Poss frequently acknowledged that he didn’t have a very conventional career path. “I used to joke that I had the perfect qualifications for being in the music business,” Poss once wrote. “I had no business training; in fact, no formal music background either but I teach Sociology of deviant Behavior.”

After graduating from Duke, he took a position with County Records in Floyd, Virginia. Poss and its owner, Dave Freeman, launched Sugar Hill Records in 1978, embracing what Poss called “contemporary music grounded in traditional music roots.” A self-described “wayward academic in an entrepreneurial role,” Poss assumed full control of the label in 1980, and moved it to Durham. He operated the label from there until its sale to Welk Music Group 20 years later. He became the group’s chairman in 2002. It’s now part of Concord Music, which also owns Rounder Records.

Among the many artists of note who recorded for Sugar Hill Records during Poss’ tenure were Pat Alger, Byron Berline, Ronnie Bowman, Sam Bush, Guy Clark, Mike Cross, Rodney Crowell, Jerry Douglas, Sara Evans, Cathy Fink, Butch Hancock, Hot Rize, The Infamous Stringdusters, Chris Hillman, Wanda Jackson, Sarah Jarosz, Robert Earl Keen, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Lonesome River Band, Lyle Lovett, Nashville Bluegrass Band, Nickel Creek, Tim O’Brien, Dolly Parton, Dirk Powell, The Red Clay Ramblers, Peter Rowan, Ricky Skaggs, Darrell Scott, Marty Stuart, Bryan Sutton, Chris Thile, Townes Van Zandt, Doc Watson, and Jesse Winchester.

“The identity peg for Sugar Hill is having that traditional connection to contemporary music,” Poss Told Blue ridge Outdoors in 2008. “Some have taken to describing a ‘Sugar Hill Sound,” but I am not going to try to define that. To me, it’s what connect Doc Watson to Chris Thile, ricky skaggs to Guy Clark, Townes Van Zandt to dolly Parton. They all exhibit a rootedness in their contemporary expressions of music. I like it because the music comes from a place. It’s not prefabricated or manufactured.”

Douglas and Skaggs had been part of a bluegrass group called Boone Creek, whose One Way Track album was Sugar Hill’s first release in 1978. In a May 18 Facebook post, Douglas wrote of Poss: “His dream was to have a label that mirrored the same idea as Sam Phillips and his famous Sun label, which catered to a specific audience and created a new genre, Rockabilly Plus. Barry knew an audience was there for a specific form of music (bluegrass) and there were certain bands who could grow that audience and the music would evolve with the growth of that audience.”

Douglas, who also produced a number of recordings for Sugar Hill Records, noted that he and Poss were “very close friends. Confidants really. He was like my wingman and brother at any event we collided with. We would spend hours talking about the direction of the music and the parameters he wanted his label to maintain no matter the current climate.” Poss was also godfather to Douglas’ daughter Nola. “Barry loved my family, and Jill and I, along with our children, will forever press his memory closer to our hearts.”

In addition to spending many years at the helm of Sugar Hill Records, Poss was a founding board member of the Bluegrass Hall of Fame & Museum in Owensboro, Kentucky and helped to launch the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA).

“Barry Poss was not just a champion of roots music and the artists that made it, but he was instrumental in the founding of our organization,” Ken White, IBMA’s executive director, said in a statement. “For that and so much more, we will always be grateful.”

Poss was a recipient of the IBMA’s Distinguished Achievement Award in 1998. The Americana Music Association also honored him with its Lifetime Achievement Award in 2006 in recognition of Sugar Hill’s pivotal role in both preserving and reinvigorating traditional music, while he was inducted into the Oak Ridge Music Hall of Fame in 2023.

Closer to home, Poss also served on the boards of the Carolina Theater, the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, MerleFest, the North Carolina, Folklife Institute, and WUNC-FM.

While many artists and others have shared tributes to Poss since his passing, for his part Poss once said: “It’s the artists who make the music to which I’m the most indebted. They had something important to say. They needed to be heard. And I wanted to be part of their creative lives – because it mattered.”

