Sherry Oakley

Sherry J. Oakley has spent her entire life immersed in the Nashville music industry, a legacy that began in her own family. Her uncle, Curley Rhodes, was a member of the original Opry Caravan tour and performed as “Odie” of the Opry comedy duo Odie and Jodie, in addition to playing in Roy Acuff’s band and serving as an original member of Pee Wee King’s Golden West Cowboys. Her aunt, Mary Claire Rhodes, worked for Jim Denny at WSM and later at his publishing company, Cedarwood, representing artists and songwriters including Mel Tillis, Webb Pierce, Carl Smith, Ernest Tubb, and Minnie Pearl. Sherry’s own career began in 1970, when she started working weekends at the Country Music Hall of Fame while still in high school. Having known Frances Preston for most of her life, she joined BMI just two days after her high school graduation in 1971, at age seventeen. She went on to further her education through Belmont, UT Nashville, and management courses across the country, all with Frances’s encouragement. Over the next several decades, Sherry worked directly with writer and publisher financials, becoming the first person in BMI’s Nashville office to use a computer. She met Kris Kristofferson at her very first BMI dinner and, the following year, met Isaac Hayes. Throughout her career she worked alongside many of the industry’s top songwriters, including Tommy Boyce, Davy Jones, Joe South, Dean Dillon, David Allan Coe, Joe Allison, Norro Wilson, and Mike Post. In 1988, when Frances Preston became President of BMI, she asked Sherry to relocate BMI’s Television Department from New York to Nashville, where Sherry restructured the department and built a new database for distributing royalties to television writers and publishers. Sherry went on to spend 54 years with BMI in total, building data processes and auditing every aspect of the music business. Guided always by the example Frances Preston set, Sherry has dedicated her career to taking care of BMI’s affiliates and ensuring songwriters receive what they are owed. As she puts it, songwriters took care of her, and she has spent her life trying to do the same for them.