Holly Gleason

While still in college, Gleason began her career as a music critic for the Miami Herald.[2] From 1990 through 1993, she worked as a publicist for Sony Music Nashville, and subsequently founded Joe's Garage, a Nashville-based public relations and artist development agency. While the company was active (1993-2008), she additionally served as the features editor for Hits (1998-2000), and founded a blog, The Yummy List. [5]

Gleason has freelanced as a music critic and journalist since 1993. She was nominated for Best Cultural Reporting for her 2015 essay, “The Impossible Lightness of Being Taylor Swift,” by the International Network of Street Papers. In 2016, she was awarded a fellowship by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s CWRU Center for Pop Music Studies.[1]

Gleason edited Woman Walk the Line: How the Women in Country Music Changed Our Lives, a collection of essays by female music writers on the artists that inspired them. It was published in September 2017 by the University of Texas Press as part of their American Music Series.[6]

Gleason writes songs under the pen name Lady Goodman, a character in the film Almost Famous. She has collaborated with Guy Clark, Rodney Crowell, Bill Deasy, Matchbox 20's Kyle Cook, Restless Heart's Larry Stewart, Marc Lee Shannon and Andrea Zonn.[7] After working as Chesney's publicist, she co-wrote "Better as a Memory" with Travis Hill (credited as Scooter Carusoe). Chesney recorded the song unaware that Gleason had written it, and included it on his 2007 album Just Who I Am: Poets and Pirates.[2][3]