Liberty Music Group, LU’s music label, is finding the best Christian musicians

In 2016, Liberty University purchased the worship music label Red Tie Music from Thomas Road Baptist Church and changed the name to Liberty Music Group (LMG).  

Along with the acquisition came Lorie Marsh, LMG’s administrator of operations and a driving force behind the growing label’s success. Lorie Marsh is also married to Don Marsh, an associate professor of commercial music at Liberty. 

“We brought the vision from primarily church and worship music to include all different kinds of music,” Marsh said. “We wanted to do more artist-oriented music as well.”

Leah Stauffer | Liberty News Service
Lorie Marsh, pictured above, is the administrator of operations for LGM.

In addition to administrative work, Marsh spends her time doing artist and repertoire, “A&R,” research to find and develop fresh talent for the label. 

“We are really on a search for the best talent that this school has to offer … the very best,” Marsh said. “We want to be a part of training artists as they are coming up, but we really want to bring them to the commercial level.”

Luke Fortner, lead singer of country-pop band Relinquish, is one of those artists. Since he signed with LMG in 2016, he and his band have been on a 60-day tour and released a few singles. “I was one of those guys that started in the basement. … I was in a band for a couple of years, and Lorie came alongside us and helped us develop our songs,” Fortner said. 

With a state-of-the-art studio and a lengthy list of connections, LMG prides itself on helping passionate and hard-working artists take their music to the next level. 

“Ok, so you can sing, you can play an instrument, how do you actually turn that into a career?” songwriter John Forystek said. “That’s where LMG comes in to partner for brand recognition, digital integration, building fan bases and helping facilitate that talent.”

Part of LMG’s rebranding has been a move to include a wider range of music that is not exclusively Christian. They have already begun to see success with artist Zach Radcliff, who performed his single, “I’ll Stand,” at the Conservative Political Action Conference at Liberty at the beginning
of March.

“What we’re looking for is Christians who are artists,” Forystek said. “At the center of their being, at their core, integrated into them, is the gospel.” 

LMG’s mission statement, “Creating. Connecting. Championing,” is an anthem that Marsh said sums up the label’s ambitions going forward. Marsh said she hopes to see more quality signed in the future and more of Liberty’s talent shared with the world.

“We are always taking people under our wing to find out where they fit,” said Forystek.

Marsh said students often come to the office to pitch songs and ask questions, but artists do not get involved. There are plenty of opportunities in music production, promotion, graphic design and other areas involved — you just have to want it.

“If you want to be an artist, it definitely has to be a calling on your life,” Fortner said. “There are nights I go to bed defeated, wondering why in the world God called me to do this, and then I wake up in the morning reenergized and ready to go. … That’s how I know I’m called to do this.”

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