Jerry Owen Bradley

Jerry Bradley, legendary Music Row executive and Country Music Hall of Fame Member, passed peacefully on July 17th, 2023 in Mt. Juliet, TN. His 40 years of success in the record and publishing industries are unique in the Nashville music business community.

Jerry Owen Bradley was born in Nashville, TN on January 30, 1940. He was not the only Bradley to make an imprint on the history of Nashville’s music industry. He was the son of famous music producer Owen Bradley and the nephew of studio musician legend Harold Bradley, who were also the co-founders of Music Row and both Country Music Hall of Fame Members. Jerry’s wife of 42 years, Connie Bradley, was the head of ASCAP Nashville and his sister Patsy Bradley was Assistant Vice President of BMI.

Jerry attended Montgomery Bell Academy, Hillsboro High School, and Peabody College. In his youth he raced sports cars at Nashville Fairgrounds and remained an avid race car fan throughout his life. His adolescence was given to practical jokes and teenage escapades, but in 1963 he decided to get serious about his future as he started the publishing company with his uncle Harold, “Forrest Hills Music.” Soon after that he was engineering and producing records at Bradley’s Barn recording studio, a studio he and his father owned in nearby Mt. Juliet. As an engineer, his clients included Loretta Lynn, Roy Clark, Mickey Newbury, Burl Ives, Dinah Shore, Gordon Lightfoot, The Who, and many other country, pop and rock acts.

But he ached to get out from under the shadow of his famous father, who had produced huge hits for Brenda Lee, Patsy Cline, Loretta Lynn, Conway Twitty, and Kitty Wells, as he shaped Decca/MCA Records in Nashville into a formidable operation. Jerry may have been a little shy but he had a steely determination to be his own man so he asked Chet Atkins for a job at RCA. Jerry served as a staff producer for RCA from 1970 to 1973, until Chet chose Jerry to succeed him with the title of Vice President of Nashville Operations. Bradley held that position from 1973 to 1983, and under his direction RCA Records was named “Label of the Year” by Billboard Magazine for ten consecutive years, an unparalleled honor for any label.

During his tenure with RCA, he was the moving force in the creation and release of “Wanted: The Outlaws” album featuring Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Tompall Glaser. Bradley modeled the album cover after a vintage, Old West “wanted” poster, featuring all four singers’ faces. He further appealed to a young, rock-oriented audience by commissioning liner notes from Rolling Stone editor, Chet Flippo. These marketing techniques helped the project become the first Platinum selling country album certified by the RIAA. It also helped transform country music into a major selling industry, with dozens of Platinum albums to follow over the next decade.

At RCA he also assembled a powerful roster of hit-making artists that included Alabama, Ronnie Milsap, Steve Wariner, Earl Thomas Conley and Gary Stewart. He also produced a succession of #1 singles and albums for RCA’s long-time superstar, Charley Pride, including his hit album “Charley Pride Sings Heart Songs,” as well as hits on Dave and Sugar, Dottie West and Jimmy Dean.

After Jerry stepped down from RCA in 1983, the Gaylord Corporation, which had acquired Opryland, bought the great Acuff-Rose music publishing company and named Jerry Vice President of Opryland USA as well as general manager of the Opryland Music Group, which owned all the Acuff-Rose publishing catalogs. For years Acuff-Rose has been a steady earner because of its fabulous old songs catalogs, which included the classics of Hank Williams, Roy Orbison, Don Gibson, John D. Loudermilk, the Everly Brothers and Dallas Frazier. But Jerry thought they could do better, so he went to work acquiring new staff, song pluggers, and hit songwriters like Dean Dillon, Casey Beathard and Kenny Chesney, as Bradley brought Chesney to Acuff-Rose in 1992. Soon the Opryland Music Group was battling with the multinational corporate giants like Warner Chappell, EMI, Polygram Music, and BMG.

“Jerry Bradley signed me to Acuff Rose when I was a kid. He had a profound and unmeasurable impact on my life,” Kenny Chesney adds. “But not just in my life…he helped change the lives of so many people that had a song in their heart. Jerry’s impact on our creative community will be felt for years.”

In 1990, Opryland Music Group became the first Nashville publishing company to win “Song of the Year” honors from both ASCAP and BMI. The company was now so successful that in 2003 when the Acuff-Rose/Milene Music was purchased by Sony/ATV Music, it sold for the highest multiple of any public company other than that of The Beatles.

Troy Tomlinson and Jerry’s longtime friend said, “Jerry never once called himself a ‘mentor’ but every day since the summer of 1988, when he hired me at Acuff Rose, he has mentored me. I will deeply miss him and the place he has occupied in my life and in my heart.”

The catalog sold, his job done, Bradley retired. In addition to his musical career, his record of service in the music business is impressive. He served as President of the Country Music Association in 1974-75, is a charter alumnus of Leadership Music and he is especially proud of his service on the Fan Fair Committee from 1970 to 2000, during which time Fan Fair grew into CMA Fest. Twenty of those years he was either chairman or co-chairman of the committee and his last year on the committee he had the pleasure of seeing the event move in the Titans’ stadium.

Jerry Bradley was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame on October 21, 2019, becoming the third Bradley to do so, alongside country duo Brooks & Dunn and Ray Stevens. Nashville’s Music Row is a much bigger and better place because of the four decades Jerry Bradley worked there.

Today, he leaves two more generations of Bradleys on Music Row, including his son Clay Bradley, Vice President of BMI, his grandson John Bradley, Creative Director of Eclipse Music Group, and his granddaughter Lillian Grace Bradley, Social Media Marketing Manager of Easy Eye Sound.

He was predeceased by his parents Owen Bradley and Katherine Bradley, his uncles Harold Bradley, Charlie Bradley, Bobby Bradley, his aunt Ruby Strange, his wife Connie Bradley, and the mother of his two children, Gwynn Hastings Kellam.

He is survived by his sister Patsy Bradley, his children Leigh Jankiv (Rob LeBlanc) and Clay Bradley (Sara), his grandchildren Josh Jankiv (Ashley), Eli Jankiv, Emma Jankiv (Matt Acott), John Bradley, and Lillian Grace Bradley, and his 5 great grandchildren.

A Celebration of Life will be held at Cedar Creek Yacht Club, 3581 Benders Ferry Rd, Mt. Juliet, TN on Sept. 10th at 4 PM. This is the place Jerry enjoyed the most. He was a 60-year member as he spent his time on Old Hickory Lake with his family and friends on the “STUDIO A” houseboat.

In lieu of flowers, the family asks that you please make a donation to Music Health Alliance.

Fond memories and expressions of sympathy may be shared at www.Woodlawn-Roesch-PattonFH.com for the Bradley family.