{"id":13153,"date":"2025-05-19T11:17:14","date_gmt":"2025-05-19T15:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acousticmusicscene.com\/?p=13153"},"modified":"2025-05-19T11:24:17","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T15:24:17","slug":"barry-poss-co-founder-of-sugar-hill-records-1945-2025","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticmusicscene.com\/2025\/05\/19\/barry-poss-co-founder-of-sugar-hill-records-1945-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Barry Poss, Co-Founder of Sugar Hill Records, 1945-2025"},"content":{"rendered":"

Barry Poss, co-founder and longtime owner of Sugar Hill Records \u2013- an influential independent label whose roster included numerous notable bluegrass, Americana, old-time and roots music artists \u2013- died on May 13, 2025. He was 79 and had been battling cancer for years.<\/p>\n

\"Barry
Barry Poss, who co-founded and led Sugar Hill Records for many years, died on may 13, 2025.<\/figcaption><\/figure>Born on September 7, 1945, the Brantford, Ontario (Canada) native, whose family moved to Toronto in the mid-1950s, Poss relocated to North Carolina in 1968 to pursue graduate studies in sociology at Duke University as a James B. Duke Graduate Fellow after graduating from Toronto\u2019s York University. While still a student at Duke, he became enamored with the clawhammer banjo and began learning it from a number of traditional, old-time musicians. That, coupled with his attendance at the Union Grove Fiddler Convention about two hours west of the university\u2019s Durham campus, helped to spur Poss to take his life in a different direction.<\/p>\n

Poss frequently acknowledged that he didn’t have a very conventional career path. \u201cI used to joke that I had the perfect qualifications for being in the music business,\u201d Poss once wrote. \u201cI had no business training; in fact, no formal music background either but I teach Sociology of deviant Behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n

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 \u201ccontemporary music grounded in traditional music roots.\u201d A self-described “wayward academic in an entrepreneurial role,\u201d 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\u2019s chairman in 2002. It\u2019s now part of Concord Music, which also owns Rounder Records.<\/p>\n

Among the many artists of note who recorded for Sugar Hill Records during Poss\u2019 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\u2019Brien, 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. <\/p>\n

“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.”<\/p>\n

Douglas and Skaggs had been part of a bluegrass group called Boone Creek, whose One Way Track album was Sugar Hill\u2019s first release in 1978. In a May 18 Facebook post, Douglas wrote of Poss: \u201cHis 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Douglas, who also produced a number of recordings for Sugar Hill Records, noted that he and Poss were \u201cvery 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.\u201d Poss was also godfather to Douglas\u2019 daughter Nola. \u201cBarry loved my family, and Jill and I, along with our children, will forever press his memory closer to our hearts.\u201d<\/p>\n

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).<\/p>\n

\u201cBarry 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,\u201d Ken White, IBMA\u2019s executive director, said in a statement. \u201cFor that and so much more, we will always be grateful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Poss was a recipient of the IBMA\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Barry Poss, co-founder and longtime owner of Sugar Hill Records \u2013- an influential independent label whose roster included numerous notable bluegrass, Americana, old-time and roots music artists \u2013- died on May 13, 2025. He was 79 and had been battling cancer for 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