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.”

According to a family post on his Facebook page: “Byron suffered a stroke in the cerebellum which affected his coordination and vision. He was making improvements with his eyes and coordination, and getting stronger. After a few weeks he began aspirating food into his lungs which led to increased invasive treatments which he couldn’t recover from. Eventually his lungs gave up and so did his heart.”

Berline, who was born in Kansas and lived in Oklahoma, started playing fiddle at the age of five, and played on the Dillards’ Pickin’ and Fiddlin’ album (1965) while still in college. Just after graduating from the University of Oklahoma, he had a short stint with Bill Monroe & the Bluegrass Boys in 1967, before being drafted into the U.S. Army. During that time, Berline co-wrote “Gold Rush,” now a jam session standard, with Monroe.

Here’s a link to short video of Berline and Mark O’Connor playing “Gold Rush” during a workshop at the 2016 Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXpzsasGvBc

Berline won the National Oldtime Fiddlers’ Contest Championship in 1965, 1967 and 1970. He recorded two albums with The Flying Burrito Brothers, whom he joined in 1971, and briefly worked with Stephen Stills’ band Manassas following the Burrito’s breakup. In early 1972, he helped to form the band Country Gazette before launching Byron Berline and Sundance with guitarist Dan Crary, banjoist John Hickman and others a few years later. Vince Gill later joined the band on mandolin, an instrument that Berline also played.

In 1981, Berline helped form the band Berline, Crary, and Hickman. After a few personnel changes, that band later became California and was named Instrumental Group of the Year by the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA) for three consecutive years (1992, 1993 and 1994).

Berline moved to Guthrie, Oklahoma (his wife’s hometown) in 1995, where he owned and operated the Double Stop Fiddle Shop & Music Hall until his death. Jam sessions there led to the formation of The Byron Berline Band that toured throughout the U.S. and Europe. Although the original shop and most of his prized instruments were destroyed in a fire in 2019, Berline opened another one across the street from it.

Over the years, Berline also created the annual Oklahoma International Bluegrass Festival, released several solo albums, and recorded with such notable artists as Alabama, The Byrds, Mary Chapin Carpenter, John Denver, Joe Diffie, The Doobie Brothers, Bob Dylan, The Eagles, Mickey Gilley, Emmylou Harris, Janis Ian, Elton John, Willie Nelson, Earl Scruggs, Andy Statman, Rod Stewart, and Lucinda Williams. A number of film and television soundtracks have also featured his music. Berline was inducted into The National Fiddler Hall of Fame in 2013.

Here’s a link to a 2017 video of Byron Berline in the studios of The Oklahoman discussing how he got into music and learned to play, among other things:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEmO3Lv39Ew

And here’s one of Berline performing in The Oklahoman’s studios:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=2fu5MOcjvJY

Mary Sue Twohy (SiriusXM), chair of FAI’s advocacy committee, will moderate a panel discussion on copyright and royalties at the Westin Crown Center. Panelists include Michelle Conceison (Market Monkeys), Renee Bodie (Levitt Pavillions), David Hirshland (BMG Chrysalis), Dan Navarro (artist) and Tom Neff (Grassy Hill).

[During the 57th Grammy Awards telecast on Feb. 8, The Recording Academy announced the formation of a GRAMMY Creators Alliance to advocate on behalf of artists and songwriters for policies that provide for fair pay for all music creators across all platforms, while The Content Creators Coalition (c3), a membership-based, artist-run nonprofit advocacy group was launched in 2012 to press for economic justice in the digital domain and help ensure that current and future creators retain the rights needed to create and benefit from the use of their work.]

Besides issuing its white paper, FAI will further explore royalty and copyright issues during its conference, set for Feb. 18-22, with a keynote speech by David Israelite as part of its conference speakers series. Israelite is president and CEO of the National Music Publishers’ Association, a trade organization representing American publishers and their songwriting partners. He will be speaking on Friday afternoon.

The FAI white paper can be viewed online at www.folkalliance.org/copyright, while the full schedule of conference panels appears at www.folk.org/schedule.

FAI is a Kansas City-based nonprofit organization that aims to nurture, engage and empower the international folk music community – traditional and contemporary, amateur and professional – through education, advocacy and performance.

Winter Music Camp and Music Fair Also Slated

Although Kansas City, Missouri may be better known for jazz, blues, barbecue chefs, football Chiefs and Baseball’s Royals, more than 3,000 people are expected to converge on this mid-western U.S. metropolis for the International Folk Alliance Conference and a Winter Music Camp and Music Fair that will run concurrently with it. The conference, which moved to Kansas City last year, attracts artists, presenters, managers, agents, and promoters, folk DJs and others engaged in folk music broadly speaking from throughout the U.S. Canada, Europe, Australia and New Zealand. They come for the networking, professional development, a large exhibit hall, regional and peer group meetings, and hundreds of artist showcases. The international Folk Alliance Conference is ranked among the five largest music conferences in North America.

This year’s featured speakers, in addition to Israelite, include Commander Chris Hadfield (an astronaut and folksinger), two-time Grammy Award-winner Rita Coolidge, Dave Carroll (a singer and flyers’ rights advocate), and folk music legend Sylvia Tyson. Among a large array of workshops and panel discussions will be a Wisdom of the Elders session featuring veteran singer-songwriters Tom Paxton (who is celebrating his 50th year as a touring artist) and Peggy Seeger (who also will receive one of FAI’s three 2015 Elaine Weissman Lifetime Achievement Awards).

Four evenings of artist performances — including special feature shows, 200 juried music showcases and hundreds of private in-room showcases that extend late into the night and early morning hours. Some daytime private in-room showcases also are scheduled throughout the weekend, as well as jam sessions and extended song circles.