The musical festivities get underway on Tuesday night, July 14 (Woody’s birthday), when his granddaughter, Sarah Lee Guthrie performs and hosts a musical celebration from 7-9:30 p.m. CDT featuring her dad, Arlo Guthrie, and several other Guthrie family members, long with David Amram, Sam Baker, The Burns Sisters, Cole Quest & the City Pickers, Folk Uke, John Fullbright, Butch Hancock, Radoslav Lorkovic, Miss Brown to You, Ellis Paul, Joel Rafael, and the Red Dirt Rangers, among others. Arlo Guthrie, Paul, Rafael, and The Red Dirt Rangers were also among the artists who performed at the inaugural festival in 1998.

Singer-Songwriter Jaimee Harris performs and hosts the musical festivities on Saturday night, July 18, from 7-11 p.m. CDT. Among the artists joining her will be BettySoo, Tom Breiding, Tim Easton, Emma’s Revolution, Mary Gauthier (whom Harris frequently accompanies), John Fullbright, Seth Glier, Glen Hansard, Matt Harlan, Jason Mraz, Graham Nash, Jacob Tovar, and Raye Zaragoza.

Harris, BettySoo, Hancock, Rafael, the Red Dirt Rangers, and Tovar are also among the artists slated to be featured on Sunday afternoon, July 19, from 2-4:30 p.m. CDT, along with K.C, Clifford, Annie Guthrie, Ali Harter, Susan Herndon, and others. Terry ‘Buffalo’ Ware hosts.

Online Panel Discussions and Workshops Slated on Saturday, July 18

A number of panel discussions and workshops are set for Saturday, July 18, from 12 noon -7 p.m. CDT.

Breiding, a former Music Row staff writer who has spent the past decade as a musician in residence for the United Mine Workers of America, kicks things off at noon with Appalachia: This Land is Home to Me. This will be followed at 1 p.m. by a slide show, reading & q & a with Easton, a Nashville-based traveling troubadour who toured Russia last fall as part of the U.S. Department of State’s Forum for Cultural Engagement program and assembled a book and field recordings in a collection called Folk Collusion based on his experiences.

Beginning at 3 p.m. CDT, Deana McCloud, executive director of the Woody Guthrie Center in Tulsa, hosts an hour-long This Land is Your Land: A Celebration of 80 Years featuring video captured during a Feb. 23 concert at The Town Hall in New York City celebrating the 80th anniversary of Guthrie’s penning the a song, a chat with participating artists Branjae & Gangstagrass, and a virtual tour of the Center’s exhibit about the song.

“”This Land is Your Land” is a living message, and the new perspective that Gangstagrass and Branjae took on the song makes is even more significant in light of today’s social justice issues,” McCloud told AcousticMusicScene.com. “That’s the beauty of the song and creativity in general — it lives and grows to speak for those who need to use the message to point out issues in our society and the need to ensure that America keeps her promises to all who live on This Land.”

The Oklahoma Film + Music Office presents a panel on Native Music of Oklahoma at 4 p.m. CDT. Winners of this year’s Woody Guthrie Folk Festival Songwriting Competition will perform at 5:15 p.m. Ollman moderates a panel discussion entitled Something to Say: Making Music That Matters, presented by Oklahoma Humanities and featuring Gauthier, a Grammy-nominated songwriter, whose songs have been covered and recorded by dozens of artists; and Louie Perez, primary lyricist for the multiple Grammy Award-winning band, Los Lobos.

Although there is no charge to stream the festival, viewers may show their appreciation by making donations via a virtual tip jar – a portion of which will be given to the Red Dirt Relief Fund and Huntington’s Disease Society of America.

More information on the virtual Woody Guthrie Folk Festival can be found online at https://woodyfest.com.

