Billy Blue Records
Builds Successful Bluegrass Label
“If you build it, they will come.” That signature line from the 1989 sports fantasy film, Field of Dreams is part of the core philosophy behind Billy Blue Records, one of the most successful record labels in bluegrass music. Based just outside of Nashville, the company boasts a successful roster of artists including Appalachian Road Show, Doyle Lawson, Joe Mullins and the Radio Ramblers, Donna Ulisse & the Poor Mountain Boys, Kristy Cox, Alan Bibey & Grasstowne, Authentic Unlimited, Carolina Blue, Darin and Brooke Aldridge, The Tennessee Bluegrass Band, Jason Barie, Marty Raybon. It’s the brainchild of Jerry Salley, Creative and A & R Director for Billy Blue and Billy Jam Records.
“I know this sounds really cliché, but to me, it’s literally about great songs and great artists,” Salley tells Bluegrass Unlimited while on break from a songwriting session at the BBR label.
“I kind of built a label the same way I produce a record. I believe in the ‘if you build it, they will come’ philosophy. If you have great music and it’s undeniable, then you’ve got to get it out there and once people hear it, they’ll gravitate to it. That’s how I’ve always approached it, and so far, that’s how it’s worked for us.”
With more than 40 years of experience in the music business, Salley has excelled in each role he has undertaken as a singer, songwriter and producer. Billboard magazine referred to him as “one of Music Row’s greatest veteran tunesmiths.” Nominated to the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2019, he was the 2018 and 2019 IBMA “Songwriter of the Year’ as well as the 2003 SESAC Country Music “Songwriter of the Year.” Impressively, over 500 of his songs have been recorded, selling in excess of 18 million records worldwide. He has written multiple hits in bluegrass, country and gospel music. He co-wrote three songs on The SteelDrivers Grammy-award winning album, The Muscle Shoals Recordings (“A Long Way Down”, “The River Runs Red”, “6 Feet Away”), and a song on the Del McCoury Band Grammy winning album The Streets of Baltimore (“The Butler Brothers”). Other bluegrass groups who have recorded Salley’s songs include The Osborne Brothers, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, Rhonda Vincent, Lonesome River Band, Balsam Range, Seldom Scene, Flatt Lonesome, IIIrd Tyme Out, Larry Stephenson, Donna Ulisse, Darin & Brooke Aldridge, Dale Ann Bradley, The Isaacs and many others. Salley is a multiple IBMA “Song of the Year” nominee, and his song “All Dressed Up,” recorded by Joe Mullins and The Radio Ramblers, won the IBMA “Gospel Recorded Song Of The Year” award in 2016. In 2022 Salley was recognized for a Dove Award for Bluegrass/Country/Roots Songs of the Year for “In the Sweet By and By” by Dolly Parton with Larry Cordle, Carl Jackson, Jerry Salley, and Bradley Walker. Salley produced the song and the album, Country Faith Bluegrass, which earned Parton IBMA’s 2022 “Gospel Recording of the Year” and “Collaborative Recording of the Year” (with Cordle, Jackson, Salley and Walker). In the past Salley received a Grammy nod for producing the multi-artist project, Gonna Sing, Gonna Shout.
This is just a partial list from Salley’s impressive music resume. Obviously, he had the credentials in the music industry, but could he take that knowledge and experience and become an efficacious entrepreneur?
Getting Started
“Sometimes I question what I was thinking,” Salley says with a laugh, reflecting on BBR’s start. He had been producing records for artists like Kristy Cox, Darin and Brooke Aldridge, and the first project for Balsam Range when he began mulling over donning a music business hat too.
“Every once in a while one of the artists would say man, we wish you had your own label. I was wearing so many different hats at the time, I thought, ‘I don’t have time to do that.’” But he examined the recording industry and decided more competition could benefit everyone.
“What’s the old saying? Rising tides lift all boats. I feel like that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to build a label that is receptive to every need of our artists, creating a competitive environment that challenges our industry to pursue excellence.”
