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.”

Born (Sept. 25, 1949) and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Taylor became a leading figure in the Texas singer-songwriter scene of the early 1970s after standing himself in Houston in 1970 while en route to California following a brief stint at Georgetown University in Washington, DC.

“There were no lines drawn in the sand between musical genres back in those days,” recalled Taylor, whose contemporaries included the late Guy Clark and Townes Van Zandt. “You were just a musician. I believe so many great writers came out of that scene because you could learn from others. Just as Clark and Van Zandt influenced him and his narrative storytelling style of songwriting, so too did Taylor inspire others like Robert Earl Keen and Lyle Lovett.

Although Taylor made his recording debut in 1976 as part of a Houston songwriters compilation entitled Through The Dark Nightly, and was a winner of the prestigious New Folk competition at the Kerrville Folk Festival in the Texas Hill Country in 1977, it wasn’t until 1981 that he released his first album, Shameless Love, which the Houston Chronicle named as one of the Top 50 Great Texas Singer-Songwriter Albums in January 2017. Following a hiatus of nearly 14 years, Taylor’s self-titled sophomore release came out on the Austin, TX-based Watermelon Records in 1995. He followed that three years later with Resurrect, which was named one of the “100 essential records of all-time” by the now-defunct Buddy magazine. Among his six albums to follow was Scuffletown, a 2001 release that prompted Taylor’s first headlining appearance on Austin City Limits. He previously appeared on the show a year earlier as a guest of on Lyle Lovett’s 25th season episode, during which Lovett paid tribute to Texas songwriters who inspired him.

Here’s a link to view a video of Eric Taylor performing “Hemingway’s Shotgun” with Lovett on Austin City Limits:
https://vimeo.com/396765167

In addition to these and other appearances on Austin City Limits with Guy Clark and Robert Earl Keen, Taylor also appeared on Late Night with David Letterman with Nanci Griffith, to whom he was married from 1976-1982 and who called him “the William Faulkner of songwriting in our time.” Griffith also recorded several of Taylor’s songs – including “Deadwood,” “Dollar Matinee,” “Storms,” and “Ghost in the Music” (which they co-wrote).

Taylor’s The Kerrville Tapes (2003) was his first live recording and captures performances during three years of appearances at the Kerrville Folk Festival. Over the years, he also played such notable U.S. music festivals as the Newport Folk Festival and the Woody Guthrie Folk Festival, as well as a number of festivals in Europe and venues across the U.S. and Europe. He also taught at the Kerrville Song School, led songwriting workshops elsewhere, and created The Texas Song Theater in which he was joined by performing songwriters David Olney and Denice Franke on songs and spoken word.

The Great Divide, Taylor’s fifth studio album, reached #3 on the EuroAmericana Chart and was among the most-played releases on folk radio in 2006. That was followed in 2007 by the 10-song collection Hollywood Pocketknife and by Live At The Red Shack, a live recording before a studio audience and featuring some of his oldest friends and favorite musicians, in 2011. Among those who joined him on vocals during two nights of music at the Houston studio in May of that year were Franke, Griffith, Lovett, and Susan Lindfors Taylor.

Taylor’s 10th and final CD, Studio 10 (2013), also was recorded at The Red Shack. Among his nine original songs on it (in addition to a cover of Tim Grimm’s “Cover These Bones”) are two that were written for the Storyworks.TV documentary film Road Kid to Writer – The Tracks of Jim Tully, for which Taylor received an Emmy Award nomination for Music Composition in 2016.

Each of the finalists will perform two original songs during a preliminary round at the free Elks Park Stage in downtown Telluride on Thursday, June 17, beginning at noon. Then the top five finalists will each perform two different original songs during a final round the following afternoon. The Troubadour winner performs a 15-minute set on the festival’s main stage on Saturday evening, June 20.

The finalists — recognized on the basis of the quality of their songs’ composition, vocal delivery and the overall performance — are Clint Alphin (Spring Hill, TN), Mary Bragg (Nashville, TN), Maria Brosgol (Albany, NY), Caitlin Canty (Pittsford, VT), Rob Drabkin (Denver, CO), Rachael Kilgour (Duluth, MN), Brennan Mackey (Denver, CO), Ryan Pickop (Fayetteville, AR), Carter Sampson (Oklahoma, OK) and Hadley Kennary (Nashville, TN). Connor Garvey (Portland, ME) and Wyatt Espalin (Hiawassee, GA) were named as first and second alternates, respectively, from among the more than 300 entries received.

