Nice piece about Barry Poss, founder of Sugar Hill Records, in The Independent Weekly that serves Raleigh, Durham and Chapel Hill in North Carolina.

As writer Gayson Currin notes:

Barry Poss is an unlikely curator of Americana. Poss was born in Brantford, Ontario, a small Canadian city where his exposure to roots music was, at best, limited.

He headed south to attend Duke University in 1968, a James B. Duke Graduate Fellow studying sociology. A decade later, his master’s degree was finished, he had a chapter left in his dissertation, and he was eligible for a lofty faculty position. Poss passed, though, responding instead to an advertisement from County Records, a small, traditional music label in Floyd, Va. He became their graphic designer and, before long, asked permission to start his own County-associated imprint, Sugar Hill Records.

These days, he’s back in Durham, living in Duke Forest, retired from day-to-day label functions but active and enthusiastic — the proud father of a label that has spawned international success with newcomers Nickel Creek, archival glory with Jerry Garcia’s Old & In the Way and stability for people like Tony Rice, Doc Watson, Dolly Parton and Sam Bush.