Connie B. Gay

Connie Barriot Gay (August 22, 1914 – December 3, 1989) was an American music entrepreneur who is renowned as a "founding father" and "major force" in country music. He is credited with coining the country music genre, which had previously been called hillbilly music. Gay was the founding president of the Country Music Association (CMA) and co-founder of the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. The CMA established the Connie B. Gay Award to recognize outstanding service to the CMA by a member not serving on the board of directors.

Gay leveraged his musical insight into a profitable empire that extended his legacy into the modern era. He was responsible for discovering some of the talent that now resides in the Hall of Fame, and was himself inducted in 1980, for significant contributions as a music executive.

Early life

Gay was born in Lizard Lick, North Carolina, on August 22, 1914. His parents, John William Gay and Mary Etta Ferrell Gay, owned a 17-acre tobacco farm where Gay worked as he grew up. He was prepared to carry on the family operation after his parents retired, and most of his efforts were focused towards that end. He supplemented his income and farming knowledge through employment as a farm extension agent in Caswell County, North Carolina. However, instead of farming, Gay became "a major force in country music"; known as a "media magician" and a "leading entrepreneur of the 1950s".

Gay graduated from North Carolina State University in 1935, receiving a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Education. He then worked a variety of jobs including a soil surveyor, a proponent of the Rural Electrification program, even a stint as a carny, where he depended on making sales to succeed. and broadcast six days a week. Gay had the business sense to register his program's name as a trademark, an important factor in measuring his financial success. The endeavor was very successful, growing to a three-hour program that was syndicated across the United States and to some international markets on the Armed Forces Network. Connie Gay realized lucrative gains from brokering the program's syndication.

In 1954, Connie Gay began broadcasting a televised version of Town and Country Time on WMAL-TV in Washington, D.C., Gay had formed a company under his moniker called Town and Country Enterprises to manage his assets which had grown to include radio stations he then owned, and artists he promoted and managed. By year's end, Connie Gay had amicably severed all ties with WARL, giving his full attention to his own enterprise. He was a leading contender for Billboard's Tycoon of the Year award, with an estimated annual gross of $2 million.

Talent management and promotions Connie Gay was involved in promoting new talent through his broadcast medium, and booking acts to an array of live events. Several country artists that Gay managed, like Patsy Cline, Jimmy Dean, and Roy Clark, became inductees to the Country Music Hall of Fame. In March 1956, Gay booked a young, relatively unknown singer, who was described as a "devastating combination of Frankie Laine, Johnnie Ray, and Billy Daniels" in Dorothy Kilgallen's syndicated column. That night, when Elvis Presley performed for over three hours, has become "the stuff of local legend".

Executive positions In 1958, Connie Gay helped found the Country Music Association and served as its first president. Gay called for a meeting in his hotel room with Wesley Rose, Hubert Long, and Dee Kilpatrick, to discuss the defunct Country Music Disc Jockey Association. The meeting culminated with plans to create a new association that would cater to all aspects of country music, and the CMA was born. Gay also helped organize the Country Music Foundation, which operates the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum. In 1963, the CMA instituted the Connie B. Gay Award as an honor of high prestige. Gay funded the award with his personal assets and established a trust, in his will, to ensure perpetual viability beyond his lifetime. Now called the Founding President's Award, recipients include Roy Acuff, Johnny Cash, Martina McBride, and Brad Paisley.

Retirement Gay retired in 1972, selling his business assets and terminating his executive endeavors in country music. Gay's career total gross earnings are estimated to be $50 million. Connie Gay died from cancer on December 3, 1989, Gay was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1980. The induction states that he played "a seminal role in transforming what was still called "hillbilly" music into a modern entertainment industry in just one decade from his base in the Washington, D.C.–Virginia area". Connie Gay was inducted into the West Virginia Broadcasting Hall of Fame on September 16, 2006.

Legacy In 2002, The Washington Post published a story about Connie Gay, saying that he "may be the greatest country music visionary no one's ever heard of". The article outlined his innovations and credited him with several firsts. Gay was the first person to call the genre "country music", distancing himself from the growing pejorative associations of the "hillbilly" moniker

He was among the first to recognize country music's expanding audience, particularly in urban markets. He was the first to harness the commercial potential of country music, via radio and television broadcasting, in both local and national markets. He was first to broadcast a recurring country format program in a major metropolitan area (WARL in 1946), first to book a country performance into a high-class concert venue (Constitution Hall in 1947), and first to get a television network to broadcast country music programing (NBC in 1948).