Big Names Set For NARM

12/24/1997 3:00 AM, Yahoo! Music
Bruce Haring

(12/24/97) - Sister Hazel, Diana Krall, the Mavericks, Fiona Apple, Keiko Matsui, Jeff Foxworthy, Linda Eder and Ricardo Lemvo are among the artists set for the 40th annual National Association Of Recording Merchandisers (NARM) convention, set for March 13-17 in San Francisco.

The convention, the music industry's largest annual trade show, comes at a crucial point for the business. Retail sales are down, Internet distribution is not quite ready for prime time, and digital versatile discs (DVD), the configuration that could replace CDs, is at least a year away from stores.

Keynoting the convention are Richard Branson, the brash balloonist/ billionaire who founded Virgin Records and now heads V2 Music, and Phil Ramone, a producer who has twiddled knobs for the likes of Natalie Cole, B.B. King, Paul McCartney and Billy Joel, and who now heads N2K Encoded Music.