Stacy Harris (Multimedia Journalist, Stage and Screen Actress)
Dubbed “The Doyenne of Music Row,” (by Nashville Banner reporter Bruce Honick), in recognition of her unmatched half-century+ career documenting Nashville’s country-music industry, Stacy Harris is an internationally-known hyphenate; i.e. published author, broadcast journalist, music historian, ghostwriter, music industry and popular culture analyst, celebrity journalist, ethnomusicologist, academician, technical writer, stage and screen actress, axiologist and/or, put concisely, polymath.
The publisher/executive editor of “Stacy’s Music Row Report,” the Nashville Business Journal recognized Stacy for pioneering Music Row coverage on the Internet (in its April 17-21, 1995 edition).
A Minnesota native, who began her print and broadcast journalism career while a student at suburban Minneapolis’ St. Louis Park High School, Stacy worked summers at local country and talk radio stations and as a columnist for the Upper Midwest Country & Western News-Scene.
The summer prior to her high school graduation, Stacy Harris enrolled in college prep courses at Emporia, Kansas’ College of Emporia, earning college credit prior to enrolling at the University of Maryland. Stacy's acceptance into the program was bolstered by her previous achievements that included her role as a community activist (Stacy's advocacy for open housing was recognized in an article written by Rosalie Kiperstin and published in the St. Louis Park Dispatch), volunteer (A toddler who accompanied her mother canvassing for the March of Dimes, Stacy grew to become a Head Start volunteer during her adolescence). A Veterans of Foreign Wars "Voice of Democracy" essay contest winner, Stacy Harris' local VFW also recognized Stacy with its "Outstanding Teenager" award.
A broadcasting major, Stacy graduated from UMD six months early, having fulfilled the requirements of a college diploma, thanks not only to her College of Emporia coursework but Stacy's spending the summer between her junior and senior years of college studying sociology (subsequently her UMD minor) at Nashville’s Vanderbilt University and availing herself of an opportunity to join other future Music Row leaders as a participant in NARAS-sponsored seminars and workshops designed precisely for that purpose.
A lifelong love of politics brought Stacy to the University of Maryland’s College Park campus, just 10 miles from Washington, D.C., and resulted in plans to pursue a career in government; plans bolstered by a recommendation from one of her professors, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, for a White House internship. (Having begun her broadcasting career working "off-the-books" at Minneapolis' talk [WLOL] and country-music [KTCR-FM] radio stations during her teenage years, Stacy's first big "get" was her University of Maryland poetry professor Eugene McCarthy, whom she awakened and coaxed out of his Leamington Hotel room for an impromptu interview she conducted with the senator and 1968 presidential candidate in the Leamington's KTCR-FM radio studio some floors below.)
However, the promise of a job opportunity at Nashville’s WSM Radio, the home of the Grand Ole Opry, led to a change in career plans and relocation; a move that increasingly made sense to Stacy as she learned that there was enough politics in the music business to keep her intrigued.
While Stacy's dream of full-time employment at WSM never materialized- her time there was sporadically spent working “off the books” answering phones on Ralph Emery’s (and later Hairl Hensley’s) “Opry Star Spotlight” overnight shift- other doors opened. The host of Nashville’s NPR affiliate WPLN’s “Pointe Three” [sic] program, Stacy branched out to syndicated radio opportunities with the NASCAR Radio Network and MJI Broadcasting before creating a position for herself as a Nashville-based ABC Radio News contributor. (She created a similar position for herself as a Newsweek stringer.)
(Parenthetically, as it is less known, and perhaps overlooked in the wake of Stacy Harris' status as a (1991) Country Radio Hall Fame nominee, In December 1997, having received a coveted invitation to Margaret Ann Warner's annual Holiday Party, Stacy introduced her "plus one," Beau Hunter to Warner and the publicist's A-list guests, creating added awareness for Radio Free Nashville
(Drawing on her extensive radio background, Stacy assisted Hunter in the resurrection of Radio Free Nashville by assuming the informal role of consultant and Board member.)
Stacy also branched out into television, as a scriptwriter for The Nashville Network’s “I-40 Paradise” series, becoming a TNN entertainment news contributor and eventually landing a listing in the prestigious online Internet Movie Database (IMDB), courtesy of Stacy's roles in front of, and behind the camera, be they in movies, television or commercials.
Stacy Harris' many “firsts” include constructing a series of country-music-themed crossword puzzles for Inside Country Music magazine and writing the first published country-music books for children.
Simultaneously published by Lerner Publications, Comedians of Country Music and The Carter Family: Country Music’s First Family led to London’s Carleton Books commissioning Stacy to write The Best of Country: The Essential CD Guide (simultaneously published in the United States by HarperCollins’ Collins Books imprint) which resulted in the updated Classic Country. She also contributed entries to the Tennessee Historical Society’s Tennessee Encyclopedia of History & Culture.
Stacy Harris' contributions have acknowledged in books written by Kitty Kelley, Taylor Hagood, Alanna Nash, Robert Oermann, Jean Roseman, John S. Dunne, Diane Diekman, Carl Perkins with David McGee, co-authors Lol Henderson and Lee Stacey, Roberta T. Herrin, George Ella Lyon and Sheila Quinn Oliver, B. Lee Cooper and Rebecca Condon, Eileen Sisk, Ivan Tribe, Steve Eng, Mary Hurd, Tom C. Armstrong, Barbara Pruett, Stephen Miller, Dave DiMartino, Anne Fletcher, Staff Sgt. Barry (“Ballad of the Green Beret”) Sadler, Warren B. Causey, Marc Leepson, Mary Hance, Rick Marschall, Carol Fradkin, Mark K. Baumann, Michael Freemark, Peter La Chapelle, Frank Young, Wesley Hyatt, Paul Maher, Jr., Wesley Hyatt and by Adam Compton in the Texas State Historical Association’s The Handbook of Texas Online.
Ryan Carlson Bernard cited Stacy's work in the footnotes of The Rise and Fall of the Hillbilly Music Genre: A History, 1922-1939, a thesis presented to East Tennessee State University’s Department of Liberal Studies “in partial fulfillment of the requirements” for obtaining an ETSU Master’s Degree in Liberal Studies.
Music scholars have praised Stacy Harris' role as a music historian and academician: Notably, Kosher Country: Success and Survival on Nashville’s Music Row, published by Southern Jewish Historical Society (and excerpted in Country Music People) has been recognized by Stanford Graduate School of Education’s Berman Jewish Policy Archive, the American Jewish Archives Journal (Vol. LXI 2007, Numbers 1 & 2), academia.com and Missouri State University’s Department of English Researcher Mara W. Cohen loannides [sic].
A past president of the Nashville (later National) Entertainment Journalists Association (NEJA), Stacy's other professional membership include/have included American Women in Radio and Television (AWRT), The Country Music Association (CMA), the Academy of Country Music (ACM), the National Press Club, the Society of Professional Journalists (SPJ), the National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences (NATAS), the Creative Community for Peace and MENSA.
