Sea Level, Split Enz, Dottie West, Monte Vidéo, Cliff Richard, Kate & Anna McGarrigle and 33 South.⁵

Barry Coburn and Jewel Blanch moved from Melbourne to Nashville in September 1984. They arrived with two suitcases and a box of tapes, forming artist management and music publishing firm Ten Ten Music Group, named after their company’s street address of 1010 16th Avenue South.

As co-Presidents, Barry and Jewel Coburn split publishing duties, operating with a limited budget during their early days in Nashville by initially making single-song deals with young writers to build a catalog.²

Emmylou Harris referred Coburn to country singer Lacy J. Dalton for management, and she became his first client a few months after their arrival in the US. Coburn and Harris’s LA-based manager, Eddie Tickner, then partnered to co-manage Harris, Dalton and Marty Stuart, for whom they secured his recording deal at Columbia. Shortly thereafter, Coburn also signed Holly Dunn for management.

Coburn began managing guitarist Duane Eddy, and in 1986 coordinated the recording of the 1987 album Duane Eddy, coproduced by Paul McCartney, Jeff Lynne, Ry Cooder and Art of Noise. The record featured as guest musicians McCartney, Cooder, George Harrison, John Fogerty, James Burton, David Lindley, Steve Cropper, and Larry Knechtel and Jim Horn from Eddy’s original band, the Rebels.¹²

In 2004, Ten Ten Music began publishing all of Tim Finn’s repertoire for the world outside of Australia and New Zealand. Finn’s “Winter Light” appears in the 2005 film The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. Ten Ten also secured “Take The Weather With You”, penned by Tim and Neil Finn, as the title track to a Jimmy Buffett album. The song had previously been cut by Crowded House.

In 2009, the song “Crazier”, which Ten Ten writer/producer Robert Ellis Orrall co-wrote with Taylor Swift, was featured as part of the soundtrack to Hannah Montana: The Movie.

On December 8, 2014, Nettwerk Music Group’s publishing division Nettwerk One Music (NW1) acquired 50% of Ten Ten Music’s publishing catalog prior to 2010. That share has since been acquired by Recognition Music.

In 2020, Ten Ten Music Group began representing the 6,000-song House of Bryant catalog featuring hits by Boudleaux and Felice Bryant such as “All I Have To Do Is Dream”, “Devoted To You”, “Take A Message To Mary” and “Wake Up Little Susie” (Everly Brothers), “Hey Joe!” (Carl Smith), “How’s The World Treating You” (Elvis Presley, Alison Krauss/James Taylor), “Rocky Top” (Osborne Brothers; the official song of the University of Tennessee), as well as “Raining In My Heart” (Buddy Holly), “Love Hurts” (Nazareth) and “Come Live With Me” (Roy Clark, Ray Charles), “You’re The Reason God Made Oklahoma” (David Frizzell/Shelly West) and many more.

In 2025, Ten Ten Music Group added Joe Luff as Head/Creative and reunited with multi-genre songwriter/producer Bobby Huff for publishing and management. They also signed writer Emma Lynn White.

Coburn Music, a division of Ten Ten Music Group, has earned at least one million broadcast performances on 19 BMI-affiliated songs.

In 1994, Coburn was voted as director-at-large by the Country Music Association board of directors and served as an officer for 16 years through 2010.¹⁴

In 2007, Coburn began serving on the ASCAP Board of Directors, continuing for 16 years through October 2023.

In 2012, Coburn was elected to the board of the National Music Publishers Association (NMPA) and held that post for seven years until 2019.

Coburn spoke on behalf of the music industry on music piracy at an August 30, 2010 Belmont University meeting in Nashville with US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, Tennessee Governor Phil Bredesen, Congressman Jim Cooper and Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, among others.¹⁵

At a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine hearing in Washington, DC, Coburn testified, along with executives from Google and Sony Music, on the impact of copyright policy on innovation in the digital era.

In 2015, at ASCAP’s Songwriter Advocacy Day on Capitol Hill, Coburn spoke on behalf of songwriters, asking US Congress to update laws regulating music licensing and pass the Songwriter Equity Act.¹⁶

Explore the publishing, management, and concert promotion records below. Publishing credits, artist achievements, and Barry Coburn’s earlier work are listed separately.