Betting on Ears and Instinct: Tracy Gershon's Unscripted Path Through Music
Tracy didn’t grow up dreaming of the music business. It didn’t even seem like a real job.
Tracy Gershon didn’t grow up dreaming of the music business. It didn’t even seem like a real job. She was just a music fan—a second-generation Los Angeles native raised in a household where art and business swirled together. Her mom was a decorator. Her dad was a salesman. Her uncle? A composer and conductor who wrote theme songs for Charlie’s Angels, Barney Miller, and Night Court.
Music was everywhere. “I loved it,” she said. “But I never thought of it as a career. I didn’t even think it was one.”
At UC Santa Barbara, she drifted through majors—drama, psychology, anthropology—before settling on film and television. She had no plan, no path, and no idea that the turning point would come at a sold-out concert. “I wanted to go, and it was sold out. I saw these people in red shirts, and I said, ‘What are they doing?’ And someone said, ‘They’re ushers.’ I said, ‘Great. I volunteer.’”
From that moment on, the backstage was more interesting than the front. She started ushering shows, then got herself into the box office. She noticed there were no women on the security staff. So she asked why. “He goes, ‘Why would we put a woman on the security staff?’ I said, ‘Well, what if something happens in the women’s bathroom? You’re gonna send a guy in?’ He paused. Next thing I knew, I was making two bucks an hour doing security.”
That kind of observation—paired with action—became her secret weapon.
By the time she was running the Associated Students Concert Committee at UCSB, she was booking major acts—Talking Heads, The Police, Tom Petty, The Pretenders, The Beach Boys. “I’d just look at what I loved,” she said. “I was a fan. But I could feel what was coming.”
Her instincts served her again when a boss at a concert venue began stealing from the promoters. “At first, I didn’t realize it. But then it clicked—he was hiding costs. I didn’t want to throw him under the bus, but I told the promoters: ‘You might want to watch the settlement process.’” They found out. They brought her in. And the door cracked open a little wider.
She didn’t map her way forward. She stumbled, pivoted, followed her gut. “People ask what my five-year plan was. I had a three-week plan. That’s it. Still do.”
She worked for tour managers. For artist managers. “I just kept doing different things. Some stuff I hated—I learned that fast. But it helped me figure out what I did like.”
One day at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard, she ran into Gary Borman, a major artist manager. “I had met him years earlier, just doing a good job promoting one of his acts. We stayed in touch. So when I saw him, he goes, ‘What are you doing?’ I said, ‘I just left my job.’ He said, ‘Come work for me.’ That was it. That’s how it happened.”
She kept following the thread. She managed artists. Went back into publishing. Worked with Al Bunetta and John Prine. She was there when Prine decided to start Oh Boy Records. “He came in after a meeting with CBS and said, ‘I’m not going gold. But if I do it myself, I’ll make ten times as much from my fans.’ That blew my mind. He was one of the first to go independent—and he was right.”
That led her into management. She was still temping during the day to pay the bills. “I’d get up at 7 a.m., call Nashville from L.A., pretending to be Tracy Gershon, manager. Then I’d hang up and go be a receptionist.”
She met her husband, Steve Fishell, when he was playing with Emmylou Harris. She had no love for country music at the time—“I was a rock girl”—but Steve and Emmylou won her over. “Bruce Springsteen once said Hank Williams was one of his heroes. I thought, okay, maybe I need to pay attention.”
She managed a young artist named Rosie Flores. Got her a deal. Didn’t know what a publishing contract was, so she took a two-day course at UCLA and highlighted every line. “The lawyer said, ‘You’re my worst nightmare.’ I said, ‘I took a weekend legal seminar!’”
Eventually she and Steve decided to move to Nashville. “We couldn’t afford a house in L.A. I had this feeling Nashville was about to pop.” It did. She arrived just before the Garth Brooks wave hit.
She got a job at EMI Publishing. Then Sony. Then back to EMI. Then A&R roles at labels like Warner Brothers and imprint startups like Veritas. She signed Miranda Lambert after spotting her on Nashville Star, and gave Kacey Musgraves her first publishing deal. She also hired and mentored rising executives like Chris Lacy and Missy Roberts.
She moved around. A lot. “People used to stay at jobs 25 years. But I got curious. I got offers. And I said yes. Sometimes I think, ‘What if I had stayed put?’ I was being groomed to run Sony/ATV Publishing at one point. But I wasn’t wired that way.”
She built her career on relationships. “Every job I ever got came from someone who saw me do the work and knew I’d show up. That’s it.”
And then she started noticing something else: the women were disappearing.
In 2014, alongside Beverly Keel and Leslie Fram, she co-founded Change the Conversation, a nonprofit created to push for gender equality in country music. “Radio wasn’t playing women. Labels weren’t signing them. Publishers weren’t developing them. They said women didn’t sell beer. That they didn’t work on the radio. It was all bullshit.”
The breaking point came when a country radio consultant publicly advised stations to treat women like “tomatoes in the salad”—sprinkled in, not the main course. “That quote gave us our logo. A tomato. We owned it. And our next meeting had 300 people.”
She started coaching women artists to support each other. “We were told there was only room for one woman on the roster. So we competed instead of collaborating. That had to change.”
Her activism didn’t stop there. In 2023, after Tennessee passed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation, she helped organize Love Rising, a massive benefit at Bridgestone Arena. “We had seven days to pull it off. We did it. But there were artists who wouldn’t participate because of sponsors. That’s the choice: stand for something or stay quiet.”
She still works with emerging artists. She still speaks up. She still pushes back. “I want to work with artists who stand for something. Who know who they are. I’m outspoken, and I want them to be too.”
Tracy Gershon’s career wasn’t a straight line. It was a loop-de-loop. A guided stumble. A long game built on instinct and hustle. “You don’t always know the next move,” she told the room. “But say yes. Do the job. Show up. That’s what opens the next door.”
She ended her time with the students like she lived her life—frank, funny, and focused on what matters.
“Everyone loves a college student. Use that. Reach out to someone you admire. Say you’re doing a paper. Make it up if you have to. Ask for 20 minutes. That could be a relationship that changes everything.”
“And don’t be too precious. Take the job. Learn what you like. If you hate it, move on. Nothing’s permanent. But every job teaches you something. Every relationship counts.”
She looked around the room.
“I’m betting on you guys to make it better. Just don’t screw it up.”
This story is part of A Minor In Reality, a series on the messy, magical leap from 0 to 1. Built for founders—both for-profit and nonprofit—these are real conversations with real builders.