Died On This Date (April 19, 2024) Bev Paul / Beloved Americana Music Titan
themusicsover Bev Paul
September 15, 1947 – April 19, 2024
As reported by Chris Willman in Variety, Bev Paul, the much respected general manager of roots label, Sugar Hill Records passed away on April 19, 2024 after battling lung cancer. She was 76 years old.
Paul’s leadership at Sugar Hill spanned decades, leaving an indelible mark on the Americana music movement. Through the 1990s and again in the 2000s, she guided the label to unprecedented success, garnering over a dozen Grammy Awards in bluegrass, country, and folk categories. Under her watch, artists like Nickel Creek, Dolly Parton, Scott Miller, Sam Bush, Guy Clark, and Tim O’Brien thrived, contributing to the label’s stellar reputation.
Commented Sugar Hill’s former owner Barry Poss who hired Paul in 1991, “When Bev Paul interviewed for the marketing director position at Sugar Hill Records, I said ‘hello,’ and she promptly proceeded to lay out in explicit detail why I needed to hire her,” Poss recalls. “I didn’t ask a single question and, as with many things about Bev, it was a no-fuss, no-muss display and right on target. She learned the business, worked her way up to general manager, and we all flourished together, in no small measure due to the reasons she laid out in the original interview.”
Beyond her role at Sugar Hill, Paul was a driving force throughout the music community. She served on the board of the International Bluegrass Association and played a pivotal role in establishing the Americana Music Association. In recognition of her outstanding contributions, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum honored her in 2020 at the prestigious Louise Scruggs Memorial Forum.
Paul’s journey began in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, but her heart found its home in the South during a formative trip to Durham, North Carolina, with her father. She atteded Duke University, immersing herself in the local music scene. From a campus coffeehouse to the Gaslight Cafe in Fayetteville, Paul’s love for music blossomed. Her career flourished at WQDR radio station and the influential music retailer, Record Bar, where she nurtured rising stars like the Judds and Alan Jackson.
Greg Trooper was a singer-songwriter who, besides building up a hefty library of his own releases, had songs recorded by Vince Gill, Steve Earle, Maura O’Connell, Robert Earle Keen, and Billy Bragg, among others. Born in Neptune, New Jersey, Trooper spent much of his teenage years frequenting folk venues of Greenwich Village. It served him well. After a detour to Kansas for college, he settled in New York City where he spent more than a decade playing clubs, pitching his songs, and recording his first couple of albums. By the mid ’90s, Trooper was living in Nashville where he released several more albums, working with producers like Buddy Miller and Garry Tallent of the E Street Band. Throughout his career, he released more than a dozen albums – the studio albums at least, to critical acclaim. During the summer of 2015, Greg Trooper was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which took his life on January 15, 2017. He was 61.
