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The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum will honor Alison Brown at its 17th annual Louise Scruggs Memorial Forum on Wednesday, Aug. 13, at 6:30 p.m. in the museum’s Ford Theater. Brown will discuss more than 35 years as a musician, producer, songwriter and record label executive. This annual forum, which began in 2007, recognizes music industry leaders who continue the legacy of trailblazer Louise Scruggs, a formidable businesswoman who set new professional standards in artist management. The discussion will be led by Museum Writer-Editor Allison Moorer.
Born in Hartford, Connecticut, Brown began playing banjo as a teenager while growing up in Southern California. She attended Harvard University, where she studied history and literature; earned an MBA from UCLA; and worked in investment banking until she realized she missed making music. After an offer from Alison Krauss to play banjo in her band, Union Station, Brown gave up her corporate career to play music full time. She released her Grammy-nominated debut album, Simple Pleasures, in 1990 and became the first woman to win the International Bluegrass Music Association’s Banjo Player of the Year award in 1991.
Known for her innovative blend of diverse musical styles, Brown has recorded twelve solo albums and has produced works for Claire Lynch, Bobby Osborne and Peter Rowan, among others. Brown won a Grammy for Best Country Instrumental Performance in 2001 — for “Leaving Cottondale,” a collaboration with Béla Fleck from her album Fairweather — and was inducted into the American Banjo Hall of Fame in 2019. In 1995, Brown co-founded the internationally recognized label Compass Records with her husband, Garry West. Over the last 30 years, the label has amassed a catalog of more than 1,000 releases across multiple imprints.
The program is free and open to the public and tickets can be reserved here.
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, Kay West and Sally Williams.
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