Merle Haggard

Died On This Date (July 9, 2013) Jim Foglesong / Legendary Record Label Executive

themusicsover July 9, 2013 No Comments

Jim Foglesong
July 26, 1922 – July 9, 2013

Jim Foglesong was a longtime record company executive who, for the better part of 50 years, helped countless country music performers become household names.  A singer himself, Foglesong began singing in church before he turned four years old, and by the time he was in high school, he was singing on local radio stations throughout Charleston, West Virginia.  During WWII, Foglesong performed at USO shows while serving in the Army.  After his service ended, he enrolled in college where he studied music.  After graduating and moving to New York City, he found himself working as a session singer on recordings by the likes of Rosemary Clooney, Connie Francis, Neil Sedaka, and Dion & the Belmonts.  During the early ’50s, Foglesong worked at Columbia Records where he helped start Epic Records.  While there, he began producing records. He eventually moved to RCA where he produced records by the likes of Robert Goulet and Doris Day.  By the late ’70s, he was working in Nashville where the list of artists he went on to work with reads like an encyclopedia of country music.  During that time he also found himself running labels like Dot and MCA Records.  In 1984, he was named president of Capitol Records’ Nashville division where he signed Garth Brooks.   Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Conway Twitty, Reba McEntire, and George Strait are just a few of the country stars whose recording careers he helped guide. After retiring from the record business in the early ’90s, Foglesong went into education.  He served as the music business department head at Trevecca Nazarene College and taught a music business class at Vanderbilt University, both in Nashville.  In 2004, he was elected into the Country Music Hall of Fame.  Jim Foglesong was 90 when he passed away on July 9, 2013.