Other artists slated to perform during this year’s Telluride Bluegrass Festival include Sam Bush Band, John Butler Trio, Cooder – White – Skaggs, Brett Dennen, Jerry Douglas Band, Robert Ellis, Bela Fleck & Abigail Washburn, Rhiannon Giddens, Greensky Bluegrass, Hot Rize, Robert Earl Keen, Lake Street Drive, Leftover Salmon, Kacey Musgroves, Noam Pikelny & Stuart Duncan, Punch Brothers, Peter Rowan’s Twang an’ Groove, Steep Canyon Rangers, Chris Thile & Edgar Meyer, Trampled By Turtles, Trout Steak Revival, Rhonda Vincent & The Rage, and Yonder Mountain String Band, among others. A Telluride Band Contest is also slated. The roots-oriented music festival takes place amid Colorado’s rugged San Juan Mountains and coincides with the Summer Solstice.

Fort Collins, CO-based folk-rock singer-songwriter Michael Kirkpatrick was the winner of the 2014 Telluride Troubadour competition. Previous winners of the competitions, which has been held in conjunction with the Telluride Bluegrass Festival since 1991, include Larry Good (1991), Cosy Sheridan (1992), Dan Sheridan (1993), Catie Curtis (1994), LJ Booth (1995), Michael Lille (1996), Jonathan Kingham (1997), Eugene Ruffolo (1998), Libby Kirkpatrick (1999), Mary Coppin (2000), Kris Delmhorst (2001), Deb Talan (2002), Rachel Davis (2003), Brian Joseph (2004), Keith Greeninger (2005), Nels Andrews (2006), Gregory Alan Isakov (2007), Nathan Moore (2008), Mitch Barrett (2009), Robby Hecht (2010), Matt Harlan (2011), Reed Waddle (2012), and Reed Turner (2013).

More information on the festival and the Telluride Troubadour Competition can be found at www.bluegrass.com/telluride.

Tickets for the tour – including dates in Nashville (April 18 and 19), New York City (April 29), Boston (May 1), Washington DC (May 3 and 4, sold out), Chicago (May 9) and Oakland, CA (May 19) – go on sale Feb. 7. Nickel Creek also is slated to perform during the Telluride Bluegrass Festival in Colorado, June 19-22. More tour dates may be added.

Here’s a link to a video of Nickel Creek performing “Destination” off its forthcoming album:

Nickel Creek was launched in 1989 by bluegrass child prodigies Chris Thile (mandolin and vocals), Sara Watkins (fiddle and vocals), both then eight, and Sara’s older brother Sean Watkins (guitar and vocals), who was 11 at the time. Thereafter, the band released five studio albums and one compilation recording — 2006’s Reasons Why (The Very Best) — and earned popular and critical acclaim. Time magazine dubbed the trio “music innovators for the new millennium” following the release of its self-titled debut album in 2000, while its 2002 follow-up, This Side, won a Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album.

Although the trio initially followed a bluegrass orientation, Nickel Creek evolved into an acoustic outfit with a wide array of musical influences — prompting USA Today to note “This acoustic trio moves farther and farther from anything Bill Monroe would have recognized as bluegrass.” Yet, Nickel Creek helped to stir renewed interest in bluegrass and acoustic music and appealed to millions of fans – including many young people.

Besides performing and recording as a band, Nickel Creek’s members also had been engaged in solo and other collaborative projects which they pursued even more during the trio’s seven-year hiatus. All three plan to continue to do so.

Chris Thile, a multi-instrumentalist and composer who delves in bluegrass as well as other musical genres – including folk, country, classical and jazz – was among 23 people in various fields who were awarded “Genius” grants last year from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in recognition of having “shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.”