Building on the success of last year’s inaugural Winter Music Camp, held concurrently at the adjoining Sheraton Crown Center, featuring instruction geared toward all styles and levels of roots music and songwriting, FAI launches its first Music Fair (www.folkalliance.org/music-fair) this year. The Music Fair and Winter Music Camp will extend for four days and nights and will feature 99 artists, more than 100 workshops, jam sessions, film screenings, a public trade show and an art gallery. Among the instructors and performing artists are Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn, Sam Baker, Ray Wylie Hubbard, Jimmy LaFave, David Amram, Red Molly, Howard Iceberg, Betse Ellis, Bob Walkenhorst & Jeff Porter, The HillBenders present TOMMY: A Bluegrass Opry, The Elders, Alan Munde, Byron Berline, Roland White, James Hill, Pops Bayless, Redd Volkaert, Bill Kirchen, Jeff Planenhorn, Chad Graves, and Ken Perlman. Tickets priced at $25 per day/night are available to the public and may be purchased in advance online at www.faimusicfair.eventbrite.com.

Also slated is a special Saturday morning Music Fair Kids’ Show (featuring Trout Fishing in America, Dan Bern, Chad Elliott, Kim Rausch and more) and a Kids’ Music Camp on Friday-Sunday, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Editor’s Note: An elected member of FAI’s board of directors, I will be moderating a panel discussion and doing some mentoring and showcase emceeing during the conference.

Brothers Eric and Leigh Gibson, along with their band (Mike Barber, Clayton Campbell and Joe Walsh) also were honored for Gospel Recorded Performance of the Year” for “Singing As We Rise.”

Other top winners of this year’s International Bluegrass Music Awards, which are voted on by the professional membership of the International Bluegrass Music Association (IBMA), included Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice whose The Heart of a Song was named Album of the Year, while “A Far Cry from Lester & Earl” took Single of the Year honors. Russell Moore (of Russell Moore & IIIrd Tyme Out) and Dale Ann Bradley were named male and female vocalists of the year, respectively. The Emerging Artist of the Year Award went to Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers, while Doyle Lawson and the late Ralph Rinzler were the 2012 inductees into the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame.

Steve Martin and other top bluegrass musicians participated in a star-filled tribute to Earl Scruggs, the legendary banjo player who died earlier this year, that capped off the gala event that was hosted by Del McCoury and Laurie Lewis.

The IBMA Awards Show is considered the centerpiece of the trade association’s annual World of Bluegrass Week, which also included an IBMA business conference and Bluegrass Fan Fest.

A complete list of award winners follows:

Bluegrass Hall of Fame Inductees: Doyle Lawson, Ralph Rinzler
Distinguished Achievement Award Recipients: Byron Berline, Joe & Lil Cornett, Orin Friesen, Pee Wee Lambert, Kitsy Kuykendall
Entertainer of the Year: The Gibson Brothers
Vocal Group of the Year: Blue Highway
Instrumental Group of the Year: The Boxcars
Emerging Artists of the Year: Joe Mullins & The Radio Ramblers
Male Vocalist of the Year: Russell Moore
Female Vocalist of the Year: Dale Ann Bradley
Song of the Year: “A Far Cry From Lester & Earl” Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice
Album of the Year: Heart Of A Song, Junior Sisk & Ramblers Choice
Gospel Recorded Event of the Year: “Singing As We Rise” by the Gibson Brothers w/Ricky Skaggs
Instrumental Performance of the Year: “Angeline The Baker” by Lonesome River Band
Recorded Event of the Year: “Life Goes On” by Carl Jackson, Ronnie Bowman, Larry Cordle, Jerry Salley, Rickey Wasson, Randy Kohrs, D.A. Adkins, Garnet Bowman, Lynn Butler, Ashley Kohrs, Gary Payne, Dale Pyatt, Clay Hess, Alan Bibey, Jay Weaver, Ron Stewart & Jim VanCleve (artists); Jerry Salley, Carl Jackson, Larry Cordle, Jim Van Cleve & Randy Kohrs (producers); Rural Rhythm Records
Banjo Player of the Year: Sammy Shelor
Bass Player of the Year: Marshall Wilborn
Fiddle Player of the Year: Stuart Duncan
Dobro Player of the Year: Rob Ickes
Guitar Player of the Year: Doc Watson
Mandolinist of the Year: Adam Steffey
Broadcaster of the Year: Kyle Cantrell
Bluegrass Event of the Year: ROMP, produced by the International Bluegrass Music Museum; Owensboro, KY
Print Media Person of the Year: Marty Godbey, author of Crowe on the Banjo: The Music Life of J.D. Crowe (Univ. of Illinois Press)
Best Graphic Design: Bedrock Manufacturing (designer) for Nobody Knows You, by the Steep Canyon Rangers (Rounder Records)
Best Liner Notes: Marian Leighton Levy (liner notes), for Tony Rice: The Bill Monroe Collection, by Tony Rice (Rounder Records)
Bluegrass Songwriter of the Year: Jon Weisberger

IBMA’s new Momentum Awards, designed to recognize promising new talent – artists and business people in the early years of their careers in bluegrass music, were presented earlier in the week This year’s recipients are:

Band of the Year: Monroeville
Vocalist of the Year: Emily Bankester (performs with The Bankesters)
Instrumentalists of the Year: bassist Samson Grisman (son of legendary mandolinist David “Dawg” Grisman, performs with The Deadly Gentlemen), fiddler Alex Hargreaves (performs with Sarah Jarosz), and fiddler Christian Ward (performs with Sierra Hull)
Event/Venue of the Year: Appalachian Uprising, produced by Steve Cielic (a new festival in Scottown, Ohio)
Industry Achievement: Crash Avenue publicist Emilee Warner
Mentor of the Year: Five-time IBMA Bass Player of the Year and producer Mike Bub