Sally Williams has spent more than thirty years in music and entertainment. In this program, recorded on August 7, 2024, and moderated by the Museum’s Angela Stefano Zimmer, Williams discusses her journey from promoting concerts while attending the University of Missouri–Columbia to her current position as president of Nashville music and business strategy for Live Nation Entertainment.

After working for multiple booking agencies and concert promotion companies, Williams joined Gaylord Entertainment in 1999. She managed and produced concerts and other events at Gaylord venues until 2007, then—following a brief stint at the Country Music Association—became general manager of the Ryman Auditorium in 2008. Williams was named the Opry Entertainment Group’s senior vice president of programming and artist relations, as well as the first woman general manager of the Grand Ole Opry, in 2017. She took her current role at Live Nation in 2019, the same year she began managing the band Old Crow Medicine Show in partnership with Red Light Management.

Williams is an Academy of Country Music award winner (including the 2015 Don Romeo Talent Buyer of the Year and 2010 Promoter of the Year awards), received the T. J. Martell Foundation’s Frances Preston Outstanding Music Industry Award in 2019, and was named one of ten trendsetters on the 2023 “Nashville Business Journal” Power 100 list, among other honors. She currently serves on the board of directors for the Country Music Association, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce, the Nashville Downtown Partnership, Nashville Public Radio, and other boards.

Louise Scruggs (1927–2006) was married to Country Music Hall of Fame member and banjo great Earl Scruggs. In the mid-1950s, she began booking and managing Flatt & Scruggs and their band, the Foggy Mountain Boys. The first woman in country music to assume these roles, she astutely guided her husband’s career for half a century. The Louise Scruggs Memorial Forum was first presented in 2007; past honorees include Kay Clary, Lorianne Crook, Bebe Evans, Bonnie Garner, Dixie Hall, Cindy Mabe, Mary Martin, Bev Paul, Nancy Shapiro, Denise Stiff, Liz Thiels, Traci Thomas, Sarah Trahern, Marcie Allen Van Mol, Jo Walker-Meador, and Kay West.

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