May 02 2024 33 mins
After graduating from high school, Sylvia headed to Nashville. She arrived in Music City with a plan: get a day job in the music industry; learn about the music business, and work on getting a recording contract. Sylvia got a job at Pi-Gem Music, which was then one of Nashville’s hottest publishing companies. Pi-Gem was run by Tom Collins (who produced acts like Barbara Mandrell and Ronnie Milsap) and featured a stable of top songwriters, including Dean Dillon and the Grammy-nominated duo Kye Fleming & Dennis Morgan. She spent 4 ½ years at Pi-Gem Music – answering phones, running errands, making coffee, singing song demos, and hanging out with those people every day. “What a magical thing that I happened to get a job working there!” Sylvia states.
After hearing Sylvia sing at an audition, RCA offered her a recording deal. Sylvia’s first two singles snuck into Billboard’s Country Top 40; however, in those days, your label would likely drop you if one of your first three singles didn’t crack the Top 10. Fortunately, her third single, “Tumbleweed,” reached #10 and her fourth, “Drifter,” went all the way to #1. Sylvia’s successful singles led to her debut album, Drifter, which peaked at #10 on Billboard’s Country charts in 1981. Her follow-up, the Just Sylvia album, reached #2, and contained her chart-topping, two-million-selling crossover hit, “Nobody.” The song was BMI’s Country Song of the Year for most radio airplay in 1982 and helped Sylvia be named Academy of Country Music's "Female Vocalist of the Year" and Billboard’s #1 Country Artist, as well as earning a Grammy nomination for "Best Female Vocalist." Sylvia released three more albums on RCA, which yielded a half dozen Top 10 Country singles.
www.sylviamusic.com
www.throwbackcountrymusic.com
Be on the lookout for her album releases wherever you get your music!
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