Americana Rising: Jed Hilly Grows Organization’s Roots

Jed Hilly

Surrounded by memorabilia from some of the world’s most revered artists—ranging from Johnny Cash’s Spirit of Americana Free Speech Award to a photograph of Levon Helm’s Ramble at the Ryman—Jed Hilly sits in his office and ponders his role as executive director of the Americana Music Association. “My job is to help artists protect their inspiration, and that’s way over my head,” he muses humbly. “It’s the most exciting, thrilling job I could have ever dreamed of having. From day one I felt like, yes, it’s a trade association, but I work for the artists and my job has an educational function. The first thing was to sell more records, but also to embrace what it was as a genre and as a community of music loving fans.”

It may be a tall order, but Hilly has made leaps and bounds to boost Americana music’s profile since taking the reins of the organization in 2007. Membership is at an all-time high of 1800-plus, up from a 2008-09 slump of about 800. The organization’s flagship event, the Americana Music Festival and Conference, has grown from 56 acts on the official showcase lineup to 140 for the upcoming festival, running Sept. 18-22.

Hilly’s enthusiasm for the music he promotes is apparent as he holds the trophy Cash forgot to pick up at the association’s first awards show in 2002. Cash and wife June Carter Cash gave a surprise performance at the event at the Hilton ballroom, where the 200 people assembled didn’t know at the time they were witnessing the couple’s last public performance.

Now in its twelfth year, the Americana Honors and Awards has upgraded to the Ryman Auditorium. It is the centerpiece of the Festival and Conference, where offering quality performances is Hilly’s top priority. “Our event is to the music business what Sundance is to the film business,” he suggests. “What makes our festival different than other music festivals is that we curate the event. I think it’s important, because the moment you don’t, you lose control and money becomes the deciding factor as to whether or not an artist can perform.” He acknowledges that the downside to approving all performance slots often means sacrificing sponsorship dollars. But the association allows occasional exceptions, including partnering with the BBC for a co-curated showcase at the upcoming event.

The festival and conference operates on a shoestring budget, paying $150 across-the-board to showcase artists, regardless of stature. Operating modestly is possible thanks to artists and volunteers who are equally passionate. “A lot of the artists tell us it’s their favorite night of the year and they are busting their ass to make it happen,” says Hilly. “Buddy Miller [the awards show’s annual band leader] is working for two months putting this thing together.” Miller and awards show host Jim Lauderdale are among the few artists who participate every year, because when Hilly took over, one of his first orders of business was nixing artist performances in consecutive years. He also focused on attracting consumers by adding the word festival. “I realized we couldn’t build on an industry that’s crumbling, so we opened the doors to fans, added more showcases.”

Hilly has worked hard to brand the word and the genre Americana. “I consider Americana to be the umbrella that country, blues and bluegrass sit under. One of the raps surrounding Americana when I took the job in 2007 was ‘it’s country music that doesn’t sell.’ But I never heard that in the music, and never thought of this genre as country or even alt country.”

Two missions he successfully pursued were set in motion by his father, who pointed out that the word Americana wasn’t in the dictionary, and questioned whether or not the stalwarts the organization boosted would return the favor.

So Hilly tracked down Levon Helm, the iconic member of The Band, and went to his home in Woodstock, New York for one of his Midnight Ramble sessions. Hilly convinced the singer to bring the show to Nashville. “In 2007, he hadn’t left New York in over a decade,” Hilly recalls. “Our accountant said we could only survive three more months, so I asked Levon to do a Ramble at the Ryman [to raise money] and we shook hands in his kitchen. I consulted all the Nashville venue owners about bringing him down here for a concert—I was scared to death because I didn’t have a dime—and they all said we were going to lose our shirt. But the show was an enormous success and took us out of debt. It totally changed the course of the organization. We embraced Levon and he embraced us.” The respect fellow musicians had for Helm gave the Americana Music Association a newfound credibility, helping attract bigger artists including Lyle Lovett to that year’s festival.

Eventually, the work of Helm and Hilly came full circle with two Grammy wins. Hilly helped persuade the Recording Academy to add the Grammy category Best Americana Album, and later Best American Roots Song, both of which fall under the American Roots Music field. Helm’s Electric Dirt won the Best Americana Album award in 2010, the first year it was presented, and the live recording of his second annual Ramble at the Ryman won the trophy in 2012. That second happening included guests Buddy Miller, John Hiatt, Sheryl Crow, Sam Bush and Billy Bob Thornton, and was broadcast on PBS thanks to video gurus Danny Petraitis and Martin Fisher.