The ten finalists selected by a panel of judges, based on both their songwriting craft and the presentation of their songs, are Hannah Bethel (Tennessee), Kevin Chambers (Tennessee), Nathan Evans Fox (Texas), Mike Laureanno (Rhode Island), Heather Mae (Washington, DC), Tom Meny (Texas), Emmeline Miles (Texas), Emily Scott Robinson (Texas), Marilyn Rucker (Texas), and Mike P. Ryan (Virginia).

After showcasing their talents on Saturday, May 20, four of the finalists will receive $500 each and will perform in a 75-minute spotlight round on Sunday afternoon, while $100 will be awarded to the remaining six. All ten finalists will also be invited to perform sets on the festival’s Courtyard Stage.

Other artists slated to perform on the Singer Songwriter Stage during the festival include Albert and Gage, Rj Cowdery, Joe Crookston (who also presents a day-long songwriting workshop on Friday that’s limited to 30 students), Jon Christopher Davis, Justin Farren, The Flyin’ A’s, John Fullbright, Butch Hancock, Shake Russell and Michael Hearne with Mike Roberts, Ryanhood, 2-Bit Palomino, and Beth Wood.

In addition to its Singer Songwriter and Courtyard Stages, Wildflower! will feature several other stages with an eclectic array of musical artists (ranging from rockers The B-52s and Lynyrd Skynrd to southern country rockers The Outlaws, folk-rockers Orleans, and soulful blues and folk singer-songwriter Ruthie Foster), as well as the Wild! Marketplace, a Taste of Texas Food Garden, a Kidz Korner family area and petting zoo, strolling entertainers, and more.

Three-day festival passes may be purchased online for $65, while single-day adult tickets are available for $30 online and $40 at the gate. For more information, including performance schedules and a ticket link, visit www.wildflowerfestival.com.

In recent months, many of her friends in the music community in both Austin and in California – where the Austin native lived during much of the 1970s and 1980s and was part of the folk and bluegrass band Fiddlestix– had played benefit concerts to help defer her medical expenses. Among them was noted Austin musician Marci Ball, who told the Austin American-Statesman’s Benjamin Wermund that “Sarah was not part of the scene; Sarah was the scene.”

Beginning in the early 1990s, Campbell hosted weekly “Bummer Tuesday” shows at Austin’s La Zona Rosa, which was owned by Ball and her husband. The “Bummer Nights” later switched to Mondays at Artz Rib House and, when that Austin institution closed, to the El Mercado restaurant. Slaid Cleaves and Butch Hancock joined her onstage for her last “Mystery Mondays” show there on Dec. 23. Campbell’s band and other Austin area friends will gather at the restaurant on Monday, Dec. 30, from 7-10 p.m., to pay musical tribute to her. However, formal memorial services won’t be held until January.

Although not particularly well-known beyond Austin and northern California, where she was a regular fixture at the Strawberry Music Festival for years, Sarah enjoyed the respect and friendship of many notable artists. She released two solo CDs – A Little Tenderness and Running With You. Besides performing with Fiddlestix, she also performed as Sarah Elizabeth Campbell and The Banned and in a duo with Nina Gerber. Campbell’s songs also have been covered by such artists as Rick Danko, Levon Helm, Laurie Lewis and Tom Rozum, and Jim Messina. Her most well-known song is entitled “Mexico.”

Here’s a link to a YouTube video of Sarah performing “Mexico” during a house concert last year. She is joined by Blame Sally.

In a Dec. 27 post on the Northern California Bluegrass Society’s website, Michael Hall recalled: In her most memorable Strawberry performance, she appeared onstage singing John Prine’s “Angel from Montgomery,” complete with onstage fireworks that briefly threatened to catch her elegant and elaborate angel costume on fire. He noted that she also joined Prine onstage this past Memorial Day weekend for a duet performance of “Unwed Fathers.” To read the post, click here.

Pre-deceased by her mother, Sudie Campbell, in 2011, Sarah is survived by her brother Bill Campbell, an Austin-based blues guitarist, and her sister Marge Morton, a former personal secretary to the late Lady Bird Johnson.