Warner Nashville Head Cris Lacy on Leadership as She Joins SOURCE Hall of Fame

One of the important lessons in Warner Records Nashville chair/president Cris Lacy ’s development as a leader came in the unlikeliest of places: a strip club.

She was neither a stripper nor a patron, but an aspirant, obsessive creator paying her dues in Music City years ago as a waitress at the now-dormant Stagecoach Lounge on Murfreesboro Pike.

She made a flip, dismissive comment about a strip joint to a Stagecoach customer who was a bouncer at the nudie bar, and he challenged her to come out and interview the staff — including the girls — and get an education.

Lacy took him up on it, and after a round of deep-dive conversations, she saw them all as real people with stories that were sometimes different than she had anticipated.

Related Warner Nashville Co-Heads on the Label’s Big Streaming Year & Why Country is Due for a Latin Explosion Dale Morris, Nashville Manager Who Guided Careers of Alabama & Kenny Chesney, Dies at 89 HYBE Pledges Over $300k for Colombia Earthquake Recovery The music business can, at times, be as cartoonish as that other form of entertainment, but as a result of that day at the club, Lacy takes care to remember in her role as a label head that the players and the industry are all multi-dimensional.

“It’s made me more exploratory in everything that I do in my life,” she notes.

“It’s made me want to understand where people are, where they came from, where they want to go, why they want to go there, and that’s everything about this job.

What brought you to music? Why do you write the music that you write? Why, when you go on the road, do things happen? Instead of making a flippant comment, you know, like, ‘So-and-so’s crazy,’ it’s really seeing these people as human and operate as though they are as valuable — or more so — as [me].” Lacy is one of six inductees set to join the SOURCE Nashville Hall of Fame on Aug.

25 as the organization continues to celebrate the women who have helped build an industry that generates an estimated $10 billion in annual economic activity, according to a 2022 report from the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.

This year’s SOURCE class includes Debbie Cheek Carroll , MusiCares; Paige Conners , AFM Local 257; Margie McGahey , Country Music Association; Sherry Oakley , BMI; and Carla Wallace , Big Yellow Dog.

“These are women warriors in our business,” Lacy asserts.

They’re being recognized at a moment when country seems — for now, at least — more friendly to female executives and artists.

Women held all five spots on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs earlier this summer for seven straight weeks, the longest all-female domination of the list in the chart’s history.

Meanwhile, Lacy is part of a notable growth in female leadership at the top of country label structures.