Thile, who won the national mandolin championship at the Walnut Valley Festival in Winfield, Kansas at the ripe old age of 12, released his first solo album of mostly original composition, Leading Off, the following year. In 1997, at age 16, he won both a Grammy Award for Best Bluegrass Album and an International Bluegrass Music Award for album of the Year for True Life Blues: The Songs of Bill Monroe. He later won an International Bluegrass Music Award for Mandolinist of the Year (2001).

Over the years, Thile has released a number of solo albums and also has teamed up with such notable artists as mandolin player and multi-instrumentalist Mike Marshall, bassist Edgar Meyer (whom he has cited as one of his biggest musical influences), and cellist Yo-Yo-Ma. He recorded a well-received, Grammy Award-winning album entitled The Goat Rodeo Sessions with Yo-Yo Ma, Meyer and noted fiddle player Stuart Duncan; duo albums with Meyer and with guitarist Michael Daves; and has appeared on albums by such artists as Diercks Bentley, The Dixie Chicks, Scottish songbird Julie Fowlis, Sarah Jarosz, Dolly Parton, and Kate Rusby. His latest musical collaboration, Punch Brothers, sprung out of the How to Grow a Band, which he formed in 2006 and which also is the title of an independent documentary film that portrays Thile as he leaves the very popular Nickel Creek and launches an artistically ambitious new band. The five-member Punch Brothers has toured extensively, has released three albums and an EP, and is featured on the official soundtrack recording for the Coen brothers’ film Inside Llewyn Davis.

Sara Watkins, who has held an informal residency at the Los Angeles nightclub Largo, along with her brother Sean, actively pursued a solo career while Nickel Creek was on hiatus. Her self-titled debut album, produced by Led Zeppelin’s John Paul Jones, was released by Nonesuch Records in 2009.

In the span of three years between it and her sophomore release, Sun Midnight Sun, she toured internationally both as a solo artist and as a guest fiddle player and vocalist with The Decemberists. She also has performed with Works Progress Administration, did a short tour of England and Scotland in with Jerry Douglas and Aly Bain, opened for and played with Jackson Browne during his 2012 acoustic winter tour (Browne also appears on Sun Midnight Sun), and toured with Donavan Frankenreiter, Robert Earl Keen and Tift Merritt as well. She also joined Garrison Keillor on his nationwide Summer Love performance tours and guest-hosted for him on A Prairie Home Companion. Sara also has accompanied her brother on two of his three solo albums.

The ten finalists, selected by a panel of judges, based on both their songwriting craft and the presentation of their songs, are Chris Alvarado (Santa Rosa Beach, FL), Wyatt Easterling (Nashville, TN), Terry Holder (Olympia, WA), Mikaela Kahn (Denton, TX), Daniel Makins (San Angelo, TX), Heather McCready (Arlington, TX), Dave Murphy (Rutherford, NJ), Ashlee Rose (San Antonio, TX), Paul Sachs (New York, NY) and Talia Segal (Bethesda, MD). After showcasing their talents on the festival’s Singer Songwriter Stage on Saturday, May 18, four of them will receive $500 each in cash prizes and will perform in a winners’ round on Sunday afternoon.

Last year’s Wildflower! Performing Songwriter Contest winners were Connor Garvey (Portland, ME), Nicolette Good (San Antonio, TX) Robyn Landis (Tucson, AZ) and Michael Terry People’s Choice Award-winner MaryBeth Zamer of Twangtown Paramours (Nashville, TN).

Other artists slated to perform on the Singer Songwriter Stage during the festival include Sally Barris and Don Henry, Brother Sun, Slaid Cleaves, Joe Crookston, Tom Faulkner, Eliza Gilkyson, Terri Hendrix and Lloyd Maines, Tom Kimmel, Tom Prasada Rao, Amy Speace, Bill Ward/2-Bit Palomino and The Waymores.

In addition to its Singer Songwriter Stage and Dallas Songwriters Association Spotlights on the Courtyard Stage, Wildflower! will feature several other stages with an eclectic array of musical artists (including Robert Earl Keen and Ray Wylie Hubbard on Sunday), the Wild! Marketplace, a Taste of Texas Food Garden, a Kidz Korner, and more. Three-day festival passes are now on sale for $30, while single-day adult tickets will be available for $20 at the gate and online (www.wildflowerfestival.com).

, radio airplay charts, folk radio,