Randy Goodman was a wunderkind when Joe Galante hired him as a product manager, then made the go-getter head of marketing during RCA Nashville’s late-’80s period, paced by The Judds, Dolly Parton, Clint Black, Ronnie Milsap and Restless Heart. Galante took the smart, adaptable and driven Goodman—a Kentucky kid who’d played in bands with Americana icons Kim Richey and Bill Lloyd—along with him when he went to New York to run the entire company.
That pop experience served the bespectacled musico well when Disney charged him with starting Lyric Street, which Goodman ran throughout its existence, breaking Rascal Flatts, SHeDAISY and songwriter Sara Buxton. When the label shuttered, Goodman took a sabbatical, exploring management with Maverick’s Clarence Spalding before returning to his stomping grounds, now under the Sony Music Nashville umbrella, at Doug Morris’ behest. Arriving at the beleaguered label group, he focused on signing—and breaking—new artists, and imbuing his staff with a sense of “Yes, we can.”
Two years into the mission, Goodman has a fistful of breakout newcomers—Cam, Old Dominion, Kane Brown, Luke Combs and Maren Morris—with #1 album debuts, while marshaling Miranda Lambert’s two-disc The Weight of These Wings to critical acclaim, Carrie Underwood’s Storyteller to unprecedented success and Kenny Chesney’s Cosmic Hallelujah through innovative delivery methods. More recently, Brad Paisley launched his latest in conjunction with a Sara Cannon cancer campaign, and Chris Young scored his fastest gold album, along with three #1s. As Sony Nashville’s competitive team reels in the most coveted new acts while breaking ground with the label’s superstars and baby acts alike, there’s no question that Goodman has more than turned things around...
