SWEET MUSIC
Sugar Hill Records & the Birth of a New American Sound
Sweet Music tells the story of Sugar Hill Records, the tiny label that made big waves in American roots music.
Sugar Hill released treasured albums for Dolly Parton, Doc Watson and Nickel Creek, building bridges from front porches and roadhouses to stereos around the world.
Through film and words, Sweet Music is preserving Sugar Hill’s Grammy-winning legacy and the lasting influence of its visionary founder, Barry Poss.
Small Label, Big Impact
“You can’t really think of bluegrass in its recorded music without thinking of Sugar Hill. It’s been a pivotal, pivotal part of the history.”- Sierra Hull, award-winning mandolinist
“It was the top of the mountain. [Sugar Hill] may not be so well known but they had a hell of a lot of respect.” - Dolphus Ramseur, chair of the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame
“Whenever you bought music on Sugar Hill, even if it was by an artist you were unfamiliar with, you’d be sure it was something pretty great.” - Vince Gill, 22-time Grammy award winner & Country Music Hall of Fame inductee
The Man Behind Sugar Hill
Barry Poss was the visionary founder of Sugar Hill Records, which Emmylou Harris called “one of the few seminal independent record labels in America.”
Born to Jewish immigrants from Lithuania and Poland in 1945, Poss moved from Toronto, Canada to Durham, North Carolina in the 1960s to pursue a PhD in sociology at Duke University. He became enchanted with bluegrass and old-time music, dropped out of his doctoral program, and took a job at County Records to pursue a career in the industry. Wanting to marry traditional music with contemporary sounds, Poss launched Sugar Hill from his apartment in 1978. He struck success the next year when Sugar Hill released Sweet Temptation, Ricky Skaggs’ debut solo album.
Sugar Hill went on to launch and sustain the careers of musicians from its headquarters in Durham, going toe to toe with industry heavyweights in Nashville, L.A. and New York. With a diverse roster of bluegrass virtuosos, singer-songwriters and Texas troubadours, the label collected a dozen Grammys and many other awards. Its albums continue to influence musicians today.
Sugar Hill released hundreds of albums for musicians including Chris Thile, Townes Van Zandt, Guy Clark, Chris Hillman, Sarah Jarosz, Peter Rowan, Marty Stuart, Dolly Parton, Robert Earl Keen, Jerry Douglas, Terry Allen, Tony Rice, Rodney Crowell, Doc Watson, Del McCoury, Leon Redbone, Sam Bush, Cathy Fink and Marcy Marxer, plus bands like the Seldom Scene, Hot Rize, Doyle Lawson & Quicksilver, the Nashville Bluegrass Band, New Grass Revival, Nickel Creek, Donna The Buffalo, Old and In the Way and The Gourds.
Poss, who died in 2025, remains revered by the musicians who recorded for Sugar Hill. They credit him with providing them unusual creative freedom. Keen called him “one of a kind.” Already a member of the Blue Ridge Music Hall of Fame, he will be inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame and the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame in October 2026.
Storyteller
Peter Gartrell is a storyteller, researcher, and musician who was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina, a few miles from Sugar Hill’s headquarters.
Peter learned about Sugar Hill from a single sentence in a book he read in 2024. He soon began digging into the labels’s history. He plowed through thousands of documents in the company’s archives, and interviewed dozens of musicians, label employees and friends of Barry Poss. Peter is laying the groundwork for a documentary and book to tell the amazing story of Poss and the label he built.
Peter has deep experience using documents and interviews to build narratives that resonate broadly. In the U.S. Senate, Peter led major investigations that shaped public policy debates. The Wall Street Journal described a 2015 investigation he led as “the most transparent look ever into pricing decisions in the modern drug business,” while a 2023 probe uncovered nursing home oversight failures in states across the nation.
In addition, Peter has drafted speeches for members of Congress; his work has been published in outlets including USA Today, the Philadelphia Inquirer, and Denver Post; and he has lectured at Harvard University, Northwestern University, and Johns Hopkins University, among others.
Peter holds a B.A. in Geography from Macalester College. He enjoys cooking, playing guitar, collecting license plates, and traveling, having visited 49 states.
Learn more
Read Peter’s story about Sugar Hill in The Assembly
