Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum will host an in-depth interview with the honoree on Aug. 7.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – June 26, 2024 – The Country Music Hall of Fame® and Museum will honor music industry executive Sally Williams at its 16th annual Louise Scruggs Memorial Forum on Wednesday, Aug. 7, at 6:30 p.m. in the museum’s Ford Theater. Williams will discuss more than 30 years in music and entertainment, many spent working with the industry’s biggest names. 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 Angela Stefano Zimmer.

Sally Williams is president of Nashville music and business strategy for Live Nation Entertainment and co-manager of the Grammy-winning band Old Crow Medicine Show. She began promoting concerts while attending the University of Missouri-Columbia. Prior to joining Live Nation, she spent nearly 20 years with Ryman Hospitality Properties/Gaylord Entertainment. After becoming general manager of the Ryman Auditorium in 2008, she became 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.

Williams has received numerous awards from the Academy of Country Music, the International Entertainment Buyers Association and Pollstar magazine. In 2015, she was inducted into the SOURCE Hall of Fame, and in 2019 the T. J. Martell Foundation honored her with the Frances Preston Outstanding Music Industry Achievement Award. In recent years she has been on Nashville Business Journal’s Power 100 list, both as an industry giant and a trendsetter. She is active in numerous business, civic and charitable organizations and the former chair of the Country Music Association Board of Directors, president of Leadership Music and president of the Opry Trust Fund.

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 and Kay West.

Additional information about the program can be found by visiting CountryMusicHallofFame.org.