Stephen H. Sholes (February 12, 1911 – April 22, 1968) was a prominent recording executive with RCA Victor. He was born in Washington D.C.. His family moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his father worked in the RCA plant. Steve started work at RCA as a messenger boy in 1929. He worked part time for the firm while a student at Rutgers University. He worked for a time in RCA's radio division, but his experience playing saxophone and clarinet in dance bands led him to the record division. During World War II, he worked in the army's V-disc operation, which made records for radio broadcast and for personal use by army personnel. In 1945, he became head of the country division in Nashville, Tennessee and was responsible for recruiting such talent as Chet Atkins for RCA Records. When he left Nashville, Atkins took over as head of the country music division. He also recruited Eddy Arnold, The Browns, Hank Locklin, Homer and Jethro, Hank Snow, Jim Reeves, and Pee Wee King. In 1955, he signed Elvis Presley for RCA. He convinced RCA to build its own studio in Nashville on Seventeenth Avenue South in 1957. He became the company's pop singles manager in 1957, pop singles and albums manager in 1958, and West Coast manager in 1961. The latter promotion took him to Los Angeles. In 1963, Sholes became RCA Records vice president for pop A&R and returned to New York. He served on the Country Music Association (CMA) and Country Music Foundation (CMF) boards of directors. Sholes was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame, which he had worked hard to create, in 1967.
References
- Rumble, John. (1998). "Steve Sholes". In The Encyclopedia of Country Music. Paul Kingsbury, Ed. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 483.
