Our Story

  Angel Oak Publishing was founded on faith.

  Mary Propes Reynolds formed AOP after hosting a writers retreat for some dear friends in the music business, in Bowling Green, Kentucky.  Her late husband, Dan, owned a blueberry farm and was in the middle of building an event barn, to host yearly fundraising opportunities for children. Mary, along with two of Dans sons, decided to host the retreat in Dans honor.  She quickly formed a special bond with one of the writers there that week, Scotty Cram.  “Ms. Mary” had long been a supremely successful businesswoman in South Carolina. She, along with her two sons, grew a large candle company, into the largest private label company in the world.  Her business sense, matched with the belief in her heart, was that there had to be a way to help her new friend. 

   Scotty Cram was a long-time singer/songwriter, living in Atlanta.  In the pursuit of a music career, he traveled down many different roads, for the better half of 20 years.  He and his wife were just beginning a family about the time he made his way to the blue grass state to write with a bunch of people he had never met before. It was that trip, and meeting Mary, that kept his dream alive of being in the music business and providing for his new family.  He signed a publishing agreement, with Angel Oak Publishing, that the Propes family created late in 2019. 

   Angel Oak’s mission is quite simple. To generate momentum for those who are making a name for themselves in the songwriting business and to create more opportunities for success.