HOLLY DECKS THE HALL, HOOKS UP WITH THE 'HORNS

We’re extremely proud of our neobilly princess, Holly Gleason, who’s been recognized by a pair of august institutions in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and her alma mater, while also scoring a book deal. Big Machine Label Group’s John Zarling, Holly’s great friend and colleague, provides the details:

She memorialized Lilly Pulitzer in The Palm Beach Daily News, went on the road with Neil Young at 20 for Tower Pulse and was awarded the Nashville Songwriters International "I Wish I Wrote That Song" nod for "Better as a Memory." She’s written for Rolling Stone, Creem, Musician, Oxford American, the Los Angeles Times and New York Times and has been a fierce artist advocate since being the head of media and artist development for Sony Nashville in the early '90s.

Her continued pulse on music and culture was recently acknowledged with a nomination for Best Cultural Reporting for 2015’s “The Impossible Lightness of Being Taylor Swift” by the International Network of Street Papers. And just last week, Gleason’s impact was recognized by both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s CWRU Center for Pop Music Studies, which awarded her a Fellowship, and her alma matter, and the Laurel School in Cleveland, where the industry vet was named the 2016 Distinguished Alumna.

The back half of 2016 promises to be a busy one for the multitasker: She’s hard at work on two books for the University of Texas Press’ American Roots series. She’s been named Editor of Woman Walk the Line: Women Writers on the Country Female Artists Who Marked Their Lives and is authoring Even Cowgirls Get the Blues: Emmylou Harris as Gateway Drug to Hard Country for a Midwestern Rock & Roll Girl. For more on Gleason’s recent honor and a spotlight on her 30-plus year career, see a profile from this weekend’s Cleveland Plain Dealer here.