My Music Row Story: Sony Music Nashville’s Taylor Lindsey
The “My Music Row Story” weekly column features notable members of the Nashville music industry selected by the MusicRow editorial team. These individuals serve in key roles that help advance and promote the success of our industry. This column spotlights the invaluable people that keep the wheels rolling and the music playing.
Taylor Lindsey is the SVP, A&R at Sony Music Nashville, where she oversees the label’s dynamic new A&R team as well as signs and develops a diverse roster that includes recorded music icons, breakthrough acts and newcomers.
Prior to taking on her current expanded role, Lindsey was directly involved with the development of artists such as Old Dominion, Luke Combs, Maren Morris, Ryan Hurd and Mitchell Tenpenny, among others. Before joining Sony Music Nashville, she was at BMG where she signed and developed the careers of songwriters and artists as well as pitched the catalogs of 13 chart-topping songwriters, including her award-winning sister, Hillary Lindsey.
A respected industry executive, Lindsey has been included in a number of industry power lists including Billboard’s 40 Under 40 (2018), Billboard’s Women In Music (2018, 2019, 2023), Billboard’s Country Power Players (2022, 2023), Variety’s Hitmakers Impact (2020), Variety’s Young Leaders In Music (2019) and more. She is also a graduate of the Leadership Music Class of 2019. She currently resides in Nashville with her husband, Grammy-nominated songwriter Derrick Southerland, and their daughter, Lyle, and son, Ryder.
Lindsey will be honored as part of the current class of MusicRow’s Rising Women on the Row on March 19. For more details about the class and the event, click here.
MusicRow: Where did you grow up?
I grew up in a small town called Washington, Georgia, which is about 45 minutes east of Athens and 45 minutes west of Augusta.
What did you like to do as a kid?
Washington is really small town, so there really wasn’t very much to do. I was in the church choir growing up and I cheered. But even though it was small, it was a great upbringing. We didn’t lock our doors at night. We didn’t lock our cars. We walked to the local pharmacy to get snacks after school and just signed a little sheet of paper instead of paying, because it just went on our parents’ credit. I don’t think I learned how to pump gas until I was a freshman in college because all of the gas stations were full service. It was just a really sweet, idealistic way to grow up, and I really appreciate it now that I’m older.
Were you musical?
I wouldn’t consider myself that musical, but music was always a part of my DNA and my childhood. My parents used to throw dinner parties with all of their friends quite often, and some of my earliest memories are of dancing in the kitchen to Motown with them and their friends as a little girl. I don’t have a ton of core memories where music isn’t a part of them; my dad dashboard drumming to the latest country song while driving me to school in the morning or my mom humming along to a Carly Simon or Bonnie Raitt song, watching my sisters both sing in talent shows (and win most of them)—music was just always a constant in our household.
Where did you go to college?
I went to the University of Georgia. I met my husband [Grammy-nominated songwriter Derrick Southerland] there when we were in school. We were both in the music business program there. It was Bruce Burch who stopped me on campus one day and convinced me to join the program. I needed an elective class and thought it’d be easy to study organic chemistry in the back of the class, but I was wrong.. and I really fell in love with the prospect of working in music then.
I take it you liked the music business classes.
Yeah, I did. [Laughs] Fun fact—though my dad doesn’t think it’s so fun—I didn’t graduate. I have one three-hour class requirement to actually graduate. Essentially, in my junior year, I really realized this was something that I could do. Because my sister Hillary [Lindsey] was already here, I had already been meeting so many people. So I started pitching her songs first.
One summer [before I moved to Nashville full time] I came here and I had my very first pitch meeting as a song plugger with Renee Bell, who used to be the head of A&R at Sony. I sat on her little white couch and played her some of Hillary’s songs.
What happened when you moved here full-time?
Hillary was independent at the time and she had a little company called Raylene Music. I moved to Nashville and became her full-time everything. I was pitching songs and booking co-writes, but because she didn’t have any kind of a big company behind her, I was also helping negotiate soundtrack fees for songs she had written for movies and all sorts of things. I really cut my teeth by trial and error, just having to figure it out by leaning on her and the people that I met along the way, and Hill and I had so much fun back then doing it together.