Since then, the television deals have kept coming. Eventually the Honors and Awards landed on PBS’s Austin City Limits, and last year the show was picked up by AXS. In 2011, the word Americana was added to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary.

Planting Roots

The organization, which Hilly proudly notes is “in the black for the first time,” recently moved to new office space at the Factory at Franklin. With five employees it had outgrown its digs in Nashville’s Berry Hill neighborhood. Though he initially grappled with leaving Music City, he is excited about building a “roots world headquarters” in Franklin, along with Sugar Hill Records, which also recently moved to the former manufacturing plant.

Hilly, who studied political science and history in college, is inspired by the story of the Franklin area’s early settlement, where he says European immigrants, American Indians and African slaves came together and played music. According to Hilly, it is where the banjo met the fiddle, and therefore a prime location to plant Americana’s roots.

Though Hilly doesn’t mind a little geographical separation from the country music capital that is Nashville, he’s equally keen on dissolving musical borders. To that end the Americana Music Association is developing the Cross County Lines Festival, which will be held in Franklin at a future date. “It will be a one-day community event, a celebration of the music and culture of this incredible region,” says Hilly. In June, Jerry Douglas and Alison Krauss teamed for a concert to raise seed money for the festival.

Hilly is also working with philanthropist Aubrey Preston (who started the Tennessee Trails & Byways driving tour) on the Americana Music Triangle, a tourism and history initiative. The series of driving tours will highlight places where music history was made. For two years Hilly and Preston have been visiting famous and off-the-grid sites ranging from the Louisiana home and memorabilia shop of Jerry Lee Lewis’ sister, to FAME Studios in Muscle Shoals, to the birthplaces of Aretha Franklin and Elvis Presley.

Hilly Leaves New York For Nashville

The fiddle and banjo also collided as part of Hilly’s upbringing in 1960s Vermont, having as much impact on his youth as one of his favorite albums, Neil Young’s Harvest. By his late 20s he was living in New York City pulling double duty as a band member and its manager, securing gigs at CBGB and the like. When the band ran its course, his management skills landed him his first music business job. Starting in 1991, his quick rise through the ranks came thanks to cunning moves such as leaving a valuable baseball card on the desk of an executive who was a huge St. Louis Cardinals fan.

“I had seven jobs at Sony over 12 years,” Hilly recalls of his early career. “In the beginning, one of the bosses asked what I wanted. Because he was Italian, I told him I wanted someone to fly me to Italy, so I could eat well. He said, ‘good luck with that.’ Five years later I got a job as VP of International Marketing and took a flight to Milan and someone picked me up and took me to dinner. My Sony education was like graduate school. I worked from below the mailroom through distribution, label marketing, international marketing, IT development, Sony electronics and Sony film. I got to experience so many different aspects of the company. My last job there was part of a new division called the Digital Asset Management Group; our tag was ‘the Napster response team.’ I remember holding up a pack of cigarettes in the conference room and saying ‘if it doesn’t fit in this box, [consumers] don’t care.’ I almost got fired.” His tenure at Sony included overseeing regional distribution, working on Michael Jackson’s team of point people, and overseeing product for major rock act Creed.

Like many New Yorkers, the 9/11 terrorist attacks changed Hilly’s course, leading him to Nashville. “I was in London when the buildings went down,” he remembers. “And when I got home, it was too much. I had three children and I was living in Greenwich Village. I thought I had it all, and I kind of did. I had a great building and apartment with a garage. I would drive to dinner—nobody does that. After 9/11 I looked at Tennessee and decided to give it a shot. My kids’ mom is from here. Donna Hilley (no relation and former head of Sony/ATV publishing) hired me as a consultant after I moved. Her boss was Paul Russell, and he brought me and Donna together.” This wasn’t the first or last time the relationships Hilly established during his Sony years paid off.

In 2004, his experience and connections in international marketing landed him a job with publisher Barbara Orbison, who oversaw the work of her late husband and global icon, Roy Orbison. With years of experience to his credit, Hilly realized he still had room for growth. “Working with Barbara really got my engine going after working in the corporate Sony world,” says Hilly. “Her marketing ideas were a breath of fresh air. I remember her saying ‘we are not marketing Roy, we are just reminding them.’ From her, I learned about respect in music and respecting the players.”

Hilly’s wide spectrum of past roles contribute significantly to the success of his current post as worldwide purveyor of Americana. But of all the knowledge gained along the way, he says the most valuable is the importance of “relationships and respect—that you earn and that you learn.”