When Salley first came to Music City, most of the people who ran the country music labels were creative types, but that had changed to a more business-oriented environment. “One of the reasons I wanted to start Billy Blue was because I thought it might be a good thing to have someone who knows songs and knows how to make records. I felt like my experience as a musician/songwriter/producer, and the fact that I’ve been an artist myself that I knew the needs, wants, and the tools that that the artists really needed from their labels to be successful.”
Salley also had experience on the business side, but he wanted a hand from another successful business guru. He turned to his longtime friend and industry veteran Ed Leonard, President of Daywind Music Group, an award-winning Southern Gospel record company, that is now over the BBR imprint. “What I love about bluegrass is just the immense talent of each individual that’s in every band,” Leonard says. “It is something to behold. You don’t get that in other music styles. They may be talented singers, but they’re not necessarily talented musicians. In bluegrass you usually get both.”
Leonard had known Salley as a songwriter with Daywind Publishing and understood what Salley could bring to the table. “He just has a passion for these artists and for the songs and doing the music right,” Leonard adds. “He’s a perfectionist. I think that goes across his life. With his songwriting, he’s a craftsman. He spends a long time with his songs, and you see the results of that when you hear songs that he does as opposed to songs maybe of others. He knew what his strengths were which is identifying talent, producing talent, writing songs, and he knew he could plug into our team and we would be able to handle the rest of it under his guidance of course. He tells us how to service radio, tells us how to do publicity. He’s very involved. Under his guidance we’ve learned how to market bluegrass music.”
“Daywind had every tool that I needed to be successful as a record label,” Salley says. “They had one of the greatest distributions channels in the world with their gospel side of things … marketing team, radio team, great first class studios and engineers. They’re really the entire music industry in a microcosm on this campus.”
Building the Label
Billy Blue Records launched in June of 2018 with the initial vision of signing three or four great acts. “As luck would have it—I call it a God thing really—Barry Abernathy and Darrell Webb and Jim Van Cleve were putting together a brand new band called Appalachian Road Show,” Salley recalls. “They were the first ones we signed. They just happened to be going into the studio in May of 2018.”
“Jerry Salley has been a big name in the bluegrass world since I started in the business 30 years ago,” says Barry Abernathy of Appalachian Road Show. “I remember hearing and recording his songs when I was with Doyle Lawson back in the 90’s. He has always been a “first call” guy when an artist is looking for great material. When we heard that Jerry and Ed Leonard were launching a new label specifically for bluegrass music, we called them immediately. Jerry is so connected to the bluegrass community that it was an easy choice for us as a band to choose Billy Blue Records as our label to help carry us onward and upward on our new journey together!”
Several more acts have been added to the roster over the last four years. “I can’t tell you what a wonderful family of record people are over there,” singer/songwriter Donna Ulisse says. “They are very supportive. They really care for their artists. When I go there to write a song, their writing rooms are beautiful, their studio is incredible, their waiting room feels like Atlantic Records. It just feels right. I’m happy there.”
BBR label mate Kristy Cox had known Salley both professionally and personally. “I had recorded six albums with Jerry as a producer. Jerry’s not only a producer to me, he’s one of my best friends. He is like family to me. He’s my son’s godfather. It felt like a natural progression to work with him on a label front and not just on a producer front. They’re [BBR team] just an amazing group of people to work with. I definitely lucked out.”
While the label wants to continue to grow big with BBR’s impact on the music, they still want to keep things small. Salley explains, “We don’t want to become a label that has so many artists that we are unable to give everyone the proper tools, time and money needed for each project. We are a relatively small staff, and I would rather have a very select group of artists that we can properly service, and provide the ‘juice’ required to promote and market their worthy music. Bigger is not necessarily always better.
“We’re like a family. We want the greatest talent we can find that are also people who would fit into our family of artists. We want to work with good people. If we get too big, we won’t be able to help anybody. We’re still open to maybe an act or two, and a few special projects like the Country Faith Bluegrass album, but we’ve pretty much built our label. Now, we need to take the artists that we have and just continue to make great music and let it grow from there. My goal is to continue to work what we’ve got and continue to find great songs.”