After about a year of that, BMG acquired Hillary’s catalog and hired me as a song plugger. When I was at BMG, I had 13 artist-writers, including Hillary.
Tell me about moving over to Sony Music Nashville.
In 2013, Jim Catino called me and said there was an open A&R job at Sony and someone that he really respected and loved—Jesse Frasure—brought my name up. Jim said that he thought about it and that he didn’t have anybody else in mind for the job.
He said, “Think about it. Pray about it. Talk to Derrick about it. If you want it, call me on Monday and you can have it.” The ironic thing is that Derrick had just been offered a publishing deal with Still Working Music, who had a joint venture with BMG, so I was about to have the opportunity to work with him when this opportunity came up.
After a lot of consideration, I took the job. I never thought I would fall in love with A&R or the label system. It was never on my radar or a goal of mine from a career standpoint. But it was a two-year contract and I just thought I could do anything for two years, and if I hated it, I would just tough it out and be a better publisher in the long run. I obviously fell in love with it.
What are some of the first projects you worked on in A&R at Sony?
I would say the first pillar of establishing myself as an A&R person was signing Maren Morris in 2015. She had already released some songs on Spotify, and she and Janet Weir were creating their own little nucleus of independent artistry, but her partnering with Sony and really being a part of that was pretty incredible.
Were there any learning curves transitioning from being a publisher to a label exec?
The label system is a lot different than the publishing system. What publishing gave me was an understanding of the impact of the creative—and the art—and how you always have to have the creative right; how the music should always come first, but what I had to learn was really the scope and detail of what it takes to market a song or an artist—the promotional aspect of that down to the A&R admin side and the release-planning side. How a million chips have to fall into place to get a song from when I hear it as a work tape to the release and what it takes to make it successful.
What would you say is the most fulfilling part of your job now?
My role has evolved so much over the years, going from a pure A&R person to now, a department head and having an A&R team around me. On the one hand, I’m not in the weeds as much as I used to be on the true creative. I don’t have as many artists that I am properly point on for A&R because my responsibilities are so much wider and dedicated to the label system as a whole, but there is something really special about hearing a demo or a work tape from the publishing community and going, “Man, I’ve got to play that for so and so.” Those creative wins are still really important to me.
On the other side of that coin, it’s fulfilling to sit in a room with this A&R team every day, hear their ideas, see what they’re signing and be a part of that. I help where I can, but I really attribute so much of our recent success as an A&R team and label to them.
What would your younger self think about you now?
My younger self would be really proud of the fact that I’ve made it this far in my career by being honest, trying to hold integrity and not forgetting that everyone around me is a human just like I am. I try to actually look people in the eye everyday and just be real and thoughtful.
With Derrick being a successful songwriter and also being in the business—we can both get caught up in how crazy the business is. We try so hard to stay grounded for our two kids. That’s something I’m really proud of.
Who have been some of your mentors?
Jim Catino. What I didn’t know about what a major label system was how to navigate the political side of it. Jim always did such an amazing job of navigating that. He taught me so much even if he wasn’t trying to.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever gotten?
That’s a great question. Someone once told me, “If you were given a seat at the table, you’re meant to be there.” I feel like a lot of times, especially when you’re starting out in your career, you sit in rooms and sometimes you’re scared to speak up. You could have the best idea, but you don’t know if it’s appropriate or you don’t want to step on other people’s toes, so you never say it even though you should.
You will be honored at next week’s Rising Women on the Row ceremony. What would you tell a young woman who wants to be where you are one day?
To be real. Don’t forget where you came from. Try not to sell out. You don’t have to kiss ass to get to the next phase in your career. It’s cliche, but if you want something, just go after it and be okay with pivoting if you have to. Don’t beat yourself up over it, show yourself grace instead. You’ll end up exactly where you’re supposed to.
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