Bonnie Garner

By the time Garner landed at Columbia Records in New York as the first woman on the A&R team, she had already booked the Grateful Dead for Playboy After Dark, brought Jimi Hendrix onto Dick Cavett’s talk show and interviewed to be Mick Jagger’s assistant. But it was at Columbia Nashville where she made her lasting mark as the first female vp of A&R, working with Willie Nelson, George Jones and Johnny Cash in the 1970s and 1980s before moving into management.

The key to her success was supporting talent: “You have to make it easy for them,” she says. But she also knew when to put her foot down. When the notoriously tardy Jones kept Elvis Costello waiting in the studio, Garner called his assistant and told him to tell Jones that “his mama taught him better than this.” A chastened Jones showed up shortly thereafter.